Done at last!

It would seem that this should be my last post to this blog, but we'll just have to see.  There may be more to add as an epilogue later, and I've found the writing to be quite therapeutic, so anything's possible.  It just so happened to work out that we got the finishing touches all done just in time for the holidays.  With the exception of the end of the driveway (left til after the moving trucks are done), the last contractor left The Roadhouse on December 28th, which would be the official declaration of completion.  The last thing done was a finish coat on the hardwood floors.  All that's left now is to move in (and pave the bottom of the driveway afterwards). 

Since completion came during the holiday season along with lots of move planning, cleaning, and packing, we decided to forego all the formalities of Christmas this year and just keep it simple.  No tree, no decorations, and no big dinners or gatherings at home, just a few visits with good friends and fellowship around town.  As far as presents, my wife received a small box with a key and a garage door openner and I got a short vacation in Miami with my daughter to watch our WVU Mountaineers win the Orange Bowl.  As such, it was a very good Christmas on many levels.  After a long year building The Roadhouse, some downtime before the move - WITHOUT the added pressures and stress normally associated with all the holiday festivities - provided some long awaited relief. 

Looking back over the year's posts, I see that this Blog has pretty much accomplished what I'd hoped at the onset.  If you've been following along with the posts and progress, then there really isn't a whole lot of new things to see or hear.  The walls are painted, the shutters are up, the windows are clean, and everything has come out quite well in the end.  I have two large binders full of completed contracts, invoices, receipts, shipping manifests, building supply  "pick tickets", and some trailing costs and credit card bills to resolve.  If anyone reading is interested in building your own house, I'm planning on packaging up generic versions of all my contracts, plans, estimates, and processes, along with key tips, do's, and don'ts that I'd suggest to help guide you along the way.  Just shoot me an email and for a modest fee I can make it all available to you.  

Many people have asked me if I'd do it again, or - after seeing how well it turned out - if I plan on making this a second career.  I would definitely do it again to build my own house, as the personal satisfaction, rewards, savings, and quality of the end product far surpass anything I would expect had someone else done it for me.  I got exactly what I wanted, I know every inch of the new house, I am certain of the quality in every single piece of material, in every fixture, and in each component, and am certain that I saved dramatically in the final bill/cost. 

At this point, I think it came out substantially BETTER than I had hoped, although I never doubted my own capabilities to plan, lead, and manage the whole project.  I don't know if I'd want to make a living at it though because I don't know if I'd put in as much effort if it weren't mine in the end.  Do I think ANYONE can do this?  Probably not, but I do encourage you to try if you have the least inclination to do so.  It is NOT as difficult or impossible as some would have you believe, but there is some basic knowledge that you need to have, or at least have ready-access to.  For the record, I do have a Bachelors in Engineering and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management, as well as Professional (PMI) Project Management certification, so I may be a bit more adept to such things than some.  But you'd be hard pressed to find many builders with those credentials, so they're obviously not necessary.  One thing you will need is time and availability to the project.  Since my children are college age and the construction site was literally located between my current home and my office, I had the luxury of having both time and availability throughout the project. 

I'll leave you with this one last picture (not the best) of the front finished, and the promise of an external gallery of professional photos to be added HERE later.  I'll also offer the following in summary:

1) After a full year of planning, construction from the initial permitting (prior to "breaking ground") to final completion took approximately 8 months.

2) My actual progress had minor variations from the originally planned schedule, and in the end finished within 2 weeks of the original plan.

3) The total "soup-to-nuts" cost to build ran slightly under $100 per sq.ft., which is about 20% less than a builder would charge if you were to purchase the house after completion.

4) My final cost at completion was within 5% of my original budgeted cost, although I did add some minor "upgrades" along the way that I didn't originally plan for.

5) I underestimated my own time/effort that was needed to complete the project, and probably over-estimated the amount of "help" I would need in managing the effort.

