The Saga: Owner-Builders
From early on in the process, we had decided that we would be owner-builders. It's not that it was a desire to do so, but a necessity. In building a healthy home where all the materials going into the structure needed to be approved by us, the owners, it was absolutely necessary to maintain control over what was being used by whom: every subcontractor, every trade. Being on site daily was what was necessary, and being able to speak directly with any tradesman was vital. If something was happening that shouldn't happen in a healthy home, then it would have to be stopped immediately.
Now, this sounds rather obvious, but it's important to realize how most General Contractors work, at least in Southern Oregon. They have multiple jobs going on simultaneously, and are always looking for more work. They show up on any one job site here and there, and play a supervisory role when they are there. When they are not there, someone is usually performing the role of foreman or superintendent.
We needed more control than that, and that's why we were going to be owner-builders.
But then we found Larry Belau. A builder for some 30 years, his business model has always been to have one job at a time, and to do as much of the work himself as possible. He's there every day, and is a "hands-on" manager of the project.
In other words, we were able to find an experienced, seasoned General Contractor who would do what we were certain we would have to do ourselves. What a relief!
And Larry turned out to be everything that we wanted in a General Contractor: he was our representative, our proxy, our guardian. He got to know us well enough so that when a sub wanted to do something, Larry might say, "I'm not so sure Ken and Marbeth would want that. Let's get them in on the decision." And he was right every time!