Dreaming For Decades

Just finished doing a mountain (well, at least a small hillock) of paperwork to file our third loan draw. This painstakingly meticulous process involves recording every expense for which we expect to get reimbursed from our construction loan and validating those with receipts. Some of these are invoices direct from subcontractors which the title company will pay directly. Others are receipts we’ve already paid for which they will reimburse us. Now if we were doing a more traditional build then…

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Jim and I often say this to each other. Usually in a mocking sort of way. It’s from a Jimmy John’s radio commercial from probably a dozen years ago now. But it feels like that many days. Especially now with a looming move date. Or maybe it’s just looming to me. We’re on the countdown to get the house through the final inspections so that we can move into the house. And while that is exciting the more pressing part…

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Did you read last month’s post about what we got done in the first month of 2019? It was the inaugural post of keeping track of all the things done and undone on a month-by-month basis. Keep checking back right around the beginning of each month to get the status update. Back with our monthly feature of what we accomplished this month: All plumbing supply lines run, vents connected and through the roof Radon pipe connected and through the roof…

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Those who have been following along since the early days will recall the long stretches of inactivity last summer. (I still get irritated just thinking about all those delays). Things got more real in the Fall as structure finally started taking shape and we had more than a hole in the ground. We then poured a lot of our holiday break into house project work leading into the New Year. Now, since about mid-January, I’ve blocked off two days per…

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I could never pass biology, but I can apparently pass a plumbing inspection. We recently completed all the rough-in for plumbing drains, vents, and supply lines. Below is a gallery of various parts of the plumbing system. The supply lines are various diameters of PEX color-coded red and blue for the hot and cold lines. In one of these new systems its common to have a single manifold with “home runs” to each fixture in the house. It makes for…

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A house is made up of many components, with many overlapping and at times even conflicting goals. Its most essential purpose is as a shelter from the elements. That means making it shed water and retain warmth (or cool) and in the modern day that means a properly functioning HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system. The HVAC system may well be the most complicated mechanical system in most modern houses. In our climate the HVAC system must heat the…

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I was talking about how the house project reaches a certain level and it’s almost like leveling up when playing a game. That analogy really stuck with me and I got the idea to mark each month with what we have accomplished and maybe what we hope to get done the next month. The hope is to add to this throughout each month and then post it either at the end of the month or right at the beginning of…

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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…

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This weekend we had maybe 10 items lined up as work we could do on the house project. Some of them were fairly pressing as there are other paid workmen waiting on some actions we need to take. Then Friday night into Saturday it snowed a good 6 inches. We woke up and it was 31 degrees, the world was buried in white and still falling. I debated clearing the driveway and trying to navigate over to the job site….

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