Last week we had a few people lined up to come in and do their thing. We were all excited and expected to see some good progress. Sounds great, right?
Well nobody showed up. (Hence my lack of posting last week)
Ok that's a bit of a lie. the mudders and tapers showed up on Friday but I am not sure what they did all day because everything in the house looks the same. The sewer guy and the water meter guy were both no-shows.
They have been rescheduled to come this week. Today is a holiday so no workers today which means a 4 day work week. We have 4 days for 6 guys (or crews depending on what we're talking about here) to show up. I am not holding my breath.
If by some miracle they all show up here's what will be done on the house:
- More drywall mudding and taping. This is going to take until the end of the month at least.
- Basement electrical work will be done
- Basement plumbing will be done (or least up to the point that we can drywall down there)
- Water meter and pressure tank installed (Hello water! and shower!!)
- Sewer work
- Basement ductwork
- Basement drywall hopefully started
The Husband and I are working on prepping the garage slab this week too so that our mechanical guy can run the in-floor heating in there sooner rather than later. The slab prep is the only thing I can guarantee that we'll see some progress on. Well that and the electrical work, I love our electrician. I need to bake him a cake. He's awesome.
If any of the rough-in work (electrical, mechanical, plumbing) is delayed this week it's going to cause us a pretty big headache. If we can get the RIs done by the end of this week the drywallers can board the basement and keeping mudding the whole house all at once so that we don't have all the upper floors done and then wait for them to come back and finish the basement later on. If we end up doing the basement later we can still continue on with the upper floors. It would just be so much easier to be done with drywall in the house and then we/our painter can paint (we haven't decided what's what with the painting yet) the whole house at once.
Let's all cross our fingers and hope that everyone shows up this week!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Weekend Wrap Up
So after The Husband's meeting with our concrete guy we decided to skip the concrete staining. He confirmed what TH and I had already suspected, that the staining was going to add weeks to our already delayed schedule. This wasn't something that TH and I were willing to wait over. Especially considering the fact that we didn't really like the stains we had selected to sample. TH also learned at his meeting that we can purchase tinted sealants that we can apply later on down the road. I am not sure I want a color, I am fine with the concrete color, it just needs to be sealed. Whichever way we choose to go can be decided later on so we chose to keep moving ahead with the basement.
This weekend we tackled the framing in the basement. We are only finishing part of the basement, a bathroom and my gym. The rest of the basement will remain unfinished and closed off from the finished part.
The basement walls are completed I just don't have any pictures of the finished product. Framed walls are pretty hard to comprehend in photos anyways, or at least I find them to be.
I know it might seem a bit weird that all of our upper levels are drywalled but our basement wasn't even framed yet but that's what happens when you build over winter. The ground was too frozen for the plumber to do his ground works when we were working on the framing of the rest of the house. This delayed when we could pour our slab, which then delayed when we could frame the walls in the basement. We were planning on just moving ahead with the upper levels (the main living spaces) and then drywall the basement when we do the garage but the drywaller wanted to do the whole house at once to save setup time on his end. We moved the basement walls up on the schedule hoping to satisfy the drywaller but all of our trades are on vacation this week, scheduling fail. We'll have to see how things play out in the next couple of weeks, it might end up still working out with the drywallers schedule. If not we're just out a bit more $$. Not the end of the world.
We did get some other trades lined up for the week. The water meter and water pressure tank are going to be installed later on this week. That sounds so boring but it is one step closer to having running water. Seriously, I am jealous of all you who can just walk to a faucet and turn the tap on and having a never ending supply of water ( I am going to assume that's all of you).
Our sewer guy (hey, every house needs one) is coming later on this week to finish hooking up our sceptic tank and sewer mound.
The crew is still on schedule to start mudding and taping the drywall in the house.
We met with our painter, who isn't coming this week but, is really flexible and is able to come as a soon as we need him to and it will only take 2 days to do our prime and first coat. Yay for something happening quickly! Then we'll be able to move onto cabinet install. (sooooo excited about this. We picked up samples of our cabinet doors the other day and they look amazing.)
