Steps to Building a Home

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Home Building

Building your own home is an often exciting, sometimes exhausting experience. It’s also a perfect chance to have a home that’s designed the way you want it to look. But whether you’re hiring a general contractor or doing most of the work yourself, it takes a lot of forethought and planning. The sites highlighted in this Web guide can help you find inspiration to create the home of your dreams and get much-needed help to ensure you don’t miss one of the many details that accompany this endeavor.

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Steps to Building a Home

Home building may seem like a complicated process—and it is—but we’ve found some detailed sites on the Internet that explain quite a bit of what you need to know. Whether you’re looking to learn more about how homes are built so that you can eventually construct your home yourself, or you just want to know what your contractor will be up to, the following Web sites can get you started.

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Many Web sites, such as those from companies that specialize in custom-built homes, provide an overview of their building process. If you’re going this route, check the site of the company from which you are purchasing a home.

Trade associations exist for many of the occupations that make up the construction industry, such as electricians, contractors, masons and more. If you want to research construction information on a trade association Web site, look for a “consumers” section, which will likely have the most relevant content you need.

There’s some overlap between home building and remodeling, meaning that remodeling Web sites might be helpful to you as well. Our findingDulcinea Home Remodeling Web Guide recommends several useful resources.

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For an overview of home building …

Peter Brown Construction’s “Construction Dictionary” introduces a lot of basic construction terminology to help you understand your contractor or figure out your do-it-yourself project.

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B4UBuild.com divides home building into construction phases (research, preconstruction, site work, foundations, framing, rough-ins, and interior and exterior finishes). Navigate this fairly lengthy page using the links on the right to jump to a particular stage of construction.

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For construction timeframe estimates …

RealEstate.com , part of LendingTree, explains the general timeframe for building a house and what to expect as you see construction progress from month to month.

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