formal contract to buy. This is an agreement whereby you undertake to
consummate the purchase at a future date, generally thirty to sixty
days, at the agreed price. On executing such a contract, _which should
be reviewed by your lawyer before you, as buyer, sign it_, expect to
pay the seller through the broker ten per cent of the total purchase
price. This is done on signing the contract. The time between signing
this contract and the date set for the title closing is employed for
title search and insurance, land survey and similar details. If the
title proves imperfect so that you cannot complete the purchase, your
check is returned to you. As for the cost of title insurance, the
corporations issuing such policies have an established scale of
prices. These vary slightly in different parts of the country. Title
policies have generally replaced the old independent title search by
lawyers that had no elements of insurance. Where a company has already
searched and insured the title, reissue of the policy is made to you
at about half the original fee.
The cost of surveying property is based on the amount of work
involved. For surveying five acres of what was formerly farm land and
that has never had its borders so measured and defined, the average
charge today is from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five
dollars. Special conditions may raise or lower this. An established
surveyor who knows the locality is, of course, the best person to
undertake such work. His previous surveys of other adjacent properties
can often enable him to locate and identify old boundary marks that
some one not conversant with the locality might find baffling. Much
country property is very vaguely described by old deeds. "Fifty acres
more or less bounded on the east by the highway, northerly by land
owned by Jones, westerly to that of or recently owned by Smith, and
southerly by that of Brown," illustrates roughly an old title
description. You may get forty-five or fifty-five acres, and it is up
to you to establish just what fences and so forth are your actual
boundaries.
A surveyor reduces all this to exact measurements and puts definite
markers at the corners and wherever else the party lines change
direction. When finished, he provides you with a certified copy of his
survey in map form, giving distances and indicating location of his
monuments. These are usually either iron stakes driven two or three
feet into the ground or concrete posts about two inches square set in
the ground and plainly visible. It is illegal to move such marks.
With title clear and the survey completed, everything is ready for the
title closing, as lawyers call the time when title to the property
passes from seller to buyer. The latter's lawyer should have
investigated and passed on all steps prior to this and adjusted any
minor details with the seller's lawyer. The buyer and his lawyer and
the seller and his lawyer should all be present at a title closing.
The paid tax bills for the current year are first presented and any
minor adjustments made. Then the buyer presents a certified check or
actual cash for the amount he has agreed to pay. He also has a small
amount of money on hand to meet any adjustments such as taxes,
insurance, and the like. Lastly, the deed, which has been carefully
reviewed by the buyer's lawyer, is signed by the seller and, for
better or worse, you have become a country property owner.
CALL IN AN ARCHITECT
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER IV_
CALL IN AN ARCHITECT
The prospective country dweller is now owner of a piece of property
and his ideas are probably fairly definite as to how his home is going
to look when his family is actually living there. But seldom is it a
simple matter of gathering the household goods into a moving van,
having them set down in the new place, and then going out on the
terrace to watch the sunset while deft workers within set things to
rights.
There may be no house at all on his new holding, much less a terrace.
At the time of purchase, an old mill, barn or other combination of
walls and roof may stand in place of his imaginary home. Even a house
in good condition usually needs a little renovation. During the
negotiations for purchase, his lawyer kept him from legal pitfalls.
Just as important now in bridging the gap between what he has and what
he wants is an architect.
If he has been consulted before purchase, so much the better. If not,
it is high time to seek him out unless one happens to be a genius like
Thomas Jefferson who could draft a Declaration of Independence with
one hand and design a serpentine wall with the other. Such a person
has no need of this book anyway and will long since have cast it
aside. Most of us are just average citizens with some ideas which we
want to put into concrete form but find difficult because we are
either inarticulate or untrained.
That is what various specialists are for, and it is a wise man who
realizes his own limitations. A sugar broker may have ideas about a
portrait but he won't try to paint it himself. He will commission a
portrait painter, in whom he has confidence, to make a likeness of his
wife or child as the case may be. Even more necessary are the services
of an architect when building or remodeling a house. Trying to be your
own architect is as foolish as drawing a sketch of little Jerry on
canvas and then calling in a house painter to smear on a daub of blue
for his coat, a bit of yellow for his hair, white for his collar, and
just anything for the background. At worst, though, this futuristic
result can be taken to the attic, turned face to the wall and
forgotten; but a botched house won't let you forget. You have to live
in it along with your mistakes, day after day and, possibly, year
after year. When and if you finally call in an architect and have them
remedied or obviated, the cost will be considerably in excess of what
his total fee would have been in the beginning.
So, find the best man practicing in the vicinity where your future
home is to be located and cast your burdens on his drafting board.
