Owner-Builder Journal Entries
Posted to Castle-Rock-Lakehouse by Gary in Necedah, WI
on 11/20/2008 9:48:02 PM
Wow, it was a big day for my project. We a month ago, my design was sent off to a factory where they engineered my house, put all the walls and windows together and shipped back all of the framing for my house on four semis. The trucks arrived this morning and a crane was used to put the house together like a big, 3-D puzzle. The floor system went in about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Interior and exterior walls for the first story went up in the next two hours and 15 minutes. Second story flooring went in the next 45 minutes. Stairs were installed in 20 minutes. Second story interior and exterior walls went up in the next 1 hour and 30 minutes. Roof trusses will go up tomorrow and roof will start to be covered.
The process was quite amazing. Here are few of the 100+ pics I snapped off today.
Photos
|
| Just getting started on first floor walls. About 9:15am in the morning. |
|
|
| About 9:20am, pictured from the lake side. |
|
|
| Prepping the "big wall", about 9:35am. |
|
|
| The "big wall" going up at 9:40am. |
|
|
| From the road side at :9:45am. |
|
|
| How the walls arrived. |
|
|
| About 10:20am |
|
|
| 10:50am |
|
|
| 11:05am |
|
|
| A big piece! 11:20am
|
|
|
| No garage yet. 11:30am |
|
|
| Garage walls almost all up. 11:55am |
|
|
| Lower section of L-shaped stairs. 1pm |
|
|
| Second-story floor going in, 1:05pm. |
|
|
| Second run of stairs about to be set in place, 1:10pm. |
|
|
| Largest single piece of second-story floor coming in, 1:25pm. |
|
|
| Second-story flooring set; second-story walls going up, 1:55pm. |
|
|
| Last exterior wall section of the second-story going in, 2:45pm!
|
|
|
| One more pic of the lake side of the house.
|
|
|
| Coming in the front door. |
|
|
| Can't wait til the plastic comes off!
|
| |
Comments (0)
Posted to TheBeachHouse by Tami in Shoreline, WA
on 11/20/2008 1:55:48 PM
I still stick with a previous post, building a house is tough! I'm usually too tired to write about construction after I get home at the end of the day.
The siding is on and it is beautful. We went with a combination of cedar shakes, hardi board, and board and batt. (I may be spelling that wrong!) It took exactly two weeks for the siding. We hired a labor only crew and supplied material. Ultimately it worked out well financially, but I was constantly running for caulking, flashing, or something else that was underestimated when it was ordered.
I have spent the last week pre-wiring the house for sound and with cat 5. I have known all along that I wanted a whole house audio system, but I kept putting it off until now. I am wiring the top two floors (4550 sq ft) for sound everywhere. I have broken the house into zones and there will be a volume and source control in each zone. It will be very cool in the end, but it is kicking my behind right now. It is a lot of work.
Insulation starts tomorrow and drywall starts on Tuesday. These are (like so many others) behind schedule. In part due to me because my whole house system is not done and more so due to the fact that our sprinkler company sucks and has taken 2 months to install a system that should have taken two weeks. That being said, our sprinkler system inspection will be this morning quickly followed by our general framing inspection. (which the city would not do without the sprinkler system being done)
Comments (0)
Posted to NorthPoleHome by Tim in Anchorage, AK
on 11/19/2008 12:14:05 PM
This will be our future home in North Pole AK that we will start building in summer 2010. We have already bought, paid for, and cleared the land ourselves. 75% of the excavation is completed also. I put the driveways in myself and built a 12x20 workshop on the property as a base to work out of during construction. I will be putting up pictures of the current progress soon. We plan on building the house as energy efficient as reasonably possible to reduce operating and maintenance costs low for the lifetime of the house. By installing a masonry heater, radiant floors, extra insulation, triple pane windows, and solar panels we hope to drastically reduce our dependency on oil as much as possible. Natural gas is not an option in the area and the power company uses oil to generate electricity. Still considering boiler options. We've snatched up some end of construction season clearance deals as we see them to help save on overall costs. So far we picked up 2200 sq ft of Kahrs' Linnea engineered hardwood flooring for $2.99 sq ft. It's $4.90 in some stores. We also purchased many quality lighting and plumbing fixtures at deep discounts at the local box stores. Hopefully I'll be able to locate my pictures soon and post them.
