DIY Network

WEB-EXTRA Contractor Profile: Glenn and Dawn Morgan; Colorado Ski-Country Home From "Be Your Own Contractor: Vacation Homes" episode DBCV-108

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Following below is some additional information on the Colorado mountain vacation-home house and the homeowners featured in this episode of DIY's Be Your Own Contractor: Vacation Homes.

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Homeowners Glen and Dawn Morgan

Owner/Builders

Glenn and Dawn Morgan.

Bios

Glen is a product and project manager for a commercial-bank holding company and Dawn is an investment banker. The couple lives in Golden, Colorado -- 96 miles (a two-hour drive) northeast of their vacation home.

Home Specifics

This vacation home is approximately 1430 square feet with a 576-square-foot attached garage built on three acres. It is nestled in the middle of an aspen grove.

According to Glen,"The house is truly an amalgam of design features of dozens of mountain homes we've seen during the years we've lived in Colorado. It contains many of the typical log-cabin features, but also includes a number of styling elements of what I call 'Colorado mining shack' design. While the architecture is very simple, it's a design that will fit our lifestyle perfectly. We think it is extremely practical, too. The house combines the best elements of homes that have been properly built to withstand the tough weather conditions that exist at 10,000 feet above sea level, without being prohibitively expensive in its construction or materials."

Location

The house and three-acre property are located at the base of the Rocky Mountains, in a gated community about three miles from downtown Fairplay, Colorado. The site is located about 30 miles south of the ski-resort town of Breckenridge.

"It’s about 90 miles from Denver and situated about midway between Colorado Springs and Denver," says Glen, "so it's an ideal area for people that want to commute on weekends from either of the metropolitan areas."

Why Build There?

"This neighborhood is surrounded by a national forest land that has a wide system of trails that are great for hiking and mountain biking and riding dirt bikes and quads," says Dawn. "It’s just a beautiful area. It's got that open vista that makes it look like a John Wayne movie that we love. And it's just very Colorado."

"It's about midway between some of the best whitewater rafting in the western US and world class skiing," adds Glen. "There's also some of the very best big-game hunting in this area and blue-ribbon trout water. So it's the right combination of being remote and rustic and also being close to some of the stuff that brings people to Colorado from all over the world."

Why Glen Chose to Act as His Own Contractor

"The proposals from several GC'ss and modular builders were too expensive," says Glen. "Most of the builders in that area are accustomed to working with extremely well-heeled customers in Breckenridge. We had a $150 per-square-foot target that we wanted to stick to, and the best way to stay within that budget was to put the project together ourselves. We also had much more flexibility in choosing materials and furnishings – while staying within our budget. I had acted as my own GC to build our primary residenc. The iinstant equity and pride of ownership that gave us couldn't be matched by a turnkey building."

Involvement with Building

According to Glen,"Very little of the actual construction was done by us. I've done some painting, but little else was done by me. I am only onsite one day each week and, while I'm a semi-accomplished carpenter, tile layer, and painter, the time to do those things just isn't available."

But Glen still spent countless hours in home-improvement and furnishing stores picking out everything from bathtubs, to light fixtures, kitchen/bath cabinets and countertops. And it took about 20-30 hours a week of Glen's time to keep up with the project, including the once-weekly 4-hour round trip to the site to meet with his project manager.

Project Facts

• Glen hired a local Fairplay home-improvement contractor, Art Anderson, to serve as his project manager. Art's role was to assist in the selection of sub-contractors, to visit the site on a regular basis, to contact and meet with building inspectors, to report progress and issues and to"fill in" whenever the contract didn't quite cover all the details. According to Glen,"This was the most important contract I awarded."

• Glen took full advantage of the internet in the planning and execution of this project. Glen knew that it would be difficult, with the site being a nearly two-hour drive from his home, because he would have to handle everything remotely. "The saving grace was the internet," he says. "Between emails, sending digital photographs back and forth, that made it practical, and I frankly don't think it would have been if I hadn't had access to that kind of technology."

Challenges

• When they went to start the excavation, the County Health Department was there to look at the soil conditions and run a perk test. Before the excavator ever had an opportunity to dig the first hole, they told him to stop. It was suspect that, because of the flora, that the land might qualify as a federally protected wetland. Glen had to hire an environmental engineer to come out to dig test holes, to take soil samples, document the flora on the property and write a report which she submitted to the Army Corps Of Engineers suggesting whether the site chosen for the house was or was not a wetland. As it turned out, the engineer did identify, a small strip of property (not near the building site that) that did have all of the primary criteria to qualify as a wetland. But the projec was ultimately able to move forward because that portion of land far enough removed from the building site.

• "There were subcontractors available, but most prefer to work in Breckenridge with customers with much larger budgets," says Glen. He ended up recruiting many of the subs from Denver for that reason. Building had slowed down in Denver, and most of the subs there were happy to drive up to Fairplay and work in such a beautiful setting.

• "Dealing with subcontractors and building inspectors over the telephone [was a challenge]," says Glen. "It is easy to be inflexible and difficult with someone over the phone. Face to face meetings are much more effective when you need to get someone’s cooperation.

Advice

Glen: ""For anyone who's not done this before, be mindful that trades-people have a looser standard when it comes to adhering to times schedules. That would probably be my first and most important piece of advice to anybody who undertakes this kind of project."

Glen: "It's absolutely essential to be committed to the project. It wasn't unheard of that I'd get calls at 5:30, quarter to six in the morning reporting some problem. You just have to remember that it takes 100% of your available time without any kind of compromise for the duration of the project. Anything less and you're just not going to get it done."

Dawn: "You’ll have to be prepared, because the project will consume most of your attention. It really did consume our leisure time attention for the past year, first, finding a property and deciding to buy it, and then picking out the design of the house, and the ongoing management of the process. While Glen did pretty much all of it, we did talk about it all the time. There’s just a million details. It's been the focus of our lives for the past year."

Glen:"Don't underestimate the amount of work that it requires. If you're not afraid of having virtually a second part-time job, if you feel like you're up to it, if your travel schedule allows and that sort of thing, because that's really an imposition, if you're asked to go out of town. It makes it doubly difficult to stay on top of things. Don't have any illusions about just being able to cruise through it."

Glen:"I don't know that I'd suggest that anybody try it without one trusted subcontractor, specifically a project manager, who's going to visit the site at least once daily, on retainer. I think that was essential, and I think that, anyone trying to do it without that sort of boots-on-the-ground representing you, will find it frustrating and difficult and considerably more expensive than they originally imagined."

RESOURCES :

Investing in a Vacation Home for Pleasure and Profit
Author: James H. Boykin
Order this book from Amazon.com
Publisher: South-Western Educational Pub (2005)
ISBN: 0324314116

How a Second Home Can Be Your Best Investment: New, Tax-Free Methods for Using a Vacation Home for Recreation, Retirement and Investment
Authors: Tom Kelly, John Tuccillo
Order this book from Amazon.com
Publisher: McGraw-Hill (2004)
ISBN: 0071429700