Hurricane Season officially started today here.

Thanks, worthy

Haha… worthy… “now to design the kitchen” - good luck 😅

I suppose when you’re planning to sell you might be less fussy about the kitchen… but I’m honestly shocked how tedious the whole process is mainly going back and forth and people take forever. Like it takes 100 years just to get a damn sample made. I highly recommend you specify every single detail for the kitchen prior to signing a contract. The price can only go up.

Of course now as I’ve just finalized the kitchen I still have to finalize hardware. The bain of my existence. The only hardware that appeals to me of course is the sandcast bronze $tuff… who knew a handle could be $100? Toward the end of the project I’m feeling like “what even is money, just get what you want” so I’ll see how this all goes with the budget in the rear view 😉

Our basement foundation is done. Framing starts this week. We are building on the land adjacent to where we’ve lived for almost 20 years. It’s been a great experience to wake up and have a cup of coffee while watching the crew at work. Our kids have enjoyed the day to day progress between when they leave for school and get home.

All that lovely space! We're constricted by two required fences all around--one for tree protection, the other for construction and dust. (Which still doesn't stop the neighbours from calling city inspectors.)

While that's legally a basement, ours extends only six inches above grade.

@izzieo, "what is money" indeed... We had a budget for planting stuff around the house. Note past tense.

I just ordered cab handles for the kitchen and mudroom and had IMMEDIATE regrets, not about the quality but about the shape of the handles (I went with the squared off ones). Will I enjoy grabbing them every day? I don't know. I also was enticed by the super-expensive bronze stuff and others but had to pass. I ended up getting Top Knobs, which seem well-made to me, and for the bathrooms I think I'm using something by Elements.

Other stuff: Countertop templating is supposed to happen next week. The main stairs and the bathroom vanities are in and look fantastic. I saw a version of the pocket dog gate that seems to weigh like 200 pounds, which I don't want, not sure what will happen with that.

Most frustrating update: we were supposed to be able to move in this month, but we all know how that goes. There is a problem that has delayed things into mid-July. The builder had stacked too much drywall and cans of mud in a few of the wrong places in an effort to get it all into the house, and now he found that the trusses sagged slightly more than is allowed and he has to add a steel post in the middle of the basement and an I-beam across the ceiling. 😫 He has done a great job in every other way, but this was a totally avoidable problem.

Haha 2rickies - a landscaping budget seems laughable at this point. We have massive dirt piles and sooo much earth work to do. Pretty sure our landscaping will be mulch and everything else DIY! So much for the timber framed pergola outdoor living space. What about the water features? Ha ha.

The truss issue sounds super annoying, wow. And are you expected to pay for that?

We have hit a delay… what do you know, we still don’t have a finish for the stairs and they will be finished first offsite. So drywall is 95% done but we need to first finish the stairs, then install them, before we can install the last few sheets which go on the underside of the stairs.

And of course all the cabinetry is delayed because it takes absolutely forever to go back and forth. And to top it off, the tile place still has not gotten me samples I requested. When it comes down to it, we’ll be ready to install tile but probably won’t have finalized selections because I’m waiting for samples.

All in good time!

Nowhere near as exciting as finishes. But crucial and darn expensive to get right!

Despite setting the basement one foot higher than the surveyor directed, the rear of the house is still too close to grade to provide slope for drainage. Hence the puddling.

We're barred from changing the grade. So the cure will be a French drain across the back and to the front of the lot on both sides accompanied by a new grading plan--the ninth.

Cutting angle iron bolted onto the garage foundation prior to pouring the floor.

The garage is built on new fill. And despite being compacted, we're concerned about settlement and concrete cracking. The angle iron will transfer a lot of the slab weight to the foundation walls. Also we're pouring an inch thicker slab. Another several thousand dollars invisible to the future owners.

@worthy, the ninth grading plan???? you must be a very patient person!

@izzieo, no, no, we will not be paying for any of the work needed to correct the floor sagging. Although, DH is sure that some of it will be making it into the next invoice in other ways. We'll see.

The architect really wanted this exterior wall under the cantilevered roof painted black. They said otherwise the windows and doors will look too stark, like holes "punched" into the wall, because they're black. I wish I'd had an instant reaction when I saw this, like, "yeah, now I get it," but I didn't. Maybe if I look at it enough times.

the ninth grading plan????

Their first seven were failed by the city over 21 months of review. The surveyor is now making up for their "lost" effort by charging an inflated fee.

The black looks great!

@2rickies that black is stunning!

@worthy I’m so sorry you are going through all that with the grading plan.

