THE END

We're in, We're done!! The past couple of weeks we have been moving over our belongings from the home on Homer to our new home. We passed our occupancy inspection and our final electrical inspection. Yeah! We are meeting new people in our area and have attended our new ward several times. There are great people here that we are excited to get to know. Everything is new and a little weird feeling but Viki and I commented to one another yesterday that it is getting to feel natural to drive to this house as our home now.

It has been an interesting, busy, frustrating, and exciting 6 months. I can't say that I am sad that the building process is over. One of the most commonly asked questions that I get asked is, "Would you build again?". My answer is certainly not any time soon. The most common reasons that I have heard to build are that you get the house you want where you want it and you get more house for your money. As far as the first reason: We got as much of the house that we wanted that we could afford. It is true that we were able to get the house in the location that we wanted. However, more house for the money may not necessarily be the case. With the current economy this is a close call as without sweat equity I think we could have found a better value in an existing house.

As far as reasons not to build, we heard that the process is hard on a marriage, stressful, and building always goes over budget. Yes to all of those! I don't think that building itself creates new problems in a marriage but it does bring out or accentuate the differences in a couple in the way they reason, solve problems, and make decisions. Having these differences highlighted in our relationship throughout the building process has been challenging. Thank goodness we have eternity to embrace how the other thinks as there remains room to improve in this area. Building is stressful especially if you like to be involved and want to stay within a budget. There are decisions to be made about every aspect of a house. The very simple seemingly inconsequential to those that have a bearing on the functionality of a home all tend to wear you down after a while. Everyone told us to expect to go over by 10% of original building budget. I blew this off thinking that we could certainly do better. Again, without sweat equity we would probably be 10% over the budget, primarily because nobody works for free, changes in the plan usually increase costs, and original building budgets are based on building a house to code or with the use of base model fixtures, carpeting, etc. Any decision away from base model materials increase costs.

One highlight of the building process has been our dealings with the Bank of Commerce. Initially, I locked our loan rate at 5.125%. At the time we were 60 days out from closing and I got worried that rates were going to begin to rise. About a month later I got a call from Connie at the Bank of Commerce. She told me that she had renegotiated our rate down to 4.875%. What!! There was no obligation on her part to help us out, but she did and I am grateful. I am sure that she has saved us thousands of dollars over the life of our loan.

So, while I don't plan on building again I do feel grateful for the house we have, a marriage that is still intact, and the many learning experiences that I have had throughout this process.

Week 24: Dec 7 - 11

Carpet went in this week. The first day they focused on placing the tack strip and pad.

We went with an 8lb pad throughout the house and a tempurpedic type pad in the living room. From what I learned about carpet the quality of the pad is just as important as the quality of the carpet when talking about the longevity of the product. We were encouraged to get a top quality pad and a medium grade carpet. We ended up choosing a carpet with a variety of colors to go into all of the kids bedrooms knowing that the walls would be a variety of colors during the kids growing up years. The remainder of the upstairs is a comfortable thick carpet that I hope will provide a nice place to hang out. The stairs and living room are a short fiber carpet with floral design. The floral design made me a little nervous. I live in a yellow house with carpeting that has a floral design. I don't know what that says about my manhood other than that Viki can make me do about anything. Now that the carpet is down I don't think the floral pattern looks too bad. The study and master share the color of the floral carpet but I couldn't go as far as having floral designed carpet in my study or bedroom so I talked Viki into a longer fiber.

This is the floral pattern up close.

This is the floral pattern look from a distance. The farther away from the carpet you get the more the pattern tends to blend in.



Tom and I installed all of the interior doors which included all of the hinges and door knobs. We have gone with a flared handle on the door knobs in a rubbed bronze color. Stamped on one side of the hinge is a manufacturing label. I thought it would be wise to mount all of the hinges the same way so I placed this manufacturing label in the same place on each door. Unfortunately, not all of our doors swing in the same direction and by mounting all of the hinges the same way I ended up placing some hinges upside down. As it turns out, doors that swing right have all of the hinges mounted correctly and those doors that swing left have all of the hinges upside down. I am leaving them in place!!! Growing up I often heard that having cows would drive anyone to swear and cuss. I now believe that building a house will drive anyone to swear and cuss.


We had our final occupancy inspection and were dinged on three items. All three items are now corrected and the inspector is scheduled to return again on Monday 12-14.
First, we need to post our address on the home so that EMS can find us in an emergency.
Second, all of the heating grates need to be in place.


Third, we need to have a 3' x 3' porch out the back sliding glass door. Viki asked the inspector if we could move in even with the need to make the three corrections. He said that we should not but that everyone does. So, we started moving in!!

It has been quite a bit of work getting everything packed, loaded, hauled and placed in the new house. Viki led the effort of packing as dealing with the madness of organizing and sorting everything while dealing with all of the kids put me into a serious bad mood. I did best just to mind my business and lift and haul boxes. 4" of snow on the day of the move added to the excitement. I have a feeling that we won't be fully moved in for at least a month.

