House building Tips to Stay Organized and keep Stress Levels Down

I felt the need to write a slightly more positive post about building your own house after my recent ‘overwhelmed’ house building post!! Apart from genuinely feeling overwhelmed by all the choices and house decisions I had to make, I was actually premenstrual at the time of writing!!, which tipped me over the ‘this is all to hard’ edge!

Well, I’m no longer feeling pre-menstrual and thought it may help to add some constructive comments about what you can do if you are building your own home to make it less stressful.

So here are some house building tips to stay sane and be organized in the process –or as organized as you can be – normal organizing rules seem to go out the window for a while – with Mess being and almost constant on the building site!!:-


Using good old Manilla folders to ‘house’ all the magazine clippings; Tradie quotes etc.

It also helps to use the one BIG note pad, so that you can always refer to that when you need to check notes you have made when talking to anyone to do with building your house. This keeps paperwork mess and clutter to a minimum –or at least all in the one place so it is a bit better organized.

Keeping a folder for all your receipts is also a good idea – and a big envelope for smaller receipts to keep track of costs/outgoings/progress payments etc.

Money Tip when building your own home:- Wherever possible pay by credit card to save on extra interest on your loan – which will even keep you ahead if a 2-3% surcharge is added by the company you are dealing with.

Take photos of your new and progressing house semi-regularly - some from the same spot for future reference. They are great to look back on. Sometimes when you are in the thick of the ‘build’ it’s easy not to bother as you are so busy and focused on the job at hand, but it is worth it.

If you have kids, to get them to feel some sense of ownership of the 'build' by sometimes helping where possible –even if it just sweeping out their ‘new’ room or helping get rid of rubbish into your trailer/skip bin etc

Another good thing to do with the kids when it comes to building a new house and be organized about it, is to have a look online for different ‘looks’ your kids may like to use for their rooms – colours of walls, curtains, carpet, light fittings etc - Reminding them that all good things must wait!! It makes us appreciate them more when we save to purchase new things.

We are now almost lock up with the Front and Back doors having just been hung – I’m surprised at how excited we all were by this latest milestone. Plaster is now starting to go up left, right and centre, which also makes a huge difference to the feel of the place and being able to visualize the house finished…...still can’t imagine living in it yet! But bring it on!!

Happy Organizing
Claire McFee
Organize Your Life Organizers