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Build Your House Yourself University — Arts
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.

Copyright: © BYHYU.com 2016

Latest Episodes:

Avoid These Open Concept Floor Plan Mistakes— BYHYU 242 Nov 03, 2021

Show notes

Open-plan homes with great rooms that combine the kitchen, dining room, and living room make smart use of space, increase natural light and make it easy for family and friends to be together. However, with few walls or defined borders and with clear sightlines from one space to another, open-plan rooms can be tricky to decorate. It’s a challenge to strike a good balance between cohesiveness and separation. This week we’ll discuss some common mistakes people make when decorating open floor plans and we’ll go over how we can steer clear of those mistakes.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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The Future of Open Concept Floor Plan Homes—BYHYU 241 Oct 20, 2021

Show notes

Will open concept homes become a thing of the past? In the midst of the pandemic, lots of people have been talking about wanting more private space in their homes. And many are wondering if open floor plans are on their way out. I give you my prediction in this episode.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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Questions For Your Contractors’ References— Ask Your Contractors’ Previous Clients These Things— BYHYU 240 Oct 06, 2021

Show notes

As you probably know, a major part of doing our due diligence and vetting or investigating a contractor before hiring him or her is to contact some references. Ask the contractors you’re considering for your project for ideally at least 3-4 references. And make sure you actually contact those references. Most people are very willing to help out by chatting about their homes and construction experiences.

Some people think contacting references is not very helpful because they think the contractor will only give a list of their best customers who may potentially be unwilling to share anything other than the most positive remarks. But you’d be surprised by how honest people will be, especially if the contractor is not in earshot of their comments. Plus, my list of questions will hopefully elicit candid, valuable information.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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What the Heck Is My Electrician Talking About?! Learn The Basics Of Your Home’s Electrical Service —BYHYU 239 Sep 22, 2021

Show notes

In the last episode, we had a brief overview of the rough-in phase of construction, including what goes on during the electrical rough-in.

This week I’ll give you some very basic information about your breaker box and where you should locate it. Plus we’ll briefly cover when you’ll need a typical 120 volt electrical outlet versus a more powerful 240 volt outlet. And we’ll end the mini-lesson with some talk about what size electrical service or the number of amps your house should have. I know this sounds pretty technical, but these are things we need to understand on a basic level so when our electrician asks if we want a 120 volt or 240 volt outlet or if we want a 200 or 240 amp electrical service, we’ll have some idea of what he’s talking about. As always, I’ll break things down into simple terms.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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Moving On to The Rough-In stage of Construction— BYHYU 238 Sep 08, 2021

Show notes

Significant progress has been made on my house, but if you’ve been following me for a while, you know the process has been painfully slow. Soil instabilities found during excavation of my property and the subsequent foundation redesign and retaining wall construction added more than 6 months to my timeline. Record rains, including overflow of the river, a brutal winter storm, and a global pandemic added even more delays to my schedule before we had even started framing. Unfortunately, unrelenting pandemic-related shortages in materials and labor continue to wreak havoc on my construction schedule. But we are making progress, it’s just slow progress. The next step is rough-in. We’ll go over what that means and I’ll tell you about some of the highlights of the last few months.

www.BYHYU.com

7 Major Decorating Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—BYHYU 237 Aug 25, 2021

Show notes

This week we’ll go over some design tips that I read in a recent article on houzz.com called 7 Major Decorating Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Even if you like interior design as I do, it can be intimidating to decorate an entire house. But information like this will give us some guidance and a little more confidence when making decisions about our decor.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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Questions and Answers with Fireplace Professional and Educator Jake Cromwell, Part 2— BYHYU 236 Aug 04, 2021

Show notes

This is the second part of our interview with fireplace professional Jake Cromwell of Top Chimney and Roofing. He’ll continue his discussion about high-efficiency direct vent gas fireplaces, which he recommends for those of us who want the heat and beauty of a fireplace, but don’t want a lot of maintenance. He’ll also tell us what we need to look for if we want to mount our TV above our fireplace and where we can find certified fireplaces professionals.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

Questions and Answers with Fireplace Professional and Educator Jake Cromwell— BYHYU 235 Jul 21, 2021

Show notes

This week and next we’ll have a fireplace professional and educator on the show who will help us understand the different types of fireplaces and educate us about some fireplace misconceptions. We’ll also talk about his favorite type of fireplaces and the greatest piece of advice he has for consumers. In part one of our talk, he’ll focus on breaking down the major categories of fireplaces for us. It’s a great interview so let’s get right into it.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

Shortages in Homebuilding Materials and What We Can Do During Construction Delays— BYHYU 234 Jul 07, 2021

Show notes

The current homebuilding environment is a tough one. Builders and homeowners like us are dealing with historically high prices and historically low availability in building materials and labor. In this week’s episode, I’ll tell you about a May 2021 survey done for the National Association of HomeBuilders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). The survey outlines the percentage of builders in the US who have ordered building materials and experienced significant shortages in those materials.

I’ll also give you a few ideas for what to do during construction delays that might result from materials shortages.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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Consider These Framing Alternatives In Light of Persistently High Lumber Prices—BYHYU 233 Jun 23, 2021

Show notes

The cost of lumber has increased more than 300% since April 2020. Lumber sold for $348 per thousand board feet before the pandemic and peaked to a record high of $1,500 per thousand board feet in May 2021. Thankfully, prices have begun to fall in the last few weeks.

I checked lumber prices today and they are around $935 per thousand board feet, which is still considerably higher than prices were when many of us started thinking building. And lumber prices fell several months ago and went back up, so we’re in unpredictable times.

With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit an episode that I did on 2 alternatives to traditional stick-built, lumber-framed homes. Those alternatives are Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) and Insulated Concrete Forms, (ICFs). Both SIPs and ICFs provide both insulation and structural framing components for the house.

According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the cost of a standard 2,000 sq. ft. home has increased by $34K since April 2020. A similar 2000 sq ft house built with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) also increased in price, but by only $8K or about 30%.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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