The vacation home is not the out of reach luxury item reserved for the super rich it once was. With proper planning and budgeting your family can have a second home in your favorite vacation destination to enjoy for generations to come. You can make your home comfortable and stylish on a budget with these simple steps.
Step one is to decide on a location. Take into consideration your family’s lifestyle when selecting a location. It should be a place that you have visited in the past and have enjoyed returning to time and time again. Unlike staying in hotels, it is harder to change your mind after your new vacation home is built. Make sure activities that the whole family enjoys are nearby. And try keeping your home a short driving distance from your primary residence to keep down on travel time and expense.
Step two is to decide on a home style. The location you picked in step one above will play a significant role in determining the style of the house plan you choose. You probably don’t want to go with log cabin home plans if the site you select is on the beach. Blending in with the surrounding environment and neighboring homes can be both a budget saver and keep you in good standing with the community.
Step three is to research stock and semi-custom home plans that you can take right to a builder to slightly modify or start building from. There may even be free loghome plans or significantly low cost plans for a multitude of home styles available that your builder can customize for a nominal fee. These are great budget savers.
Step four is to budget. You can never run the numbers too many times. And when they do not add up there is nothing wrong with saving up for another year before starting your home or reconfiguring the budget to make it work. You don’t want to decide on that perfect cabin cottage home plan vacation house only to never be able to complete it or not have the funds to maintain and enjoy it for many years.
Step five is to build and enjoy it. Be involved as much as possible in the building process to be sure you are getting just what you want. Ask questions whenever you do not understand something. Visit the site as often as you can to make sure everything is going as planned. This is your investment and your family’s future retreat; make sure it is what you want.