Don't miss the snow at all.

85F, sunny and low humidity here in FL ... perfect winter weather!

Worthy, good luck with the staircase guy. Sounds like they have gotten themselves in some financial troubles?

When they tell you that they have no business and could you please pay the balance of the bill before installation...not good.

Snow gone thanks to a month of fierce rainfall and lightning overnight. The wind blew off a length of edge roof capping and the cash deal roofer is incommunicado.

Gone with the Wind!

The worst problem with a flat roof is not being able to see from the ground what's going on when it's being built. The-five foot length of capping was attached with a single screw!

That Amazon drone on sale is starting to make sense.

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I expect the Upper Peninsula isn't seeing too many castles in greenhouses, eh!

Finally broke ground after months of waiting for HoA approval!

Acting as your own general contractor? Custom build? From standard builder plans?

Any drawings? Three-D modelling?

Though, caution, as you can expect caustic criticism of every detail.

Count yourself lucky on the "wait" time! Our approval for replacing our old home with a new build took 4 years and five months.

Officially received offer on other home in TX- which means- if it closes by May 5th- and all other steps needed are approved- we'll break ground after Mother's Day. Building this house to be near our grandchild (2)- chronicling it on IG- but thinking of creating a blog because so much drama has already occurred- this will be an exciting venture! Still stuck on exterior finish options!!

Footers are in!!! Basement walls hopefully poured this week....NE Georgia

@worthy Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!. Lol I learnt that already earlier on but it was a good learning experience.

Oh wow, 4 year??? That is crazy

One year for the building permit. (Submission came back with no changes.) 21/2 years for a grading permit submitted by licenced Land Surveyors. About 7 months for Minor Variances.

AI now cheerily claims 10-30 days!

Moral: check with your local actual builders, architects etc for the real timeframe.

1 year USFW approval to build
1 year planning
1 year biotic approval with requirement to change house from 1 story to 2 story
3 years planning
14 months building permit
1 month winter grading permit

We are just starting to frame the second story and are so excited!

Central PA - just signed off drawings and settle 15 May. Hoping to break ground early June on our first custom build ever! Trying to stay ready for anything….

We took a break for the first week of April and went exploring on Vancouver Island. That was a grand diversion. Then we brought home a cold and took two more weeks to fully recover.

My brothers and I prepared to parge the ICF basement walls, and we poured two retaining walls and about half the window well.

How do you pour half a window well?

You have a form blowout because you neglected to reinforce a patch, that's how!

I had this all hard troweled when a half yard of hot mud filled the well and ran over into the basement. I got to shovel that all off and then scrape it off and do it again. It was kicking fast.

Now I get to do a whole lot of dry pack finish inside the well. I know how to do that.

The local stucco guy gave me a 10K bid in the depths of winter to stucco and clean up the basement walls. I was really trying to do most things myself early on, and although it was probably a good bid I balked. It stole the wind from my DIY sails, so to speak.

I contacted him the other day and he was willing to be the pro from Dover on the trowel for an hourly rate. We brothers got busy and did all the prep work. We are doing Dryvit rather than metal lath and traditional stucco. The finish goal is smooth similar to a concrete basement, but that may change.

@worthy a report on that tile treatment. Still going strong, no slippage or change in the least.

Instead of waiting for us to supply him with Stone Grip, our tilesetter had someone treat the shower floor with something else. Still slippery! Now waiting to know what it was treated with so we can remove it or coat over.

For May 2025, see here.