Assuming you read the title before you clicked that, then you know the exciting reason for this mid-month post: we passed our final inspection! The building permit was opened on August 16, 2018 and closed 2 years and 28 days later. Of the two powerful authorities holding sway over my project, one of them is now out of the picture. I can’t pass the feeling over to you, but trust me when I say its a weight lifted. I have…
We’re always posting about all the projects we’ve gotten done so I know it can seem like we must be almost done. Not quite. We moved into our dream home looking less like anything ready for a magazine photoshoot. Unless they were there for the pre-reveal ‘how-will-they-pull-this-off?’ moment. And we’re still not ready to say it’s “Done” (can we all just agree that when you read this you’ll hear ‘Ding’ in your head?) going into our second year of living…
As we’ve noted in prior posts, progress has definitely slowed as we’ve settled into more normal routines. Our house projects now feel more akin to the “weekend warrior” projects Amy and I have made our hobby for almost 20 years. As we’ve focused on many of the most frustrating things that were still undone, our home has steadily become more livable, and we’ve been able to really enjoy the features and amenities. (I think we ran the wood burning fireplace…
When we first began this project we decided we would give ourselves a little motivation to stay safe on the job site (now we call it “home”). We’ve been referring to this as our “Safety Reward”. The kids initially wanted treats (donuts or ice cream), but eventually we all agreed on a long weekend to Wisconsin Dells. It’s less than 5 hours away which made it seem more accessible than other trips we could have taken. I was also a…
The classic 80-20 rule posits that you can get 80% of the results in 20% of the time. The last 20% takes 80% of the time or effort. I’m not quite sure if that applies to a project like this one, but the long deceleration is unmistakable. After the first week of August I almost immediately dropped from spending 40+ hours per week working on the house to spending an average of 12 or so. Furthermore, as we’d long known,…
In case you’re wondering what the plan is for the blog/website now that the house is ‘done’ (HAHAHAHAHA) I’m here to share my vision of how we’ll use this space going forward. We are obviously going to keep plugging away at the house and either finishing things off or spinning up smaller projects (like building some built ins/furniture, etc). So we’ll have updates here on those things. I imagine the monthly updates will continue because it’s nice to see that…
I wrote awhile back about the psychological transition of the property from being “the job site” to being “the new house.” Of course, if you’ve been following along, you know we recently moved into the new house and are finally living here (yay!) But even a momentous change like that isn’t instant, at least not in our minds. For anyone who has ever moved homes may recall, the first days or weeks can be rather chaotic and overwhelming. We experienced…
Economists have a term called opportunity cost. It describes not the direct cost of buying or doing something, but instead the value of what you could have done instead. What else could you do with that money or that time and would you have preferred that instead? It doesn’t cost you anything to stuff your money in a mattress, but you are forgoing the opportunity to earn interest on it or to buy something you’d enjoy. When reflecting back on…
For the first week of April we were on vacation. As in, not taking vacation days to slave away at the job site, but a bona fide family vacation. That meant two full weekends of potential house work lost! But boy did we need it. We’ve been working at the office or at the job site almost every day since Christmas, and it was really starting to take its toll. I can say that by mid-March I was pretty stressed,…
Its safe to say that I don’t normally engage in quite this much physical activity. I don’t have a fitbit or any other kind of tracking device, but if I did I think many of my normal work days it would count my steps in the hundreds, not the thousands. Not so when building a house. Thanks to the MLK holiday, I’ve gotten to spend 5 of the last 7 days working on the job site. The house is making…