This is the main question after you have made a decision to get your own house built. Well, house can be built for less than $25,000 and it can cost you more than $500,000. It depends on many things: how big is your home, will you build it by yourself, choice of materials and building techniques etc. etc. etc…
An easy and fast way to get an idea about costings is comparison with new houses on sale in your local area. Look at newly constructed homes that are similar in size, style, quality, and features to the home you want. Take the price of the home, deduct the price of the land, and divide that amount by the square footage of the home.
For example, if the home is being sold for $200,000 and the land costs $30,000, then the construction cost is around $170,000. If the home is 2,000 square feet, then the cost per square foot is $85. Use several new homes in your area to get an approximate square footage price. After you have calculated an average square footage cost, you will multiply that cost by the finished square footage of your house plan to get a rough estimate.

More exact method would be calculating a construction budget item-by-item. Here’s a budget template to help you out.

The most expensive areas in a home are the bathrooms and the kitchen. The number of windows/doors and the size and quality of windows/doors can also affect the cost. Vaulted ceilings and high roof pitches can significantly increase the cost of a home.

Building costs are major concern when someone starts planning an own home. Being a selfbuilder offers a lot – feeling of accomplishment, reduced building costs and gained experience. Building your own home can also be a nightmare. If you have a will and courage, but little knowledge about homebuilding, you might end up with budget spent right in the middle of building process. To avoid that, work harder before getting your mortgage fixed and buying the plot. Every minute you spend on planning and budgeting will save you time and money.
Cost to build a house can be calculated using our free budget spreadsheet.

By Lian Vaiphei

Home improvement techniques are not as complicated as they were made to appear a few years ago. These days information on this topic is readily available so more and more people are doing it themselves rather than paying other people to do it.

Home enhancing doesn’t require much of technical knowledge. You can do wonders improving your home with a bit of creativity.

There are several ways to work your ideas and create amazing home decors without paying expensive tradesmen. Below are a few tips you could use when improving your home:

Using wallpapers:

You could use wallpapers to change the overall look and feel of a room and it’s ceilings. Wall-papers can make a room look bright or dark depending on the design.

Wall-papers come in several attractive designs and patterns that can blend well with the surrounding of your house. The choice is limitless depending on how you want your interiors to look like. For example, a light floral design may make a room look brighter than wallpapers with wooden patterns.

Using curtains as room dividers and closet doors:

Curtains can come handy not just as shades on doors and windows but as a number of ways in home improvement. They can be use as room dividers or as an alternative to closet doors.

Room dividers made with curtains are cost effective, easy to setup and require very few tools. The pattern and design depends on they type of curtain you plan to use. Curtain room dividers look best if they go along with the wall designs.

Curtains also make beautiful closet doors. They eliminate the trouble of having heavy wooden doors that may clip the fingers. Closet doors can be made using a piece of curtain, curtain rod and tension rod on the inside of the closet to hang the curtain from.

Using simple scoring techniques and paints to create patterns on concrete floor:

The flooring of a house can make a big difference on its ambiance. This is why people prefer designer floors decorated with attractive looking patterns.

Most homeowners prefer to pay money and let professionals do scoring, as scoring is irreversible. However, you can do this yourself with just an angle grinder with cutting wheel.

When scoring your floor, it is important to draw the patterns on the concrete first. Make sure you are satisfied with the design before cutting into the floor.

If you are bored with the plain simple looks of your concrete floor, you could also decorate it using paints like epoxy, acid and acrylic stains. These methods are easy and inexpensive as well.

Stains can be used to create an amazing range of decorating options. Paints like epoxy make an excellent floor coating. They are durable, resistant to chemical reaction and erosion. Also, they are available in water based that are less toxic and safe to do it yourself.

It is not always necessary to spend money to have your home improved. You can do it yourself by applying a little bit of creativity rather than paying others for a substandard home improvement work.

Lian Vaiphei is an online entrepreneur based in New Delhi. Lian also writes about indoor herb gardening where you can learn more about growing basil indoors

Every minute you spend on proper planning work behind the computer or paper, will save save you at least 3 minutes on building site. Building can not go on if you’re missing materials or tools. Often amateur builders are spending half of the time by pendeling between building store and site 3-4 times a day. This can be easily avoided by creating a detailed, tools and material lists. If you are building something bigger, it is not wise to deliver everything onto building site at once. Materials can be stolen and tools need to be locked up for the night. This can cause extra costs on storing or guarding. For bigger builds both schedules and material delivery lists have to be broke down in stages. This can be quite complicated. Fortunately there are specialized software packages to help you out. For more advanced users Microsoft Project is feature rich and handy but it does require quite advanced computer skills from user.
If you need something more simple there is Ganttic online schedule maker. It is free and easy to use.

Calling all Do-It-Yourselfers, this post’s for you. Whether it’s a massive project like a home remodel or making candles for your holiday table, Green DIYers reduce their eco-footprint daily by making conscious choices to create rather than buy.

I used to believe that you either had it or you didn’t–the DIY gene. Well, I’ll let you in on a secret, DIY can be learned and it can be greened. So don’t worry if you think you don’t have a creative bone in your body. DIY is all about having fun and enjoying the process of learning by doing. Because you are creating it yourself, the product and the process is all yours.

Why DIY?
• To minimize cost.
• To personalize and customize projects.
• To create one-of-a-kind items.
• To make gifts that show you care.
• To be challenged to figure out how things work.
• To learn a new skill and keep your mind engaged.
• To enjoy a sense of accomplishment and the satisfaction of creating something useful and beautiful.
• To share something meaningful to you.
• To reduce your environmental footprint.
• To have fun.

Even if you don’t mine the home, design, craft and eco Web sites, magazines and books like I do, storing your ideas and documenting your projects is easy when you create a DIY Design File. One of my favorite websites for DIY ideas Design Sponge shows you how to make eco-friendly notebooks, using beautiful recycled paper, that would be perfect for your unique DIY file.

What goes into your DIY file?
• Ideas.
• Projects.
• Inspiration layouts for decorating.
• Pictures from sources, before and after pictures.
• Pieces of materials (paper, yarn, thread, buttons, fringe, etc.).
• Photographs of your process and finished creations.
• Notes, doodles, clippings or whatever strikes your fancy.

And if you don’t want or have time to create a physical file, Domino magazine has an online program that lets you try out ideas for your nest.

The winter holidays are the perfect time to create magic for your EcoNest. I’ll provide you with a weekly dose of DIY, and I would love to hear how you DIY.

Original post is written by Ronnie Citron-Fink and can be found here http://www.care2.com/greenliving/why-diy.html

Although housing with wood frames is very common in many parts of the world (America, for example), it’s not often found in Britain these days. Yet it’s a very durable form (the oldest standing timber building in the U.K. dates from the 12th century). It’s a good, sustainable resource (at least European softwood is), but all too often wasted. It’s estimated that 2.5 million tonnes of wood each year is wasted in the U.K. from construction alone, and 3,000 tonnes of re-usable timber is burnt or put in landfills every single day.

About Timber

Forests act as carbon sinks. Especially when young, they take more CO2 from the atmosphere than they give back. When you use timber in a house, you’re not only storing that carbon in the wood frame (typically 28.5 tonnes of it in a wood-fame house of 216 sq. m), you’re also giving the forests a chance to regenerate.

Unfortunately, the relatively low cost of lumber doesn’t provide a great incentive to eliminate waste. However, sustainable development is changing that. The idea of “advanced framing” is catching on, where unnecessary framing elements are left out, no structural members are oversized, and window and door elements are properly aligned with the frame.