Why Building a House is Hard

I guess I should say "Why building a house is hard - for me."  Basically, I have fairly particular ideas about how I want things to be, but I feel like a jerk asking for it.  (Especially if it involves doing something over.  cringe.  But it is, after all, the house we're going to live in forever after.  happily.  So I ask.)

Part of the reason why I'm not fun to build for isn't just that I'm picky, I'm indecisive, too.  So it often comes down to the deadline or slightly after that I (we) finally make a decision.  To be fair, I should say "we."  Part of the reason it takes a while for us to make a decision is that we want to make it together.  And that takes more talking, thought and negotiating.  Thankfully, Mike and I agree on most things.  There's that ever-present balance of wants vs. costs, too, to take into account.  I can see why builders like to do spec houses. No catering to someone's demands, corrections, indecisiveness, quirks . . .

Monday was a tough day for me.  First, there was some bad communication - my fault - and something was built that I wanted changed.  So I had to go in and ask for it to be done differently.  I hate having to do that, but I'd hate living with it how it was, blah, blah, blah.  He was gracious, and it mostly involved a little more work instead of undoing work - which I hope is a good thing.  So that was the first part of the bad day.

Then we met with a subcontractor, and asked if we could do part of the job ourselves, to save money.  That left him disgruntled and with just the tough parts to do, so he decided he'd rather not do the job.  I felt so bad.  Especially since he'd helped us quite a bit, discussing possibilities.  Bad, sad day.

I wish I could do it all myself and not have to make demands on anyone, but that would be one buggly, falling-down house.

I think building a house is always hard.  Especially if it's your first and last house.  Our builder and his crew have been really great in this regard.  Patient and accommodating.  Thank goodness for that.

August 27 - Breaking Ground! (for real)

Friday, August 27, 2010

Mike: Today was my birthday, and I got a pretty cool birthday present. We received our building permit from Weber County. Shaun Durrant came over and started digging the excavation for our home. It was great. I took the day off of work and we watched as they staked the corners (we helped decide where the house would sit (at about a 5 degree angle north west). Then the digging began. We found a cool Indian arrowhead. The hole is really big, but not very deep (about 5 feet deep). Good day.

Victoria: August 27th we broke ground for the foundation of our house! Well, okay, Sean broke ground, and we all sat around and watched . . . and watched . . . for much of the day. It was really exciting. No sarcasm. We've been working on the formal permits, documents, blah, blah, blah for a year and a half. And we've been planning and saving for this for even longer. So we are very, very excited. We finally get to see the fruits (the buds) of our labor.

We're very happy with our choice of builder: Chad Roberts, with Ridgeview Homes. He is really great to work with.

Potable-ness

Today, at 1 PM in fact, the Health Department came to take a sample of our well water. It will take them about 3 weeks to decide whether or not we can drink it, or whether it needs to be re-tested, or whether we have to scrap the well and start all over again. That shouldn't have to happen. Please don't happen! That's an expensive hole in the ground.

In other news, we have our plans engineered and out for bids. We have quite a few things to tick off our checklist before we can get our building permit. Most important, we have to choose a builder.

At this point, I don't feel like I'm in a huge hurry. As long as we get started this fall, so we can get it all enclosed and finished over the winter. That way, our savings can keep earning a little interest until we switch over to paying-interest-people.

And - hooray! - lumber prices came back down to where they were before. Hopefully they'll stay that way.

$8000 and a couple of holes in the ground later

This has been a fairly productive week.

HOUSE-PLAN: Last Saturday, March 20th, we met with Hyrum in the morning. We got the second-to-last bunch of papers from him, with the rear and side elevations. He'll call us in about 2 weeks (one week from now) and then we'll pick the final house-plan. And we'll give him his final payment of $1200.00. It has been a little more expensive hiring him as opposed to picking out a house plan on the internet, but I am so, so glad we did hire him. I'm so happy with what we've come up with and we couldn't have found one we liked as well. And we tried! Oh, we tried. We looked at thousands of plans. No exaggeration. He has done a terrific job and was really great to work with.

GUESS-TI-BID: Also last Saturday, we met with a prospective contractor, who gave us a preliminary approximate bid on our home. The bid was based solely on some jpegs of the house-plan without the exact specs or rear or side elevations. Anyway, it was a little depressing. It really sent Mike into a funk and he actually woke up sick the next day. We tried to console ourselves into thinking it would be less, considering some of the finishes that were bid were much more expensive than we'd choose. (Solid stain-grade doors inside, granite in the bathrooms . . .) We'll have to make many decisions regarding the finishes we want ("need") and then, along with the accurate, engineered plans, we can get the final bids.

We really like this contractor and he's charging a good rate for his contractor percentage, so we'll see how all the final bids come in.

WELL: Met with our well-driller on Monday and signed the contract. Wednesday, his drilling truck was in the middle of the driveway. Apparently there had been a fire somewhere in his engine, or something. Thursday morning, he moved further in to the property (and off the driveway) and along with our neighbor Sean, started work on the well. Mike, Ellie, Charlie and I all stood around in the shallow snow watching Sean dig a deep hole. (Charlie can't stand yet, actually. He was all bundled up in his jogging stroller.) It was so exciting to see something physical happening. He dug a 20+ feet deep hole, they positioned a pipe in it, then filled the dirt back in around it. They use the pipe as a guide to ensure the drilling goes straight down.

So this is the second of two holes referenced. The first was the perc hole dug last year around this time. Both holes are now filled in. So, actually, we don't even have two holes in the ground. But we have a pipe! And, yes, we've spent about $8000 and that's all we have to show for it. I had heard about death-by-fees. It is slow and painful.

His truck is still sitting there. Mike said he plans to tow it out to the spot and work on the carborator (or something) while he's drilling. He'll have us give him the initial chunk of money once they are positioned. ($5000.00) When all is done, it will cost us $12-16K. That, and we get to pay the state $280.00 per year to draw water from our own well. And they'll monitor us occasionally to check that we're not drawing more than our allowance. Nice. Ahhh, well. The water tastes great!

We've been taking pictures daily (or whenever we remember) from marked spots on the lot so that we can track the progress. We really love our spot. It has trees in front and in back, and horse-fields on the East. It is exciting. Also a little scary. Mostly exciting.