Photos
|
| Front rendering of the house. We bought plans from Donald Gardner and we're pretty happy with them. |
|
|
| 1st floor reversed We're installing a masonry heater in place of the traditioanl fireplace. |
|
|
| 2nd floor reversed |
|
|
| Rear of house reversed |
|
Comments (0)
They made a lot of progress in the last couple days. Five out of six gables are up. 95% of the trusses are up. And they even started sheathing. So it looks like they'll be done with rough framing by the end of the week.
That's good, because next week both Thanksgiving and deer hunting season begin. Hopefully, I'll still be able to get shingles installed on the roof. Windows come the week after.
I was hoping the plumber and HVAC guys could start on Monday. No problem with the HVAC, but the plumber said he wants the roof on first. We'll see if I can talk him into it anyway. Regardless, next week is a short week, so it isn't a big deal if he starts the next week.
Here's a bunch of pictures:
Photos
|
| Trusses delivered. That's our roof sitting there. |
|
|
| The wheels on the crane are off the ground. |
|
|
| The first gable goes up |
|
|
| Finishing up a girder truss |
|
|
| Truss in the air. |
|
|
| Placing the south gable. |
|
|
| The house from a distance. |
|
|
| Placing a truss. |
|
|
| The first gable |
|
|
| Northwest corner. |
|
|
| Front of the house. |
|
|
| Southwest corner |
|
|
| Southeast corner |
|
Comments (0)
Posted to Eschete-Dome by Janie in Lafayette, LA
on 11/17/2008 9:04:33 PM
We have progress on the home site. It just feels like we continue to run into obstacles that keep us from moving forward to get our open wall inspection. We are trying to reach this mile stone. The interior is completly framed also plumbing and air ducts have begun. The air conditioning is really an issue right now. We now know why our blue prints did not come with the air ducting plans. It is very difficult to get all this together. We thought the floor joists were our answer but it hasn't solved the issues. We want high(9ft) ceilings and it looks like that will be compromised by the air ducts. We Are Not Happy. Larry (the carpenter) is trying to assure us that he is going to make everything look good, I have my doubts. He does excellent work but he is not a miracle worker. We will meet in the morning to go over everything AGAIN. I will try to journal again after this issue has been resolved.
Lots of photos though!!! More to come!!!
Photos
|
| Front entrance |
|
|
| Upstairs loft and bedroom |
|
|
| upstairs bathroom window |
|
|
| Fireplace wall from the upstairs loft |
|
Comments (0)
Posted to OwensNewHome by Justin in Chandler, AZ
on 11/16/2008 1:50:43 PM
I got the gas bonds in, the attic access moved, and finished the low-voltage wiring. 3rd round for rough tomorrow and possibly starting insulation as well.
Photos
|
| Basement fire stopping around tub |
|
|
| Control center - router and hub location |
|
|
| Gas bond - I did that |
|
|
| Gophers have been killing our trees. We lost one peach tree already. This little guy has been burrowing near our Chinese Pistache for quite some time. I saw a fresh hole and got out my trap. I don't necessarily like killing animals but these guys are destroying our plants! Good to know that the traps work. |
|
Comments (0)
The framers pretty much finished the second floor walls, added soffits on the first floor in the kitchen and laundry room. They also lowered the ceiling in the front hallway. So they're essentially finished until the trusses--which were delayed by another day--are delivered on Monday.
This weekend, I'll start caulking. I'll be filling every gap I can find in the framing, making sure that I eliminate every air gap that I can even before the insulation goes in. We'll also try to figure out how we're going to store the interior doors. We got a good price on flat panel cherry doors made by the Wausau Door Company here in Wisconsin. We'll use five panel doors that are similar to those on our old house. We ordered them from Home Depot, hoping it would take them a while longer to get them to us.
They arrived on Wednesday--two weeks ahead of schedule. We could store them in the workshop, but it's still pretty wet down there--the slabs above and below are still drying out. So we'll have to find a conditioned storage unit to store them in for a month or two.