I also met a ton of people in the local building industry.  What I found was that good, honest, reliable tradesmen/people knew other good, honest, reliable people in the business, and conversely those that were just out to make a buck and/or relocate as much money from my pocket to theirs as they could seemed to also be associated with others of similarly lacking virtue.  Just like any other slice of the population, there are good contractors and there are bad contractors.  It's up to you to manage them accordingly and KNOW who you're working with. 

Thanks for listening!     

Touch up, Tuning, and Turn on!

Well, I missed doing a November update by about 3 days - evidence that I've been EXTREMELY busy over the last six weeks.  If it wasn't with finishing this house (which as you know I've been doing in my "spare" time), it was with several new proposals at work that came out (which are always add-on work to regular day-to-day activities), or the new band I'm in that's taking off like a 747 ( visit http://www.reverbnation.com/flatlineband ), and trying to keep up with just general life otherwise. I try not to neglect the important things (wife, daughter, family, friends, bills, lawn, etc.) but some things have slipped through the cracks in all the juggling (verizon bill!).  Nonetheless - as far as this blog is concerned, I expect to do one more entry after this one of the completely finished product, prior to move-in.

Speaking of entries - one of the latest "Touch ups" has been the final stain on the front door - I think it came out great.  It's a "Therma-Tru Fiberglass EnergyStar rated door (the whole house is "Energy-Star" eligible for certification) with their recommended stain package.  The darkness of the door stain really brings out the gold "caming" in the door glass too. 

Since my last post, we've installed all the final plumbing fixtures, all the final electrical devices (switches and outlets) and fixtures (lights, chandaliers, etc.) and the HVAC units and ductwork in the crawlspace.  That required 3 "Final" inspections, one each for the electrical, plumbing, and Mecanical, which have all passed.  All-in-all, it was about 3 weeks worth of very busy work, with lots of people in the house at the same time.  To me, that was very nerve wracking and required alot of management and oversight, just to make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to, things weren't getting hung upside down or inside out, and that the cracked toilets actually got sent back and replaced with new ones w/o cracks.  Alot of shopping was involved, buying everything. One trip to Lowes Home center drew a reaction from a manager when he saw my shopping cart stacked full of about 40 doorknobs, latches, and locks - he walked by and said "Now THAT'S what I'm Talkin' About".  They know me on a first name basis now.  There are a ton of little things you don't ever think of - like door bumps (that keep your doors and doorknobs from hitting the walls behind them) - "Yes sir, I'll take 24 of those and about 18 of these "hinge bumps - oh and I'll also need about 235 light bulbs too please".   - You think I'm kidding???

We had some challenges with the Master Bath "ClawFoot" Tub and fixtures.  Had to go all over the country to find all the pieces/parts to get that thing setup right.  Took many return-trips by the plumber and lots of cussing.  You'd think they'd be easy.  Here are some bad pictures of the Master Bath starting to come together.  Also had to tear out not one, but TWO vanity sinks/counter-tops from bathrooms that just didn't work.  A bit of a design problem and probably some communication breakdown at the start of that order, but in the end, Kudos to FIRST-CHOICE Custom Cabinets of Raleigh for being customer-focused and making it right - replacing the tops free of charge after some rather difficult conversations.  Everything doesn't always end up how you think it will, no matter how hard you try.
Other than that, things seem to come together pretty well.  The next big step is to get the power turned on in the house.  I learned there were two paths to accomplishing that:  (1) Pay what equates to nothing more than another TAX to have "contingency power" turned on, or just go straight for a final inspection and "Certificate of Occupancy", after which the house is deemed habitable by the city/county inspections and the power can be turned on.  Being the "prudent" financial conservative that I am, we're going straight to C.O. upon advice of my electrician.  Why bother with contingency.  All I'm waiting on for that is the shower enclosure and final soil termite treatment - both of which should happen tomorrow.  So hopefully, we'll have power next week.

