Designing your own home is an incredible adventure. It’s exhilarating, stressful, time-consuming, exciting, and exhausting — all at once. When we began the process (for the second time), there were many things on our “must have” list: Bedroom for each person Guest room Office space Homeschool area Great family kitchen Library Great layout Easy-care yard Playground [...]
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Belinda’s fall 2010 semester project for History of Creativity at BYU was all about the project that’s been consuming our family for the past couple of years: construction of our custom home. Now that our home is complete (well, for the most part) and we are moved in (well, for the most part), we can [...]
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One of the final steps in a custom home build is installing appliances. Appliances are a major purchase, one that you’ll be living with for a long time, so making the right choices is essential. After selecting our appliances, it was time to get appliance bids and compare prices. We purchased some of the smaller [...]
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Moving twice in the past two months— not to mention the past year building a custom home — has left me much in need of R&R. I’d take a long, hot bubble bath in my jacuzzi tub…except that someone on the building crew misplaced the tub’s plug. I’m thinking a long vacation is the thing. [...]
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If you’re looking for gorgeous granite countertops, but looking to keep the granite costs down, I have just the thing for discount granite countertops: granite remnants. On our first house, the granite fabricator required us to purchase entire slabs of granite. When the granite island was completed, the leftover granite was paid for whether we [...]
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Yes, it’s true! After a disappointing morning yesterday with a failed inspection, the inspector came back this morning and checked off the remaining items. We have passed the building inspection and are cleared to move in. The occupancy permit will be issued on Monday, when the official city inspector gets back from his hunting trip. [...]
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The Lindon City inspector just completed the final inspection for occupancy permit. The house did not pass. There were a number of minor electrical issues, a few plumbing issues, and the step under the island was still bare wood having not yet been skinned. To be honest, I find a lot of the inspection process [...]
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Just got a “congratulatory” letter from Washington Federal. In part, it says: It’s hard to believe the construction phase of your new home should be rapidly approaching the finishing stages. Key words: should be. In other words, since we’ve given you more than ample time to finish building your freaking house, if you’re not ready [...]
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Over the past couple of weeks I’ve received a number of emails asking when we are going to move in. All I can say is that I wish I knew! After moving out of the rental, we’ve just been hanging around my dad’s house with minimal supplies trying to keep our lives in order living [...]
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The premature packing and move have put the construction updates way behind. There are a number of things to report. The back patio and walkway cement was poured months ago, but we still had lots of front yard concrete work to be done. A few weeks ago the driveway and walkway concrete were poured as [...]
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This blog began as a means to dig into the nitty gritty of building a custom home and to openly evaluate the pros and cons of those working on the project. You all know I’m not afraid to give an honest critique. But once in a while you run across a subcontractor who is so skilled, [...]
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Towel rings, towel bars, toilet paper holders — these items comprise bathroom hardware. They run the gamut from on price range and, unfortunately, the budget our builder alloted isn’t close to what we need. When we got the bottom-end bid from our general contractor’s recommended hardware supplier, the bid was more than twice what we [...]
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Now that we are preparing to move into our own digs — finally — we’re reconsidering our television choices. After a year using Utopia — instead of a local TV satellite system — we’re ready to get back to satellite. All year the signal we’ve had was lousy, the picture quality spotty, the recording unpredictable. [...]
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As it typical for craftsman-style homes, we have a lot of built-in cabinetry. And that means lots of cabinet hardware as well. I found some beautiful cabinet hardware at Kitchen Cabinet Hardware and was able to get everything I needed for the whole house in one purchase. Best of all, I saved a bundle. My [...]
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Another involved process! Choosing countertops and tub surrounds was almost as involved as selecting cabinets. There are so many possible materials and dozens of qualified companies, that narrowing down the best selections was a difficult process. After all was said and done, we selected the following fabricators based on quality, expertise, selection, price, and responsiveness. [...]
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The counter and tub surround selection took a very circuitous path. I love the look of tile and had a lot in our first build in Boca Raton, but I really (really) hate grout. So we went with concrete floors and priced out anything-but-tile surfaces. It wasn’t until we began working with granite and solid [...]
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The building process has been very slow and difficult. First we were given a May finish, then June. Now it’s September and we’re still renting with no sure finish date in sight. We are calling most of the subs daily — although I don’t think that should be our job. Most of those that we [...]
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We are looking for appliances for our new home. We are prepared to order online, but could be persuaded to order locally if the prices are competitive. Below is the package we have decided on. If you’re interested in bidding, please comment below or use the contact form. Kitchen Appliances Refrigerator/Freezer Frigidaire Professional FPRH17D7KF Frigidaire [...]
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My builder got a phone call from a lighting wholesaler. He was distraught when he found — after reading this blog — that I was purchasing a good portion of my lighting online. He said we were making a big mistake. His response was not unlike that of the plumbing wholesaler who learned I was [...]
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We are ready (finally!) to look for landscaping bids. We’ve been looking forward to this stage for…forever. In addition to a landscape design, we would like a maintenance schedule to explain needed watering, fertilizing, pruning, etc., of the plants in the yard. If you’re interested in bidding, please use the contact form or comment below, then [...]
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