Having your own house built is a substantial task, but also very rewarding. If you are considering it, I urge you to think very carefully about what you want - if you want the kinds of things everyone else wants, you will probably be better off buying a standard design. If you want things that are offbeat, be prepared for a barrage of (mostly correct) warnings that "that won't have good resale value".
My house has a very open design, even including an internal
garage door between the garage and laundry room. The laundry room is
also a dog kennel, the garage is also (mostly) a shop, and a great
room substitutes for a kitchen, dining room, living room, and family
room. It also has an oversized study (had to use a steel H-beam to
come up to code), a reading nook, and only two bedrooms. The house
doesn't have a lot of closet space, the garage is not near the
kitchen, and it has other peculiarities that will certainly reduce
its resale value, but it works for me.
I wanted the house to have some features that said something about me,
so my bathroom floor in the master bedroom is a
penrose tiling. Installed when the house was built in 1998, it was
one of the first in the world - now it seems like everyone is doing
it. The floor will almost certainly outlast me, and it amuses me to
think about how future owners of the house will think of the floor
that says "a mathematician lives here"
Many years ago I visited the Wharton Esherick house
outside of Paoli PA, and when it came time to build this house, I
decided that a reading nook would be nice, and a staircase like the
famous one that Esherick had built (he designed the stuff, but other
people worked the wood for him) would work well for it. After a
half-hearted false start, I decided that I didn't have the skills to
do this and acquiring them wasn't going to be worth the wait, so I
hired Jack Christiansen (get a web page, Jack) to build this one.
The study is probably the signature room of
the house. The master bedroom certainly
isn't, it's one of the places that probably reduces the house's resale
value, but why waste space and features on a place where almost all
you do is sleep? The great room works for
me, it is great for entertaining and is a very livable space. The
garage and laundry room also get a fair bit
of use, as I do a lot of woodworking in the garage, and relegate the
dog to the laundry room when I am not at
home. The guest room, second bathroom, and unfinished space are
nothing to write to home about.
One more thing about building your own house - you can save money and
improve the final product if you do some planning and set aside some
time. Some things are very simple: stuff rags in the heating ducts as
soon as they are installed so garbage doesn't land in them. Video
tape the structure right before the drywall goes up. Other things take
time: if you want low power wiring, it is much cheaper to do it
yourself, and if you want it up-to-date, you almost have to do it
yourself. Hit the web and everyone you know for ideas before you even
find a builder or architect.