Project Homestead - part 5 - NOW the neighbors hate us

After the four day rush to have sub-rough plumbing inspected, the damp proofing done, back fill completed and gravel placed and leveled, we were ready to have the concrete floors poured.

On October 2, 2011, I left town for a work conference with absolutely no intention of letting the concrete contractor know that wouldn't be around to check their progress each day.

On October 3rd, they were on site installing rebar for the floors (we opted to spend an extra $650 adding rebar to avoid any shifting later) and called that evening to let me know they'd be starting the pour at 6am the next day in hopes of avoiding a rain storm later that day.  The contractor was a bit concerned about upset neighbors calling in a noise complaint to the police.
 

Laundry room, bathroom, and entrance area.

On October 4th - as reported a few neighbors who happen to be friends - the crew (complete with flood lights) and concrete truck (complete with backup alarms) was on site at 5:15am.  By the end of the day, our floors were poured and the flatwork was done.

Family Room

LESSONS LEARNED:
1) The concrete will NEVER be perfectly flat and level. It Just Won't Happen.
2) A good rain storm after the floors are poured will really show you how true #1 is.
3) Friends won't complain about the 5:15am noise and light but they will harass you about it a bit.

Bedrooms and Family Room

Project Homestead - part 4 - Where's the Gang?

Once the concrete walls were ready, it was time for sub-rough plumbing. Sub-rough plumbing really just consists of the drain pipes that are installed below the floors and will connect to the sewer line. The plumbing contractors dug trenches and placed/connected all of the drain pipes for the home.  Once that was done, I had to shovel the dirt back into the trenches and pack it down as prep for the gravel fill.

While the plumbers were doing their part, I spent two days with a 24 gallons of tar, a paint roller, and a roofing brush coating the foundation as damp proofing.

After the damp proofing was done, the backfill started.  I rented a bobcat to do some back fill around the outside of the garage where the dig was rather shallow and compaction wasn't critical. I also moved a lot of dirt so that the excavator and I could get a backhoe around back.

I opted to install a french drain and bring it to a vertical culvert where a sump pump can be installed later. Wow, that was a pain! The plastic drain tile (flexible pipe) kept shifting up when gravel was dumped on it and it took a long time to install.

After the french drain was installed, we started back fill with the excavator running the backhoe and me running a compactor.  Rather than fill the inside of the basement with 6" of dirt, level it and compact it then fill it with  4" of gravel that also had to be leveled, I opted for 10" of gravel and no need for compacting.

All told, the back fill, compacting and gravel project amounted to four days of labor and felt a lot like working on a chain gang without the chain.  One day, I drank water all day but was still 8lbs lighter that night and couldn't pee until the next day.  I shoveled and raked a crazy amount of gravel but, it was all even and ready for to support the 4" concrete slab that will be the basement floor or our new home.

LESSONS LEARNED:
1) Shoveling and raking a LOT of gravel was brutal but it was still better than back filling, leveling and compacting 6" of dirt and then shoveling 4" of gravel.
2) Hire a few laborers to help shoveling gravel next time!
3) The ICS foam block forms would have saved a lot of time and effort damp proofing the foundation and would be far more effective.
4) Never use the perforated hose style drain tile again! Using the solid PVC with holes drilled only on the top would be much easier and more effective.

Project Homestead - Part 3 - Filling the Hole with Cats!

The concrete crew was on site August 24, 2011 setting forms for the foundation footings.  Haylie, Zander and myself took a walk up to the job site (did I mention, its 1/4 mile from our apartment?) to take a look that night and our cat walked along to check things out. The cat (Sam or Bocephus depending on whether Haylie tells your or I do) just jumped right down in the hole and walked around. At one point, he even laid down and rested a bit.

Since that day, the cat has continued to follow us to the job site and I've even found him already there several times when I've gone over in the evenings. Moving likely won't be a problem for him.

