A big milestone in the building of our custom home has been reached! Yesterday we passed the 4-way inspection. This process brings a city inspector out to the house to inspect the rough framing, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical. Our first inspection was last Friday. Most things were up to code, but we had a handful [...]
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This is the day I’ve been waiting for! Today Stock Building Supply semi-truck carrying our beautiful roof trusses delivered the load. I happened to be at the construction site with Belinda and Alana when it arrived. Getting the roof on will be a huge step in defining the house space. And it moves us closer [...]
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The crew finished the upstairs framing today, in spite of random, occasional snow flurries. (Snow flurries? April 29th? What!?) This much smaller level will be entirely enclosed in a shed dormer facing into the back yard. The boys’ bedrooms and bathroom, and a utility closet, make up the entire level. There are no stair going [...]
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The transformation of the attic shed dormer began today. This area will be the boy’s bedrooms and bathroom. After all these months with the little guys seeing only their sisters’ rooms, this was an exciting day! We went to the house twice and danced under their rooms.
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The interior walls for the main floor were finished today. It’s great to walk from room to room and see the scale in real life, instead of just on paper. The house is taking shape!
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In order to meet code, we had to screw straps through the base floor and into the floor trusses with the end attached to the cement wall panels. This was completed today.
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This morning the window and door bucks were installed on the main floor. It seems like a minor thing, but you’d be surprise at how much this detail defines the rooms. With this single addition, you can more readily see the layout as well as the outlook. Standing in a room we can see the [...]
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The fibrous concrete panels we are using to build the house — stacked up and secured with polyurethane before being filled with concrete — were something of an aesthetic mess. Bumpy, lumpy, and uneven, the walls didn’t much lend themselves to being easily stuccoed. Eames and a helper spent three long days this week rasping [...]
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There’s nothing better than driving up to the building site to see a raft of cars and a buzz of activity. Today the crew started installing the main floor trusses. We’re going to be pouring cement for the main floor surface, so these trusses are substantial. Belinda and I went to the house for a [...]
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Yesterday the crew was out in force (love to see that!) framing up the interior walls in the basement. Seeing each room take shape makes it easier to visualize how everything fits in — and the kids can walk around in their own rooms for the first time. The walkout basement will include a large [...]
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The aerated concrete panels we are using to build our home are not a common system, so few crews are familiar with the materials and method. Aaron Eames, the manufacturer, has spend the past month working on the first two levels and training Brad and his crew in the techniques invovled. With the training completed, [...]
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With the walls five block high, yesterday the crew poured cement into the hollow spaces in the aerated concrete panels. The result will be cement pillars surrounded by fibrous, insulated forms. There were two known blowouts (one pictured below) and the system used for the corners seemed inefficient and problematic. But when all was said [...]
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A window buck is a temporary box installed within a block wall to block out the space where a window will eventually be installed. A door buck is similar but, obviously, in place of a door. Ours were installed. Looking good. The girls’ reactions on seeing their bedroom windows were delightful. The basement windows, by [...]
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Finally we have something to see. A hint of the house to be. After the first construction delay followed by another construction delay followed by another lost week of aggravation we finally see action. I could be worse. It could be raining. Oh, wait. It is.
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Delays. Are. Aggravating. I told you we had a construction delay. Then I told you we had another construction delay. And here we are, clean into February, and we’re still just waiting around — through weeks of nearly perfect weather — doing nothing. Ack.
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This is not my happy face. After learning about our first construction delay due to a rental issue, we confirmed that the  panels would be delivered on January 25. The plan was that the panel company would install the basement while teaching our builder the system, so that our builder could install the remaining floors. This [...]
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This evening we got a call from E-Z Block. They are making the lightweight concrete panels that will form the structure for our home. And the have a bunch of our money — half the cost of the first set of panels. The entire build has been waiting on them since the basement was poured [...]
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To maintain sanity while building a custom home, you must come to grips with one sad fact: the construction industry is a living mess. It’s rife with inefficiency, stupidity, dishonesty, and carelessness. I don’t know if it’s the worst industry on the planet, but I do know one thing. Sam and I are business owners. [...]
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