That's important to be able to do the two last major things: - finish the Hardwood floors and install carpeting.  Both of those jobs require Heat and/or A/C running to condition the environment to the right temperature and humidity levels for the hardwoods to be final-sanded, stained, and finished, and for the carpet to be properly stretched when installed.  After that - we clean everything up, hang the last few shutters, add a little more sod/grass/landscape on the corner where the dumpster is, pave the bottom of the driveway and - done.

Here's a few closing outside pics taken by my friend Lee - the up-and-coming professional Photographer.  I'll provide some interior shots in the next blog entry, after the power/lighting is on.  Thanks for following along!

 

A Real Yankee Fireplace!

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the fireplace was what got me motivated to get out and start building this house in the first place.  I was tired of looking at fake logs behind a fixed piece of glass that I had to flip a switch to start.  My first house in Ohio had a large Brick/masonry fireplace that took up an entire wall of the room - longways, and when that wall got heated up with about 6 good logs burning, it kept the whole place toasty no matter how cold it was outside.  So the very first requirement I had for my next house was that it had to have a REAL fireplace that could handle more than two Duraflame logs at a time.  I think I've succeeded.  As you can see by these first couple of pics, I'm now the proud owner of a good looking stone-hearth fireplace.  Most homes in this part of the country, even alot of custom builds, have "gas logs" instead because they're alot cheaper to "insert" and the winters are fairly mild.  But I've never much cared for them - even though I had them in the last two houses - after having that first "fire-wall".  Now, thanks to a FANTASTIC job on the stonework by Ken Carroll from GIZA Stone, this is the centerpiece of the whole interior of the Roadhouse. 

Other work on the interior has progressed well at the same time over the last few weeks.  While we're on the topic of stone, you can see from this next pic that the granite countertops have gone in with which I'm also quite pleased.  The granite slab used for them was called "Monte Carlo" granite, and all pieces were cut from the same single Italian slab of granite.  I think it blends well with the cabinets and tile backsplash.  Continuing with the stone theme I also went with a stone tile floor in the kitchen, with mosaic inlays in the breakfast area (can't see that in the pic).

On the outside, Blake and the guys at Panoramic Landscapes finished up the grounds with a fresh crop of Fescue sod.  INSTANT LAWN!  It really helps make the place start to approach a finished look and they also did a great job.  Notice, I don't give plugs for ALL my subcontractors - just the one's that really do a bang up job for me. We even had enough left over to do part of the backyard too, which really helps with drainage and runoff around the house.  The trick now, is to keep it sufficiently watered over the next several weeks to assure the sod takes root into the ground beneath it.  This is a great time of year to be nursing fresh sod in, but it still takes a bit of care and attention to make it work.


I have painters scheduled to show up this week and coat the place with a couple dozen gallons of Sherwin Williams' finest - well, mid-grade at least.  In writing the paint contract, Ed (Home)- wizely advised me to be sure to specify the grade of paint and MINUMUM 50 year caulking be used throughout the entire house to be sure it holds up for years to come. 

Next up, I have a bunch of fixtures on the way - lights, plumbing, etc. - which should be included in the next blog in a couple weeks.  After that, just minor details - gutters, shutters, screens, knobs, locks etc. to finish up.  Stay tuned - it won't be long now!

Fast and Furious October

Even though it's cooling off outside, once we got past the rain things really started heating up inside.  I've got a ton of activity going on finishing up this month and it's hard to keep up...both with the work AND the cash flow rolling out.  There are more trades/contractors in play now than ever before at the same time, requiring lots of coordination, and not to mention lots of cash.  I feel like I'm running my own personal economic stimulus package here, keeping half the county employed.  If you check the time of this post, I'm obviously not sleeping well at this point (also due to other stresses besides this project) and am looking forward to finishing it all up in the next 5 or 6 weeks.

