Bidding out your project is like shopping for a new car.  It’s important to, 1) know what you want, 2) never take the first price, 3) compare apples to apples.  That’s it.  You’re welcome.  But seriously, using good technique when bidding out your home building projects and repairs to contractors can save you thousands of […]

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It’s interesting to see how many homes are built by owner builders each year in the permit numbers put out by the U.S. Census Bureau.  One of the more common questions asked by people wanting to build a new home is, “Can an average person manage the construction of their own home as an owner […]

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Armchair Builder was created by a builder to give regular folks access to professional builder tools and resources.  These tools have been adapted to make them easier to use by novice owner builders looking to save money and gain control over their larger building projects.  One of our readers asked the question this week, “I […]

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An owner builder reached out to us this week asking how our products would help in determining the price for his new home.  Determining the cost for a new build is one of the biggest questions people have when venturing into a new home build.  The good news is Armchair Builder was created to provide […]

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The choice to become an owner builder, general contracting your own home, is not an easy one.  But there is one thing for sure…if you do decide to go with a full service builder/general contractor, you still aren’t guaranteed good results.  Recently a group of customers in Sarasota Florida experienced this difficult lesson.  The builder […]

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House prices and rent continue to rise as inflation is muted in the U.S., adding to the reasons one might want to become an owner builder.  By taking on the general contractor role for their own home, it’s possible to avoid paying the ever increasing monthly rent that does nothing but line the pockets of […]

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If you are visiting Armchair Builder for the first time you may be asking yourself, “exactly how many people built their own home in 2014?”  After all, it can be a complicated, time consuming endeavor that many people aren’t prepared to handle.  To answer this question we take a look at the latest U.S. Census […]

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With a carefully thought out kitchen design you can create a fully functional, custom look at an affordable price.  For this small kitchen, we needed to maximize the use of the space to make things work.  In order to accomplish this, we pulled out all the secrets from the kitchen design books.  Here we will […]

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  Building your dream home can be an expensive endeavor.  From the gorgeous lot with the view to the sparkly quartz countertops, each item that will make your new home “yours” comes with a price.  But just like everything else we buy, there are deals to be had on building materials and labor to build […]

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One of the more frequent questions asked by people that are thinking of taking on the general contractor role for their new dream home is, “What is the potential savings if I go through all the trouble of managing the building process myself?”  It’s a great question that is never easy to answer.  After all, […]

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