Week 23: Nov 30 - Dec 4

Tile work in the bathrooms is finishing up. I am very happy with the detail that Jared Hill has given to our home. Not only has he done a very detailed job with the placement and layout of the tile, he has also been very deliberate with all of the preparatory steps to insure we have a product that should last many years. I was initially afraid of tile in the shower as I have heard many horror stories of leaky showers that lead to a lot of frustration, remodeling, and additional costs. After watching Jared put in place multilple layers of water proofing protection I have more confidence in having a tiled shower. He and Viki worked closely together on all of the design work. It looks great.
Electrical is all but done. Kevin came out and spent a late evening with me and we finished the kitchen by fitting the island with an outlet at each end. We also wired and installed the double ovens and the microwave and installed the doorbell.


Countertops have been installed. Soapstone is what we chose to use in the kitchen. It is an interesting material. The benefits we like in soapstone are its unique appearance of different shades of black, gray, and white with a hint of green in the background, it's tolerance to heat - Viki can take something directly out of the oven and lay it directly on the countertop without worrying about damaging the stone, and it does not stain. One downside is that it scratches easily. However, repairing the scratches is easy. With a high grit sand paper scratches are easily removed and mineral oil is all that is used to keep the surface sealed. This is our first experience having a solid surface countertop so hopefully we will have a good experience.


This is soapstone before being sealed with mineral oil.


This is what it looked like after I applied the mineral oil.


The remainder of the countertops in the home are laminate. It was interesting to watch the process of countertops being made. The man first built the countertops out of wood, sanded and shaped them and then glued the laminate to the countertops that he built. I had always imagined that the countertops were built in some factory so it was neat to see them constructed on site.
We have running water and functioning toilets!!! The closest gas station is over a mile away so it has required some planning in the bathroom department before going out to the house to work. For the most part the fixtures are chrome except in the kitchen where we chose a brushed nickel which seems to match the stainless steel look on the appliances.

Garage doors are all functioning now. I had stopped the installers previously from finishing the job because I wanted the utility door high lifted. Usually the runners the door rolls on begins to angle back horizontally from the wall just above the top of the garage door. Because the utility door is only 7 feet tall I would have lost head room in that area of the garage. I had them high lift the door up closer to the ceiling to reduce the loss of head room.

I also had them install weather stripping on the door trim to keep the cold Idaho winds out of the garage. All that is left is to have them install the decorative handles on the outside of the door. Back early in the building process I had the builder move the support beam in the garage up higher and back into the garage farther. I am glad that I did because the garage runners barely fit in the current space. However, we had to go with garage openers at the side of the garage door because overhead openers required more space than was available between the beam and the opening of the garage door. This turns out to be a good change because the side mounted openers are much quieter and take up less space than an overhead opener.
In the end, coordinating the purchase of the doors from one company and the installation from a different company has led to some miscommunication which has lead to delayed completion time and frustration. However, we have good quality doors that look great, so I am happy.

Week 22: Nov 23 - 27

Cabinetry installation has begun. I learned that there are basically two methods of building a cabinet, one with a face frame and one without. Both methods are structurally sound and capable of accommodating solid surface countertops. The main difference is with appearance. Cabinets with a face frame have a strip of wood that separates all of the doors and drawers from one another, whereas a cabinet without a face frame is built such that the door and drawer fronts all come in close contact with one another. Unless you know what you are looking for you can easily miss the difference between the two types of cabinets. We chose the cabinets without the face frame primarily because the cabinet builder with the best bid and references happens to build this type of cabinet.This is a picture of what will become the kid's study area. Kid's bathroom. Only one sink! Rather than two sinks here we opted for increased countertop and drawer space.
Upstairs bath. When I was pulling the wiring I made a guess as to where I expected the outlet should go. It ended up right behind where the sink will go. Kevin helped me fish a short piece of wire over to the side for the new outlet location over the future countertop area. Per electric code the old outlet/now junction box is suppose to be easily accessible. However, it will be covered with a mirror. I ended up counter sinking the cover plate flush with the sheetrock so the mirror can sit tightly against the wall. The box isn't necessarily easily accessible but isn't inaccessible either.

