Things to Consider When Building a Home (S2.2)

Building a home is one of the biggest investments — and learning experiences — a person can take on. In this episode, we sit down with Shelley McNamara from the Business Systems team at Boshart Industries as she shares the real-life journey of building her first home. From unexpected challenges and important decisions to lessons she wishes she knew sooner, Shelley opens up about everything she’s learned throughout the process. If you’re thinking about building, renovating, or simply love hearing the behind-the-scenes reality of home projects, this episode is packed with practical advice, insider tips, and honest insights you won’t want to miss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, Shelly. Welcome to Drip Talk. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

You're welcome. So you're here to talk about a little bit about how you are building a house. Yes. So first of all, congratulations on that. That's very exciting. Thank you. If you want to kind of touch on your point of view with being a homeowner and how contractors, like what they should know about your experience, if you want to touch on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Sure. Yeah. So I am about 10 months into my build. So we're kind of getting to the end now. And it's an auxiliary dwelling. So we've built onto my parents' property, which has worked out really great. Doing a multi-generational living has answered problems for them about what retirement might look like, answered questions for me about what the housing market might look like. And it's really come with some interesting challenges as I've worked with my different contractors to work with the existing building and how we're going to make all of this work. And I also chose to self-contract for this project. So I had a lot of direct interaction with each of my contractors to try to make this vision come together. So it's been interesting. I've learned so much about each stage. But I also came into it without a whole lot of information to start with. So it's been a big challenge as well as different questions have come up, different um rules have come up that I've had to suddenly learn and adjust for. So it's been interesting and I've learned way more than I thought I would.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, for sure. So you said you're 10 months into it. So do you want to maybe talk about the starting? So how do you start a project like this? What did you do? What was your mindset and how'd you go about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah. So the the first thing that we did is we talked to the county and we said, okay, what are our options and what, you know, what size can we do? What type of building can we do? We thought about, okay, what if we make like a tiny house? What if we do a kind of a cottage? What if we turn the house into a duplex? What are the options that we have? And then from there, they gave us a list of um designers that we could work with that would help us create the blueprints and and all those sorts of things. That was really the starting place of what is allowed, and then going from there and dreaming, okay, within that confine, what do we want?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Right. Okay, so during this process so far, so you're 10 months in. Have you ever been asked to make a decision on the spot and felt totally unprepared in that? And then how did you go about that?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, for sure. There's one day that really stands out in my mind. We had three trades in the house at the same time. They were all doing roughing. And the plumber was like, oh, hey, where do you want this shower head? And the HVAC guy was like, oh, while you're at it, I need to know where you want this vent. And then the gas fitter popped his head in, and 20 minutes later, there's five of us outside measuring windows, trying to figure out where we were gonna put a hole in the foundation for that worked for everybody's rules. And I was just like, I have to give these guys answers. They're here to do the work now. And I have never thought of these things because I didn't know to think about them, right? I have no idea what kind of setback the gas fitter needs and how I'm gonna place the vent for that. So it was crazy. And I just at the end I was like, okay, I think we made all the decisions. Like, does anybody need anything else? I hope that was right and we just went with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

It's interesting because you never think about that, that everything kind of has to, it's a domino effect, right? Very much. You know, things have to fall into place for certain things, and you don't think about it the long term you're thinking about right now. Yeah. So do you feel like you've been given enough information when making those decisions? Like, did you feel when you started this process that you were prepared to make those decisions? And maybe did you talk to a friend who would build a house or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, um, I would I wouldn't say I was ready. I I did talk to friends who'd build houses, and so I knew that there were going to be these things that would come up, but it's impossible to know which things are gonna come up and to prepare for them. So there was there were so many questions where I had a little bit of information, but not all the information. And I don't know what I don't know. So I couldn't always ask for the information I needed. I could say, you know, if somebody said you need to choose between uh a regular check valve and a quiet check valve, and I'm like, well, the regular one, the price looks good and it must be regular for a reason. Let's do that. But then somebody else says, Hey, do you know about the water hammer? Do you know that this is going to make noise? And then I have the opportunity to say, Oh, that's gonna be under a bedroom. I don't want to hear that. Let's go for the quiet. Whereas a friend of mine that I know is has had a lot of problems with plumbing in her house. And so for her, she wants to hear it because it gives her comfort that this is working. So I didn't, I wouldn't know to ask for that. And I wouldn't necessarily make that decision well without that information. So right.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

