Week of 8/18/08 and 8/25/08 - The dry-in went amazing fast and the J.R Neal construction crew and Battle Creek construction manager, Lee Cardin, were very friendly and professional. We treated the crew to brownies, fruit and other goodies each week and they went out of their way to patiently answer our questions. We did experiences some "glitches," however: 1) We learned during the dry-in period that our log home company does not frame out those windows or the doorways for the front and mudroom doors that we are buying ourselves. My husband had to make a trip to the window company to find out the specifics. The dry-in crew graciously agreed to handle this, for a fee of $25 per window which sounded reasonable to us; 2) We realized that our bathroom windows were too high and needed to be cut lower, our error. We had an emergency conference call with Battle Creek on the increased size of the windows. Once again, the dry-in crew & the construction manager came to the rescue. This time we used the barter system: three cases of beer and two chain saw blades! 3) Our fireplace foundation was finally capped off after a consult with our fireplace guys and our fireplace insert was ordered and received. However, we could not, at first, figure out how to easily get a two-pallet fireplace insert weighing a total of 950+250 lbs inside the house. (This was not something our dry-in crew was excited about handling.) My SMART hubby finally came up with a plan: He offered Collins' Building Supply, who is to deliver our wood floors, $100 to stop by our house, pick up the pallets, and use their truck's lift to lift it onto the porch. He will then use a pallet lifter he is borrowing from a local veggie merchant to scoop it up, into the house and (hopefully) onto the fireplace foundation; 4) We have water leaks. It rained ferociously for 2-3 days on the 25th & 26th and water leaked through the valleys where the middle roof and two lower-pitched roofs meat. The log home company said it was normal for that much rain, that the roofing felt couldn't hold it. We consulted with our roofer (who has 40 years' experience, but was in Alabama) & he told us that the felt was probably not laid correctly. He also said it was a bad idea for him to go ahead and lay down flashing and shingles until the fireplace was completed. (Our fireplace roof goes through the middle of the house.) Another friend said the same thing. Norman and I spent hours sucking up water with a wet-dry vac; 5) The fifth glitch is related to the fireplace. When we called our fireplace subs to let them know that we would be ready for them the first week of September (which is what we had been telling them for at least 6 weeks), they told us that they would be tied up on another job for at least 2-3 more weeks. This was rather upsetting, as due to the aforementioned leaks, we can not have any interior work done (such as dry-wall, electric, HVAC or plumbing) until the fireplace is done and the roof is shingled. I was told that they would try to find a mason to get things started for us and that they would call us back soon; 6) Trash: We didn't realize how exhausting picking up trash and stacking waste lumber would be. We have spent the entire last three weekends doing this and have the aches and pains to show for it. We are going to have to spend a few hundred dollars to have it all hauled off, but it will be well worth it. NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS: 1) My husband realized that I had allowed nearly $5,000 for flooring the attic with tongue and groove (dummy that I am - who knew that OSB would work fine?), so we will be using OSB and he will be flooring it himself with his handy dandy staple gun; 2)We have so much lumber and OSB board left that we should easily be able to floor our attic with it; 3) We may also be able to "panel" our hallways with extra tongue and groove, which will be very pretty; 4) We negotiated a better deal for stone veneer for our house by using a local building supply company to furnish the materials and labor, saving us several hundred dollars; 5) Despite all of the glitches, we are thrilled with the way our home is evolving, are quite proud of the fact that we designed it ourselves and; 6) We are actually under budget, which means we can include a few nice extras, such as great room ceiling beams. The dry-in crew, who has built over 300 log homes, said it was one of the prettiest homes they had ever built. Our construction manager, Lee Cardin, said he thought it was the pretties home ever built by Battle Creek Log Homes. Maybe they were both just sucking up, but we loved it, oh yes, we did. To celebrate, we chipped in for another two cases of beer and pizza and waxed sentimental about how people's paths cross and they enjoy each other for such brief moments. (That's my husband, the shrink, waxing, in case you wondered. He is really such a sweet, sweet man!) Have a good Labor Day weekend. Go VOLS and OBAMA and enjoy the following pictures of the dry-in!
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