This is the half bath. Bathroom lights were also installed this week. This was quite the project as the wiring had to be fished out from behind the sheetrock. Taking advice from "This Old House" website the lights were mounted 75 inches off of the floor. This height is suppose to provide good lighting with less shadowing on the face when standing in front of the mirror.
This is the master bathroom.
Laundry room with adjustable shelving that will serve as the pantry. The rest of the laundry area with the adjustable shelving for each of the kid's laundry baskets.
Kitchen area. All of the cabinet faces are built out of knotty alder. The kitchen is painted white with a dark brown glaze highlighting the corners, sand through and distressed areas. The rest of the house is stained brown but has the highlight of the same glaze as used in the kitchen. We went with a slightly distressed look to help blend in the expected future dings and scratches.
I installed the stairway lighting. It took some thought and several visits to the lighting store to figure out how to light this stairway. Initially, I just wanted to put a light up on the ceiling. However, it would have either required a ladder or a special tool to change the light bulbs, so the lighting store people encouraged us toward the sconces. When I asked them how high to place the fixtures they reached up above their head and just slightly forward with an outstretched arm and said about here. I thought there would be a little more science behind the decision.
Kid's bath with tiling around shower/bath.
Flooring in the bonus room is finished. It is called "Spalted Maple" and is manufactured by Lamipro. It was a much quicker process than installing the solid wood on the main floor. Oddly enough, the stars must have been aligned in my favor, as I was able to lay full floor planking from one side of the room to the next. No need to cut a plank down to get it to fit nicely to the wall.
Viki has been busy adding more color to the house.
The garage has become the work center. Thank goodness for power tools.

Week 21: Nov 16 - 20

Tom and I were able to finish the wood flooring in the entry way and kitchen. I don't think that it looks too bad for a couple of novice flooring guys. Working around corners and changing directions with the plank placement were the two most technically challenging parts of the job. Physically, the repetitive stooping, squatting, kneeling has kept the both of us sore all week.



Now attention moves to the bonus room where we are going to put down a laminate flooring. We chose this over carpet because Viki wants to do quilting in this room and she did not want to loose needles in the carpeting. Also, we want the area to be the place where the kids do all of their creative / messy projects. I wanted to avoid staining carpet with their crafts. We also looked at Vinyl flooring, which would have worked well except that the cost to prepare the subfloor and pay for someone to install the flooring made it more expensive than the laminate. Here comes some more stooping, squatting, and kneeling. All of this activity with the house is turning in to pretty good rehab for my knee. The harder I work the better it seems to feel.

I have started with preparing the floor by removing any debris, scraping down sheetrock mud splatter, and pounding down any elevated nails to achieve as flat a surface as possible. A thin foam pad is then laid down on top of which the laminate flooring will be placed. Laminate flooring is a "floating" floor meaning it does not get anchored down to the subfloor.

Kevin Layton and I were also able to put the finishing touches on most of the electrical work in the home. We hung lights, put in switches and outlets late into the night on several occasions this week. Now the focus is on putting covers over everything. After the cabinetry is installed we will be able to finish with the remainder of the lights and outlets. This picture is showing the newly hung outdoor lights by the newly placed garage doors.


Garage door installations has begun. My cousin, Jason Beck, owns Allstar Garage doors down in American Fork. He was able to get me a good deal on these doors. We are working with a company locally to have them installed. This is certainly a better look than the blue tarps.



All of the tile flooring was completed in the laundry and bathroom areas of the house. Just in time, too, as the cabinets have arrived.



Viki has been busy decorating the kid's rooms. This was Landen's choice for the theme of his room.

This has been our method of kid control while Viki and I put in time at the house. Junk food and movies make the best babysitters.

Week 20: Nov 9 - 13

The painters have moved out leaving a new feel to the house. Viki took over by adding color to the kids' rooms. This is a picture of the girls' room.
Tom, Viki's brother, and I began installing the wood flooring that will go in the kitchen, entry, and mainfloor hallway. Ray got us started and is letting us use his tools. I took a day off of work to get as much done as possible. I began the project thinking we would be able to finish the flooring in a day. I was wrong in my assumption. By the end of our first day we had made it the majority of the way across the kitchen floor. At that point, I was so tired that I honestly could not keep a focused thought other than that I wanted to stop and go home to rest, and I had worn a hole in my knee.
The process starts with first preparing the sub-floor by vacuuming up any debris, smoothing or scraping down any rough edges,and then stapling tar paper into place. The tar paper acts as a moisture barrier and helps to lessen the noise that can occur when two pieces of wood are rubbed together. The wood planks lock together with a tongue and groove system and are then held together using a staple gun. For a couple of amateurs I think we are doing a pretty good job. Viki chose the flooring, Teak wood with a scraped surface and tobacco stain. It looks great and works well with her paint color choices. We also have crown molding now in the master bedroom.
The tile guy has started by installing all of the cement board to the subfloor and has began the process of building the master bath shower. I had initially planned on trying the tile on my own, but changed my mind as we are running out of time. We are supposed to be moved into the home in the next 4 weeks. If there were no time or financial contraints building would be a more enjoyable experience for me. Cabinetry is being built. Currently, everything except for the kitchen is complete.

The cabinet maker actually makes his doors, most places tend to outsource this process. The boxes of all of the cabinets are made out of a melamine covered particle board. The final stained wood that will be visible will be attached to these boxes.