I'll be glad when the house is fully enclosed with a roof, windows, exterior doors, etc. But that's still a few weeks off. It's been raining pretty consistently: every day for the last week. When I checked things with a moisture meter last weekend, the walls were pretty good--about 10% to 12% moisture content. The subfloors? Not so good. They soak up water like a sponge, so they are at 25% and up. The ideal here in the winter is 7%. If things are much wetter than that, I'll risk cracks in the drywall and cupped floors. So it looks like I'll have to get the heat turned on as soon as I can just to start drying things out before the insulation goes in.
Next week will hopefully be much better in terms of weather. Not much rain expected, just a little bit of snow early in the week. By this time next week, the roof should be framed. Roofers should be able to start late next week or early the week after, along with the mechanicals.
The power company was out to mark for the gas line and to install the electric meter today. I had hoped they'd start digging yesterday. But with my luck, they'll arrive at the same time as the trusses or the crane early next week.
More entries at http://mackayhouse.blogspot.com/.
Photos
|
| The back of the house |
|
|
| Exterior walls going up |
|
|
| The front of the house. |
|
|
| The garage |
|
|
| Interior walls are up |
|
|
| Workshop stairs. No more climbing through the window. |
| |
Comments (0)
Posted to Naperville-Webster-St by Patrick in Naperville, IL
on 11/14/2008 8:59:11 PM
House in Naperville, IL comes down...finally!!!
http://1126webster.blogspot.com/
Comments (0)
Posted to Homestead by Mike & Carolyn in Smithville, MO
on 11/14/2008 2:15:01 PM
Our neighbor to the West on 6.5 acres just sold their home and moved to Florida. It sold for $289,625, which I have mixed feeling about. Yes, it's a horrible real estate market right now and they needed/wanted to sell so they did it after attempting to sell for $350,000 with no success. It's a smaller, older home and if it wasn't on land would probably only sell for about $140k and their land would sell for about 15k per acre. Which leaves 50K for the large barn with concrete floor, heat and plumbing and the pond put in a few years back.
Our neighbor to the East just bought his 8 acres a little over 2 years ago and built a nice new home. Which he too has been trying to sell for the past 6 months or so. He started just under $500k and is now at $485k. (which is still...just under $500K) He bought the land about 3 months before we did for $139k. He is also the son of one of the areas larger builders and works for the building company and is a realtor. Meaning he saved on the construction of the home and will save on the commission when selling.
The neighbor to the East called last night to say that he has someone interested in buying his home but they want to buy our place too..."Are we interested in selling?"
We're not even done building yet! Never thought about selling it. I told him that we plan on building another home on the property since all we have there now is our garage (guest house). He said he wondered about that since it was so small and off to the side. We talked about it and left it that we would look at any offer they wanted to make...and they should make a serious offer with a seriously large price.
We haven’t heard anything back.
Comments (0)
Posted to Tanglewood by Steven in Colorado Springs, CO
on 11/13/2008 9:01:09 PM
Or at least starting the process, anyway.
For the purposes of the construction loan (as most of you know) there's a lot of info needed, one of which is the approximate window cost. Since there are something like 70 windows in Tanglewood as designed that's a lot of glass, and so we were curious about what we might find when we began venturing out for some numbers.
So today Colleen ventured over to Home Depot (beloved by many here I know) and sat down to talk to one of their window people. She went in as our GC and spent a quality couple of hours learning all about windows and whittling down the choices.
There was a lot to learn! Cost is mostly a factor of construction and features, as on might expect. There are tons of kinds of window materials--wood, aluminum, steel, vinyl, various fiberglass/vinyl/wood mixes, wood-clad aluminum, etc. Generally the fancier the material the more expensive the window, with some exceptions--aluminum is relatively cheap but has so many bad thermal properties that they simply weren't on our list at all.
Features is the other biggie, of course. Solid windows are the cheapest, with sliding (vertical or horizontal) about the same. Casement windows (our favorite) run more, and of course adding various locks or lites (dividers in the middle of the window) or interior shades added all kinds of prices to the mix. One can easily get lost in the various combination of features, and it seems as if each manufacturer has some one thing that is "really cool" that none of the others have.