As you can see from this recent photo, the outside is really starting to shape up, thanks to grading and some initial landscaping work.  We should have sod laid down in the front yard this week which will further serve to enhance the appearance.  Still need to put shutters up on the front windows, finish painting the exterior trim around the Bay window, stain the front door/sidelights, and install gutters and downspouts.  That will finish off the front exterior.   In the back, the two porch ceilings need to be stained and a finish coat of trim paint applied to most surfaces there, along with the screens for the screened-in porch.  I really like the look of the "Chippendale" railings on the deck, and plan to eventually paint them white, but not for a good 6-8 more months so the pressure-treated posts could dry out a bit.  I'm afraid we may have missed the window of opportunity for ideal timing on the grass seed in the back, but we'll see.

As for the rest of the activity, as I mentioned above it is extremely busy.  I've got most of the ceramic tile work completed but am waiting on the Granite countertops to be installed to finish up the ceramic backsplashes in the kitchen.  Still have a few outstanding issues with finishing up the kitchen cabinets and vanities in the bathrooms - lots of details to be concerned with there.  The trim carpenter has taken almost twice as long to complete his/their work than originally anticipated, and is being held up slightly by problems with materials/supplies being delivered that are damaged, warped, wrong, or otherwise problematic.  Although Builders-First-Source started out doing quite well supplying the job, they've really slipped down into marginally acceptable performance here near the end, causing numerous problems and delays to progress.  I've got the landscapers going hot-and-heavy on the exterior and a new stone mason coming in this week to finish the fireplace trim inside.  That will be a large piece of work to get behind me.  After that, it's on to painting the interior and the final plumbing (installing toilets, fixtures, and water heater(s)), electrical (light fixtures, switches, and appliances), and HVAC work.  I still have to purchase a ton of fixtures and hardware for the finishing, but shouldn't have a problem getting it there in time for them to do those installs.  Last will be sanding/staining the hardwoods, sealing the floor tile and grout, and then carpeting.   

 

I'm still not sure what to do with all the underbrush on the hill in front of the house, but at least it's been cut down now and you can actually see the house from the road.  By the next time I get around to posting, I should be pretty close to completion and have power hooked up inside the house to get some interior shots. 

It FINALLY stopped raining!

 

Yes, but not before "reining" some serious havoc on my schedule and subcontractor management.  Since I last posted to the blog (over 2 weeks ago), it has rained almost every day.  I was originally scheduled to have the concrete poured for the upper driveway and sidewalks over two weeks ago, but the rain just kept coming.  This of course all started the day AFTER my concrete crew formed and back-filled the entire area with 6" of fresh North Carolina Gold Dirt/Clay.  This was all carefully maneuvered in front of each entrance to the house where the sidewalks and parking pad will be.  Then the rain started and that all turned to knee-deep mud and muck.  Having your house surrounded by a moat of thick mud/muck makes access nearly impossible without tracking tons into the garage and subsequently the interior of the house that is now approaching finishing details.  So, needless to say, I've been rather freaking out over the whole scenario over the entire period.

In addition to creating a gawd-awful mess, this also got things kinda backed up on work too.  The most heavily impacted was the landscaping.  Timing on the landscaping is critical because there's only about a 3 week window in September when you can put down new grass seed and have it take on a new lawn in this part of North Carolina.  Any sooner, it's generally too hot and dry and the seed will just die before it ever germinates, any later and the new seedling grass doesn't have enough time to firmly establish before a hard freeze and Winter hibernation, and it will die the next spring/summer due to being too fragile.  So this was a large impact.  We'll be ok with the front grass because it'll be sod (pre-grown "carpets" of grass), but the back/sides will be a bit of a gamble now with seeding.   It also impacted the other trades working full time in the house - Finish Carpentry, Floor Tile, and Cabinet install - not only from their personal access to the inside being challenged by the mud, but also because there were large material deliveries associated with this work that also needed to be able to back trucks up, unload and move materials in.  So, as you can see by these pictures, it was just a huge mess.