The walls could have gone up a few days after the footings were poured but, that's when we hit our second setback.  The concrete crew was busy on other projects and left us hanging for three weeks.  UGH!!  Three weeks in mid summer wouldn't have been too bad but in the fall, it meant there were pushing us into cold weather and possible snow. I was NOT pleased about that.

We had actual basement walls on September 16th, 2011.  For the most part, the concrete footings and walls turned out well.  There's one second of garage wall that sagged a bit though the framers were able to shim the floor truss at that point to make up for it.  There's also one window that's not placed correctly.  The laundry room window is only three feet tall (the other basement windows are four feet tall) to allow for washing machine against the wall. Unfortunately, the concrete crew set that window even with other windows at the BOTTOM rather than even at the TOP.  The owner of the company said he'll give me some keystone blocks to use when building the retaining walls at my basement door and, though I'll ALWAYS thing that window is dumb, I'm going to go with it.

We've since also found that the north wall or the garage sagged a bit - the framing crew was able compensate.  The concrete crew also neglected to offset the anchor bolts correctly on that same wall for the section where garage/house wall becomes garage/outside wall. That wouldn't be an issue if the anchor strap were placed to line up with the bolts.  There are ways to frame around it but its still annoying.

LESSONS LEARNED:
1) If the contractor isn't there and moving forward when you expected, call right then and ask what the hold up is. Waiting to see if they'll show up just kills your project timeline.
2) Check everything yourself regardless of how experience the crew is. That low window is going to bug me forever.
3) Next time, I'm using the ICS foam block concrete forms. Having not seen the entire foundation process before, I didn't trust myself to get it right but having seen the process, I'd feel comfortable doing it myself.

Project Homestead - Part 2 - Getting Dirty

I'm pretty sure the neighbors behind our lot don't like us.  They purchased their home about one month before we purchased our lot. The home formerly belong to friends of ours and they said the new owners were happy the lot behind them was vacant so that they could move trailers and other items through to their back yard.  I hope they made good use of that feature for the two months prior to us excavating because we definitely messed that up.
At the end of August, I made arrangements with an excavator to dig out for our foundation and basement. Leslie and I measured and marked the lot and a few days later, there was a backhoe where our dirt had been!  The kids were getting a little bit excited about things but they didn't really get what this meant for our dream of being in a house again.

LESSONS LEARNED:
1) A soil report calling for "shale soil" and very likely water problems isn't necessarily a death sentence to your basement. We lucked out and had no problems at all. We also set the basement three feet shallow to hopefully avoid problems later.
2) A quality excavator makes life easier. Kerry Krompel did a great job and actually had the hole flat and level. The concrete crew had an easy time setting the footing forms and we didn't waste any concrete trying to fill low spots.

Project Homestead - Part 1 - The SLOW start.

After searching for months trying to find a home we'd like to buy in Price, we eventually decided there was nothing worth purchasing. Everything was either far beyond our price range (the new homes), in need of far too much repair/renovation (most of the homes in our price range) or BOTH. There is an astounding number of older (1950's or 1970's) home in Price that have had minor renovations and are now priced more expensive than brand new homes in some other areas.  The phrase "polished turd" kept coming to mind but it didn't really apply because most of them hadn't been polished.

Rather than paying too much for something that still needed a lot of work, we've opted to build our own home. I've done some framing before and seen, at least at some level, everything involved in building a home I'm just foolish enough to tackle the entire process, and much of the work, myself and will document the experience here.

In February 2011, we chose a house plan from an web store and purchased it for $700. We wanted a few changes but figured we could hand draw the changes we needed.  After talking to the local building inspector about the plans though, it became clear they would need a lot of change to pass 2009 code because these were from 2006.  I spent $100 for a home design software application and started re-drawing the plans and putting in the necessary changes. We were still saving up money for the down payment and so the extra time didn't matter much.

In March, 2011, we made an offer on a lot we really wanted but were turned down. In July 2011, we finally felt we had enough money saved up to get started and that we'd have the plans ready soon so we placed an offer on an alternate lot. It wasn't the lot we really wanted but the price was within our budget, we already knew some of the neighbors and it was laid out just right for our home plans. There was some confusion with the real estate agent and the developer/seller over which lots were actually still available and so we didn't get the lot we wanted.