Surprisingly expensive are the "glass block" windows, that have glass (or plastic for weight) blocks instead of regular glass. I wouldn't have thought these would be all that much more, but it turns out the overall weight of the item plus its extra thickness (for the blocks, which are thinner than the "normal" glass blocks you might see at a big box store) adds a lot. Custom-shaped windows could easily get ridiculous but weren't as bad as I had thought they might be.
It'll take us a copy of days to put the prices and such together, and then Colleen will give Lowes and a couple of other places a try. As I mentioned earlier we're mostly trying to just get an estimate for the loan paperwork not going after an actual bid at this time. I'm also curious what prices Colleen might have if she went to another local Home Depot and told them these were for her house, rather than her "I'm acting as the GC" approach...
We're learning a lot though, and it sure is fun!
Steve
Comments (0)
Posted to OwensNewHome by Justin in Chandler, AZ
on 11/13/2008 4:33:32 PM
We don't have gas in our neighborhood. I am hoping (betting) that solar will become less expensive in the future and I can expand from a solar water heater to a full house solar system. Thus, I didn't spend the money to run propane throughout all the house. The only things using propane are two fire places. Since we live in Arizona and the fireplaces are more for form than function I thought it would just be easiest to set a propane tank outside the wall near each fire place. Since each fire place is on different ends of the house and about 80 feet apart I thought it would be a lot to run lines across the house.
Well today I find out that we have to bond each of the gas lines with a #1 wire that costs over $2 per foot. This will likely add $500 to our cost! We tried to talk them into much less expensive ground rods but no one would get back to us on it. If we don't get any response by tomorrow afternoon we'll buy the wire and I'll put it in myself.
The rough inspection punch list went from 22 to 4 items. After a little work (read: all day) Saturday we should be ready for inspection on Monday and insulation on Tuesday.
I found a great experienced guy to help out as I am out of town again. He has a lot of experience and got our framer to fix several things that we would likely notice once we drywall.
Comments (0)
Posted to Seven-Peaks-Faswall-ICF by Craig in Graeagle, CA
on 11/12/2008
Ron and crew finished the 4" slab on the second floor yesterday. We're so close to buttoning up for the winter!
The previous weekend was getting ready for this pour. Activities included putting up the Hambro steel and plywood forms above the utility shed and bridge linking it to the master bedroom. I hired a laborer to help out and to ensure the work got done on time. Money well spent.
I spent Sunday placing the first row of Faswall blocks on the second floor. These were notched to allow rebar on the top and on the side to allow the concrete floor to be fully integrated into the wall. Before doing this I had to remove the protective tarps and the 2 inches of water that had accumulated on them. It is so much fun working in the cold when your boots and pants are soaked with water. :).
The final prep step was to plastic wrap the heavy beams supporting the second floor to protect them from cement spills. These beams are 8x18 #1 Doug fir and will be visible when the house is complete. They need to be really pretty to support the overall "Prairie Style" of architecture influencing this house.
Next steps will be to seal the structure for the snow to come. That means putting clear vinyl sheeting over the windows, tarps over doors, and building a temporary roof over the living room. I also want to install a temporary wood stove for heating the work area.
Photos
|
| first floor slab protection |
|
|
| Insulation on slab looking from MBR |
|
|
| Second floor plumbing can-in |
|
|
| Radiant for second floor |
|
|
| River view from the second floor |
|
|
| Second floor from MBR to utility shed roof (insulated) |
| |
Comments (0)
Posted to FromScratchEnnisTX by Bob in Ennis, TX
on 11/11/2008 10:37:47 PM
I just found this website. It looks to be exactly what I've been looking for. There are many like-minded people here who love doing things for themselves.
I've been working on my project for about 3 years now. It's a lot of hard work but, I'm proud of what I have accomplished so far.
Hmm...It all started with rough pasture land & Mesquite trees.....
more to come...
Photos
|
| Looking from the main road |
|
|
| Looking back to the main road |
|
|
| my fist pile of dirt for the drive |
|
|
| added lots of dirt & plowed it into a big row |
|
|
| view back to the main road |
|
|
|