Now for the bad news. We had heard that booking tile setters can be challenging here so we called 4-6 weeks in advance. We contacted the 2 best tile setters in town and they are both busy for at least 2 or 3 months. No bueno. (Hey, those Spanish classes paid off after all!) So right now it's looking like we are going to attempt to do our tile work on our own. It looks so easy on TV. Right? Right?
I kid, I kid. We really are going to attempt to do our own tile, just with a bit more guidance than from the crew on Holmes on Holmes. If it works out with my parent's schedule (who knew retired people would be so busy?!) they are going to come and help us out. My dad is really handy and has experience tiling and one of tile setters that is too busy to do our house offered to teach us Tiling 101 for Dummies. Hopefully with all of their knowledge combined we can lay down some decent looking tile.
Lots happening on the house building front this week! I think once we get the house painted, things are going to start moving really quickly. Or at least that's what I am telling myself....
This weekend we tackled the framing in the basement. We are only finishing part of the basement, a bathroom and my gym. The rest of the basement will remain unfinished and closed off from the finished part.
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| Gym walls in progress |
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| Bathroom walls in progress |
The basement walls are completed I just don't have any pictures of the finished product. Framed walls are pretty hard to comprehend in photos anyways, or at least I find them to be.
I know it might seem a bit weird that all of our upper levels are drywalled but our basement wasn't even framed yet but that's what happens when you build over winter. The ground was too frozen for the plumber to do his ground works when we were working on the framing of the rest of the house. This delayed when we could pour our slab, which then delayed when we could frame the walls in the basement. We were planning on just moving ahead with the upper levels (the main living spaces) and then drywall the basement when we do the garage but the drywaller wanted to do the whole house at once to save setup time on his end. We moved the basement walls up on the schedule hoping to satisfy the drywaller but all of our trades are on vacation this week, scheduling fail. We'll have to see how things play out in the next couple of weeks, it might end up still working out with the drywallers schedule. If not we're just out a bit more $$. Not the end of the world.
We did get some other trades lined up for the week. The water meter and water pressure tank are going to be installed later on this week. That sounds so boring but it is one step closer to having running water. Seriously, I am jealous of all you who can just walk to a faucet and turn the tap on and having a never ending supply of water ( I am going to assume that's all of you).
Our sewer guy (hey, every house needs one) is coming later on this week to finish hooking up our sceptic tank and sewer mound.
The crew is still on schedule to start mudding and taping the drywall in the house.
We met with our painter, who isn't coming this week but, is really flexible and is able to come as a soon as we need him to and it will only take 2 days to do our prime and first coat. Yay for something happening quickly! Then we'll be able to move onto cabinet install. (sooooo excited about this. We picked up samples of our cabinet doors the other day and they look amazing.)
Now for the bad news. We had heard that booking tile setters can be challenging here so we called 4-6 weeks in advance. We contacted the 2 best tile setters in town and they are both busy for at least 2 or 3 months. No bueno. (Hey, those Spanish classes paid off after all!) So right now it's looking like we are going to attempt to do our tile work on our own. It looks so easy on TV. Right? Right?
I kid, I kid. We really are going to attempt to do our own tile, just with a bit more guidance than from the crew on Holmes on Holmes. If it works out with my parent's schedule (who knew retired people would be so busy?!) they are going to come and help us out. My dad is really handy and has experience tiling and one of tile setters that is too busy to do our house offered to teach us Tiling 101 for Dummies. Hopefully with all of their knowledge combined we can lay down some decent looking tile.
Lots happening on the house building front this week! I think once we get the house painted, things are going to start moving really quickly. Or at least that's what I am telling myself....
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Concrete Staining
We are only going to finish part of our basement to start off with. The finished part will have my gym, a bathroom, and a hallway. The unfinished part has a mechanical room, an open space that might eventually be our office, and a bedroom. Because of how we will likely use this space we don't want to a finished flooring, like carpet, downstairs so we have been planning on staining and sealing the concrete floor in the basement. Earlier this week our concrete guy came by and did some color samples for us.
