Tour of a Custom Home Under Construction in Ramona

New Custom Home Tour with Bill Freeman

Good morning! It’s Bill Freeman with Freeman’s Construction. We’re here in Ramona on a custom home project we’re building. We want to take you on tour and show you some of the features of this home.

Huge RV Garage

So we’re here in the front of the garage on this home, and on this particular home, we have a huge RV garage, a unique feature that we only do a little. We’re able to structurally make this work by having strong walls so that you can see the concrete there, we have a one-foot stem wall, and then we come up the 13-foot high to give us a 14-foot-high garage door. And we have at the bottom a footing at least six feet wide. It’s over two feet deep and probably six feet wide. Then, that way, all the strength comes from the concrete down in the ground on both sides.

So this is all solid concrete, running back in underneath the foundation. And then, we even have another one on the side. It’s not as tall, but since there’s not much wall, we can do the same to make this laterally and structurally sound and install a big door. So that’s how we do that when we don’t have a long wall to hold this building together laterally.

400 AMP Electrical Panel for Power

So another thing we’ve put in this home is a 400 amp electric panel. Since we’re going to have a 50 amp RV hookup and it’s such an oversized garage, there’ll be shop things in here, maybe a welder and other things. So we want to ensure that we have enough power to power up the RV and anything else in the home. A big conduit runs underground to the street pole, feeding it to the electrical panel. And then, the ones going down are conduits that go down under the slab to subpanels in the house. Also, we’ll have an RV dump in the back that can go over to the septic system. That way, if they need to dump their tanks.

Wildland Fire Code Stipulations for Fascia & Siding

The framers are here today putting up the fascia board. We have a two-by-four subfascia on there for the fire code. Then, the fascia that is exposed goes on top of that. And then, we have a fiber cement siding on the bottom, which is for compliance with the fire code. So everything has to have fiber cement siding. Otherwise, it doesn’t meet the fire code.

Oversized Beams and Open Beam Ceiling

This home will have upsized beams to eight-by-eight to give it a nice beefy look; it’s what the owners wanted. The whole back section will have exposed beams and an inch-and-a-half tongue and groove to give it a nice-looking open-beam ceiling.

Zero-Barrier Shower in the Master Bathroom

Inside the master bathroom, we have some cool features. One is, what we call, a zero-barrier shower; it’s lowered down about two inches in the concrete. And what that does, is it allows us to build this shower floor and then slope it without having the typical shower dam you have in a shower. So if you have a wheelchair or are worried about falling, this is a great feature to consider. So we’re doing these a lot more than we used to, but it’s a nice look too.

So this, we’ll get a hot box shower pan, it comes in and waterproofs everything. Then we’ll tile all the way across, and when we get to the shower, it’ll change to the shower floor tile, and then that will slope. There will be glass all the way around with a door. So it’ll be a nice enclosure.

Linear Niche & Separate Room for the Toilet

Another feature I want to show you is a linear niche we have built into the wall; we took a two-by-six wall that will be inside the wall of the closet. And then, we’ve ripped out material to finish this out. So now, it comes out to the full five and a half, and then, this goes across the whole back of the shower. So this, we’ll tile across and just run right into the corner. Then this will turn out a nice clean look, giving you all kinds of room here, whatever you’ll be keeping in your shower for showering and bathing.

And another thing in this bathroom that we only sometimes have due to it depending on the shower size is having the toilet in a separate room with a window.

Avoid Bothering Your Spouse When Getting Ready in the Mornings

So the master closets, there are two things we look at and talk to the owners about, and it’s, “how are you going to be using your closet? Are you getting up at different times of the day and night?” Typically, we like to have an entry to the closet in the bathroom to keep from waking anyone up. That way, they can get up, enter the bathroom, get ready, and go in and out of the closet to get their clothes without bothering their spouse.

If it doesn’t matter, a lot of times, and we’ve done this floor plan, this particular bathroom, we’ve had the door going in the closet in the wall right through to the bedroom. It all depends on your living habits and what time you each get up. So we can put the door over here coming from the bedroom or we can put it coming from the bathroom to get into the closet, so you’re not disturbing your spouse. So that’s an individual thing, and we always talk to our clients about that to ensure we get it right for their lifestyle.

Secondary Bathroom

So in the secondary bath, we have a linear drain that goes from wall to wall, which is cool the way it finishes. This bathroom also has a two-by-six plate that will provide a nice deep niche, so it’s an excellent finish with plenty of space. The shower head will go on the wall, and then, another feature, and this, you don’t see these in many secondary bathrooms, is, again, we have the toilet in a room all by itself. That way, if you have two kids, somebody can be in the toilet room and in here getting ready. So it’s nice that we had room to do that in this house.

How to Waterproof Your Patio Door

Another little feature we included in this custom home is recessed concrete about an inch and a half down from the height of the floor for the patio door. The reason for doing this is so we can waterproof everything and drop the door in. So the step going out is less high; it’s an excellent way to set up your patio if it has a door with a sill.

Custom Home Slab & Front Door Entrance

So the slab will bed down three and a half inches, so we structurally have an excellent slab underneath. It’s not doing anything structurally as far as supporting the footings, but that is something that we have to ensure that we get right when we set all this up to pour the concrete at the very end of the job. And we always wait to pour the flat work at the end, so it’s not getting anything on it. And it’s all nice and clean.

We may do a decorative concrete or stamp to finish it and make it look nice. There’s a multitude of things that we can do to dress things up. At the home’s entry, we have the big eight-by-eight exposed beams. There will also be a covered porch with an open beam that will run back at a three and 12-foot pitch on top of the other roof.

Scissor Trusses Inside the Home

Inside the home, we will have a scissor truss once you walk in. You can see that the ridge is not lined up at the ridge down here, but that’s a five and 12 pitch right there at the top. And right now, we’re also talking about potentially putting some exposed beams in here. But they won’t be structural because they’re just going to be up underneath the trusses. So we’re deciding what we’re going to do about that. But this could all be wood, which is another nice look. But that’s just something that we’re thinking about doing right now.

Contact Freeman's Construction Inc

Contact us to schedule a consultation if you want to build a home or an accessory dwelling unit. We’re a full-service real estate and building company specializing in residential real estate. You can also check out all of our videos on realpropertytv.com. We have a ton of information you can check out and get more information. Thanks for joining me, and have a great rest of your day.