We would love everyone to help us with one tiny thing and you can do it with no construction or DIY experience. We would like for our friends and family to put a little graffiti on our new house. Yes, you read that correctly. We are ASKING you to write on our future home. You can write anything you want (PG please) on the walls before they get filled with insulation and covered with drywall. We’re hoping this serves as…
I think we thought we’d have time to blog on our break between Christmas and New Year’s. Instead we got sick, worked ourselves to nubs, and didn’t blog a stitch. Too busy working on the house all day (which days are very short this time of year) and then too exhausted to do anything beyond the very basics of keeping us and the kids alive. So what DID we do with 6 days of manual labor? Well, we started with…
Just a quick update on the house. Masonry is moving forward after some delays due to very cold weather. But they’ve been hauling butt- like they hope to finish before Xmas (but clearly cannot). They finished our chimney this week, which is the only thing holding back the roof from being finished. We’ve slowed down our house work for the holidays- shopping, wrapping, decorating, extra activities, etc has taken the place of insulating, plumbing, and roofing. We hope to make…
Whenever we go over to the job site I’m fanatical about telling the kids to be safe and watch out for nails, broken glass, loose lumber scraps, etc. I’ve also started warning various neighbors as we had quite a number of drop-ins, pop overs, and drive-bys. There’s been a lot of interest in the project and very positive comments from neighbors and other local townsfolk. Which is both super encouraging and a tiny bit terrifying that someone is going to…
Things rarely go as planned and often not according to schedule. But that’s hard to accept when you’re fighting against the clock and the weather. We’ve regularly said that in the iron triangle of Time | Money | Quality we want quality first, cost second and time third. Yeah, easier said than done. Back in August the permit got approved and we started chugging right along with our excavation and foundation contractor who were available essentially right away- woot! Then…
This time has been our peak “GC-ing” as we’re only using a few contractors, but they are almost all in the front portion of the project. This has kept us busy from the minute the alarm goes off (and sometimes before- those contractors start texting at 6:30 AM!!) until 11 or 11:30 PM. Jim has been taking the brunt of this, but I occasionally have to call one or the other of them and am the general keeper of the…
Many years ago, a newly married couple with which we are very well acquainted had their first Christmas together. As they were decorating their tree, each ornament from each of the two (previously separate) collections would be unpacked. A pattern soon emerged in which the husband would examine the revealed item from his wife’s collection and then say flatly: “in the back”. I think it applies more generally than just Christmas trees to assume that the less desirable or attractive…
The permit is approved!!! We are happy and overwhelmed and ready. So very ready. I’m hoping the pace is less like the crawl it’s been and more like an on-ramp to the highway. My fear is we’ve just been launched out of a cannon. It’ll be alright, though- right friends? That was 2.5 months for those who were counting at home. Were you counting along with us? No? Just us then? ‘kay, that’s cool.
Did we say that already? That waiting for permits and work to begin is a lot like that scene in Zootopia where they visit the DMV? That was HILARIOUS to watch initially, but now if feels so painful. So the status of this dream of ours? On hold. It’s a sensitive subject. And I promise I haven’t been not-blogging because we’re just so frustrated and giving up. WE’RE NOT FLIPPING GIVING UP. It’s because we literally have no update to…
Last Wednesday night (June 20th) we were alerted by our demo contractor that demolition would start between 8 and 9 the next morning. Nothing like the first day of summer and a forecast of 2 inches of rain to kick off the fun! We let work know we’d be in late and chilled the sparkling grape juice to celebrate to destruction of the only home our children have ever known. Demo began before we got there- I guess they were…