House Construction Schedule for Owner Builders

Are you planning on building your own house? Are you looking for a general house construction schedule to make the construction process easier?

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 the summer of 2016. 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 the weekly progress of our new house build here.

What is an owner builder?

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 home 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.

Custom House Construction Schedule

So I created a simple construction schedule with the general phases of building.

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.

Read more about organizing finances when you build your own house.

You can purchase the custom home construction schedule and budget worksheet, or you can sign up for email and get a free printable copy sent straight to your inbox!