It's nice to have a different point of view, a different perspective, and then help you decide what works best for you. Exactly. Do you like do you find there was something that maybe you wish a contractor explained a little bit better to you to help you even make those decisions, or just was there something that maybe didn't happen exactly the way you pictured it? And you wish that that would have maybe got explained a little bit better to you at the beginning?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

For sure. There was, um, I think with contractors, I like to understand why things have to be the way they are. And, you know, everybody is an expert in their trade, and their level of common knowledge is not my level of common knowledge. So I had two contractors, one did it really well and one did not. So my plumber was fantastic. Before he did anything, we walked through the house, we talked about exactly where every pipe was gonna go. And we had this one pipe that was gonna kind of infringe on the closet, and I was gonna have to do a drop ceiling. But he explained why it needed to be there, why that was the least obtrusive place for that pipe. So when we got to doing the ceiling, I was totally fine with it. I knew why I was good with this decision. And then I had another one who the thing they were putting in was going to change some of my design. And I asked, well, why, why does it have to be there? Why can't we move it over a little bit? And they're like, Well, it's too small. And to this day, I still don't know what thing was too small. It just was too small. And so every time I work in that area, I'm it bothers me. I'm like, why, why is this here? And I don't know. So, you know, explaining those reasons, I'm sure they have a very good reason. I just don't know it. And I that kind of thing would really help me to accept and make those decisions that are going to work for me and that are not going to bother me as a homeowner when I'm living there.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Right. You're the one that's going to be living in there for how long and you want to be happy with every decision. And you're right, even if it has to be that way and it's not maybe something that you pictured, it's nice to know exactly why it has to be that bad. It gives you a little bit of peace of mind. So maybe you did touch on this, but have you had a moment where maybe better communication would have completely changed your decision? Like maybe if they would have told you something, you would have completely switched your mindset or maybe made a different call when building the home.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yes, um, definitely. Early on, especially when we were in the design phase and making those big layout decisions. Um that knowing then how those decisions were going to trickle down the line would have changed a lot of what I did. Um, the staircase in particular, the way we we chose, made sense with the footprint. It made sense on the blueprint. But what I didn't realize was that it was going to need extra engineering in the walls, and then that drywall was going to be more difficult, and then painting, and then trim, and then there's a window that needs a specialized curtain. And all of these extras cost more. And in the end, the window, especially, it's gonna frustrate me as a homeowner when I'm living in it. And if somebody had said, hey, when you're thinking about this, just think about what that's going to do. Maybe I would have put a different layout in. Maybe I would have chosen a different stair, right? And so I'm still happy with it, but that information would have changed how I approach that decision early, early on.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Right. Because you don't know those things, right? Like you can't see the hindsight of that this equals this, that equals this, right? And so just even a little bit of heads up of you know, money and and work and how much that will cost just gives you a little bit more of the ability to say, okay, is this really the decision, the direction I really want to go in? Right. And and they are the experts in that. And so to support you would have been, you know, nice to have that. So um what would make you feel maybe confident in the decision if you are feeling unsure?

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Um, anytime I've had a professional go, oh yeah, I put that in my house too. I'm like, okay, I did the right thing. I chose the good thing. Like, we're good now. So I I always feel confident if the professional can say, yes, this is a good product or this is going to work really well for you.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

So do you ask them their opinion on it, or do you just like you have made a decision and they just make that comment? Or have you ever said, like, hey, which one would you pick or which what would you do?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, I'm always asking, like, well, what do you think? Why would I do this? What what are the pros and cons? Tell me. And they're, I'm sure they're like, okay, like just pick one. I don't care. And I'm just like, no, you have to tell me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. Well, they've done probably this a bunch of times, right? And you're it's your first time doing it. So you you do want to make sure that there are no, you know, things hidden that's gonna happen if you make a decision, right? And it is like what we talked about a lot of money. And so you want to make sure that you do it right the first time, right? So uh have you made any decisions that you've second guessed because you weren't given maybe all of the information the first time. So is there something that you were like, oh, I really wish I would have been given that and I would have changed?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Um, I wouldn't say I've second guessed them, but there have been a few things where we started and I didn't have all the information and it came to light later. And we've had to rush to change one thing we had to start over again, and it was wasteful. It took time and it was so frustrating because we'd already put work in and now we had to redo that work because I was missing one key bit of information that I needed.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

So, did that stall the process a little bit? Did you have to a little while? Yeah. So now that you're 10 months in, what uh stage are you at in this build?