There's been a lot going on nonetheless.  This is not an uncommon occurrence in a construction project, and everybody kind of takes it in stride - except the GC/Builder (me).  I of course spent sleepless nights terrorized with thoughts of the whole house being ruined and all of the 'rhythm' of the construction process being thrown out of wack with deliveries coming and nobody there to receive, and tradesmen stepping on each others toes and everybody getting pissed.  The last thing you want is anybody in the house working pissed off.  In the end, it all worked out ok.  We have a sunny dry week ahead forecast, and the Concrete will go in on Monday morning.  The trim carpentry is moving along well, cabinet installs will be completed today, Tile flooring and bathrooms will be done by mid next week, and I'll be moving on to painting.  The next pictures that go up in the next blog entry should really start to look close to a finished product and might even have a flower or two and a pumpkin on the front porch!

Making the Turn to the Homestretch

It's hard to believe we're heading into mid-September already but we've certainly come a long way since March!  The past month's work has been filled with finishing up the exterior trim work and lots of planning and design on the interior.  The photo above shows the current look from the front with the stone and stairs done.  The bay window is now also trimmed out, although that was done after this photo was taken.  I've been spending a lot of time getting quotes and working with various new contractors on the next phases of finishing.  Even though we were 3 months away from completion, I had to lock in a landscaper for that work because the good ones book up way in advance.  Plus, if you want to plant grass or Sod in North Carolina - late September is the prime time to do that because you still get a good 2 months of warmth and sunshine but without the searing heat that fries fragile new turf.  I'll be putting down Sod (Grass rolled up on palets delivered by truck) in the front, and seeding the back.  I spent a number of contemplative minutes just standing across the street to decide how to do the front yard.  Right now, the view from there looks like the picture above, but when the landscaping work is done, all the ground brush will be replaced with some planned vegetation, a gentle slope up, with a few of the skinny pine trees gone.  We'll probably keep a big Maple out front and also the Elm that is hard to see here hiding behind the two skinny pines sticking up at the left-front of the house.  I also like to keep the large towering pines surrounding the house as much as possible.  They make good lightning rods, which is a very big deal here (NC is #2 in the country for Lightning strike deaths and houses getting torched from hits).   

The back of the house has been getting attention this month also from my supervisor Ed Anderson and his fine gentlemen from "HomeWize" ( http://HomeWize.biz ).  I am not ashamed to put a plug in for them here and say they do GREAT work and the deck is coming out beautiful! The covered part of the deck will be screened in - recessed into the house w/the french doors, exiting out onto an open deck that will wrap around the corner of the house to the covered rear entrance on the garage side.  The deck photos above show that work in-progress, with a closeup of the first "Chippendale" railing Ed and his guys completed on the right.  That design will go around the entire deck. You could also see the finished (but not yet stained) natural wood ceiling that will cover the screened-in porch in the closeup photo.  I'm looking forward to pulling out the natural grain of the wood with a basic varnish finish coat on that stain-quality "Tongue & Groove" ceiling.

Well, the picture of the guy on the utility pole out front shows the latest accomplishment, which is getting the main power line run underground to the meter-box on the house.  That signifies that most of the "construction" work is now complete, and the artistry, craftsmanship and finishing of the interior begins.  I'll leave you with the current picture of the entrance foyer from the inside looking out, because that will all change starting tomorrow, when the hardwood flooring contractor shows up and starts putting down the base and hardwoods in the formal areas.  It won't be long now! If you made it this far - thanks for listening!  :)

Let there be ROCK!

It's been nearly a month since I've provided an update on the house and the natives are getting restless - harassing me for an update on progress, so I better provide a new entry before I get gang-tackled and beaten! Things have slowed down a bit now that we've mostly moved inside after completing the insulation and garage slab.  I titled this post "Let There Be Rock" for two reasons:  (1)After over 3 weeks of promising to start "tomorrow", the masons FINALLY showed up on Saturday (8/13) and started putting up the "Top Rock" stone veneer on the remaining outside walls of the house.