Give him ample information as to what suits your fancy and conforms to
your family needs. Then he can proceed with the preliminary sketches.
From these eventually will come the plan of action to be followed by
the various artisans who will do the work. But house plans, whether
for new construction, remodeling or renovating, do not spring from the
drafting board complete and final overnight. They are based on more
preliminary effort than most people without building experience
realize.
This is particularly true of the country home. In cities and suburbs,
building plots are more or less standardized units in a checker-board
with two controlling factors, so many feet of street frontage and such
and such depth. Local building ordinances sharply limit the type and
size of structure. The country offers much greater latitude. Such
matters as topography, location of existing trees, and points of the
compass with relation to the main rooms of the house play important
roles.
We well remember a dismal example of what can happen when these
controlling factors are ignored. The owner was an opinionated man with
a passion for economy. House building was to him no mystery. It was
just foundations, side walls, roof, stairways, interior partitions
and, of course, plumbing, heating and so forth. His house was "going
to cost just so much and people who paid architects' fees for plans
had more money than brains." Besides, he had seen a sketch and floor
plans of a house in a magazine that were good enough for him. He knew
a builder who could follow them and what more did one need?
[Illustration: A REALLY EARLY AMERICAN INTERIOR. THE GREAT FIREPLACE
OF THE WAYSIDE INN, SUDBURY, MASS.
_Henry Ford_]
The little matter of relating the structure to the site concerned him
not at all, nor did it enter his head that a house could face anywhere
except towards the road. As for the contractor, it was not for him to
reason why, but to build. So they went to work and a house entirely
made up of good things done in the wrong way was the result. An
outcropping of rock meant expensive blasting, so the magazine-pictured
house was set firmly down almost on the roots of a fine row of old
pine trees by the roadside. Through these the wind howled mournfully
at night and by day their shade made the main rooms of the ground
floor distinctly gloomy.
It was an ambitious house and the leaded glass windows of the living
room faced north. So keeping its temperature at a comfortable point in
winter was an added difficulty. The sunny southwestern exposure, being
at the back, was given over to kitchen and servants' quarters. Lastly,
the one pleasing prospect, a friendly little valley with a meandering
brook, could only be seen to advantage from the garage. The
architect's fee had been saved but when, a little later, the owner
wanted to sell, it took several years to find a buyer and then only at
a price of half the money invested. The new owner consulted an
architect with a gift for rearranging and so succeeded in mitigating
the worst features and in taking advantage of the cheerful aspects
inherent with the site. Like a good doctor or lawyer, an able
architect can usually get you out of trouble; but the ancient slogan,
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," fits admirably
here.
Do not, however, engage an architect as lightly as you would select a
cravat. To him you are intrusting the task of putting your chaotic and
half-expressed thoughts and desires into a set of plans that will
guide and control masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and
painters in their work. As your professional adviser, it will be his
job to bridge the gap between the date of purchase and the happy
occasion when your household goods are deposited in a home embodying
your ideas and wishes.
Obviously he must be in sympathy with those ideas. If you are building
a new house on old lines or remodeling an existing structure with a
century or more to its credit, don't select a man to advise you who
can see nothing but the newest and most modernistic types of
architecture. Don't be afraid to ask for evidences of past
performances. Since no architect discards his plans and renderings, he
will be glad to show you a few of them. Also in this initial
conference, names of clients for whom he has executed commissions
within the fairly recent past may be mentioned. It is sensible to
consult two or three of these. If he has pleased them, he is probably
fitted to undertake your problems. For solving them and knowing how to
get desired results, you will pay him a fee that ranges from six to
ten per cent of the total cost of the work undertaken. For special
cases that involve unusual work, it may be slightly higher. The
amount of the fee, as well as the dates at which portions of it become
payable, will be settled in your initial interview.
There are occasional men, however, calling themselves architects who
are not qualified. They have no degree from a recognized school;
cannot qualify for registration in states where architects, like
doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professional people, must have a
state license to practice. Like other charlatans, such men are glib
talkers but it takes real ability and thorough training to prepare
practical plans and specifications. Here is where the dabster betrays
himself. A little independent investigation may prevent you from
putting your building problems into the hands of such an incompetent
man.
The need of an architect where a new house is to be built or an old
one completely remodeled is obvious. We are convinced that the same
holds true where only minor changes, replacements and the introduction
of modern conveniences are the program. Our own little country home is
an example. The necessary alterations were so simple that it seemed
ridiculous to ask architectural advice. There was nothing to the job
but to install plumbing, move one partition, patch the plastering, and
close chimney and other pipe openings cut in the days when stoves,
rather than fireplaces, furnished heat.
