Our Shack

Getting Some Color Back

noreply@blogger.com ("Jill") — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:52:00 +0000

WOW! We have really been slacking when it comes to getting blog posts up. Maybe we've been busy building a house or something. :-) We are now getting to the point where it actually looks like a house both inside and out. From looking at the postings the last time we put anything up was when we were finishing wire. A LOT has happened since then.

First and foremost Brad decided he'd had enough home building and decided to get a break by tearing a bunch of tendons in his left foot. Some people will do anything to get out of work! The only reason I am including this tidbit of information is because this was a house related injury and could serve as a lesson to anyone else who is thinking of building a house or completing home repairs. In lieu of scaffolding he decided that the best way to put up the siding on the back part of the house that hangs off an incline was to rig something himself with two ladders, a couple of I-joists, and some OSB. Where's the lesson? The lesson comes at the bottom of a crumpled ladder, a trip to the emergency room, and after six weeks in a "boot" with weekly physical therapy. Sorry Brad to share the story, but someday we might look back on this and laugh.

After that, we continued to finish the wiring, got insulated and had the drywall hung, taped, and textured. We saved a few dollars by cleaning up after the drywall crew and sanding the walls ourselves, but that was some intense clean-up. I could not believe the waste involved in drywall! In several rooms you found yourself knee deep in large pieces that weren't salvaged for anything even though they looked perfectly useful to me. (Reason number 247 why I am not a professional construction worker)

Now we are on to paint! We primed the entire house by using a paint sprayer and got a glimpse of what we would look like in about 30-40 years since we got covered in white paint dust in the process. :-) After that we moved on to the color selection process. Let me tell you there is nothing easy about selecting paint colors for your home. You would think that for the past two weeks we were solving world hunger given how we were stressing over these decisions! We have quite a few colors in the house, actually we have MANY colors but they all work (at least as far as we have gotten). We wanted the boys to have ownership in the house above and beyond playing in and tracking the dirt/mud, so we allowed them to choose the colors for their rooms and help paint parts of the walls. Now before you start look at the photos, keep the following in mind.

1. I watched Randy Pausch's Last Lecture and read his book. One of the many things I took from him; it is just paint and it can always be changed but it gives them a sense of ownership.

2. They are huge Scooby-Doo fans right now (especially Daphne fans).

3. It is only paint, it can be changed (did I already say that?)

Brayden and Darren getting ready to paint.
(Notice the very intense/stressed look on Darren's face)

Darren going to town with his bright orange walls!

Smiley faces are more fun than painting the right way!

The almost finished products!

Over all I think they had a good experience. It was mostly double work for us (Brad and myself) since we had to make sure they were doing it right. We had to catch the paint globs on the walls and spills on the floor, but it has officially become theirs! It was a great feeling as a parent to watch them work so diligently on a project. It was the longest they have ever stayed with any single project (3 hours!)

At the end of every entry, I always promise to do a better job posting, but I have decided to quit lying. :-) We'll post as we have time or at least let you know when we've moved in!

Down to the Wire

noreply@blogger.com ("Jill") — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:04:00 +0000

Let me first say that the title of this post was NOT my idea. Blame Brad for all of the bad puns that you have seen on this blog. :-) It has been a while since our last post and we're sorry that we haven't kept everyone more updated.

We have completed about 85% of our wiring! All we need to do now is finish the lower level as well as run the fun stuff like speaker wire, phone, cable, etc. The nice thing is we now have actual power to our lot! APS came out at the end of last week to finish the process of getting electricity to the house. We now have our one little receptacle that we can run all of our tools and equipment off of. I'm sure our neighbor is glad that we won't be using his electricity any more (we did pay him, but we had to continually traipse across his yard right in front of his windows).

