House Construction Schedule for Owner Builders

It had always been a dream of ours to own some land in the country, and build our own house. That dream for us became a reality last summer. We bought 30 acres of land in a rural community south of Ottawa, ON, and we built a raised bungalow. We decided to be our own general contractors to save money and to challenge ourselves. You can read all about our experiences here.

An owner builder is someone who acts as their own general contractor to build their home. The goal of doing it yourself is that you can save about 20% of your budget that you would have spent hiring someone else to do the general contracting. A general contractor’s job is to determine the budget, get quotes, hire sub-contractors, estimate and order materials, make all the decisions (there are many!), and make sure the build continues according to the construction schedule.

Organizing your time when you build a house is so important for keeping you on track. When we started thinking about building a house, I knew nothing about the construction process. Yes, we had done a lot of renovations, but building an entire house was a totally different thing.

What I needed was a simple schedule so I would know the general process for building – what happens when, and how long each phase should take. I’m a list person. I like to write things down and scratch it off when the task is complete. Having a schedule makes me feel organized, even in the midst of something so chaotic such as building a house.

Construction Schedule

So I created a simple construction schedule with the general phases of building. This can be customized to any house building project!

The amount of time it takes to build a house depends on a number of factors. These include the size of the house, how complicated it is, how big the work crew is, how much of it you do yourself and how much you hire out, if there are delays with sub-contractors, or delays in delivery of supplies. There are so many variables, but this worksheet will give you a rough idea of what should happen when. This schedule is based on the size of the house and how much of the work you plan to do yourself. Fill in the grey shaded cells with the square footage, the percentage of work you want to complete yourself, and your start date.

If you would like a copy of this schedule to fill out for yourself for your building project, enter your email address below to receive a copy in your inbox.