No Pics Today Folks

Just thought I would start this post by letting everyone know that there are no pictures. Those who care about the ins and outs of what we're doing to build can read on...those who just want to see pictures have avoided wasting time by looking at the post any further.

We're getting into a stretch of DIY in this house building thing. We will be staining and sealing the concrete floors in the basement, laying tile, laying hardwood floors, staining and sealing hardwood floors, painting the inside and outside of the house, and making our own concrete countertops, all of which I am really excited about. Doing it all in the next month and a half...not so much. Might be stretched to 2 months, but still. That's a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.

We've been spending a lot of time reading and watching and studying up on how to make our own concrete countertops. Casey is watching the instructional DVD we bought for the third time after reading the book. He's pumped about it. Why concrete? Well, budget crunches kinda got to us, but honestly I wanted concrete to begin with. If you've never seen any concrete countertops, check out the link on the right or just Google "concrete countertop images". There are some really neat things out there. Ours are going to be on the simple side, which is what I want so it works out well for a beginners project. The outcome will probably be less than perfect, but it will be unique and cheap enough that we can afford to do it again in a couple of years if we don't love it. We'll start with some small, sample stuff so we can get the feel for it. Probably will make a table or something for the patio and maybe some tops for the cabinets we're putting in next to our fireplace upstairs. or maybe the piece in front of the fireplace. Maybe all of it...all we need is to find some big football type guys to help us lift and set the huge island piece...any volunteers? We're estimating it to be about 800lbs! Yikes.

I love that we are going to have our own handy work in the final product. Especially, in the stuff we can see everyday. It will remind us of all the hard work we did to live in this house. It's not because we're cheap (which we are, or I am at least) it's a pride factor. Plus I like being creative. As uncreative as a bank auditor can be, I like to throw a little artsiness (probably not a word, I know) into my life.

I will be posting MANY pictures of the stuff we do by ourselves, the whole process; and I'll be detailed about the steps we take to do it all. I'm getting itchy, I hate having to wait to get started. I'd be there doing something NOW if the sheet rock were done! Next week maybe? Keep checking back to see how close we are to massive amounts of ibuprofen consumption :)

Insulated

It's not a huge change, but they've insulated and now some of the rooms are blocked off (you can't see through the studs), which makes it feel more like it will once it's all sheetrocked. So I took pictures. Casey and I spent the weekend at the house. Saturday we painted trim white prior to it being put up and laid contractor's paper down on the upstairs floor...a MUCH harder job than I would have imagined. It took us nearly 5 hours. Then on Sunday we went back to do the same to the basement floor, and that application took much less time. Either the learning curve caught up with us or it was easier. Probably a little of both.

No pics of the papered house, just insulation shots...sheetrock should be done in about 2.5 weeks. Inspection results keep holding us back but plumbing and electrical are roughed in and we should have water hooked up to the house next week. Normally, I would be appreciative that the inspector is ensuring our house is built up to proper codes, but the most recent request is a little ridiculous. We had an aluminum attic ladder that didn't have the sticker on it to say it was fire safe or whatever. Had to go buy a wooden one...obviously more fire safe don't you think? Stupid if you ask me and costly for no reason. Oh well, now when we're chilling up in the attic and a fire breaks out, we can be sure our ladder will stand up long enough for us to grab our folding chairs, finish our drinks and head downstairs to the safety of the garage. Doesn't everyone spend the weekends in their attic?

I digress...here's the updated pictures. Enjoy.