I’ve been trying to work through my list. As is typical, progress is stymied by unexpected complications and I add new items nearly as quickly as I cross off old ones. The priority is the roof and wall penetrations, so they can do the roof and siding before the weather changes. I have most of those done now, with Dean’s help to cut holes for the bath exhaust fans and the kitchen range hood. I had cut a hole for that a couple years back, but I changed my mind about where to put it. Still to do are the exterior electrical boxes, which requires the electrician, and prepping the area where the air conditioner condenser mounting goes, which should require the HVAC tech, but he’s busy, so I may wind up doing that.
The architect got the last form in for permit, so hopefully that process will now proceed smoothly. I have the concrete contractor lined up to put in the porch footings but I’m not certain when. We had an inspection from the bank appraiser to view the lack of work to date in order to release some initial funds to the contractors. We wound up having to float some of the money for the down payment because the bank will only front for certain categories and HVAC isn’t one of them.
Powder room ceiling with exhaust fan bracket
The powder room on the first floor needed a lowered ceiling to allow for some pipes above, so I got that built. I cut the hole and framed in where the solar tube is going to go through the second floor. I put in all the missing nailing edges for drywall, got the washer drain box ready to go, but I still have some gluing to do for the plumbing. I got the metal plates in that protect the plumbing in as well as the straps to secure pipes in the walls. The radiant contractor is coming out today to lay out where everything is going to go.
Solar Tube Chase
All in all, there’s been some decent progress, but not much that’s noticeable and visible. I got word that they’re struggling to find the shingles we picked out. If they can’t find them we’ll need to either switch to a different shingle or a different color. Antique Silver doesn’t look as nice as Estate Gray, so I’m hoping they can track it down.
After several months, Thursday we closed on our construction loan! This was a long, drawn-out process, and I haven’t been making updates because it’s been frustrating paperwork and contractor wrangling and not worth sharing. We’re working on new permits, but we’re expecting that will be done in as little as a few weeks. Things are about to get pretty crazy, so I figured I should get back on the update wagon and keep everyone appraised. If you’re interested, we went with US Bank for their loan program. It lets us start from an unfinished state, and it converts to a traditional mortgage at the end.
We have most of the drain plumbing done, save some odds and ends. I have a list of things that I need to get wrapped up that is collecting new items faster than I’m getting things checked off. The top priority is the remaining roof and wall penetrations, which need to be in before the new roof and the siding.
The roof will be Owens Corning Duration Flex shingles, which should last through hail and wind and all the rest so I don’t have to get back onto that stupid ladder and the death trap of a roof again (except for the aforementioned penetrations).
Siding Samples – stay tuned to see which color we picked
Unfortunately, all of the house wrap will need to come off since it’s been exposed for too long. The windows that I installed I used the clips they gave me, which are apparently the wrong clips, and as a result all of the windows are at the wrong depth. They’ll put on Blueskin instead, which is a better product anyway. On top of that will go the two inches of rigid polyisocyanurate insulation and furring strips. If I had it to do over, I’d probably have stepped down to one inch, because we’d have a lot more siding options. As it is, with two inches of foam we basically have to use Hardie Plank cement fiber siding if we want it to be covered by warranty.
I wish the house wrap and the windows were the only thing that needs to be re-done, but they’re also going to redo some of the front porch structure as well because the wood we bought twisted and warped after we installed it. Our builder doesn’t recommend buying lumber from Menards, and now I can see why.
With the pandemic dragging on, we’re still working from home and the kids are at home for school. We’re not sure how this will work with construction taking place and we’re considering our options for vacating by the hour, day, week, and month. So, there’s a lot of exciting work about to start, and I need to go add a couple more things to my to do list!
All this time and no updates. Obviously I haven’t made the blog a priority, and to an extent, the house hasn’t been either. At one point I did write a whole, thorough update, but then I ran into WordPress issues and it didn’t save and I didn’t feel like starting over. That was… months ago. I’m sorry; the house has been been depressing and overwhelming, and writing about the low spots instead of the high spots makes it seem all the worse.
The short version is that we’re still living in the basement, and not much has changed. Why is that, when we were getting quotes and getting ready to get it all done last year? Well, because we finally got quotes. Really big, really expensive quotes. We started going through and trimming things, because we’d asked for what we wanted knowing that we probably couldn’t get it all, but figuring we might as well start there.