You can get an idea of what it'll look like in the picture at left around the nearest window.  They will be covering all the remaining white "House Wrap" with that stone veneer - technically called "Fieldstone" in a finish that the Dutch Quality Cultured Stone company calls "Top Rock".  Once finished, I think it will be a dramatic front of the house to go with the "tumble" style brickwork and the "shake" siding above.  The process for applying this stone is quite meticulous, in that first they cover the Tyvek wrap with a thin metal screen material, and then that is covered with a wet mortar/glue mixture that kind of resembles a grey stucco.  Then the rock is placed piece by piece into the mortar/stucco stuff and manually arranged tightly on the wall.  Mortar is then used to fill the joints between the stone to give the final finished appearance of natural stone and hold everything tight.  There are pre-cut corner pieces, and trim pieces that serve as the "soldiers" for trim above doors and windows.  This place will be a fort when completed.

The second reason for the title, is for SHEETROCK.  Three Hundred and seventy five sheets - mostly 4.5 x12 ft. each - of sheetrock in this place.  It's not much to look at - sheetrock is pretty boring - but here's one picture of the inside completed with sheetrock to the right.

That ended up being a bit of a budget-buster.  If I had to do it over again, I would try and come up with another way to pay the drywall contractor for doing that work.  They typically get paid a certain rate per sheet - which is what I did.  Although I got a very good rate up front, there's really no way to make them work efficiently because it is very much to their advantage to use MORE sheets = more pay.  It's very difficult to get an accurate estimate of how many sheets should go into the place with all the cutting and fitting that goes on, particularly on this kind of design with a lot of angles and few perfectly whole/square sheets.  But I KNOW these guys were throwing away good sheetrock that could've been used on smaller spaces.  When that happens, I end up paying twice for their inefficiency: First for the cost of the sheetrock itself, and second for their per-sheet rate to install and finish it.  Ed tells me this is a VERY common practice and a problem with every house's construction, and you're kind of at the mercy of the sheetrock contractor's virtue (now THERE's an oxymoron!).  All in all, I think I could've only saved about 3 - 4% of the total ~$10k contract cost including materials if I were there watching and managing every single sheet that went up and into the dumpster.  That's roughly $200-$300 which in the larger scheme isn't a huge amount, but equates to a bonus for the sheetrock contractor.

After all was said and done though, they did a fine job, and we're ready to move on to other finishing work. Sheetrock was a major ordeal that took place over the last three weeks and started with me watching (and eventually helping) ONE GUY deliver, unload, and place all 375 sheets of sheetrock into the house, on 3 different floors, all by himself, over the course of about 4 hours.  I was appalled that the supply company did that and have since canceled the rest of their contract as a result.  I considered that abuse - oh, and it was THE single hottest day of the year that day - 104 while he was doing it.  I will say the gentleman never complained or whimpered a bit and was the utmost professional.  But he never should've been doing that alone.

One suggestion that I HIGHLY recommend if you ever do this yourself.  While waiting for the drywall delivery to arrive, I was quite bored, so I decided to videotape (using my smartphone) every square inch of the interior wallspace in the house while talking and describing what was there BEFORE the drywall went up.  This will give me - and any possible future owner of the house - a PERMANENT video record of exactly what is behind each wall, where every stud, drain pipe, supply line, and nail block is INSIDE the walls.  If you have ever tried to do any renovation or minor addition/construction to an existing house, you're always wondering what's behind the walls.  Well, with indexed video of each room, hallway, and piece of wall/ceiling space, I'll always know what's in there.  If I can add a video to this post later - here's one, as promised:

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Next up - I've got all my cabinets and countertops ordered, so I better get on the ball with getting plumbing and lighting fixtures on the way, and a good interior painting contractor (the drywall guy wants to do it, but we'll see).  Also I have landscapers showing up next week, and the intermediate grading to be done out back so we cans start framing the deck.  I also have to epoxy the garage floor, finish the bay window, put up ceilings on the porches, and get a garage door installed!  I did a walk thru with one of two trim carpenters that are bidding on the job, and will need to get a take-off of trim materials and interior doors done this week, along with the fireplace stone/hearth finishing estimate.  So much to do....and this is all in my spare time!  :)

Happy trails!  Til next time.