Lessons from a Contractor’s Wife – Part 5
Hi, I’m Sarah! I’m the wife of Lucas Casper, the owner of Casper Builders. Usually, I stay happily on the sidelines of the business, but when Lucas and I decided to build our own house this year, I suddenly found myself wearing many hats: part-time designer, part-time laborer, part-time project manager, and full-time “gofer.” During this experience, I learned valuable owner-builder lessons and truly understand why general contractors are worth it.
In this blog series, I’m going to share what building a custom home looks like from the non-professional’s perspective—the surprises, the lessons learned, and all the little details that no one tells you about until you’re in the thick of it. Come see how the sausage is made!
Part 5: Trust, but Verify
Remember back in Part 2 when I mentioned our timeline was off the rails due to factors outside our control? Delays due to vendors, inspectors, and suppliers are a reality homebuilders need to get comfortable with.
Remember that door quote I mentioned waiting five or so months for? That supplier isn’t alone. I’ve encountered multiple vendors who seem genuinely perplexed by the concept that someone wants to exchange money for their products in a timely manner.
Now, to be fair—I know suppliers have their own suppliers, who have their own suppliers, and so on down the chain. I completely understand that delays happen that are outside their control as well. Supply chains are complicated, and logistics can be impacted by any number of things, and sometimes things just go sideways.
Let me introduce you to the sliding glass door saga.
Our sliding glass door arrived recently and with colder weather upon us, we decided to install them to keep the adorable, but decidedly outdoor critters, outdoors. When we opened the delivery, we discovered it required full assembly. Not a few screws here and there, but every part needed to be assembled without pilot holes drilled, etc. Lucas has installed hundreds of doors over his career and has never had one show up completely disassembled. This door was priced similarly to other fully assembled options we’d found, so there was zero cost benefit to this surprise DIY project.
What should have been a 30-minute installation turned into Lucas and me spending three hours deciphering unclear instructions and squinting at microscopic, poorly drawn illustrations that created more questions than they answered. (Pro tip: take a picture of the image and use your phone to zoom in).
LESSON: Ask more questions—even the ones that feel ridiculously basic—to triple-check you know exactly what you’re getting and when.
I ordered this door and while I’m fairly certain I asked about the door arriving fully assembled with nailing flanges, I have nothing in writing that specifically confirms those details. I have a written quote, sure, but it doesn’t include that level of specificity. And without documentation, I can’t be fully sure what I specified.
LESSON: Get quotes AND specifics in writing. If the quote doesn’t include detailed information, document the conversation yourself.
Take screenshots of emails. Save text messages. Write down phone conversations with dates and names. It feels excessive until the day you get a box that jingles with the sound of parts and you want to confirm you ordered the assembled version, not the build-it-yourself-and-cry version.
This whole experience has given me a newfound appreciation for what general contractors (GC) do every day. They’re the ones responsible for hounding suppliers, following up seventeen times on the same order, and becoming the professional pain-in-the-neck so you can blissfully go about your daily life, completely unaware that someone is fighting battles over window specs and door ROs on your behalf.
LESSON: Use a general contractor whenever humanly possible.
Here’s the thing—I’d love to pawn all of this off to a GC. Unfortunately, in my case, the general contractor is my husband, and by extension, me. Which means I’m the one making the follow-up calls, sending the reminder emails, and trying desperately not to become “that customer” while simultaneously needing to be assertive enough to actually get things done.
It’s a delicate balance between being persistent and being the person suppliers see calling and immediately let it go to voicemail. I like to think I’m walking that line gracefully, not only because “you get more flies with honey than with vinegar,” but also because many of these suppliers have relationships with Lucas and I’m fully aware he sometimes gets preferential scheduling, etc. I wouldn’t otherwise be privy to.
The reality is this: building a custom home requires an enormous amount of project management, communication, and follow-through. Every material, every fixture, every window and door has to be ordered, tracked, delivered, and verified. When you’re acting as your own GC (or married to one), you realize just how many moving pieces could go wrong at any moment—and frequently do.
If you’re planning a custom build and have the budget for a general contractor, use one. They’ve built relationships with reliable suppliers, they know which vendors actually return phone calls, and they know what to ask and ask for up front. Their fee isn’t just for managing the construction schedule—it’s for shielding you from the chaos of three-hour door assemblies and five-month quote waits.
And if you can’t use a GC? Stock up on patience, research the kinds of questions you should ask up front, create a detailed paper trail for everything, and get comfortable with lots of YouTube videos.