The colors we chose to sample (from left to right) were Cocoa Brown, Sumatra Brown, Nutty Brown, and Black Diamond. We thought that the Black Diamond looked like the concrete was burnt, and the Sumatra Brown looked like we were trying to cover up a crime scene. Those two colors were out. That left us with Nutty Brown and Cocoa Brown. We both preferred the Nutty Brown but it is a bit on the dark side and there is no natural light in the basement so we felt it would look even darker downstairs. That leaves us with Cocoa Brown (the one on the very left). I like the color but I am not sure that there is enough color difference between that and the concrete to justify the extra cost. We are now contemplating just sealing the concrete or maybe just painting the floor in the bathroom. Skipping the staining also means that we could get to work on the basement even sooner.
The Husband has a meeting set up with our concrete guy and they are going to discuss our options and the schedule but for now it looks like we are going to skip the staining and figure out our concrete finish later.
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| Concrete stain color samples |
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
It's About TIme!
I have been anxious and excited for our house to be drywalled for what seems like forever. In reality, it's only been a couple of months, but who's counting?
Our house finally looks like a house! Look at us go!
They started boarding on Friday and they were done on Wednesday! Holy crap on a cracker, they were fast. They aren't done the mudding and taping, that will happen next week sometime, but the boarding went really fast. There's nothing I love more than trades that work fast (except maybe the dog, oh and The Husband. I should probably include him in there somewhere too). Now with that being said a fast trade isn't always a good thing. In this case I think they could have done a bit better job and taken a little bit more time but their work is not bad. I think any cuts that are less than perfect can be fixed when they mud.
Anyways, enough babble, let's get on to the good stuff, pictures! Why would we talk about drywall when we can look at it!?
Our house finally looks like a house! Look at us go!
They started boarding on Friday and they were done on Wednesday! Holy crap on a cracker, they were fast. They aren't done the mudding and taping, that will happen next week sometime, but the boarding went really fast. There's nothing I love more than trades that work fast (except maybe the dog, oh and The Husband. I should probably include him in there somewhere too). Now with that being said a fast trade isn't always a good thing. In this case I think they could have done a bit better job and taken a little bit more time but their work is not bad. I think any cuts that are less than perfect can be fixed when they mud.
Anyways, enough babble, let's get on to the good stuff, pictures! Why would we talk about drywall when we can look at it!?
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| Look down at the spare bedroom level and linen closet from the Master Bedroom Level |
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| Sitting Room, Dining Room and part of the Kitchen |
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| Sitting Room, Front Entry, and part of the Dining Room |
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| Looking at the Kitchen from the Sitting Rom |
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| Family Room |
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| Windows in the Laundry Room |
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| Looking up into the Master Bedroom |
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| Reading Corner in the Master Bedroom |
Now we play the waiting game until the mudding and taping is done....
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Weekend Projects
The post title should really read, Weekend and Late Monday Night Projects but that doesn't sound as good.
We had a lot of little projects to tackle around the house last weekend to get everything ready for drywall.
Here's what our To Do List looked like:
-Screw and spray foam all the exterior doors
-Spray foam around the windows
-Apply acoustical sealant to any joints in the exterior walls that were too small to insulate
-Lay the fancy shmancy subfloor in the family room
-Fix the stairs going down to the family room
-Build the wall for the family room closet
-The build-out for the fireplace in the family room
-Clean the house (move a bunch of tools, garbage, plumbing fixtures, etc.)
-Get started on yard cleanup
Some of these are small jobs like all the spray foam and acoustical sealant. They don't take much time but are important in creating a thermal break for the house. I don't have any pictures of these, The spray foam you can't really see and the acoustical sealant looks like we rubbed tar on the walls. Not very pretty.
The subfloor took way longer than we thought it would. The floor is 2' x 2' panels that are a tongue and groove assembly, so that you can just hammer them into each other. The actual assembly was easy but levelling the floor out was tedious and we had to keep going back and ripping out panels that we had already laid. We are only done about 3/4 done the floor, we need to leave part of it open so that we can do some concrete color samples for the basement. I'll have more about that later on this week or next week.
