Building your own house

[frostyfingers]

DH and I have just moved into rented after selling and are very keen to build our own house - it's something we've talked and read about for several years. We've done up two houses previously - the first was mainly cosmetic and we had builders do the major work, the second we did a fair amount ourselves.

Can those of you who have built your own, or renovated a complete wreck tell me what you wish you'd known at the beginning - the major pitfalls, things to look out for, and how you found the experience?

We're working our way through Self Building for Dummies as a start and will shortly start speaking to architechts but don't have a plot or property in mind as yet.

Renovated our house, main pitfalls were planning permision and waiting for stuff to come through from local authorities, they truly held us back months sometimes.

Also neighbours and the spanners that they throw in, objections etc.

We lived in ours while doing it all....wouldnt recommend that at all, although you will be ok if you are bulding from scratch.
Good luck x

sorry me again, we also did not have a budget, we did things as we got paid, joked at the time that we should pay our wages directly to B&Q each month.
I would defo have a budget in the bank.

My lessons learned from a large renovation job:

Don't live in it while you are doing it.
Don't necessarily go for the cheapest builder.
Get a good project manager.
Don't buy cheap toilets from Holland