We kept trimming, and kept trimming, and in spite of that, the project remained stubbornly expensive to finish. We discussed what we could delay and do later, what we could do ourselves, what we could live without. Honestly, spending so much time on this project, chipping away at it, we’d clung to the dream of what the finished project would be like, so this was fairly painful, giving up things we really wanted. We tried getting alternate quotes, spent more weeks trying to get better numbers, and while we made progress, we ultimately got stuck on a few key points.
First, the total cost, not just the quote of work to be done, but the overall math: what we originally paid for the house, what we’ve put into it so far (just in materials and paid labor, not counting our time), the quote itself, and finally an estimate of what we’d still have to pay down the road. When we add those numbers together, it should be less than the cost of buying an already finished house, otherwise there’s not much point in all this “sweat equity” and basement living we’ve been doing for years and years.
Second, the monthly cost: every ten grand of loan is $50 a month of mortgage payment, even with low rates. Every $50 a month we spend on the house is $50 we don’t have for anything else: savings, furnishings, going out to dinner, going on trips. The work we’re putting off for later still needs to be paid for, and if it’s not in the loan, it’s out of pocket.
Third, I’m obviously cheap. No one that wasn’t cheap would take on a project like this, and a lot of the numbers were just plain high. I’ve come to accept that we don’t really have the free time needed to do finish this project ourselves. But I still have an idea of what labor is involved, what materials cost, and the resultant profit I’m potentially paying someone. I don’t begrudge someone a living, but some of the numbers were just beyond the pale.
All of that meant we didn’t move forward on the plan, even though we didn’t have a better path forward. We didn’t magically have more time and we didn’t have the cash on hand to pay to get parts of the work done. We discussed trying to get all the mechanicals done ourselves or out of pocket so we could spray foam ourselves, and with Dean’s help I’ve done a fair bit of work on the drain and vent plumbing. Besides saving money, it ensures it’s done the way I want it, without soffits everywhere. I’ll make a post about that when it’s closer to done.
With the Covid-19 pandemic and everyone at home, it would sure be nice to have the whole house done, instead of us all crammed into the basement. Unfortunately, we don’t have much more free time than usual because we both have work-from-home day jobs, the kids need help with home schooling, and the house gets messier with everyone home all the time. When we do have free time, it’s kind of nice to spend it with the kids or relaxing rather than fighting the house.
The swing set
I did take the time to build a swing set in the back yard from some leftover pressure treated lumber for the kids. We set up some toys for them to play with in the empty first floor and put up a basketball hoop in the back, since we can’t go anywhere.
We’re back to trying with the same contractor, getting new quotes and trying to hammer this into something we can stomach. We still want the house done, we need siding. At this point all that cursed house wrap will need to be replaced. It’s torn loose in more places and flaps noisily in the wind, an ongoing reminder of the unfinished project. I’d like to get a quote from a different GC, it would either reinforce that the prices are fair or give us another option. I’ve got some recommendations I need to call. One way or another, we’re getting it done. We have a goal of finishing it by Christmas, but to be honest that was the goal last year too.
It’s been a few months already, so I should probably update you all on where things are, huh? Well, when it comes to visible progress, you haven’t missed much. In order to make progress on the house, we need to get the loan. In order to get the loan, we need the contract, specs, and plans. The contract and specs are also waiting on the plans, so we’re really waiting on the plans.
Don’t we already have plans, you might ask. Well, yes and no. Years ago, I made drawings in SketchUp, we worked with an architect, and we got approved drawings and permits. That was at the end of 2012. Unfortunately, permits don’t last that long, and the plans we have are not accurate in several ways. We got the original permits as a soup-to-nuts omnibus permit that covered everything we were doing. However, since we’ve been doing this mostly ourselves, slowly, that hasn’t worked out as well as it might. It may have been better to break it up into smaller pieces, but that wouldn’t really have worked either, because it wasn’t discrete projects. What it comes down to is that the permit system isn’t really designed for a long gradual project like this.
Our builder suggested an architect he’s worked with previously, and since we weren’t super-thrilled with the architect we had before, we decided to have him revise our plans. He started with the structural plans we used to frame the second floor, checking the work the original architect had made against some of the changes we had decided to make along the way. Then we sat down and went over what we needed to finish everything, and he suggested we draw up new plans that were both correct and, more importantly, only covered the remaining work. That will make it clear to the City, for permits, and the bank, for the loan, the scope of the work.
Instead of having a complicated contract, we can simply have the detail in the plans and build to that. Well, the long and the short of it is that he couldn’t take the plans drawn by our previous architect and update them, apparently they can’t do that. He had to start over, and that meant it took a lot longer than we expected.