While trying to clear up the confusion regarding which lots were available, the real estate agent remembered the lot we originally wanted and mentioned that another on the same street had just sold for a price we could afford. We made an offer and landed our preferred lot for the same price as the second choice lot was selling for.  SCORE! The lot we grabbed is on a street of new homes, across the street from a church next door to friends, and up the street from the school Leslie teaches at and Haylie attends. BIG SCORE!!

We lined everything up with the bank and headed to the city offices to have our plans approved. That's when we hit our first setback. The "setback" requirements on the lot meant our home, as designed, wouldn't fit on the lot and we'd need to re-draw the plans.

The same week our plans and lot were going to the appraiser as part of the loan process, I had to completely redesign and redraw the entire plan.  Three days later, we had something the appraiser could use and a week later, we had something that would pass inspection.  UGH - that was a LONG week!
The loan process was easy and we signed the papers mid August 2011 with our approved plans in hand.

Building a home was no longer a dream, it was a commitment we had to come through on.

LESSONS LEARNED:
1) That 20% down is due when you sign papers on the owner/builder loan. You don't have until the home is complete to have the 20% ready. They also add 10% to the projected costs betting that a non-professional builder is going to go over a bit.
2) Building code requirements have come a long way since our previous house was built in 2004.
3) Washington Federal in Price, UT (the bank we used) is really friendly and helpful with the whole financing and planning process.

DISGUISE THE BUM!

On Sunday, while I was changing Zander's diaper (yes, a diaper @ 3 1/2 yrs old because he's stubborn), I asked him to lift his legs and then he belted out "DISGUISE THE BUM." He proceeded to tell me to disguise the bum throughout the diaper change. When we were done, Zander told me he'd be telling the kids in the nursery at church to disguise the bum. I asked him not to. You can guess how that request was taken.
True to his word, when Zander walked into the nursery, his first words were "DISGUISE THE BUM!" I asked him to stop talking about his bum and then explained that he invented that phrase on his own.
Tonight, Zander was enjoying another diaper change and once again exclaimed, "DISGUISE THE BUM!" Right after that, he went into some speech about how he's a hero and his power is to disguise the bum. I really wish he'd warn us that he's going to wax poetic so that we could film those moments.

Creepy Story Time

Since Haylie was old enough for bedtime stories, the bedtime routine and story telling has been largely my responsibility. It works out well because Leslie has generally spent all day with the kids and is ready for a break while I've been at work during the day and could you some extra kid time. We normally just ready from one of the hundreds of children's books laying around (that happens when there's a teacher in the home) but sometimes a plain old story from a plain old book just won't cut it.
Made up stories, books with Haylie and Zander as the characters, normal stories in funny voices and stories told by various stuffed animals are a few of the ways I liven up the bedtime story. The funny voices and made up stories usually turn out well but on occasion, they'd be down right odd or creepy to any adult listening.
Tonight, I read a "Clifford the Big Red Dog" story to the kids but in a funny voice. The voice started out normal enough but evolved into a combination of Morgan Freeman in "The Shawshank Redemption" and Hannibal Lecter.
A few years ago, the CareBear "Bedtime Bear" would tell Haylie a lot of bedtime stories but his voice evolved into that of a sociopath character form the TV show "Prison Break."
Several weeks back, Haylie and Zander asked for a made up story and, when I couldn't think of anything good, I told them the story of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." Describing what a phone booth is was the hardest part of that story.
Fortunately, Haylie and Zander are oblivious to where some of these voices and stories come from and love their bedtime stories; a few are such a big hit riotous laughter (really, I'm not making that up) keeps them from falling asleep for a while.

Travel Anxiety

Tomorrow morning, I'll be driving to Salt Lake City and then flying to Boston for a week of work related training. I'm not afraid of flying and really enjoy seeing new places, but with two kids at home, I now get a bit of anxiety when I travel. As soon as the plane lands in Boston, I'll be perfectly relaxed until the flight home and will be fine again when the plane lands in SLC.