Running wire has been yet another learning experience for me. For both of us actually. It is something that I can actually do! I started off by drilling about 75% of the holes that were needed to run the wire. The other 25% required brute strength which I just do not possess. My learning experience there has been that if your drill is not powerful enough to rotate the extremely large bit, the extremely large bit will rotate the drill and anything attached to it, as in my hand. There were several instances were I found my hand, arm, whole body being slammed into neighboring 2x6's. Eventually we borrowed a heavy duty drill which minimized this problem but did not eradicate it, hence the 25% issue. It is also amazing to me how many different types of wire are needed and how some connect to each other and some don't. I now know what it means to make a "daisy chain", and no, it does not involve flowers, that's my other job. :-)

We are also about 85% done with the siding of the house. Tim, the father of one of Brayden's classmates, has been helping Brad get this accomplished. I have never been so glad to see something get done. There was one weekend where they were both up on the scaffolding trying to reach the peak on the south side of the house (you will see the peak I'm talking about in the photos below). Brad is holding a rickety old ladder on top of this tiny piece of scaffolding about 30 feet off the ground while Tim is standing nearly on the top wrung. I swear this house has taken years off my life with witnessing things like that!

Within the week we hope to be completely done with wiring. Then we get inspected, fail, get inspected again, fail, and then third time always being the charm get approved and move on to insulation and drywall which we are thankfully NOT doing.

Our Pile of Sticks

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:05:00 +0000

Aside from a few minor details, we're through with framing! Our roofing goes on next week, our HVAC (heating/cooling) and plumbing guys are through with what needs to be done before drywall begins, and we're getting ready for loads of other fun stuff (siding, rock work, parts of the electrical, etc.) that we're doing ourselves. So, sure framing is finished, but have no fear, we've still been working like trolls picking up lose ends (like adding hurricane ties to please the "city code police" -- since we get SO MANY hurricanes over here in Arizona) and remembering all the ugly details that we'd forgotten about during our long framing ordeal.

I'm not very thrilled with our roof pitch choice. Finishing the roof on such a steep slope wasn't a fun task for somebody who hates heights (see photo below) which is why I'm looking forward to having a crew do the shingling (and they have the safety equipment that I would have loved to have!).

So with all the dangerous heights, nail guns, kids running around, etc. the worst injury during the framing was my own hammer to my head which left a knot and a gash that I had to get stitched up last week (yes, my injury was about as stupid as it sounds). We feel very fortunate, though, that it's the only hospital visit we or anybody else has made so far (knocking on wood as I type, and any prayers out there are appreciated also :o)

At some point in the last month, our "property" suddenly became our "house" (in how we refer to it with our boys, anyway). I guess adding the roof to the structure suddenly convinced them that it really IS a house we're building, and not just a bunch of sticks (even though it still IS just a bunch of sticks!). Or, as Melissa and I were joking earlier, with all the OSB-type material, it's more like a pile of sticks, wood shavings, and glue!

As always, many thanks to family and friends whose "elbow grease" has made its mark on our crib!

Trusses and Gustez

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:25:00 +0000

Please excuse my poor grammar in the title, but "gustez" rhymed with "trusses" so I just couldn't resist. Regardless, the word of the day this last Friday was "GUSTS!" I don't think we could have chosen a worse day to put the trusses on our house; a day when wind gusts reached a speed of 39 mph (which is extra bad when your house is at the top of a wash area and wind gets directed upwards). At one point we almost called it quits because the trusses looked (and felt) as if they were going to be swept away, but then it calmed down enough to work through it. At the end, it picked back up so much that it caught hold of the last truss being suspended by the crane that it almost tipped the crane over! No kidding! The crane operator (who looked a lot like Paul Teutel Sr. from "American Chopper") was pretty shaken up by it.

Attaching and stabilizing the trusses with a rope while the crane lifted them into place was my job, which was sort of like flying a giant kite. I didn't envy our hired crew, though, who were at the top setting the trusses in place. Their job was pretty scary, climbing around the not-so-stable trusses trying to stabilize them.

So, aside from a few close calls (like what I mentioned above, as well as almost hitting the neighbors house with a suspended truss), and a few small battle wounds, we're through with a part that could have ended up much worse! So, we're counting our blessings that we ended up with no damaged property, and more importantly that nobody was hurt. Admittedly, the roof is much taller than we imagined it would be (the 8-12 slope is steeper than the 5-12 slope that is normal for the area -- and of course, it's always different in person than it seems on the plans), which will make finishing the roof a difficult task. But it will have its advantages, like extra storage space, and possibly a nice little attic play room for the boys.

