Doing What's Never Been Done
An Open Book Build
In pursuit of the most affordable, quality designer home in America, home building veteran designs and builds the ultimate starter home and shares all proprietary information from the build. Open Book Build shares the designer house plan, complete as-built budget, automated schedule, detailed material lists used, and the full contracting kit...all of the tailored pieces used to build this quality home at cost. No secrets...it's an open book.
Major Benefits
About half the work required to build a new home gets done prior to any dirt being moved on site. Open Book Build shares all of this work with customers to give them a serious "jumpstart" in the house building process. Whether customers hand this package to their chosen builder or they go the owner-builder route, Open Book Build will save customers both time and money.
No remodel tear outs, no shared walls, no huge mortgage....just a NEW designer home at an amazing price. Why settle for a tiny home on a flat bed trailer when you can have a high quality, life size home with equity built in?
The plan design itself focuses on quality with a WOW factor. The design has been value engineered for maximum build efficiency to make room in the budget for high quality finishes. A simple, affordable home that lives large, this home is designed for easy expansion as the homeowner's family and budget grows.
For folks choosing to go the owner-builder route, we're creating a complete online course showing how this home is built from start to finish including daily video shot on the job site of all the quality checks performed.
Why Do We Need Open Book Build?
Housing Shortage
There's a huge shortage of quality affordable homes in America today. Open Book Build provides a new solution to this ongoing problem.
Builders Aren't Interested
When it comes to affordable new homes, builders and developers are currently focused on apartments and condominiums and are offering very few entry level single family homes. Why? The margins are small due to increasing lot, labor and material costs. For the same amount of work, they'd rather focus on the move-up buyer.
Young Buyer Lifestyle
Today's newest homebuyers are choosing big experiences over big mortgages. They're not interested in overextending themselves just to have a big house. They want the house they want, but with money leftover to get out and live life.
The House Plan
Open Floor Plan
The gourmet kitchen boasts a large raised bar top and cozy stone fireplace with a sitting area to sip your morning coffee. The kitchen/family room is open to allow for larger family gatherings .
Tall Ceilings
One of the most cost effective ways to make a space feel bigger is to add a foot to the standard wall height. Not only is this nine foot ceiling cost effective to build, but it also saves energy compared to volume ceilings.
Easy Expansion
The basement in the plan is designed specifically for future finish. Including:
- 9' ceilings to accommodate ducts
- Rough in plumbing for bath
- Escape windows per code for bedrooms
- Waterproofing/drainage = DRY
Did Someone Say Storage?
The attic trusses have an open design to allow for serious storage. The 300 square feet of attic floor space is equivalent to a 1.5 car garage.
Owner-Builder Friendly
This house plan was designed to make it easy to build. Forget about complicated roof angles, jogs in walls, or multi-step siding applications. Here we've simplified the structure and materials used to minimize potential problems.
Easy to Use PDF
One of the easiest ways to share a house plan with vendors for bidding and building is with an Adobe PDF digital file. And wow, it's so simple to bring with you to the jobsite! Check out more Open Book Build house plan details!
Online Course
Curriculum Details
For those wanting detailed instruction on how the Open Book Build model home was built, the online curriculum will provide all the details. From creating the budget to the daily quality checks, this course will review everything an owner-builder needs to do to be successful. Including:
- Video shot daily on the jobsite
- PowerPoint presentations
- Live Screen Capture
- Quizzes to review main concepts
- Forum for asking questions
The main topics covered in the owner-builder course include...
Budgeting
This section of the online course shows how to create a detailed budget to ensure all costs are included from the start. The success of any new home build comes down to a careful review of all costs.
Forgetting one small budget line item can lead to an empty bank account with an unfinished home. Here we discuss the relationship between the contracts with vendors and the budget and review the contingency budget for unexpected items.
Hiring Subcontractors
It's hard to find good quality trades people these days. Here we show the best methods to find, screen, and hire the folks that will get a quality job done on time.
In this class we provide a complete overview of the contracting kit used in the Open Book Build and explain how it's used to get the best price for each building activity.
Scheduling the Build
This learning module shows how the Open Book Build Excel schedule template is used to build a home in 90 days. The template has all the formulas to automate this task...here we show how to use the tool to get a home built efficiently.
Daily General Contracting Guide
Pro builders complete specific tasks each day throughout the building of a home to keep the project on schedule and per budget. We share those detailed tasks in this training module to give owner-builders the opportunity to replicate success.
Lot Selection
There are many things to review prior to spending hard earned money on a lot to build your dream home. Here we go through each item and show how a little upfront work can make the build process much easier. We also take a trip out to a couple lots to show how to apply the concepts in real life.
The Launch Promotion
The House Plan
The Open Book Build house plan will be priced competitively with the stock house plan market. The plan includes a complete set of architectural drawings with elevations, floor plan, cabinet layouts, detail drawings, foundation plan and future finished basement layout, all in an easy to use pdf format.
The Open Book Build Kit will be FREE!
You read that right. Free. This is a package that an experienced builder takes weeks to create for a given home and would easily charge up to $10k and we are giving it away for free with the purchase of the house plan. Why? Because we want to help end the entry level housing crisis in America...it's that simple.
What's the Catch?
There's no catch. As always, the copyrighted house plan purchase is good for the building of one house only. Along with that limitation, we will only allow the Open Book Build Kit to be used once as well. We're not looking to create professional home builders. We just want folks to get into a quality home at an amazing price.
Opportunities
Phase 1: Building the Open Book Build Model Home - Groundbreaking for the Open Book Build model home is scheduled for September 2019 in Westlake, Ohio.
· We are currently identifying partners who are interested in this innovative entry level home solution in the U.S. market. Specifically, we are searching for the perfect supplier to provide the majority of the material required for each new home.
· In addition, the completed home will include designer finishes to showcase innovative products, quality features and the home's livability. We are therefore also identifying suitable suppliers of these types of products.
· Suppliers and products will be featured in the Open Book Build Model Home and highlighted during the media rollout.
· If you have a product or service that you think might be a fit for the Open Book Build Model Home, please contact us about sponsorship opportunities.
Phase 2: The Open Book Build Complete House Kit hits the market!
· After completing our first Model Home, the product (house) is ready to replicate via Open Book Build Complete House Kits with our supplier partners handling all of the material needs.
Media Rollout
Open Book Build is such a revolutionary idea...we want to make sure we get the word out. Here are just a few of our plans for getting the message out to folks all across America.
- Press Releases - at the start of the project and at the end
- Model Open House - open the completed home to realtors and the media
- Publications - we will be reaching out to real estate and home and garden publications that seek newsworthy topics
- Professional video walk through will be created of completed home hightlighting quality products and features
- Armchair Builder - we will be sharing Open Book Build with our current followers at ArmchairBuilder.com (20k+ visitors per month), and including our 20k followers at the Armchair Builder YouTube channel
- Professional photos shot daily on site and shared on social media
Still have questions?
Meet the Builder
Michael Luckado has helped countless owner-builders achieve the American dream since launching Armchair Builder in 2011. There he provides pro builder resources to folks that want to build their own custom home. Open Book Build takes this one step further in that a specific designer house plan is provided and includes the complete professional package used to build it.