We got word last week that our new house build would be beginning on Monday, Dec 10th. This is great news. My mom’s house has sold. There have been some delays with closing, but that looks like it’s all on track again. Mom has moved in with us and things seem to be much calmer than anticipated (or feared). While it’s nice and cozy now, we’ll see how it is in April after living in each others pockets for several months.
I hope everyone doesn’t mind if I take a few posts here and there to describe the house build. It’s an interesting process and I’m looking forward to seeing a professional builder do one. Most of the house builds I’ve been involved with have been my grandfather as architect, general contractor, and the rest of us as general labor (as needed). In my time, I’ve roofed a number of houses, run lots of wiring, and manhandled no small number of windows and doors. While these are good skills to have, the best tool for jobs like these is a checkbook.
I have built a 300 square foot deck. But it took me a lot of time (about three weeks), money (supply prices at retail with taxes), and minor injuries. For about the same price, a crew of three guys could have come in and built it in a day. While I enjoyed the knowledge that I did it and it is a darned sturdy deck*, I don’t know if I would do it again.
Anyway, the builder told me that they had cleared the lot early and so, by the end of Monday, we had the majority of the foundation framing setup. Here’s the first picture.
I hope that the foundation will be poured by the end of the week.
The house next door is empty. The people who had it built couldn’t close on it for some reason and ours is the last house on the block to be built. I’m sure the neighbors will be thrilled to not have construction going on anymore. Our house is, literally, three houses down from the elementary school and there seem to be lots of kids of all ages for the boy to play with. It’s kind of out in the boonies, but it’s quiet.
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* Every house has some odd feature. In my old house, the odd feature was an exterior hot water faucet in the backyard. Once the deck was built, we put up my son’s inflatable pool (about 2 feet deep and 6 feet long) on the deck and filled it with hot water. The deck was perfectly fine with what must have been a ton or so of water on it.