When The Husband first starting building the stairs he miscalculated the rise on the top stair on the first set he built. The flooring extends all the way to the stairs and over the first riser so you have to account for the thickness of the flooring in the height of your first riser. The Husband somehow accounted for the flooring twice. Anyways, to fix this we thought that we were going to have to completely re-build them. Once The Husband took the stairs off he figured out that he could repair the existing stairs with a few modifications. Yay for time and material savings!
It's been so long since we built interior walls, I think I forgot how long they actually take to build. I thought that building the closet wall and putting it up would take half as long as it actually did. The fireplace build out wasn't too bad, except that we still needed to decide how we wanted to do it. We like leaving things to the last minute around here. This may have taken us longer than we thought but they are done! The only framing that we have left is the interior walls in the basement. It will probably be a couple of weeks before we can go ahead with those though.
We got the house all cleaned up and we got a good start on the yard cleanup. There is construction garbage everywhere. We got a few loads cleaned up and I got started on cleaning out the trees. Our acreage used to be a farmyard (maybe 50? years ago) The guy that used to live here had his shack house more in the trees and the area where we built our house was where he kept all his animals. We find some interesting things in the trees. Antique seeders and cultivators, old doors, wheels, fences, etc. We are trying to get this all cleaned up and get rid of some of the dead trees in the yard. We started on cleaning this up last fall and still have a ways to go but I got one little section mostly all cleaned out.
Not bad for a weekend's (plus a Monday night's) work!
We had a lot of little projects to tackle around the house last weekend to get everything ready for drywall.
Here's what our To Do List looked like:
-Screw and spray foam all the exterior doors
-Spray foam around the windows
-Apply acoustical sealant to any joints in the exterior walls that were too small to insulate
-Lay the fancy shmancy subfloor in the family room
-Fix the stairs going down to the family room
-Build the wall for the family room closet
-The build-out for the fireplace in the family room
-Clean the house (move a bunch of tools, garbage, plumbing fixtures, etc.)
-Get started on yard cleanup
Some of these are small jobs like all the spray foam and acoustical sealant. They don't take much time but are important in creating a thermal break for the house. I don't have any pictures of these, The spray foam you can't really see and the acoustical sealant looks like we rubbed tar on the walls. Not very pretty.
The subfloor took way longer than we thought it would. The floor is 2' x 2' panels that are a tongue and groove assembly, so that you can just hammer them into each other. The actual assembly was easy but levelling the floor out was tedious and we had to keep going back and ripping out panels that we had already laid. We are only done about 3/4 done the floor, we need to leave part of it open so that we can do some concrete color samples for the basement. I'll have more about that later on this week or next week.
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| Laying the subfloor panels |
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| The stair repair |
It's been so long since we built interior walls, I think I forgot how long they actually take to build. I thought that building the closet wall and putting it up would take half as long as it actually did. The fireplace build out wasn't too bad, except that we still needed to decide how we wanted to do it. We like leaving things to the last minute around here. This may have taken us longer than we thought but they are done! The only framing that we have left is the interior walls in the basement. It will probably be a couple of weeks before we can go ahead with those though.
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| Closet wall framed |
Not bad for a weekend's (plus a Monday night's) work!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Ch-ch-changes
As you can probably tell, I have made a few changes around here. I never liked the old design, I have always felt that it was too busy. I finally had some time to simplify it and add a few tabs at the top of the page to make things a bit easier to find. There are a still things I want to add but I think so far this is a big improvement.
What do you think of the new look?
Any tips on things that I should add or update?
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Adventures in Trailer Living - Part II
So what's it been like the past 9 months? It's been....interesting.
First off to give you a better of what our living situation is like, here are some interior pictures of a camper similar to our model:
So that's it. This is where we've been living. For a camper it's not too bad, for a house? It could be worse but it definitely could be better. Needless to say, this experience will make us appreciate our house that much more.
The pros of living in the trailer are that we were able to have our own space and on our own terms (more or less). To me having our own space was worth the challenges and inconvenience of temporarily living in a camper. I am not saying I would do it again, but in this case, the trailer suited our needs and provided us with a dry, warm, place to sleep. At the end of the day that's all you really need.
That's not saying that there aren't any negatives about living in a camper because, let me tell you, there are...
