THINGS WE HAVE DONE RIGHT SO FAR

1. PREPARATION: Spent over two years designing our home, learning about the construction business, and learning how to be an owner builder (well over 1,000 hours), and started continuing dialogues with resources who are knowledgeable and supportive. Our log home company said they had NEVER had anyone ask as many questions as we did, and that they are going to publish them and their answers for future customers! Made preliminary decisions about what we wanted and priced all items down to the door knobs.
2. CONTRACTING: Learned about the bidding process & going rates and picked good contractors (quality over cost). We got to know them, treated them well, and understood that the reason they don't always show up on time is because other people want last minute changes or additions just like we did! (We needed and got a fireplace foundation built, french drains added, and the interior of the foundation leveled up without prior notice...course we also offered to pay cash!) Also, we complemented our subs and their employees a lot and were sure to tell bosses when they did something especially good or showed initiative.
3. FINANCES: Allowed enough of a reserve in our construction loan - and some personal cash - to cover potential overruns, staying on budget (so far). Set up via excel spreadsheets accounting methods to track every dime alloted and spent, showing at all times how much of a reserve is left.
4. SUPERVISION/SITE WORK: Been at the site every single day that contrators are there, sometimes up to three times a day, ready to answer questions, make decisons, run out for building supplies that were left off lists or otherwise ommitted, and more.
5. BOUGHT MATERIALS DIRECTLY AT A DISCOUNT: Always asked for owner-builder discounts (and almost always got them). Paid for most of the materials directly ourselves with either start-up funds, 0% charge cards, or by charging them to accounts we opened up at local building supply places. (Our subs who included materials in their bids were very greatful that we offered to do this, especially as the construction business is very slow right now and finances are tight.)
6. REMEMBERED TO LAUGH & STARTED A BLOG: (Well, OK, we haven't perfected the laughter part yet, but are trying, as building your own home is extremely stressful even on the best of marriages, and ours is in that category). At the end of the day we try to take time to relax together and to reflect on how very lucky we are. We also enjoy tracking our progress via our blog and weekly emails to family & friends.
7. OTHER RESOURCES: This is a magical place. Many of our new friends here have had experience in building their own home, two as owner-builders, one who had a GC, and one (a master carpenter) who is building his house himself from the ground up. All have been an enormous wealth of information about local contractors, prices, and suppliers. We've made it a point to meet our neighbors in the area where we are building, and they have also been very encouraging and supportive. This is a very small town and we've discovered that most of them knew who we were and had checked out our site before we even met them - fine with us! Some are still showing up on the site to introduce themselves and give us their opinions (S).

Week Nine - Still Finishing Phase One

Week of 7/28/08 - OK, so we're still here, no mortgage inspection or draws yet and no log home package. Rain, subs stuck on other jobs, subs who accidentally buried the cable for our temporary electric cable connection then had to dig it up with a backhoe, a last minute decision to install french drains around the foundation, and the time it took for us to waterproof our foundation ourselves held us up. We had to dig out one side of the house (30 feet long, 2 feet deep) that was back filled in error, and also had to move about three tons of leftover block that was in our way. (Norman really did figure out that it was close to 3 tons!) Two days were spent waterproofing (including two two-hour trips to the only supply house in Altamont that had the waterproofing we wanted for a total of 12-14 backbreaking sweaty hours between the two of us in 93+ weather. We had to do the waterproofing ourselves since our sub didn't have time right now. That's OK, though, as we saved some money and are very proud of the job we did. As of today, we have completed everything except for back filling the foundation and covering up the septic tank, and confirming that our temporary electrica has passed inspection. Our septic inspection passed just fine; he knew all of us, loved the site and had enjoyed his lunch there several times, and signed off even though he actually didn't even walk over to the septic tank or look at the field lines! (I will give no names here to protect the guilty!) Our first mortgage inspection is set for next Monday (the same day the back filling, etc., will be done, but the mortgage co. said that was OK). Three folks from the log home company came to the site to check things out & we made some good plans. The logs will be delivered next week and the dry-in will take 2-3 weeks. Norman & I are excited over our choices of tubs and showers (biscuit rules) and faucets. We are getting a $250 rebate from the log home company as well as free upgrades on our door knobs and hinges as a "thank you" so that is nice. We don't have all of the figures in yet, but it looks like Phase One will come in a bit under budget. We are in a good mood and looking forward to seeing our logs!