There's quite a lot of finish work to be done on the roof before we can start to shear it (put the OSB board on), but that's okay since that's another job I'm not looking forward to! One thing that amazes me is how adding the roof to your house changes the perception of space. It actually seems roomier in the house now than it did without a roof. Go figure.

Keeping Busy or Keeping ME busy?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:19:00 +0000

How do 3 and 5 year-old boys keep themselves busy at a construction site? Watch the videos below to find out.

Wait, are we missing something?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:26:00 +0000

Just when we thought we were through with our rough framing, we realized we forgot the roof! Actually, plans are set for this Friday to do just that. We will have a crane and a small crew to set the roof trusses -- in hopefully under 5 hours. Then with some follow up work, we're ready for city inspection! This framing business has taken much longer than we'd hoped (by like three months or so) so we're more than ready (mentally, anyway) to move on!

Check out a slide show of our progress (not much to look at unless you like looking at a lot of studs -- two of which are ages 3 and 5 :o)

Out of breath and out of wood...

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:59:00 +0000

...temporarily, anyway. Our lower-level is framed, our sub-floor is in, our lower-level walls are sheared (sheathed), the upper level is underway and we have the “farmer’s tans” and hammer-beaten fingers to prove it all!

Between some slight off-measurements with our concrete walls (which we had to make up for) and the extra monsoon rains this year, everything has taken longer than expected, but it’s great fun to see the house start to take shape.

Many, many, [insert infinity “many” here] thanks to those family and friends who have been so helpful in the last several weeks! Whether it has been helping us with the work itself, or watching the boys so that we ourselves could work (more effectively, anyway, instead of chasing down balls, calming fits, and searching for missing tools that have mini-fingerprints all over), we are indebted to you!

I'm Framing in the Rain, Just Framing in the Rain......

noreply@blogger.com ("Jill") — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:06:00 +0000

Well the dreaded has happened. Monsoon is upon us, and we are NOT done framing yet! In the beginning we were so ahead of the game that I thought there was no way we would be nearing the end of July and still have 1/2 a house to frame. But I failed to remember that is how construction goes! One day you are ahead and the next you are a month or so behind. Never the less, with the help of two very good professional framers and two people who try to pretend what they are doing, we have managed to "bang out" 1/2 of a house. The slide show below gives you an idea of what we have been up to.

Now we only have another 1/2 to go, but if mother nature keeps dumping on us like she has the last 4 days it could take a while. We are concerned about the rain damaging the structure, but everyone we have talked to in the construction profession said that a little rain never hurt anything. The person who sold us our materials however warned that we needed to make sure our sub-floor was protected. So who do you believe? People who have ALWAYS done this in their infinite knowledge of their trade, or someone who sells the materials? Sage advice, in this line of work at least, trust the sales people. After the first big rain, we went to the property to find the floorboards that we had laid in our room starting to warp and buckle. We spent all the next morning, treating and waterproofing the boards because even if it won't "hurt" the structure, I prefer rolling hills to be on the outside of my house and not inside!

So now we wait for good evenings to run out and pound out as much as we can. It's very military the way we do things. Once we see a window of opportunity, its like "Go! Go! Go! Seize the moment! Make the most of the element of surprise!" I feel more like we are executing a siege on a compound rather than framing a house.

With any luck we should have this completely framed within the next two weeks, roof and all. Its amazing though how this is now becoming more "real". I can visualize where things will be. We'll try to keep this site updated, it has just been so crazy that we haven't had time!

Frameophobia

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:44:00 +0000

Well, the dreaded time has arrived…we begin framing this week. Although we plan on hiring a couple of workers to help us with some of the more difficult stuff, and we hope to recruit family and friends for some of the repetitive work, the majority of the framing falls on our own shoulders and hopefully DOESN’T fall on our shoulders (hee, hee…cheesy pun intended). We’re scared out of our minds!

