Building a House
Wanted to give a more personal update than the general construction related ones I’m posting on the house blog at 27thandArlington.com We hatched this idea in early August & started with all the feasibility planning, budget, architects. and more. By December, we had the houses vacant & they were both sold and moved off the land.
Permitting took us several months longer than we expected, but we finally got rolling full steam in mid-March when we poured the concrete for the foundation. After that, we spent most of April framing the first & second floors and the roofs on both houses.
They are just around the corner from hubby’s office, so he checks on the progress several times a week. I try to get down there at least one a week to document everything with photos. I often meet him for lunch or schedule meetings with the contractors around his work.
Lately, we’ve been doing down to the Heights on weekends & talking about issues that arise or making decisions on how things need to go.
It was so cool to finally be able to “walk the house” and see each of the rooms, get a sense for how high the ceilings were going to be, watch them make progress every day getting it built.
Lots and lots and LOTS of meetings with the builder (my dad!) discussing the hundreds of details that go into a house. We’d review the plans, make decisions, and make changes every week. Here, we are talking about location and styles of the master shower and tub.
We’d ask lots of questions, learn lots of things on how to build a house. Dad is showing us how the trusses are built, where we are going to put the faux exposed beams in the dining room, and where all the A/C ducts & other utilities will run in the room.
Often our friends or family are with us, checking out the progress too. We are looking at the fancy front doors that we bought & considering our options for colors on the front metal roof.
Some weeks are better than others & some weeks we encounter lots of *challenges* including how to work out things like venting the chimneys and dryers or where to put in the water/gas/electric meter on a very limited property.
It’s difficult to coordinate schedules with the three of us, so there’s lots of relaying information from dad to me & then me to hubby. Here, the location of all the recessed lights has been laid out on the ground so that the electrician and HVAC sub-contractors know they need to go around them in the ceiling.
We’re having fun so far- not any huge disasters yet. We’re amazed that we’re actually doing this & are really pleased so far with how the houses are turning out & the interest we’ve already had in them from buyers. As of mid-May, they are both almost totally dried in (shingles on roof, siding in place, all windows installed, temporary doors in place, fireplaces installed) and the electrician, plumber, and HVAC guy are all working furiously to get their stuff in place. Hopefully we’ll start hanging drywall, running trim, and building cabinets by early June.
The guy behind the houses is building an enormous house, with that lake eventually being a pool. It’s weird going away for a long time- I can’t wait to see all the progress when we get back.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: It’s official- we are off on our vacation to tropical paradise!
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