Week Eight - Finishing Phase One

Phase One - Last Week: 7/21/08 - A bit of rock and new requirements for our electrical transformer have slowed things down a bit, but our buddies Bob & Brian hope to be done in a day or so. The ditch for our underground electric is 4 feet deep and 750 feet long. Over 1,000 feet of telephone wire was delivered last week by AT&T, one of the few items we didn't have to pay for! Lee Pettis of Duck River Electric has been wonderful to us. He came out 3-4 times before we started construction to help us stake our underground electric, then has been back several times since to help subs with the trench and transformer requirements. Gib, our block man, was injured on another job last week, but promises to show up tomorrow AM. He will finish the house foundation then the fireplace foundation. It was kind of cool to see our septic tank installed today - looks sort of like a concrete casket. It is called a "lowboy" as it sits higher up in the ground than a regular tank (go figure). That makes about as much sense as PVC pipe having male and female parts on their ends. One part, the receiver, is the female part. The male part screws in to the female part. Do you know how embarrassing it was for me to go to Builder's Supply & tell the parts guy that I needed male and female parts for my pipes? (S) How much do you want to bet that a man came up with that one! P.S. IT IS NOW FRIDAY & WE ARE NOW BEHIND 3 DAYS BECAUSE OF RAIN AND SUBS NOT SHOWING UP. I AM LEARNING TO GO WITH THE FLOW. ENJOY THE PIC I JUST ADDED OF MY HUSBAND (IN THE PINK) HARD AT WORK WITH OUR FOUNDATION SUBS.

Week Seven - Electric & Septic

Phase One - Week of 7/14/08 - This morning Norman & I were on our way out to the property to see if one of our subs, Charles Thomas (owner of Charles E. Thomas Construction), had shown up. He was in our driveway. He let us know that he was ready to start our underground electrical work and septic system. Charles is quite a character: a man of few words, he rarely answers his phone, doesn't worry about signed contracts, and gets around to sending clients a bill a couple of weeks after the job is done (or so we've heard). He has an excellent reputation here, though, of high quality work and integrity & quietly goes about the community doing various good deeds and giving generously to charity whenever asked. We like him a lot. I cancelled my plans to take our sick cat, India, to the vet, and began to coordinate all of today's needed events: Phone calls to and from Duck River Electric to answer various questions & request a site visit today, phone calls to neighbors to let them know the digging will begin, and phone calls to suppliers to order and deliver materials. Oh, and then there are the trips back and forth from the site to convey information since cell phones don't work well there and phone calls from my husband about a deal he just heard of on cultivated stone. Once again, we've moved from 0 to 100 mph! Hang in there, kitty cat!

Week Six - Fireplace Blues

Phase One - Week of 7/7/08 - The good news is that our foundation is 99% complete and looking good. The bad news is that we assumed that our fireplace foundation was included in the foundation bid, but guess what...? You guessed it. Boy, did we mess up, to the tune of over $2,000! Luckily for us, the contractor finishing up our block work is going to make time to do our fireplace next week. (Stop laughing, Tim.) The rest of this phase is going slowly, e.g., the underground electric and septic work. Our contractor for those items was supposed to be there towards the end of this week, but no show and no call back yet. It looks like these delays will set back the log delivery date to somewhere between the 21st to the end of this month. Oh, well, I'm sure things will soon be zipping right along...(Tim, if you are reading this, stop laughing.) Tim, by the way, is one of our friends who recently built his own home. He had a GC but it still took him 16 months to finish up. MOUNTAIN TIME?

Week Five - We Passed Our First Inspection!

Phase One - Week of 6/30/08 - Here is a picture of "our guys," Carl & Uncle Dick, putting in our footers. They didn't know I was going to show up to take pictures, otherwise I am sure they would have kept their shirts on. I told Norman it was OK, that their pecs were almost as good as his, so it wasn't overly offensive. The Building Inspector came out yesterday to inspect the foundation after the re bar was put in. We weren't too worried as our foundation contractor has NEVER failed an inspection yet, according to the two guys doing the actual work. This week work on the foundation will continue with the concrete for the footers being poured, then the block work begins. Our block work guy, Gib, came out today to take final measurements for block. Our driveway and waterline guy, Terry, was also out. He moved one of our spigots to a more convenient location (our builder said it was in the way of the log trucks, what did we know). He also worked on the driveway, smoothing it out and dumping several loads of gravel. He should be through sometime tomorrow. I was there most of the day basically cutting roots that were in the driveway and raking up sticks and twigs. I also talked to our closest neighbor, John, about his dog Peehead (yes, his real name). Our construction guys love Peehead, who likes to follow them around and help them dig holes, but they were worried he would get into their fresh concrete. P.S. I WANT TO SEE SOME CONSTRUCTION FEMALES (SIGH). OH, WELL. MAYBE WOMEN ARE JUST MEANT TO BE BOSSES LIKE ME...