SPEAKER_01 10:39

We are in the home stretch now. Okay. We've got flooring is almost done, trim is started, so um it looks like a house now, which is really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

That is very exciting. So if you could maybe tell contractors one thing about working with homeowners, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Um, it's that we we need you to guide us. You know, we we have the vision. I think most homeowners can tell you what kind of wall finishes they're going to do and what tile they want long before the walls even exist. But we don't know what goes into that and how to get to the result that we're looking for. And so we're really relying on the professionals to hold our hands and guide us through this process to get where we we want to go and in a way that is gonna make the house a home that we are happy in for all the years to come.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Right. So basically you want a little bit of background. For sure. You know, if I choose this, I want to know what this entails and and what work and money like equals if I choose a. Yes, right, because you could choose the pretty tile, but what does that equal in the long run? Yeah, that's a good one. So now that you've been through this process, would you build again? Yes, I would. Yeah, and would you do anything differently? Oh yeah. Could you explain a couple of those, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Um, like I said, we self-contracted, and um, I would definitely approach doing that differently. I would um I would communicate differently with the people when I'm getting quotes and kind of prepare more. If I was doing it again now that I've been through the process and I know more, I would prepare more for the questions that are going to come and be ready with this is the vision I'm aiming for. How do we get there? Um, and then, you know, some of the layout I would do different and some of the jobs that we're doing ourselves, I might hire somebody next time. Um, you know, mudding and taping sounds reasonable until you're doing an entire house instead of just a room. And then three months later, you're like, that was not fun.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yep. So there's a couple of things that maybe you would do differently. Yeah. But um, okay, so as we come to a close here, maybe could you tell me what is one question every homeowner should ask their contractor? Maybe at the beginning of the process, maybe in the middle, maybe near the end. Uh, what would be one thing that you would like a homeowner to ask their contractor?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Um, I think the question that has helped me the most and that I would recommend is how many jobs do you have on the go at the same time? So, you know, in terms of scheduling, sometimes you don't know one phase is going to go a little bit faster or take longer than you think. And how responsive can they be to jump in and change their schedule? How much attention do they have for you, to answer your emails, answer your questions, and to be on site with you? And that would be, you know, if they're juggling a lot of jobs, that might not be as available to you, and that might be okay, but just knowing what to expect would would help a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Right. To understand timeline a little bit more, to understand how long it could take, how decisions um could factor and all that. So, okay, is there anything else you'd like to leave anybody with, a piece of advice or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I think for other people who are considering building, um, when you're making decisions, try to think about the house as you're going to live in it, not who you think you want to be when you're more organized and you're more health conscious and whatever else you think is is going to be in your future, but who you are and how you're going to live in the house? You know, are you, when you come home and you're going to take off your work clothes and you're going to dump them in the corner in your room, is there space there for a laundry basket? Or how far away is the washer dryer? Or if you're like me, you're not a morning person, you know, how easy is it to stumble from your bedroom to the bathroom with your eyes half closed, or is there an obstacle there, you know, and and finishes? If you look at something like the tiles and the store looks gorgeous and Pinterest looks gorgeous, but it's going to be covered in grime in six months because of how and where you're going to use it, is that really the right finish for you? Like budget and aesthetic are really important, but if something's going to frustrate you for the next 10 years, it's worth the time and the effort to find a better solution. So right.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Functionality is very important as well, right? Everybody wants the Pinterest home button. Yeah. What functions with you, your family, and then in the future, what will last the longest, right? And exactly. Uh what will work for you. So okay. If that's everything, thank you, Shelly, for joining me today. Thanks for having me. It was great.