We had a little progress over the weekend on the house…not a lot but some is good-right??
Hubby finished up on the window wells for the basement. He had the north side ones done already. These are the ones on the south side.
The ones here on the south side are the metal..the north side, wood. Yes, I know they don’t match. I’m okay with that as we’ll never see them both at once. In fact, we won’t see much of them at all. The dirt is going to hide most of them.
On the north side of the house we put in the wood as it was a big savings for us. We’d have had to order a special well as the one window there is too wide and the egressed window Hubby just wouldn’t pay the price when he knew he could make something one his own much cheaper.
While he worked on that, I got the porch posts painted. They look pretty good. I sure am happy. Of course I forgot to take a picture of them. I also hauled a bunch of rock and cement pieces away from the window well area…then I scrapped floor boards again. Someday I am going to get those boards all finished.
On the carpenter front, they’ve gotten the hard part of the second story finished. The floor is in place. Next up second story walls. I am so anxious to see them.
Every day that goes by, I am more and more happy with the layout. Previously I was so stressed about that…but now I can see that I do like it. Sometimes designs look good on paper but not real life…this is looking good to me in real life too.
After reading a few of the last posts about the house I’ve gotten in some question. This one from Karin came after I talked about moving the upper design and bathroom around, “Are you going to still get your laundry shoot? :)”
I am a little sad to say no…no laundry shoot. I am happy to give it up though as I like the design without it so much better. The rooms flow more nicely and are more of regular and useful size.
The next comment from Lesley Gilbert, “2 of my favourite hobbies is sewing and D.I.Y. – that’s why I enjoy your blog so much – I so look forward to reading what you have to say every day. Your house construction is so different to our’s in the UK it’s been really interesting to see how your house changes are coming along :)”
I just want to say Lesley…I don’t think our house construction is “normal” for the US at all. Hubby and I are doing as much as we can ourselves. That’s not normal. Finding recycled things to re-purposing them is not normal either. For that matter, I don’t think trying to be frugal about it is normal at all.
Our son works for a big house builder in Cedar Rapids. If someone there buys a house they will be in the completely finished house in 3 months for the time they sign the contract. First a cement crew comes in and pours the basement. Next in comes my son’s crew. They are a crew of 4-5 guys. They have from 5-8 days, depending on the size of the house, to have it up and completely framed with stairs built. Next are plumbing and electrical crews…then interior and exterior crews. In the city, this is much more the norm.
Hubby and I are doing it this way as we both love old houses and the old house look. What we are doing is cheaper. We would have never been able to afford this size of house had we built it from scratch. It’s not traditional and I’ve complained about the time it has taken but I wouldn’t pick any other house-even if it does take longer.
We had rain yesterday so the carpenters didn’t get a lot of time to work. I am hoping today they’ll accomplish lots.
Thanks for the reply to my comment. I understand everything you say and I realise why and what you are doing. I love watching your house change shape and reading about all the recycling you are doing. I like watching house building and refurbishment programmes on tv and I’ve seen the odd one from the USA. I would say most of the homes in the UK are brick built and not many have basements. I live in a 3 bed terraced house built in 1912 and made of bricks. I hope you didn’t think I was being disrespectful in my comments.
I think it’s great that you find recycled things & are re-purposing them. It’s not normal but it’s becoming more and more common and that’s a great thing!