Build Your House Yourself University
Wish you knew more about the biggest investment you will most likely ever make? Build Your House Yourself University (byhyu) will teach you to save money and make smart decisions about the construction of the place you and your family will call HOME. We will help you understand residential construction— simplify and demystify the design build process. You’ll come away with successful strategies for building your own house, with or without a general contractor. Become an educated consumer, even if you prefer to buy, rather than build a new house. Complex construction jargon and best practices will be explained in easy to understand terms. It’s not the typical DIY (do it yourself) show. You will learn how to MANAGE the labor, not DO the labor for your new house. Join me, Michelle Nelson, host and fellow informal residential construction student. I’ll share the research I find on home design and building as I prepare to build my home. Together, our community of future home builders, will learn the tips, tricks and trends of experienced contractors and industry experts. I’ll interview owner-builders and construction professionals. During our mini lessons, I’ll inform you about framing, flooring, windows, insulation, kitchen cabinets and countertops…almost anything having to do with new construction homes. You’ll hear about energy efficiency and green building too. There will be product reviews in which you will be introduced to cutting edge, as well as, tried and true products and services. And in keeping with the university theme, episodes will end with short, fun quizzes. If we do our due diligence BEFORE we start construction, we will actually start construction with the most difficult part of the project behind us. Let’s put in the time, effort, preparation and research BEFORE we break ground and building our homes will be much easier and more enjoyable.
Episodes
This week we have part 2 of the interview with homeowner Matt S. He talks more about his cool house, which is black by the way, and his homebuilding journey. He was so generous in sharing his advice and resources. Take a listen to this informative conversation..css-1t8gq41{border:none;background-image:none;background-color:transparent;box-shadow:none;color:#2F3133;cursor:pointer;font-size:inherit;padding:0;-webkit-text-decoration:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;width:-webkit-max-content;width:-moz-max-content;width:max-content;}.css-1t8gq41:hover,.css-1t8gq41:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;}
Matt went back to the neighborhood he grew up in and built a house perfect for entertaining. In this first part of the interview, he talks about his very practical floor plan that has lots of space for hosting friends and family. He tells us about some really unique design ideas and gives great advice about communicating with con...
This week we have Part 2 of our interview with Rachel. She’s a homeowner working with a general contractor and they’re finishing up a custom build in Ohio. This week Rachel talks more about her homebuilding journey, what she would do differently if she were to build again, and the best thing about building a custom home.
Homeowner Rachel D tells us about the challenges and triumphs she's had along her homebuilding journey. She discusses how the pandemic has affected her build, what resources she's used to help her through the design-build process and where she's found some of her design inspiration and fixtures.
See photos of Rachel's home in the shownotes at BYHYU.com
Several weeks ago in episode 254 called Furniture Layout and Space Planning I gave some guidelines about furniture placement and how to best layout your rooms to achieve functional, aesthetically pleasing spaces that have good flow. After listening back to that episode though, I realized, I didn’t talk much about bedrooms. So that’s what we’ll discuss in thi...
This week’s episode is a replay of the one that I did years ago. The information is still relevant, but the pricing that I mentioned in the episode has likely changed given the current economy and today’s consumer demand for construction materials and supply chain challenges. I’ll discuss the 6 most popular types of roofing materials on the market, including my favorite, metal roofs.
Make sure you follow the show so when I record m...
Given the heat wave that’s sweeping a lot of the country right now, I wanted to remind myself of some of the information from a previous episode called Keeping Your House Cool, Inside and Out.I thought it might also be helpful for you to revisit that mini-lesson too, to make sure you are considering some of those cooling solutions as you are planning your home design.
But before we get into the show, I’ll share a bit of my first-ha...
Even if you’re not a tub person you should strongly consider adding a bathtub somewhere in your new home. You may never intend to use the tub yourself, but it’s nice having a tub available for bath-loving guests, for bathing children and grandchildren, and for grooming pets.
Many homeowners include a tub in their p...
Even if you haven’t started building your house yet, you should start thinking about your furniture layout. Furniture placement is important because it will dictate how good a room looks, how well it functions, and how easily you can move in and through the space. If your rooms have beautiful furniture pieces, but they’re arrange...
Soffits and Fascia are parts of the house that don’t often get a lot of thought or attention from homeowners planning to build their dream homes. But they’re important not only as design elements for your home but also because they protect your house. And choosing the right materials for your fascia and soffits can reduce the req...
The High Point Market is the largest furniture trade show for design professionals in the world. Twice a year more than 75,000 designers, furniture buyers, retail store owners, and architects go to High Point, North Carolina to see what’s trending in furnishings. Unfortunately, the show is not open to the general public, but many designers report on what they see each year at High point. If you didn’t know, North Caro...
From large things like garage doors to the small things like electronic chips that go into TVs and appliances, the materials that we need to build and furnish our homes are still hard to get. More than two years after the start of the pandemic, supply chain issues continue to cause significant construction slowdowns and above-average pricing in homebuilding.
So...
Like we did last year, my husband and I took a day trip to the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area to visit the 3 high-end show homes at Fort Worth’s annual Dream Street event. I enjoy going to show homes like these so I can see the features that are most popular with area designers. Now, to be clear, these are multimillion-dollar homes and not all of the elements showcased will ...
In addition to knowing about the different types of drywall that are best for different areas of your home, it’s good to think ahead of time the style and finishes you want for your walls so you’re not stumped when your builder or drywaller ask you if you want a Level 4 or level 5 drywall finish. Or whether you want any texture on ...
It’s honestly pretty hard to get excited about drywall. Drywall is a subject that’s kinda, well…dry. But drywall is a material that goes in just about every space of the house, so we want to be able to make informed decisions about what type of drywall we should request to make our walls last longer and perform better.
This week we’ll cover part 2 of a recent article from Houzz.com called “40 Home Design Trends That Will Shape 2022.” Houzz compiled the list of trends based on the thousands of popular photos people uploaded to their site and information they got from speaking with dozens of home design professionals. They also analyzed the search...
Happy New Year. In this episode, we’ll cover a recent article from houzz.com called “40 Home Design Trends That Will Shape 2022. “
I think it’s important for us to be aware of what’s trending in home design, but we probably shouldn’t be too interested in fads. We’ll be talking about trends.
Hope you had a great Christmas and I’m wishing you a happy new year. I want to sincerely thank you for continuing to listen to and share this podcast. I realize that there is a ton of content out here so I’m grateful that you take time out of your schedule to support BYHYU. An extra thank you goes to those of you who have given...
In the last episode, we discussed aging in place features that we can add to our homes that will allow us to live in them comfortably even if we develop challenges with mobility and coordination as we age. I referred to some designs detailed in this week’s repeat episode called Designing A Forever Home. I wanted to release this show on the heels of the Aging in Place podcas...
Many of us are building our houses with the intention of staying there for the rest of our lives. We’re building our forever homes. And there are some fairly simple design choices we can make that will allow us to stay in our homes comfortably even as seniors. The aging-in-place features we’ll discuss in this episode will give us...
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