My biggest piece of advice for anyone starting on this journey - if there is something you want and your builder tries talking you into something else…push back. Then before you agree to that change make sure you see whatever it is in person so you can evaluate whether it is a change you can live with. Yes, I’m speaking from experience. We were talked out of a masonry fireplace and into an insert. In the catalog and on the website the insert looked acceptable. But seeing it installed in our home - we hate it. It’s totally not in keeping with the style of our home, nor does it fit for the way we like to use a fireplace. This is a very costly (in money and time) mistake we’ve made and we’re sick over it.

TDinNC if it makes you feel any better… fire places are absolutely horrendous for multiple reasons. I know they are beautiful and might fit the aesthetic of your home.

Fireplaces are extremely dangerous in new homes because of the air tightness so your indoor air quality will suffer, I’d say almost catastrophically. If you are concerned about cancer, or have kids, or anyone with asthma - avoid avoid avoid!

Aside from indoor air quality, they are horrible for the environment. They produce a lot of smoke (also creosote build up so fire risk) and this is very bad for outdoor air quality.

You are better off with the insert compared to an open fireplace. But sorry it didn’t turn out how you wanted aesthetically, so disappointing 🥺

We have basement exterior walls! We left this morning at 10 when they were unloading the walls, and by 5pm they had them up! So exciting. This overview is from our garage looking down at the basement. The other is looking into the house from our basement slider. I think tomorrow they’ll work on the load bearing interior basement walls. Then floor trusses early next week!

We also put a hold on this marble slab (and another behind it) for our waterfall island in the kitchen. We were told these were unavailable, but the manager was able to call and follow up with the person who had the hold and found they were no longer needed. Yay!! We told our builder we’ll do anything to have this stone in our kitchen. It’s perfect for our kitchen design! Then here is our main hall bathroom flooring. It feels so nice and soft under your feet!

Walls built off site?

Correct!

$1 per sq ft tile?! You must be in America! Here in Canada at least tile places I’ve been, it seems like most tile is $8-$15/sq ft! That’s crazy. And of course the fancy stuff is double or more… seems like everything is more expensive here.

On another note, what has everyone decided for paint finishes? Eggshell or matte walls? I want to do the same colour on walls, ceiling and trim. Ceiling will be flat, trim will be satin/pearl not semi-gloss, but not sure about walls. It would sure be easier/cheaper if the walls are also matte/flat like the ceiling because they could just paint it all together and no need to cut in separating the two. Looks nice and modern but I’m not sure if that is bad in terms of durability.

Izzieo, I wish! It’s $1.29 per piece LOL! It was a little over $400 for all the tile we needed in a roughly 6x7 hall bathroom.

For the paint, we’re also doing the same color everywhere and it looks like the satin finish. What paint color are you doing? We’re doing Chantilly Lace since my favorite designer uses it in most of their homes. It’s only $50 per additional color, but I don’t know if I have the mental energy to not only pick other colors but be happy with them. So it’s like that Oprah meme: you get a white bedroom, you get a white bedroom, you get a white bedroom! LOL. I’m sure we’ll let the kids pick a color once we’re settled in.

For best tile and stone floor pricing, I go through my tile-setters, where a trade discount of 40% off list is not uncommon. We almost always end up at Olympia Tile & Stone and Ciot .

Oh wow! That’s a big savings! Too bad I spent years designing this house while we saved up 🤣 enough time on your hands and you’ll pick things that financially don’t make sense compared to going through your builder or tradesman 🤣

@D Michael - oooh that would make sense. I recently looked at Fireclay tile (made in USA) and some are like >$30 per tile… so that was short lived.

Build done of course, we will close this Friday and we've already started moving in slowly. Rugs, blinds, most of my shoes and clothes, my husband has started moving his tools and his motorcycle is there.

2Rickies, love that porch 🤩. The wood is gorgeous.

D Michael, congrats on getting the basement walls in!

It's going painfully slow. This build began in June 2023. Our siding installation is just starting, and the material was ordered back in MARCH. Everything with this build has gone like this. Contractor had us order the tile we wanted for the bathrooms, and told us the amounts, etc and we got it ordered. Then, we learned that one of the tiles we chose wasn't kept in stock and had to be manufactured. So that was a month delay. Tile finally arrives, install begins, and our contractor discovers that they didn't have us order enough for one of the bathrooms. Well that just happened to be the bathroom with the tile that took so long to get the first time. So, here we are, waiting another month for that extra tile to arrive. We are now at a standstill with that bathroom, and also the cabinetry because the floor has to go down first. That brings me to the countertops..