Being away for the week isn't so bad but the thought of a plane crash or other accident preventing me from returning home to Leslie and the kids really gets to me. I worry about Haylie and Zander growing up without me. I worry about Haylie missing me and about Zander not being old enough now to remember me later. I worry about Leslie on her own trying to raise two children and trying to explain that their father is gone. There's a LOT of things I'm looking forward to teaching and doing with my children.

Tonight, Haylie cried and asked me not to go. I want very much to say 'yes' and stay close to home this week and every week but the trip is part of work and part of providing for my family. I'm thankful for technology that will allow my to talk them each day and, if I can find the extra web-cam and some bandwidth at the hotel, to see them each day as well.

Loving (and being part of) a family certainly makes some of the ordinary things in life difficult but, I'm grateful every day to have Leslie, Haylie and Zander in my life.

Charlie Brown

Today, Zander "Charlie Brown'ed" his first kite. He managed to get it stuck on the backboard of a basketball hoop and then a tree less than two minutes later.

The kite was easily retrieved from the tree and both Haylie and Zander had fun flying their kites but, I decided that to have two kids flying kites at the same time, two adults are required - I just couldn't keep up with keeping both of them crash free by myself. Leslie missed all of the kite flying fun.

Funny Kids

Haylie and Zander just keep saying funny things. There are usually six or seven great comments from each of them throughout the week but here are three that sprang to mind tonight.

Many nights, Zander gets comes out of his room a few minutes after he goes to bed and asks for a drink or a snack, mostly as a way to stay up later. Last week, he came out and said "I need to go potty in the toilet." I asked, "do you really need to go or are you just trying to stay awake?" Zander answered honestly with, "I'm just trying to stay awake."

This week, Zander attempted to ask for "Go-Gurt" but apparently couldn't remember the name and so he said, "Can I have some yogurt? I mean gobert. I mean, whatever its called." The statement itself wasn't funny but to hear a not quite three year old use "whatever its called" in a sentence was pretty funny.

The next day, while I was changing Zander's diaper (yes, he still wears diapers because he is to stubborn to even try potty training), he lifted both legs high, looked toward his bum and said "hey, why is there a crack?"

While Haylie and Zander and I were driving today (okay, I was driving, they were apparently sitting back there judging), Haylie blurted out, "mom is a terrible driver." I now have some concerns over exactly what Leslie is doing behind the wheel of a car and what Haylie has established as criteria for driving skill.

Memories in the Corner of My Mind (Part 3)

At the age of 20, when I thought back to the things I'd said and done in my life, the thoughts were often followed by a slap to the forehead and utter disbelief that I'd done or said something so pathetic or embarrassing (or pathetically embarrassing on a few occasions).
Some of those memories are of pitifully failed romantic overtures, others are of misguided attempts to fit in with one social group or another. Yet more of those memories are of foolish actions or ill conceived "brilliant plans" for having fun (case in point, dislocating a shoulder while going cliff jumping and preceding to go again each weekend since the shoulder went back in).

Regarding many of those memories, its easy to look back and laugh. Some are so amusing that its worth calling up an old friend and refreshing both of our memories of how it all went down. Others are memories that remain so embarrassing or painful that they remain mine alone. As much as I'd always wanted to forget those moments or, better yet, finally invent a time machine and go undo a good dozen or so of those memories.

At the age of 32, I seldom look back on those moments. Its not that those moments are any less embarrassing, its simply that they no longer hold the same significance for me and that there are so many newer memories (yes, some also pathetic or embarrassing) draw my attention.

I hope that I never forget what it was like to be hopelessly invested in someone else, to be crushed by someone else, to be so excited to be part of something. The experiences, both good and bad, engrained on our memories make us who we are. As my children grow up, they'll go through a whole range of experiences and emotions as I move further away from the similar experiences that I had. I hope to never forget how I felt in those moments, the good or bad decisions I made, the whole experience of growing up!

