Things have been progressing with the house..kind of. When we went to stand up two more walls, I found out I built them wrong. They were too short in some places and too wide in others, so I'll have to get some more lumber but just haven't had a chance to yet. Instead this weekend I'm out of town for my brother's soccer games, my cousin's graduation and just to visit family. I think I'm also going to pick up some exterior paint for the house and a table saw while I'm there
Over the past two weeks I've been building walls and we even had a barn raising and got a few up. It's been really exciting and rewarding work. I think this weekend I'll get some help and put the remaining walls up that we didn't last weekend. I've had a lot of fun building them by myself, but also with friends. I had Kara and Crae come over one night and I showed them how to use the framing nail gun and they put together one of my living room walls. Over another weekend John helped me and pushed me to finish four more walls even when I was mad and wanted to quit. I've also been working on the interior design a bit too. I've changed some finishes and instead of being $200 over budget, I am now $19.53 UNDER budget without major compromises.
And that's pretty much what's been going on the past two weeks. There's been a lot of progress but it's all of one thing so there's not much to talk about. Be sure to keep checking back for new pictures under the "Progress" page here. I'll keep photos updated between blog posts and sometimes I put pictures there that I aren't featured on the blog page. In my last post I left you with John and I starting on the insulation for the subfloor. Well now the whole subfloor is done and today dad and I started framing walls. I'd say we got about 25% of the walls done but we can't stand them up yet because the trailer is still in the garage and we've run out of room to build any more. Once we move it outside we can stand them up and start on the other 75%. I'd say the trickiest part about the whole subfloor part was making room for the greywater tank for the shower. On Monday I got my wisdom teeth removed and was sent home with various bottles of drugs and am just finally getting done with them now. For some reason during that time I thought I'd try to put the water tank in myself and it'd be fine, but thankfully I didn't. I waited until last night then dad came out and helped me and I'm sure glad he did because he thought of something I wouldn't have even if I wasn't on drugs. He was smart enough to find some leftover foam and use it to help cushion the tank from any bumps and rubbings the house would dish out on it. And, as I said before, he's a saw wizard and was able to cut the perfect rectangle out of the OSB for the tank to pop through. And that's about all that's interesting about the subfloor. We just did what everyone does, a little liquid nails followed by some screws. It should prevent everything from squeaking in the future. It was a quick and rewarding process. Next, I redesigned my bathroom into something much more efficient that I'm excited about. Before it was a patchwork of shelving and toilets but now it seems like it actually makes sense. The only thing that isn't perfect about this design is I'll have to find someone to custom make my shower/tub or find a way to make it myself. It's just such an awkward size that either I try to do it myself for $100 max or I buy a floor mounted mop sink for $250. I'd really love to make the $100 option work. But other than that I'm really happy with my closet space and the litter box space for my future kitty. For reference, the bathroom will be behind the kitchen near the tongue of the trailer and will be 7'6"x4' with a ceiling height of 6'4" (it will be under the loft.)
And the last thing I've done on the house was catch up on administrative details. For those keeping track I've updated my spreadsheets under the budgeting resources page and you can see a complete breakdown of what I've spent my money on. The grand total of what my house has cost so far is $3,014.20. So there's that for you. This weekend we may move the trailer outside which means I'll be able to build more walls, but on Monday I'll be back at work(after taking a week off to recover from my wisdom teeth) full time. This means I will probably only get things done on the weekends for the most part. Maybe I'll get things done at night here and there but I'm not expecting much. But I'm excited because I'm done with school and the walls are starting to go up, this is where the fun begins! |