Although I am hardly a professional contractor, I am no stranger to construction projects. I have built many different small additions to my house, from a deck, to a shed, to a garage. The cost of building these things was never outrageous. Sometimes I would have to pay a small fee to the city, but besides that, it was just a matter of buying the materials and putting in the labor. I didn't realize how much different it was with a large building project. The cost of building a house can get quite substantial, far beyond what I had expected.

I had thought that I had a pretty realistic estimate of the costs of construction. I knew that I would have to hire contractors for some of the work, but most of the finishing I could do myself. Nonetheless, from the very beginning it was pretty difficult to figure out the exact costs of building. Every contractor had something different to say, and many of them appeared to have different opinions about what permits I would need. I was going to knock down my old house and put up a new, bigger one. It was in such need of repair anyway, that I figured it would be cheaper to try to salvage some of it for scrap instead of repairing the whole structure. If your house is rundown enough, the cost of building is lower than the cost of repair.

It was difficult because the project would involve several phases and quite a few different services. The cost of building didn't only include materials, labor, and permits. It also included hauling costs, salvaging costs, and all kinds of other hidden factors. It was hard to figure out ahead of time what I could actually salvage and when I couldn't. Therefore, there was some unpredictability in it. I knew that I could get a loan against the property, but I'm a pretty meticulous person who likes to budget. It was hard going into a project half blind.

I even considered buying a prefab building at one point. Prefabricated buildings are one of the easiest ways to put up a house. In the end, however I decided to go on with my original project. I had a pretty clear idea of what my dream house would be, and it was nothing like any of the steel buildings that I looked at in catalogs. In the end, it worked out well. I am glad that I did not give in to panic.