We engaged a good local man who, with his crew of four or five
helpers, was accustomed to doing everything from carpentry to
plumbing. His labor charges were on a per diem basis and considerably
under the union scale that then prevailed. Nothing was left
indefinite. We understood exactly how the work was to be done and what
materials we were to supply. In due time it was finished and we moved
in. Two or three years later, we discovered some serious shortcomings.
For instance, the kitchen sink was hung in the wrong place and,
because it was easier, all of the water pipes were placed on outside
walls. This made no difference when the house was occupied only during
the summer months but during the first winter we became experts in
thawing pipes that "caught" whenever the temperature dropped to zero.
There was another economy that proved quite the opposite even before
the work was finished. We had agreed that wherever the old lath and
plaster were in bad condition, they were to be removed and replaced
with a paper wall board then being widely advertised as an inexpensive
substitute. But we had reckoned without the idiosyncrasies of an 18th
century house. When the old lath and plaster had been cleared away,
our handyman contractor discovered that the old beams and uprights
were spaced at eighteen-inch intervals, while our new wall board came
in widths conforming to the sixteen-inch spacing that has been
standard with American house construction for a century. It was too
late to return the wall board so new nailing strips, sixteen inches
apart, had to be installed. This took time and when the so-called
inexpensive substitute was finally in place, the total cost actually
exceeded that of the more satisfactory lath and plaster.
Further, because nobody was at hand to prevent it, we lost a good
partition of feather-edge boarding. It was between two of the
bedrooms, concealed beneath several layers of wallpaper. When
stripped, two or three cracks were found through which one could look
from one room to the other. These could have been filled with wooden
shims but the workmen did not stop to think of that. They ripped it
out and put in a tight and modest partition of that ultra-modern wall
board. It was well done mechanically and is still in place, but we
mourn that original paneling of native white wood and continually keep
an eye out for some like it.
Eventually, when all the mistakes of ignorance and lack of supervision
have been corrected, we will have spent several times the total of the
architect's fee. So we are out of pocket and, except for relocating
the water piping, we are still looking at and repenting most of the
results of our false economy.
Thus, an architect is all-important with a house problem whether it
involves a minor or major undertaking and it is logical to ask exactly
what he does for his fee. Consider, for instance, his functions and
services when a new house is to be built. As a beginning, owner and
architect meet, inspect the site, while the architect, like any good
diagnostician, asks questions. These deal with the type of house the
owner thinks he wants, the number of rooms, baths, and so forth and,
finally, the amount of money he is prepared to spend. He offers few
opinions of his own at this interview but rather tries to read his
client's mind so that preliminary sketches and plans will approximate
that mental picture.
A few days later, tentative sketches of a house designed to suit the
location are submitted. Out of them grow the revised ones. It is
highly improbable that his initial suggestions will suit you in every
detail. It takes time and interchange of ideas before this can be
accomplished. When they reach the stage where they represent the house
you want, the architect prepares a complete set of working drawings,
including floor plans and side wall elevations. These are drawn on a
scale of one quarter of an inch to the foot. As soon as the drawings
are finished, he drafts the specifications or bill of particulars as
to materials to be used in the construction of the house. These with
the plans form the basis on which contractors may submit bids for the
work.
First, however, owner and architect should go over this material
together. Making changes after the contracts are let and the work
begun is both expensive and foolish. If you find it difficult to
visualize an actual house from the drawings, a model made from wall
board or similar material is a wise precaution. Fashioned on the same
scale of one quarter of an inch to the foot, it is your proposed house
in the little, and on seeing it no doubts are left. Windows and doors
are all in their proper places. The exterior is painted to match the
color and simulate the material that is to be used. Finally, the model
can be taken apart so that you can study the interior of bedroom and
living room floors. Such models, of course, are not included in the
architect's fee but the cost of one for an average house is under
$100. If you can visualize your proposed home thoroughly by it, the
expense is well warranted.
The architect can be of great service in the matter of contractor's
bids. He knows the past performances of those operating in the
vicinity where you propose building and can suggest the men or firms
whose work is most satisfactory. From four to eight general
contractors, that is, individuals or firms competent to undertake the
complete building operation, ought to be invited to submit sealed
bids. Each is supplied with a complete set of plans and specifications
by the architect and given from ten days to two weeks in which to
submit their bids. In addition to the total price for the work, these
bids, by common custom, give the names of the chief sub-contractors
such as plumber, electrician and the like, with the amount of money
allocated for the work of each.
On a set day, usually a Saturday afternoon, owner and architect meet,
open the bids, and compare the offers made by the various contractors.