He finally finished a few weeks ago. Since then we’ve met with the builder, talked to the bank, started the permit process (again) and met with several of the skilled trade contractors, including plumbing, electrical, and HVAC. Next we need to get quotes and commitments from them so we can put their names on the permit, as well as get their numbers into the bid for the contract, so we can take that to the bank and finalize financing. This will most likely eat up the next couple of weeks. Permit itself typically takes upwards of a month (we’ll see how long it takes us since our luck isn’t great on that front). Financing from where we are is supposedly a couple-few weeks, so we’re hoping that actual work may start around the beginning of August. How long the work will take is still an open question.
So, despite my lack of updates, the only thing you’ve been missing out on is a lot of waiting and a lot of trips to the storage unit, filling it up with all the things in the first floor, which still has a ways to go. Since I hate to make an entire post without photos, I’ll give you our not-quite-completely-full ten-foot-by-ten-foot storage unit.
I just can’t get enough of being at the top of really tall ladders, wishing I had more arms! When you put up house wrap, tape it! Tape it all! We’ve had some really windy days recently, and in a couple of places on the South wall, the house wrap was not up to the job (it’s almost like it’s not supposed to be left exposed all winter). The wind ripped the house wrap clean off the staples and it would flap, loudly, in the breeze, a constant reminder of my failure to adhere it properly the first time.
House wrap blowing away
In my defense, the South wall was put up in sections, so there are more seams than there should be, plus I put it up myself, and house wrap is, by most measures, a two (or four) person job, particularly when you’re twenty feet up in the air. We had a lot of help when we did the North side, but bringing in a bunch of people to repair one twenty-foot long strip seemed like overkill, even if it was up at the top of the wall.
After it tore off the second time, and then a second section came off after that, I realized if I didn’t get it on properly there wasn’t any point in doing it. However, that still left the question of how. While we have two ladders (one is on loan from Mike S), I didn’t want Sarah up on the other ladder, I wanted her holding mine so it didn’t fall over. After the Internet failed to produce an idea (there was one, but it doesn’t work when you’re way up in the air), I came up with how to do it.
House wrap dispenser
I drilled a hole in a block of wood and put one end of a ratchet strap through it, tying a knot to keep it from pulling back through. I ran the rest of the ratchet strap through the 9′ roll of house wrap, making a convenient dispenser that even had a hook at the top. For the first section, there are some conveniently large holes in the top of the wall that let me attach the hanging roll to a ratchet strap inside the attic.
Making progress
With the roll hanging from the top of the wall, I could pull it out and staple (and tape!) it at the start of the section. Then I went into the attic and carefully moved the roll from one side of the section to the other by reaching out through the gap in the wall and passing it around each rafter. Since the one end of the wrap was stapled, it simply unwound as I moved it. Then I went back to the ladder and stapled it all down, taping the bottom seam as well.
I’d originally skipped the bottom tape because I wanted a path for any water that got behind the house wrap to be able to drain out, but the wind catches it like a sail, and each staple that gives make a bigger sail area, increasing the force to pull it free.
House wrap curtain rod
The next section was the real trick. About twelve feet long to the corner, with no holes at the top of the wall, I had nothing to hook the roll on. I came up with a solution that I’m quite proud of. I found a tiny gap in the front corner of the house by the roofline where I could squeeze a ratchet strap out and attach it inside. Once hooked to a second ratchet strap, it was long enough to stretch across the section. I brought the loose end up the ladder and connected it to the ratchet, and made the whole thing taut, right under the roof line.
From there I hung the roll from the taut strap, and slid it along like a curtain rod, unrolling the house wrap as I went, moving the ladder every couple of feet. I cut the house wrap at the correct length to wrap around the front of the house by about a foot, lowered the rest of the roll down, and finally stapled and taped the edges.
House wrap restored (don’t mind the dangling strap)
After all of this, though, I’ve reconsidered something our builder suggested, which is to use Blueskin instead of the house wrap. After all of the time, effort, and money we’d spent to put the house wrap up, I wasn’t really interested when he brought it up several months ago, but now, with the house wrap looking worn and faded from being exposed too long, and an unrelated bit of work that needs to be done on the windows, it’s probably a good idea. It will do a better job of keeping out water and air sealing and still allows the building to dry to the exterior. I hate doing things twice, but even if I’d put up Blueskin in the first place, it would be well past its exposure time in several places.
