Our 60' x 125' steel barndo in Central Florida (Lake County) is two homes and a shop under one roof. Plans are signed and sealed. We're still pre-permit. Here's the order that actually moves dirt: 1. Survey 2. Plot plan 3. Septic 4. Building permit Skip a step and the county sends you back. With a steel kit, the supplier does not run permits or the site plan for you. That's on the owner-builder. One more local gotcha: Lake County wants every tree 6 inches and up on the survey. An older survey with topo gaps isn't enough. Redo it once, do it right. We're sitting on that survey step right now. Boring? Yes. It's also where most barndo timelines quietly die. If you're planning a steel build, what's stuck on your critical path: survey, septic, or the permit itself? No BS. No keyboard warriors. Just the real path from dirt to move-in.

Pre-permit build update. Nothing's in the ground yet, but this one's worth sharing. Before final opening sizes go to the steel side, I checked our working window and door list against the signed and sealed drawings, line by line. Here's what I found: - All 7 window sizes matched. Good. - The counts didn't. One window type showed 21 on the list. The drawings show 7. - The drawings call for 63 doors. The list had 8. The overhead doors, the fire-rated doors between the houses and the shop, and every interior door were missing. I also locked in door heights this week. The two front entries are 8'0". Every other door, inside and out, is 6'8". Why this matters on a steel build: the building's structural drawings frame your openings. The rough opening depends on the exact door or window unit you pick, and that changes by manufacturer. Miss an opening or send the wrong size, and you end up fixing it in steel instead of on paper. The order I'm following: 1. Pick the actual units. 2. Get the real rough openings from the manufacturer. 3. Reconcile them against the sealed set. 4. Then send sizes to the steel supplier. Your turn: did you check your window and door schedule against your drawings before you ordered? What did you catch, or what did you wish you'd caught? (Every build is different. Check your own openings with your engineer and steel supplier.)

We have our last round of review drawings and have made a few edits, we're finalizing a permit set now! I have over 10 different bids for the structure, I will be compiling them together for everyone to review. Bids range from $140,000 to over $300,000! Coming up soon I'll be sharing multiple HVAC items along with plumbing, grading and concrete.

This is at least my 7th set of plans I've reviewed, edited, thrown out or any other synonym you can think of. I'll give you a hack, do not hire an engineer until you've gone through at least 3 iterations of your plans. Unless you are using a pre-engineered set of drawings with very minimal changes, draw it on paper, post it here and let's talk about it. Sleep on it, move the closets, add cabinets, throw out the unrealistic and refine. I offer a design package to get your hand drawings into CAD and Revit to bring it to life. It's a fraction of the cost of an engineer for you to get your layout down. You will still need an engineer to provide plan sets but we provide the in between. Less money to finalize a layout, not $300/hour for an engineer to move a couple walls and see how it works. DM me any questions, let's bring your ideas to life.

👋 Hey y’all — quick pulse check so I can share the right stuff in here. ⬇️ Drop your “phase” below (just pick one): 1) Dreaming / Pinterest mode 2) Land shopping 3) Land under contract / closing soon 4) Designing floor plan + exterior 5) Budgeting + getting bids 6) Financing / lender conversations 7) Permitting / pre-construction 8) Building right now 9) Finished / living in it (teach us your ways) What’s your biggest sticking point right now? (Example: “I can’t figure out realistic budget,” or “I don’t know how to choose a builder.”) Why I’m asking: I’m going to tailor upcoming posts + lives to whatever phase most of you are in. Also: If you haven’t yet, the Classroom walks you through this whole process step-by-step (land → design → budget/bids → build strategy). It’ll save you a ton of confusion and expensive mistakes. Go hit the Classroom tab after you comment and start with the section that matches your phase.