As soon as our first round of lumber was dropped off this last week, we used a stencil to spray paint and mark our lumber to hopefully deter any lumber thieves, since we’ve heard of a lot of theft horror stories in the past few months. If it doesn’t work, at least we know we’ve made their lives more difficult since they will have to mark over it all!

So what have we been up to since our waterproofing? See the slide show below…

We had our plumber come out and install our under-slab plumbing, we had the excavator backfill and prep for the concrete slabs, we had the concrete guys POUR the concrete slab, and we ourselves built picnic tables. Wait a second…Picnic tables? Why would we build picnic tables? Because we figured if we couldn’t build picnic tables, then we wouldn’t even attempt the framing. Plus, they make a nice addition (combined with the park-style grills we installed) to our “riparian area” (also known to our boys as “the ditch”)…so we hope we anchored the tables down well enough that the monsoons this year don’t wash them away (if the water even reaches that high).

Along with the tables, we’ve been cleaning out all the dead branches, debris, etc. etc. that was all around the area. It took two trips to the dump, with a 24 foot U-hall truck packed each time to haul away our piles of debris. That day almost killed us! But hey, at least we have a nice little retreat area when we get tired of swinging hammers! Plus the boys got to see a packrat that had been living in a pile of debris. It was so cute that I didn’t have the heart to kill it, but I’m sure our neighbors would rather that I would have.

Because of a miscommunication with our subs, we at one point ended up having to compact some soil in a deep plumbing trench. I think people must have been laughing their heads off as they drove by and witnessed Melissa and I trying to haul a 200 pound rammer tamp up through trenches and up to the back of our house. Or, maybe the people at the rental store laughed even harder when I crammed this massive thing into the front passenger seat of my Mazda hatchback, pinning Darren into his car seat behind it. Or maybe our next door neighbors laughed even harder when they saw the thing whipping me around until I was able to learn how to maneuver it. But, we did what we needed to do all in an evening (and made a deal with our concrete guy for a small unfinished portion), and I’m sure we’ll laugh about it pretty hard ourselves someday.

Since the picnic tables turned out fairly nice (with some good lessons learned), we figure we can now attempt the house! Famous last words? We’ll keep you posted…

Bring on the Rain...

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 06:42:00 +0000

...but not until two months from now, please! We are now through with waterproofing the exterior of our soon-to-be basement walls, but we have been trying to get the ball rolling so we can start our framing and hopefully beat the summer monsoons (to minimize damage to the wood). The walls needed two weeks to cure, and we've had a week's delay trying to get water access to our lot for the excavators to use when doing backfill and compaction.

Waterproofing was the first part of our construction that we undertook all by our lonesome, and it was no easy chore! The waterproofing itself involved:

digging out the cluttered footings
prepping all exterior surfaces
slathering on tar and waterproofing paint (3 coats in problem areas)
pasting sheets of Styrofoam (to prevent rocks from penetrating waterproofing material)

Then we installed a drain tile system (a.k.a. "French drain" or"foundation footing drain") which involved:

extending perforated drain pipe around wall perimeter at an appropriate slope
hauling 7 tons of gravel in 5 gal buckets and surrounding the pipe with it
covering the gravel with a soil separation fabric to prevent the pipe from getting clogged
digging trenches for the pipes directing any water

I should mention that our boys love being on the lot while we're working, but they get into a lot of trouble! It isn't easy to keep them out of trouble while we work, but Melissa's parents have been very helpful looking after them some of the evenings that we have been there. There have been times, however, that we've been able to get some child labor out of them. We put them to work picking up nails and trash and paid them a whopping 50 cents for each bucket they filled. I hope they don't go calling the worker's union now!

64 Tons of Concrete

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Sat, 12 May 2007 04:25:00 +0000

After a week's delay (waiting for a concrete pump to be made available), our concrete walls were poured yesterday, and forms removed today. It took 4 truck loads to pour 64 tons of concrete totaling 35 cubic yards of space.

All went well except for one minor flaw...okay, make that a MAJOR flaw (which I failed to catch until this evening). The height of one wall was misread by three feet (see the highlighted portion in the image below). So that makes a 3 x 14 ft. area that now needs to be cut away or we no longer have a front door. Hey, who needs a front door?!?