The top ten worst things about living in a camper:
10. The bed, couch, and other seating is uncomfortable. This isn't something that you would notice when purchasing a camper or even if you were to go camping for a week. We lived in the camper for a couple of months before we realized that things weren't that comfortable. I think this is quality thing though. Campers aren't meant to be lived in so I don't think they are built to withstand the wear and tear of being lived in. We also bought a cheaper model. To do this again, I think we would have bought something a little better quality. We resolved this by buying a couple of memory foam mattress toppers. One for the bed and one is folded up on the couch.
9. Lack of Storage Space. When we first set out to build our house we thought it would take 6 or 7 months, not 11 or 12, so weren't overly concerned with storage. We did buy the model that had the most storage space for the layout that we wanted and it still isn't enough. The closets are about 2' wide by 4' tall. That's all the clothes storage I get. The closet rod is installed in a way that you can't even hang clothes on it. I am not even sure why there is a closet rod at all. All of my clothes are just jammed into the closet. Fun times.
We run a home based business which means that we also work out of the camper. We ended up buying a shelving unit to go in the camper because there just isn't any storage for our files and paperwork. yet, we still have papers all over the place.
8. Mice. Yup mice. Part of this problem is that we moved to an older yard that hadn't been lived on for 50 years. There were old sheds and other places for the mice to hide in that we demolished. Technically we took over their home so they decided to move into our camper. We have caught about a dozen mice in the camper so far, probably 6 or so in the house, and just last week we found a nest with two mice under the hood of my car. Once we get settled in the house we are thinking of getting a cat to help control the mouse population.
7. Fridge Space. Obviously we have a camper sized fridge. It actually holds more than I thought it would but there are items that we have had to stop buying because they just don't fit in the fridge. I can't wait to move into the house and have a full sized fridge again.
6. The oven. My main complaint is that the seals on the oven door broke after a couple of months and I now have to use a broom and wedge it between the kitchen cabinets and the oven door so that the door stays closed tight.
5. The microwave. I am impressed that we even have a microwave in here but after a couple of months of using it, it no longer opens properly so you have to use a fork to lift up on the microwave door as you press the open button.
4. No running water. We moved to an older acreage that wasn't serviced so while the water line is run to the house it isn't hooked up to anything which means that we have no way of having running water on our land. In the fall we would haul water from The Mother in Law's house and fill the holding tank on the trailer. That's all fine and good but in the winter when it was cold this wasn't an option because the water lines would freeze. So from November until April we hauled small hand held jugs of water and boil water for dishes or whatever else we might need hot water for.
3. Laundry. I don't think I need to tell you that we don't have a washer and dryer in our camper. We do that at The Mother in Law's. Overall this actually has been an okay set up but it is annoying when you just need to do a quick load of laundry. I have a whole new appreciation for people who use laundry mats on a regular basis.
2. Showering. With no running water we obviously weren't able to shower here so we shower at The Mother in Law's. We are very fortunate to have this option but it's getting old. I know it doesn't sound like that big of a deal but every time you need to go somewhere (or you just want a shower) you have to pack up your clothes and your shower stuff and then drive over there, shower, and then go to your destination. And sometimes I just want to take a shower and not have to get in the car and go for a drive and make conversation. How many weeks until we move in?
1. I just want to move into the house already. We lived in our old house for four years knowing that the long term plan was to move here and build this house. We put off certain things because we knew this was the plan. And now, I see the house, it's 350 ft away from me at all times but I can't move in. We are so close, yet so far away. It's the mix of the stress of living in a less than ideal situation, mixed in with the stress of a self build, mixed in with the time suck that happens when you are your own general contractor and you run your own business. We are tapped out, spent, done, finished. It's been 9 months of waiting, 2 more to go until we reach the finish line. Can we make it?
First off to give you a better of what our living situation is like, here are some interior pictures of a camper similar to our model:
So that's it. This is where we've been living. For a camper it's not too bad, for a house? It could be worse but it definitely could be better. Needless to say, this experience will make us appreciate our house that much more.