I have had 4 slabs on hold for the countertops since April, because that was when our contractor told us to go and make our choices. Since then, I have had to call the slab yard back every week or two in order to keep the slabs on hold. I am sure at some point they're going to tell me enough is enough. But I can't do anything about it because nothing is moving forward. I just feel like this will never end.

@Renee M - love your shoe display! Ever since working remote my closet has just dwindled.. once we have a nice home office I hope to enjoy shopping again and find cute clothes to wear in video meetings. Your closet inspires me!

A C Wow! I don’t know if I could handle a year of that. I hope you get to see some good progress soon. The slab situation would be the most irritating to me.. sucks that you have to be the middleman and have no control over it. Fingers crossed they let you keep your holds but more importantly you get to see countertops installed soon!

We think the rest of our unfinished basement interior walls were put up today since they started on our floor trusses! I think they’re about halfway done, and then I can’t wait to see our main floor walls go up! They’re just sitting in our yard ready to go! Tomorrow we’ll be out of town until late, so I’m looking forward to being surprised by their progress when we get home. They’re working very fast, but it obviously goes slower when you’re just peeking out the window all day lol! From contract sign, this is day 43.

Seven months with cracked window glass. But no cure till it is (finally) warm enough to tap in the vinyl stoppers that hold the panes in place.

280 lbs. of glass could knock you on your....bottom.

The window supplier sent along a spare in case of another mishap. Not needed then into the bin. Retail value: C$1,200. Ouch!

@A C I'm sorry to hear they wouldn't hold your stone! Since April doesn't even seem very long. How frustrating. Had you put down a deposit? We had to put down a big deposit for ours.

The terrace is in! I like the black paint more now that I see it with the bluestone. I'm also glad we went with full range rather than the thermal bluestone, which was a uniform gray. It picks up a lot of colors in the landscape.

Thursday we came home to all floor trusses done and our stairs! The stairs made it feel so real! I love that we did a good sized landing with a U shape, it’s pretty roomy and will be good for anything you need to move across floors. In our current house, our only staircase to the basement is a tight spiral staircase. We carried 28 pieces of 16x32 marble tile down that way since it would’ve taken a lot longer to go around the house and through the basement level garage for each piece.

Yesterday we got most of our subfloor installed . We walked all around the main floor! Most of our kitchen and primary suite views will be the treetops, and the living room/office will have more of a typical lawn view. This last picture is our 20’ long private patio off our primary bedroom. It’ll be covered and sit ontop of the basement versus sticking out. We didn’t realize it was going to be so long until I took another glance on our plans. It’ll be a happy accident though, we cook a lot and have been looking forward to a garden. A patio garden would make it more accessible from the kitchen AND keep the cute deer family that hands around out of our vegetables!

Next week i would hope we have exterior walls going up. Also waiting to hear back on our cabinet/countertop quote. Seems like we may be over budget, so there’s a lot of anticipation around how much lol.

@2rickies I love your exterior! What black did you choose? We are also going with a black exterior. We are at the point where I need to choose a color. I have it narrowed down to a few choices. Wondering if you like yours?

@2rickies - gorgeous stonework!!!

A C - looking good!! I understand how you feel. We had a dicey week and we’re feeling very upset but things are looking better now and we’re seeing some good progress. We’re a bit behind you but our siding just started too. Good luck!

Looking great A C!

Yesterday we got exterior main floor walls and today we got interior + garage! Woohoo! The picture with two doors is our living room - we’ll use two patio doors flanking the fireplace to let in lots of light. The outside view is the back of the house. About the same height as our current house built on this same lot, but it’ll be much taller once the roof is on. Our current house being a double wide trailer has a very flat roof. Can’t wait for the roof! The weather will be stormy the rest of the week so we don’t anticipate them being back for a few days.

Nice use of steel bracing! Beats wasting lumber for temporary supports and damaging floors with over-nailed blocks.

Why not ZIP R? (There was a month delay in getting it for our latest build, so we demurred.)

I do hope the builder will get around to sealing all the seams and outside corners, as detailed by Huber.

Worthy - I’m not sure what was used and why, we specified most of the interior stuff but haven’t had any input for the more structural stuff. The roof trusses were delivered end of last week and we have a big crane scheduled for 6:30AM on Monday. I’m sure they’ll have it boxed up and seams sealed soon!