Even though it's our concrete guy's responsibility to make sure everything is as according to the plans, I was kicking myself that I didn't catch the error while the forms were up. Something felt not quite right, but with a semi-complicated structure (and over-complicated plans to work from), and not knowing how high in each form they were preparing to fill, it slipped by.

So the next step, besides tearing down a concrete section, is for us to waterproof the exterior portion before the walls are backfilled (which needs to allow two weeks of cure time for the concrete walls). Then will come the plumbing, termite pretreatment, and then concrete floors (yes, more concrete -- I think we're going to have a bomb shelter when it's all said and done).

Bring on the 'Crete!

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Thu, 03 May 2007 20:40:00 +0000

Our walls are ready (and have been approved by the city) to be poured full of concrete! Tomorrow they will bring in the cement trucks with tons of cement, and a pump to load up all the forms that you see in the photo above.

Does it look intimidating at all? Well, in person it's VERY intimidating, and now that we realize how big of a structure this is that we're up against, we're getting nervous about our turn (framing) which is just right around the corner. Is it too late to downsize?!? LOL!

7 Foot Footings

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:41:00 +0000

As I mentioned when first creating this blog, this is meant mostly to be a resource for us to refer back to if the need arises during the construction process, and/or 30 years from now when we want to look back and laugh at how crazy we were (or are). That being said, I can continue with my ramblings about our future pad that are probably insignificant to the rest of the world (hey, I'm not hoping to be on the top of the Technorati list here).

Yesterday our footings were poured by a crew of 15. The boys loved watching the crazy scene (see photo below), and I worked almost as hard as the workers (keeping the boys from falling into trenches of wet cement or off the edges of excavated walls) for the short time we hung around. If the boys weren't with me, I would have loved to be out there with the wheel barrow with all the workers!

Our footings were poured up to 7 feet in some places (where they had to be dug down to natural grade - see previous post). Preparations for the concrete-poured walls begin tomorrow, and they will probably be poured by the middle of next week.

See photos below of the process and finished scene:

Downward and Onward

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:30:00 +0000

~~Upward~~ Downward and onward...downward into the ground, that is. The last few days have been purely crazy, but we (or our subs, I should say) have made a lot of progress digging out the footings and placing the rebar for today's inspection by the city.

We had a big scare two days ago (which would explain Melissa's justified "venting session" in the last post) when the city told us our lot had been red flagged and we would have to put construction on hold until we get everything specially engineered (which would have cost us several months and lots of cash). However, I met with the guy in charge yesterday who took a look at our footing trenches, saw that they were dug way down into natural soil (rather than fill dirt, which was his concern in the first place), and gave us the approval to move forward. Whew!

I had a headache the size of New Hampshire by the end of Wednesday because of all the added concerns we had and because I was playing contractor making phone calls left and right while keeping our boys away from the street, the backhoe, and the potty-mouthed construction workers (no need for them to pick up any extra vocabulary words :o)

Our lot continues to blindside us with surprises (and I'm sure it will continue to do so) but since things seem to be working out (aside from extra headache) we don't have any regrets yet...YET. One surprise was that we had to dig down 7 feet along one wall for the footing to lie in natural soil. Somebody a few years back dumped a bunch of dirt (probably illegally) making it seem much higher than it was. This was the concern of the city, but we had it taken care of before they came by.

See the images below of our trenches (a.k.a.: "canyons"), rebar, and spectators...

PERMIT = You can build, but not really

noreply@blogger.com ("Jill") — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:46:00 +0000

I just needed a moment to VENT! I have never been more disillusioned with how things are thrown at any given person than at this very moment.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, if a city gives you a permit it means you are PERMITTED to build what you told them you were going to build, and where you told them you were going to build it! Not so in this town my friends! We find out today that the city now has concerns about the drainage near our house. They came across this concern two weeks ago, but did they tell us NO! Instead we find out by pure coincidence since we needed to update the city on a change in the plans. No, we can't find out two weeks ago before we started and finished the excavation and put in the rebar for the footings, we find out NOW!