I want my children to know and trust me as a friend as well as a parent. I want to remember and understand what they're going through so that I can help and so that I can refrain from screaming at the top of my lungs, "what on EARTH were you thinking?" because I was once thinking (or perhaps not thinking but feeling) the same thing. Maybe I'll even share a few embarrassing stories with them.

Memories in the Corner of My Mind (Part 2)

When you're young, you remember everything like it was yesterday. Well, when you're 12 years old, it practically was yesterday. When you're 16, there's still not a lot jammed in the ol' noggin and when you're 18, you basically don't care what you remember because there are more important things to worry about like graduating from high school and moving out.

While it may not be scientifically proven, I've always felt there's a finite amount of space in my cranium and, as new things are added, some things just have to go. The lyrics to that "Bat Out of Hell 2" album by Meatloaf were thankfully on the list of things that went.

There are some things that just don't fade over time the way the rest of it does though. For me, at least, a strong emotional response really duct tapes a memory to the inside of my skull. It has to be something more specific than just being really happy or sad for a memory to stick like glue, though.

At 32 years old, I remember parts of the move (including the Greyhound bus ride) from Pennsylvania to Wyoming at age 3; going with my parents to see a house at age 5 and then not wanting to move into it because I'd be starting kindergarten in a different town.
Unfortunately, I also remember when my parents nearly divorced and when I cried at my best friends house because we'd be moving away.

I remember spending time with my grandmother, helping her garden or cook, helping to clean and just spending time with her. Oh no - I just remembered sleeping over at her home and being a huge fan of New Kids on the Block - I guess that ties into part 1 of this post.

Naturally, I remember the first time I SAW my first car, before I'd even purchased it and I remember the excitement of my first night in a college dorm and the completely random and funny things that happened pretty much non stop for the first two months of being out on my own.

Leslie (the woman I remember marrying 10 1/2 years ago) has a much better memory of specific dates, events, etc and so I hope she'll forgive me when I one day forget our anniversary but remember flirting with her during a parade float build and then later asking her out by placing a rose and note reading "for a good time call ....." (with a phone number but no name) on her windshield.

Memories in the Corner of My Mind (Part 1)

While driving home from the office late tonight, "The Freshman" by The Verve Pipe was playing on the radio and I started thinking of the past for two reasons.
1) The song speaks of the naivety of youth, consequences and accountability.
2) I strongly associate music with events or periods in my life.

Generally speaking, everyone associates a type or style of music to a time period or era and then ties that a stage of their life. I tend to take that a step further, and perhaps most people do, by associating specific songs to specific events, trials or emotional impacts in my life.

Thankfully, I wasn't alive during the Disco craze but I do have serious regrets about owning Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell 2" album though I have no shame regarding the MC Hammer or Ace of Base albums.

There is either a specific song or specific album tied to the memory of every girl I hopelessly pined for throughout middle school and high school.
There's a theme song to each great adventure or trip with friends.
Better than Ezra's "Good" directly associates to spending three weeks at a gifted and talented summer camp and finally meeting new people and making friends without past stigmas or bullies holding me back.
Duncan Sheik's "In the Absence of Sun" marked the end of high school (the day after the senior "lock in" over night activity actually) and absolutely cuts to the realization that I'd never actually taken the risk and told someone how I felt about her and that the opportunity was now gone.
The band Cake kept me grooving through late night studying and projects as I finished the last semester of college at Boise State.
There's a Bad Religion album for the day I was laid off from my job at URS in 2009.
Rammstein's "Du Hast" marks visiting Bryan Tipton and other friends in Powell, WY during my sophomore year of college but Rammstein's "Mein Herz brennt" represents motorcycle rides between Idaho City and Lowman, ID.
The list goes on...

Its rather amazing how a certain song can bring back such vivid memories or even just the simple associations. Occasionally, the lyrics relate to event or emotion but more often, its just something I happened to be listening to when those memories were made.