sounds like you are about to go down an exciting road. I salivate at the oppertunity to design for myself and in a few short years i may have the chance. it sounds as though you have an excellent piece of property, congrats and good luck.

i am sure that in your travels you have come across a friendly contractor or two - make sure to get a good price from them while promising to give them the inside track on the next project your firm puts out to bid.

architechnophilia,

I will be on the same track as you soon [I hope]. I have some land on which I am going to do 3-4 townhouses/apartments. Probably next year.

I'm finding really good support from material manufacturers and reps who want to get involved with a 'design' project. I will be treating it as a collaborative - involving bathroom and kitchen suppliers and manufacturer's [for example] early input into the design of the spaces, in return for them supplying their best product in the best conditions. I have found them to be very enthusiastic.

I will be involving a number of contractors and suppliers in the design phase to ensure a smooth flowing project. I am spending a bit of time with this because part of my obligation will be to involve them in any further projects I do.

If you have some good existing relationships with suppliers, local authorities, contractors, builders etc, involve them in the project early on. It all about relationhsips.

Right in the middle of finishing the drawings for Permit for my own home. I expect to start in May. Its certainly a great experience. I have taken three + years to design the home, more out just having the time to try some different strategies and getting some really bad Ideas out of my system. I basiclaly design the home three/ four times. Which is a great luxury that we never have, I have found it great for my design process in general as I took the time to distill things down to essential aspects which are affordable. I live in a region that has a great housing boom going on and the prices have gone sky high. I don't want to cheap out on certain aspects so I have gotten it down to a point where my budget is respectable.

Its not crazy design but certainly something that works for my family and how we will grow into. My wife has had her resevations which like any client is a huge consideration but she has been very good about letting me get it the way I want. Fortunately lots of our friends have given her a lot of support and been very complimentary to the design. ( I don't think she completely trusts me, Like all clients and their architects )

I have a great builder / friend who will manage the site and then I will run the adminstration through my office. I have called all the trades myself and will work with the suppliers who recognize a good opportunity to help
"sponser" the project. I t works for me and it will work for them. I am generally out to prove that a well considered design is better than the crap I see get thrown up and sold for huge dollars. I have established the budget my self and I will work to try and keep things to those general numbers. Unlike many builders they really don't make the efforts needed to keep things in check. I've done this before and it was a great learning experience. If you haven't built and manged your own project before then if you are doing your dream house I would say practice somewhere else first. I would be way more nervous if this was my first built effort but its not as I know what to expect and will certainly enjoy the ride a lot more this time.

Everyone thanks for the kind words. Whistler I share your passion - I haven't been able to actually design the damn thing for the site, however I have noticed that I keep sketching the same thing over and over (years now) - granted I conceptualised it as a bachelor pad - not too how that's going to work. but we'll see

I work with quite a few builders and tradesmen and all are excited and they've all offered their services, primarily labour at no cost. So its shaping up to be a design-build. I'd love to take a couple months off work and just focus on this but i doubt that will materialise.

Anyhow - anyone willing to share images...a means to continue sharing the excitment. I checked a recent survey internationally - less than 15% of architects own a house, and less than 1% actually designed it. Are we the fortunate ones? Or are they not telling us something? Thoughts?

just finished the design process and got client approval to go ahead on a house for a member of my family. Permit application is now down to the engineering.

sounds like I am in the same region as Whistler. Not really getting any excitement from suppliers though, everybody is busy anyway.

It will be interesting.