So tomorrow morning we meet with the city at the lot to discuss the possibility of them shutting us down. If any of you who are following this blog are of the praying persuasion, we could use them about now!

Finished pad

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 20:10:00 +0000

Digging for the house pad is pretty much complete. Next week the trenches for the footings and stem walls will be dug, along with the utility trenches. Being on the lot and seeing the 9 foot cliffs is very intimidating, since we know how much work is ahead for us, and that there is no turning back now!

The boys enjoyed standing at the top of the excavated walls on Friday and throwing rocks into the "pit." I told them it was less than efficient to do that, but they ignored me! Every time I try and pull them away from the lot, they get cranky on me...so at least we know they enjoy being there.

Excavation: All in a Day's Work

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:20:00 +0000

We replaced our excavation subs with somebody past the 1st grade. A lot was done in less than a day, even to the point of digging for some of the retaining walls.

The corner that I was concerned about being too low before ended up what I thought. They are going to build it up some to be the correct elevation, but the only concern is that the cost of concrete for the stem walls in that one area will be a little more than we anticipated since it has to extend down to natural grade.

These images are in order from this morning to this afternoon:

Ground breaking

noreply@blogger.com ("Jill") — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 04:06:00 +0000

Well tonight we went back out to the lot so I could take a look at the staking/surveying that had taken place earlier in the day. This blog is going to give you two very different prospectives to the home building process. Last night I learned one very important thing; I should not be building a house! I was standing on the lot and could not for the life of me picture how the house was going to sit (its at an angle on the lot). I could understand where parts of the house were, but for an overall view I was clueless!

Not to fear however because we have the cutest excavation crew! At his rate however we will be finished with excavation sometime after the fifth grade. Its hard to find good subs these days! Maybe we'll hire someone else to help him out.

So as of today we have a small CAT dirt-pusher thing and some orange sticks with numbers on them. Once again, I should not be building a house. All kidding aside this will be a good learning experience and I will hopefully be obtaining another set of useful skills. Anyone reading this however, this is not an open invitation to ask me to build one for you!

Stakeout

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:35:00 +0000

Today we had a surveyor stake out the corners of the house to prepare for excavation. Staking out the house puts it into perspective for us. It's nice to see where our final pad will sit, which makes it appear much larger than it seems on the plans.

This step is very critical because it could make the difference in whether or not the concrete walls (and everything else in turn) end up square.

I have to admit that seeing one of the corners (the one pictured above that is closest to the wash) makes me a little nervous about flooding. It would take an abnormally huge flood to get near the house, since it's about 15-20 ft above the level of the wash (about level with the street), but I will still worry until I see an actual Arizona monsoon in action there.

Firewood anyone?

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:43:00 +0000

After obtaining our permits, we're moving forward on the excavation. This is how the lot looked Friday morning prior to the tree guys clearing away the mini-forest that was sitting where our driveway will go. The image below was taken two hours later. The boys enjoyed watching the trees getting demolished by the chipper!

Building permits

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:34:00 +0000

When applying for building permits, we didn't think it would take 3 months. Between corrections needing to be made to the plans, lack of funds (since the cost for our fees came in way over what we had anticipated), and time needed to obtain our subs, we were anxious to move forward. With the bank breathing down our necks wanting us to be through with our concrete by now, we were getting a little nervous. We finally walked in Thursday morning to the city, obtained our permits, and paid the pretty penny for fees. So now we're ready to move forward.

Breaking out the hammers and shovels!

noreply@blogger.com (Brad) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:17:00 +0000

Here it is...our new lot. It isn't much to look at right now, but we are now undergoing the task of home construction. We have never framed a house, let alone install tile or do trim work, yet we have decided to do almost all of our own construction (all but the concrete, plumbing, and excavation) armed only with some nice instructional books and our meager collection of tools. Are we crazy? Yes...we're so crazy for our two boys that we will do whatever it takes to provide them a good home in a good area where real estate prices are skyrocketing to much more than we could ever afford otherwise.

All posts on this blog will be for our own reference and for others (those who care, anyway) to follow the progress of our future pad. Who knows? If you've never built a house before, maybe you'll learn something from our experiences (like make sure you hire a contractor).