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Building A House: Part 1

March 4, 2021 by hipfoodiemom 6 Comments

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Building A House: Part 1. Sharing my thoughts, lessons learned and what I would have done differently. This was the first house we have built from the ground up and let me tell you, building in 2020 was not easy.

Before I begin, I want to say I am truly thankful for the house and am so happy to be moving in soon. We chose to build with Toll Brothers because of the location of the house and our budget. Toll Brothers is also a large, national home builder with 50+ years of experience building luxury homes. Overall, our experience was a good one and we are very happy to be moved into our new house. Finally! Hooray! There are, however, many things to take into consideration when building and honestly, I’m not sure I would want to build with Toll Brothers again. 

I did not move to Pennsylvania knowing we were going to build. In fact, I didn’t want to build a house. We simply couldn’t find an existing home that we all liked and agreed on so we decided to build. For those who don’t know, Toll Brothers is not a fully custom new home build. You select a home design and go from there. You still select everything and can pick upgrades but you are confined to the Toll Brothers design and cannot make any changes. This, to me, is the hardest part. If I ever get to build another new house again, I will go with a builder where you can build what you want and not stay confined to a design, and are able to make changes along the way. 

We purchased the plot the summer of 2019. Because of COVID, everything was put on hold and we ran into a number of delays due to COVID, materials shortages, lack of construction workers, major appliance shortages and more. I also didn’t even think about living in a new construction community (it’s a pain!). There are about 20+ more houses that need to be built so we are living with constant construction people everywhere, trash, dust, mud, tractors, loud noises, etc. It’s just another thing to consider if you are looking at new construction. We’ve been in the house for almost five months now and there will probably be constant construction people everywhere, trash, dust, mud, tractors, mud, rocks, those huge trash bins and all sorts of stuff in the road for at least another year I’m guessing.

When You Build with Toll Brothers

This was our experience with Toll Brothers. Your experience with them might be completely different. First, you are assigned a designer and schedule several meetings with the designer at their design center where you make all of your selections. It’s great because everything is there so you can see samples, and touch and feel materials; mostly all under one roof. There are four to five different meetings where I made all of the selections. I really liked how this was broken up. It’s still an overwhelming process but breaking up the meetings helped a lot. If I had this part to do over again, I would have done the following: knew exactly what I wanted, did more research on different materials, and asked more questions.

The entire process was very overwhelming. We had literally just moved to Pennsylvania and I was also trying to get the kids acclimated to their new school, our new lives, our new city and I was selecting everything I needed for our new house. This is probably why people say to rent for a year and then look to buy. It was too much. I had some photos from Instagram for inspiration. There were a number of things where I asked my designer her opinion and then just went with what she said. Fortunately, she had great taste and I think everything came together really well.

 

Building A House: Part 1

We basically upgraded everything. The floors, the appliances, the cabinets, the counter tops, the hardware, literally everything. There were a few instances where we ran into issues where I wasn’t happy with the outcome, or mistakes were made or wrong items installed but Toll Brothers worked with me and made the corrections and I am very happy with how everything turned out. If you have plans to build a house; and certainly if you are building with Toll Brothers, this is what I would recommend thinking about.

  • know exactly what you want in advance
  • know your overall style, look & feel and colors that you want 
  • do your research on everything and I mean everything, from the floors to the trim to the hardware that goes on everything
  • know all of the terminology of materials 
  • ask questions!
  • if you have any upgrades, make sure they are reflected in your final contract with photos so there is no confusion
  • fight for what you want if you see something wrong or incorrect
  • you have to be okay with everything you decide because once you decide and it’s final, you can’t make any changes if you build with Toll Brothers 

Once everything has been selected with the design center, you are assigned a project manager. Shortly after this point, COVID hit and everything was put on hold. Because of COVID, all of our weekly meetings were phone calls and I feel like the overall process was a bit confusing and unorganized initially. This is not due to Toll Brothers but because of COVID. Everyone was pivoting and figuring out how to do business and get things done. We also selected a brand new Toll Brothers house design and did several upgrades, so they were building this house for the very first time, with upgrades.

Building A House: Settlement and Final Stages

In the last several months, we faced delays, mistakes and more. The build process is never perfect. This was not an easy process, building a house in the middle of a pandemic, but I am beyond thrilled with the finished house. 

In the end, I applaud the wonderful team at Toll Brothers. The sales team, the design team and our project manager and the construction team. Bob, our construction manager, and Brian, our project manager, really worked hard to make sure this was the house we envisioned from the beginning. I am really thankful for their hard work. There are still things that need to be finished on the exterior that they will finish in the spring but overall, everything looks great! 

If you are thinking of building, or are thinking of building with Toll Brothers and have questions, please leave me a comment below. I hope this post helps! 

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Comments

  1. LD

    March 6, 2021 at 7:47 am

    We built will Toll in NJ. Agree. They are good builders. Like you said, they are semi-custom builders. What we wished they do a better job of is we feel certain of the construction is good. Other attributes are doing somewhat “cheap”. Some of the electrical and plumbing while to code, is not ideal (if outside lights trip, so does a random outlet in the basement, they only give you 1 sump pump, the doors and windows are abit more drafty than we knew). Also, the interior closets are different heights than doors and the MDF trim after 6 months starts chipping really bad

    But love the kitchen. Love the flow and great community!

    Reply
    • hipfoodiemom

      March 6, 2021 at 3:28 pm

      The trim starts chipping after 6 months?! We have a one year warranty on the house and a 10-year structural warranty . .I feel like that should be covered under the one year?

      Reply
      • LD

        March 7, 2021 at 9:31 pm

        10 year? We were given an 11 month warranty. Which wasn’t great. Basically nail pops were it. Which now at the 3 yr mark we have more nail pops than at the 11 month. We are in the Estate at Bamm Hollow.

        The humidifier was the big thing which wasn’t installed correctly which they had to address.

        The trim (at least ours in NJ) is so cheap it’s falling apart. Also I don’t know about your house. The closet dooors are lower in height than the bedroom doors. Which bug me. ????????

        Reply
      • LD

        March 7, 2021 at 9:34 pm

        10 year? We were given an 11 month warranty. Which wasn’t great. Basically nail pops were it. Which now at the 3 yr mark we have more nail pops than at the 11 month. We are in the Estate at Bamm hollow. I think we had many rough conversations with the same Bob as you.

        The humidifier was the big thing which wasn’t installed correctly which they had to address.

        The trim (at least ours in NJ) is so cheap it’s falling apart. Also I don’t know about your house. The closet dooors are lower in height than the bedroom doors. Which bug me. ????????

        Reply
  2. Aireen naval

    March 6, 2021 at 9:30 am

    We built with Toll in Sacramento and O agree with everything you said.. we were stage 3 of our community and heard there were a lot of mistakes made in the earlier homes. We had minimal to no problems and they were accommodating.

    Reply
    • hipfoodiemom

      March 6, 2021 at 3:14 pm

      Hi Aireen, that’s great to hear!

      Reply

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Meet Alice

Alice Choi from Hip Foodie MomHello! My name is Alice. Here, at Hip Foodie Mom, you will find fresh food recipes using local, seasonal ingredients. From meat dishes to vegetarian to Asian inspired dishes, you are sure to find something you like. Thank you for stopping by!

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