HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON THE COST TO BUILD A COTTAGE IN MUSKOKA
Money saving tips to reduce the cost to build your home, cottage, garage, or boathouse in Muskoka.
TIP #1: HIRE AN ARCHITECT AND SET A PROJECT BUDGET
Architects are trained & qualified professionals with current knowledge of construction techniques, building products & systems available to deliver inspiring custom & luxury homes.
Your architect can draw on expert consultants for construction cost guidance during the design of your custom home. Depending on your Architect's level of familiarity with local construction costs, the advice of a Professional Quantity Surveyor, or a local builder may be beneficial.
By incorporating realistic & locally-valid construction costs into the design process for your custom home, the construction budget that you set in planning your home can form a tangible constraint that your Architect's design activities will be able to respect.
Ensure to request that your Architect include as much detail as possible in your construction documents. This will ensure that contractors offering construction pricing are providing costs based on an identical scope of work.
Having a detailed set of construction documents will reduce the likelihood of your encountering cost surprises and Change Orders during the construction process.
An investment in good design will provide you with long-term value.
HIRE AN ARCHITECT
We will refer an Architect to deliver value with professional design for your building project.
EMAILTIP #2: DESIGN FOUNDATIONS TO AVOID DRILLING & BLASTING BEDROCK
Canadian Shield bedrock is a prominent feature of the waterfront landscape & unique geography that draw home buyers to seek properties in Muskoka.
Drilling, blasting, excavating & hauling bedrock to off-site disposal locations is expensive work that is a very common part of site preparation work for construction projects in Muskoka.
Thoughtful architectural & structural design can eliminate the need to perform bedrock drilling & blasting.
Careful consideration of building site topography, sub-grade soil conditions & geotechnical considerations can lead to the design of a beautiful building that serves the lifestyle of its Owners without the cost of altering the building site with bedrock drilling & blasting.
This is the most significant reason that custom home design by an Architect or Home Designer offers superior value to property owners planning to build in Muskoka.
PRE-BUILD CONSULTING
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CONSULTTIP #3: REDUCE THE TOTAL FLOOR AREA OF YOUR HOME DESIGN
Minimizing the total floor area of the living space in your home design can deliver substantial savings.
Kitchens and bathrooms are the most expensive rooms in a home. Reduce the size of these rooms to deliver only the area that is practically required and roomy enough to ensure functionality.
If you have included high-volume spaces with lofty multi-level or vaulted ceilings, consider eliminating these and incorporate grandeur by designing tall, flat ceilings within a single building level.
Eliminate unnecessary circulation spaces for additional reduction in total floor area. Consider areas such as hallways, stairwells, large entry foyers, and similar spaces.
TIP #4: RECONFIGURE A SINGLE-LEVEL FLOOR PLAN INTO MULTIPLE FLOOR LEVELS
If your home design starts out as a single-level plan for all living spaces, it is certain that you can find cost savings by re-configuring the floor plan into multiple levels stacked vertically one above another.
This will reduce the size of both the foundation footprint and the area of the roof plan, thereby significantly reducing the construction cost for your home.
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TIP #5: USE AN INTERIOR DESIGNER'S SERVICES FOR GREATEST IMPACT
When engaging an interior designer to perfect your home's interior, focus your investment on high-impact rooms that will be used most frequently or that will be occupied when you are hosting guests.
Also ask your designer to set a colour scheme and millwork style to be used in the remaining areas of your home, so that the whole interior has a consistent and high-quality feel.
You can save money in the Kitchen and Bathrooms by opting for pre-fabricated cabinets, rather than specifying fully custom-designed units. Many custom kitchen contractors will offer an option to upgrade doors and drawers only on standard modular cabinet units.
Ask your Interior Design Consultant for other ideas about how you can achieve great results at a reasonable construction cost.
TIP #6: CONSIDER DESIGNING A COTTAGE (FOR SEASONAL USE ONLY)
The original cottages that dotted the shoreline of the Muskoka Lakes were little more than a simple wood frame cabin with a couple windows, a door and a pathway to a canoe at the shoreline.
If your construction budget is running away from you, consider whether you are really going to want or need to use the home during cold-weather months. If not, why not consider a design that is suited only for spring, summer and fall seasons?
You may be able to reduce insulation requirements, eliminate mechanical systems and cut un-necessary cost in the construction of your cottage.
This is especially appropriate for cottages on a water-access only property.
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QUOTEWe talked to a number of contractors when planning the work and Ben struck us as the most realistic and ‘quality focused’ of the people we talked to. Oxtongue River
TIP #7: COMPARE DESIGN ALTERNATIVES, FINISHES & FIXTURES FOR VALUE
It is easy to make a series of individual decisions in the design for a custom home that, when added to a total cost, will exceed the budget constraint that you have set.
When this happens, the best way to get a handle on costs is to perform value engineering.
By comparing high-cost items in the current budget for your home's construction, you may be able to identify an alternative geometry, product, or system that will serve your requirements equally well.
If lower cost alternatives represent a good balance of price and quality, substitute the lower price alternative until your construction budget stops making you dizzy.
Don't compromise on durability, or energy efficiency. Compromise here will cost you more over the long-term.
TIP #8: BREAK YOUR PROJECT INTO MULTIPLE PHASES OF CONSTRUCTION WORK
If the full construction budget for your home building project is more than you can bear to spend all at once, consider whether it makes sense to break the work into separate phases.
Sometimes, this can offer enough time to accumulate the financial resources required to complete the full project work scope without having to resort to financing.
You should be aware that there is an efficiency penalty that must be paid for breaking a larger project into separate phases distributed over a longer period of time.
The total project cost will likely increase due to needing to mobilize equipment and crews for a higher number of work phases.
The project will also most likely spend a longer total time under construction than if the full work scope were undertaken in a single phase.
TIP #9: INVEST SOME SWEAT EQUITY IN YOUR HOME OR COTTAGE
Classic Muskoka Homes is happy to deliver a weather-tight custom home package that offers you a finished home exterior and integrated building systems, ready for your investment of labour on interior finishing to suit your requirements.
You can use our Home Cost Calculator to estimate the savings available by finishing your home's interior at the expense of your own blood, sweat & tears.
Get a shell-package construction budget with our Construction Budget Calculators for Home, Cottage, Garage & Boathouse building projects.
TIP #10: USE FINANCING TO BUILD THE HOME DESIGN YOU REALLY WANT
When the construction cost looks like it will exceed your financial resources, getting financing approval for a construction loan may be worth considering. This can allow you to get your home built and start to enjoy living in it, while distributing the cost over time with a manageable payment size.
Your bank will have specific requirements for distribution of funds under their construction loan and you must have a reliable project budget in order to prevent exceeding your loan value during the construction work.
Look for a builder that will offer you a Fixed-price construction contract and be certain that you have included a contingency in your project budget to allow for unanticipated costs.