The pros of living in the trailer are that we were able to have our own space and on our own terms (more or less). To me having our own space was worth the challenges and inconvenience of temporarily living in a camper. I am not saying I would do it again, but in this case, the trailer suited our needs and provided us with a dry, warm, place to sleep. At the end of the day that's all you really need.
That's not saying that there aren't any negatives about living in a camper because, let me tell you, there are...
The top ten worst things about living in a camper:
10. The bed, couch, and other seating is uncomfortable. This isn't something that you would notice when purchasing a camper or even if you were to go camping for a week. We lived in the camper for a couple of months before we realized that things weren't that comfortable. I think this is quality thing though. Campers aren't meant to be lived in so I don't think they are built to withstand the wear and tear of being lived in. We also bought a cheaper model. To do this again, I think we would have bought something a little better quality. We resolved this by buying a couple of memory foam mattress toppers. One for the bed and one is folded up on the couch.
9. Lack of Storage Space. When we first set out to build our house we thought it would take 6 or 7 months, not 11 or 12, so weren't overly concerned with storage. We did buy the model that had the most storage space for the layout that we wanted and it still isn't enough. The closets are about 2' wide by 4' tall. That's all the clothes storage I get. The closet rod is installed in a way that you can't even hang clothes on it. I am not even sure why there is a closet rod at all. All of my clothes are just jammed into the closet. Fun times.
We run a home based business which means that we also work out of the camper. We ended up buying a shelving unit to go in the camper because there just isn't any storage for our files and paperwork. yet, we still have papers all over the place.
8. Mice. Yup mice. Part of this problem is that we moved to an older yard that hadn't been lived on for 50 years. There were old sheds and other places for the mice to hide in that we demolished. Technically we took over their home so they decided to move into our camper. We have caught about a dozen mice in the camper so far, probably 6 or so in the house, and just last week we found a nest with two mice under the hood of my car. Once we get settled in the house we are thinking of getting a cat to help control the mouse population.
7. Fridge Space. Obviously we have a camper sized fridge. It actually holds more than I thought it would but there are items that we have had to stop buying because they just don't fit in the fridge. I can't wait to move into the house and have a full sized fridge again.
6. The oven. My main complaint is that the seals on the oven door broke after a couple of months and I now have to use a broom and wedge it between the kitchen cabinets and the oven door so that the door stays closed tight.
5. The microwave. I am impressed that we even have a microwave in here but after a couple of months of using it, it no longer opens properly so you have to use a fork to lift up on the microwave door as you press the open button.
4. No running water. We moved to an older acreage that wasn't serviced so while the water line is run to the house it isn't hooked up to anything which means that we have no way of having running water on our land. In the fall we would haul water from The Mother in Law's house and fill the holding tank on the trailer. That's all fine and good but in the winter when it was cold this wasn't an option because the water lines would freeze. So from November until April we hauled small hand held jugs of water and boil water for dishes or whatever else we might need hot water for.
3. Laundry. I don't think I need to tell you that we don't have a washer and dryer in our camper. We do that at The Mother in Law's. Overall this actually has been an okay set up but it is annoying when you just need to do a quick load of laundry. I have a whole new appreciation for people who use laundry mats on a regular basis.
2. Showering. With no running water we obviously weren't able to shower here so we shower at The Mother in Law's. We are very fortunate to have this option but it's getting old. I know it doesn't sound like that big of a deal but every time you need to go somewhere (or you just want a shower) you have to pack up your clothes and your shower stuff and then drive over there, shower, and then go to your destination. And sometimes I just want to take a shower and not have to get in the car and go for a drive and make conversation. How many weeks until we move in?
1. I just want to move into the house already. We lived in our old house for four years knowing that the long term plan was to move here and build this house. We put off certain things because we knew this was the plan. And now, I see the house, it's 350 ft away from me at all times but I can't move in. We are so close, yet so far away. It's the mix of the stress of living in a less than ideal situation, mixed in with the stress of a self build, mixed in with the time suck that happens when you are your own general contractor and you run your own business. We are tapped out, spent, done, finished. It's been 9 months of waiting, 2 more to go until we reach the finish line. Can we make it?
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