Most of them include alternate provisions on condition that they be
allowed to substitute materials or methods of construction not
according to the specifications. The contractor who submits the lowest
bid would logically be the one selected but here again the architect's
judgment is valuable. First, he can rapidly determine whether the
provisional saving suggested by substitution of unspecified materials
is a wise change. Second, he knows whether the bidder under
consideration is dependable or inclined to skimp in hidden but
essential points.
There is, also, the possible chance that none of the bids submitted
come within the sum the owner is prepared to spend. Then comes the
task of revising plans and specifications and eliminating
non-essentials to bring costs within the set figure. From practical
experience, however, architects have found that, if the proposed house
is just what the owner wants, he will somehow find the additional
money rather than have plans or details changed.
After a contractor whose bid and quality of work are satisfactory has
been selected, the architect, acting for the owner, lets the contract
to him. This includes provisions for partial payments at stated
periods as the work progresses; so much when the masonry is completed;
another amount when the exterior walls are finished; and so on,
including plumbing, heating, plastering and electrical wiring. With
each payment, fifteen per cent of the total is held back and does not
become due until the entire work has been finished. This is a standard
practice and is intended to insure completion of the contract to the
satisfaction of both owner and architect. Under this provision, the
architect certifies to the owner each month that certain work has been
done and that the contractor is entitled to so much money for it.
From the day that construction starts, the architect begins his work
of supervision. At least twice a week he goes to the site and observes
the progress of the work and how it is being done. Special conditions
may arise where the contractor or his foreman call hurriedly for the
architect, such as uncovering a large boulder at one corner of the
excavation for the cellar. There may be a fine point to be decided
regarding the location of piping or some detailed instruction
concerning the installation of the interior woodwork. On these
occasions it saves time for everybody if the architect or one of his
associates is readily available. Watching the cellar excavation for
unexpected subsurface water is also an item that no experienced
architect neglects. He sees to it that concrete for foundations is
mixed properly and has the specified percentage of cement. The
installation of piping for plumbing and heating is supervised
carefully, as is the work of plastering.
As the house nears completion, his supervision increases in direct
ratio. In fact, during the last two or three weeks, the architect is
not infrequently there most of the time. The last details of the
interior trim are being completed, decorating is under way, and
lighting fixtures are being installed. All of these require direct
supervision and the architect expects to be on hand. These final
details can make or mar the general effect more than is realized.
When your house is finished to the architect's satisfaction, he gives
his final approval and thirty days thereafter the final bill of the
contractor is payable. This period is to allow for minor adjustments,
such as windows that stick, doors that will not latch and the like,
the small things that always need to be done with any new house and
are generally attended to after the owner and his family have taken
possession.
Just as the general contractor is paid in installments, the
architect's fee is likewise liquidated. There is a standard schedule
which provides that one-fifth of the estimated fee shall be paid on
completion of satisfactory preliminary sketches; two-fifths when the
plans and specifications are finished or on letting the contract for
actual building. The balance is paid monthly in proportion to the
amounts paid the contractor.
When a house is to be remodeled, the architect proceeds in much the
same way. He presents suggested sketches of the ways in which the
desired changes can be accomplished. When these are satisfactory,
working drawings are prepared that show what is to be removed and what
new construction undertaken. The working drawings are, of course,
accompanied by a set of specifications, and contractors are invited to
submit bids for doing the work. On letting the contract, work proceeds
about as with that of building a new house. There are, however, more
opportunities for unforeseen contingencies and so the architect often
has to devote more of his time to supervision. Sometimes, if the
particular remodeling project is one requiring unusual care, the
percentage of his fee is a little higher by special arrangement.
Where a house requires minor changes that qualify merely as
renovation, the architect's work is, of course, much simpler.
Extensive preliminary sketches are unnecessary, and complete floor
and elevation plans not required. But architectural investigation,
planning and supervision, as stated before, are highly desirable if
not essential. His fee is usually the same ten per cent as applies for
new construction. There is less actual plan drafting but the amount of
supervision is so much in excess of that required for new construction
that such a charge is by no means unreasonable. Besides, the owner has
the assurance that all changes and new installations will be done
properly with no glaring errors of judgment to mock him as he settles
down to life in his country home.
BUILDING VERSUS REMODELING
[Illustration]
_CHAPTER V_
BUILDING VERSUS REMODELING
"Shall I build or remodel?" is a question with so many facets that it
would be foolhardy to try to answer it categorically. Circumstances
alter cases in all phases of life and particularly so when one is
endeavoring to decide whether the country home is to be a new
structure, or an old one remodeled to make the best use of its
desirable features and suit the requirements of its new owner.