I am still working on permits for my home, but I can share the project I am helping with. I have been over working on my friend's home site, overlooking Lake Roosevelt in northeastern Washington. Today we started cutting the appearance log, the king log that goes from basement to loft. Tomorrow we stand it up, use the laser to scribe the final top cut and plunge cut the two beams into it that hold the first floor. It is 26" diameter and does not taper appreciably in the first 10 feet.

The house is similar to this model.

Sunset Valley Chalet

Whoa, @kelly m, that is cool! What species is that log?

We are on the second round of measuring with the stone fabricator. They made enough errors in their notes the first time that the builder had them come back. (And apparently no one told them the cooktop is flush, not drop-in...). Now I seem to be having to convince them about sink reveals. I'm asking for flush reveals in the kitchen (advocated by the KD as well) and 1/8" negative reveal in the bathrooms. They're arguing that in the kitchen, the stainless steel sink is out of square and I shouldn't do a flush reveal. In the bathrooms, they're saying the Kohler sinks are irregular and they want to do 1/4" negative reveal, which seems huge to me. These sinks are not unsusual selections. Why do I start to suspect that the problem is not with the sinks but with the skill of the fabricator? But maybe I'm behind the times and this is the norm now? (I'll probably start a thread on this.)

@2rickies

It's a pine, and coming from Montana I would wager it is a Ponderosa.

There it sits, looking through the basement picture window. It's about as subtle as a

*FOSTERS 40 sitting on a table of 12 Oz Miller lite cans. It puts the log in cabin. Other cabins have King Post envy.

*<Fosters, Australian for Beeyah>

My partner had to run off or we would stand it back up tonight. He knifed one beam pocket i it, I finished off the other. I had a few bad touches but will figure out how to putty that up. I plunged the initial pocket sides with my BigFoot baby beam saw.

Smear a little sawdust in it, does not look too bad. ;)

We got it stood up, the glu lam cut and fitted, the back bearing 2x8 wall built and up, and the little glu lam there. We will be working the first rim board and getting after the joists tomorrow.

My friend enjoying his views.

This will be our last June update since it’s currently storming. We have most of our roof! It’s starting to look like a very real house now. There’s still a few patches that need finished up like over our living room patio. I’m very happy with how the front of the house turned out. Oh and a surprise - most of the metal support things in the house have been removed which makes it easier to walk around and envision everything!

What’s everyone’s experience with when in the build the patios typically get done? The one that’s covered and built above the basement will be composite decking with a waterproofing something or other underneath. The one off the other side of the house is listed as poured concrete. Will probably need a railing/steps with how sloped our elevation turned out unless that could reasonably be backfilled? I know we can text our builder to see about timeline, but he’s been moving so fast, it’s like we don’t want to bother him or seem impatient. Really we’re not, we’re just excited LOL!

More pictures…

Husband and baby standing on our stair landing! We’re doing can lights on the stair ceiling since it’s near our dining and kitchen pendants and would get busy with another hanging light. I like the idea of sconces on the landing, but the height that they look normal on the landing is level with the main floor height. It looks silly to see a light fixture “on the floor”. Maybe we just need to do step lighting? Not sure, open to advice and may post a separate question for it.

For our private bedroom patio (above the basement) we’re wanting to do Timbertech in weathered teak. Our patio is 20’ long x 6’ wide (didn’t intend to make it so long lol) and the idea is to have it look like an extension of our bedroom by carrying a similar color flooring to the outside. The lighter sample looked too light in the sun although it almost seems like the better match in our current house’s indoor lighting.

For our private patio, we’re torn between glass or vertical cables to help keep a good nature view. HOWEVER if they’re very expensive compared to regular rails, we’ll go with something basic and cheaper and plan to replace down the road if we decide to screen it in (so the cats can enjoy it too)!

Open to advice on the patio ideas! BTW - thoughts on stamped concrete? Is it difficult to ask for? If that’s what’s needed on our other patio, maybe I should explore some patterns to make it look more interesting?

We had to custom shim the rim board due to variances in the concrete pour. i ripped and custom planed those today and fed lumber to the guys, and they got all the rim board in and about half of the joists before we called it quits.

@Kelly M, that's some view!

Welp, garage door company sent us the wrong door! GC had them install it anyway so there would be a door in place while we wait for the correct one. Don't know yet how long that will take.

@D Michael

I prefer the wires over the clear glass because the clear does kill birds, and it requires constant cleaning to look as good as the day it went up.

The stainless wire looks pretty good all the time. I think we'll do the horizontal wires with a spacer midway between posts to keep them meeting code.

@Kelly M that view is stunning, WOW!

All ya country folks making me as green as your views!

See July 2024 here.