One Step, Two Step, Next step- Canoe Step?

This year we embarked on the task of trying to complete one of our big landscaping feats on the hillside... the stairs down to the pond. Our conservation requirements gave us three years from the time of the original permit -November 2010 - to complete our original mitigation and close it all out.  Early this year, with time flying by and first hand knowledge of the speed of procedures in our town, we realized that we needed to get going on it if we were going to do anything at all.

The first step was drawing up a plan, which Anthony did on top of our original site plan. He ran this by the conservation agent in February and then gave it to the site engineer, who submitted it to the conservation commission in May as an amendment to our original plan. Spring planting season looked like it was turning into summer planting season. 

Wouldn't you know, our meeting date fell in the middle of a week in June when Anthony was bouncing back and forth between conferences in Maine and Rhode Island, and me alone with my big pregnant belly and toddler on a school night was not going to be able to make it. Not that we needed to, after all, we were paying our engineer to do it. At 7:00 that night I sat back grading papers on the couch watching the conservation commission on tv. After some rather contentious cases interspersed with the cons com members checking in on the Bruins game, our case finally came up at 9:41. It was peacefully agreed to by 9:46. While I'm obviously pleased by the lack of drama, I wish it could have happened before my bedtime.

With builder John standing by, we awaited the official word from the committee. And waited. And waited. And waited.  Anthony finally checked in on the progress (or lack there of), only to find that apparently it had been stuck on the admins. desk for a while. Really though, we know what speeds things up for us construction-wise... it's having a baby, right?

Our second child was born (!) and with Anthony's nagging gentle reminders to conservation, we got the word we could build our stairs. Juggling our new life, here's where we're happy we hired someone to build them instead of attempting to do this ourselves. 

It took us a while to get everyone home from Boston, and now our summer planting season has turned into a fall planting season, or more likely, moved back to a spring planting season due to a new state-wide ruling - which we still don't really understand - that we could have an additional three years to complete any work from the original cons com permit.  

Stairs to pond: check. The neighborhood cat already likes to lie out on the upper landing. 

Next up: figuring out the planting (can we just finish this already?), and getting a canoe to hold our family of four. I'd include Zippy, but let's be honest. He would have more fun barking at us from the shore.

-J&A

Front Door Revisited

Obviously this little house project was a pretty big deal for us. I am blown away on a daily basis that we actually did it. Each piece of it holds a memory of something that went right or something that...

But wait- back to the positive- I marvel at the fact that, as I type this, it's 39 degrees outside, yet I am barefoot in my house and my toesies are toasty. I don't fear stepping out of bed in the morning, because I am now greeted with w-a-r-m-t-h. Yes, the floors are a big positive, and I am so thankful to Anthony (and our other floor elves- ahem, mom and dad) for doing that for me.

Part of the deal was that this house was and is our gift to each other for the next _ _ years forever. My interpretation of this means that on special occasions I can up my nagging and get something checked off the in-the-back-of-my-mind to do list. My birthday this year brought the doorknobs from the front door of the shack into our bathroom.

"Need help, Daddy?"

Place to hang my towel? Check.

See? I knew I saved them for a reason!

- J

TEN

It's fitting that as we celebrate a decade of marriage our daughter has a love of counting to ten- as in waaahn, twooo, treeee, foorrr, fiiibe, siix, seben, aaate, niiine, ten... seben, eight, nine, TEN! (clap, clap, clap) As we say in the elementary math world, ten is a friendly number, and for a while there it was healthy for us too, because whenever she would start to count she would simultaneously want one of us to get down on the floor and do sit-ups. Our little drill sergeant!

Ten is also a number that demands reflection, as well as suggests a look ahead. We know we've done a lot in the past ten years (or 14! since we met). As part of Anthony's anniversary card to me he unknowingly wrote this part of the blog:

10 Things We've Done in the Past 10 Years:

1. Moved across the country twice.
2. Visited at least 31 states and 6 countries.
3. Had a Natalie.
4. Demolished a house and built a house.
5. Flown to Hawaii 3 times...what's your favorite island?
6. Blogged about a part of our lives...we are SO American.
7. Gotten a dog that we were never able to stop from barking.
8. Never bought our own plates.
9. Shared at least 520 pizzas.
10. Continued to be very much in love.

Through it all we have learned that predicting what the next ten years will be like is an exercise in futility, so here's to just hoping that they are happy and healthy (and that maybe the dog will stop barking).

- J (& A)

A Soft Close

Surprisingly enough (to us), we've heard from quite a few people about our lack of blog posts. So it's time to ring in the new year by (once again) reviewing our original "to do's" from the first post in 2010.

1. Build house (sub-categories: choose architect, builder, go through committees, move out, tear down pre-existing, non-conforming (PENC) structure, build a new one that might be slightly less non-conforming but at least will have insulation, move back in.)
2. Buy a car.
3. Find out if I still have a job next year. (Would greatly help with #s 1 and 2)
4. Have a baby!!
5. Get my dog to stop barking randomly.
6. Figure out all the sub-categories for #s 2-5.
7. Start blog to help organize the chaos that is rapidly descending on our lives.

I really love crossing out items on my "to do" lists, so this was quite satisfying. Unfortunately Zippy hasn’t stepped up to help out with number 5 yet, and after our recent trip to NY, his "needs improvement" list is growing. It now also includes, “Get my dog to not chase snowplows.”

Zippy and Sophie frolicking in the snow, 

right before the snowplow came by and added another element to their playing.

Actually, we could revamp the whole list with new goals in almost all the categories.

1. Landscaping and smart interior decorating and storage.
2. Figure out how to get our other vehicles (bikes) easily in and out of the house in all types of weather (see #1).
3. Aim for success and happiness at our jobs and our job/home balance.
4. Make our million daily decisions in raising our happy, healthy toddler.
5. Yep, see above for the same old dog goal. Sigh, Zippy...

He looks innocent enough.

It's always about the journey, right?  

Housewise, we still attempt a project here and a project there... 

Books for bookshelves

But overall it's now in a state that is allowing us to live. So consider the goals of 2010 closed out, and the blog itself on "a soft closed/semi-sporadic" mode as we leave more time for other adventures. (see #4)!

Anthony and Natalie

Race Point Beach on New Year's Day

-J

Power Up

Ah, lights, refrigeration, hot water, internet... Welcome back!

I jokingly blame Anthony for our three days of indoor "camping". I seem to remember a previous post where he might have dared a hurricane to show up. Our new house held up well.

First big storm in the new house

Irene was windy and blustery, but overall not too damaging in our area. We did lose power Sunday afternoon, and it was finally restored this afternoon (Wednesday). The fence between our yard and our northern neighbors also fell down, but it was going to be taken down this month anyway. Since it was mostly high winds and very minimal rain here our new loam stayed in place. (We had placed straw bales strategically on the hillside, just in case.)

Temporary lack of fence between our house and the neighbors

& our some of our erosion control straw bales

The storm did delay our landscaper another week though. However, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

-J

Realizations

We haven't felt the need to blog lately because, well, the house building is pretty uneventful right now. We're mostly just getting settled and waiting for some key professional landscaping ingredients. However, inside we have realized a couple of things:

a. Despite being 20 feet wide, there's a lot of open space in the house. Or maybe it's just that we don't have very much furniture. This is proving to be a positive in Natalie's book- especially as she learns to walk with her little car back and forth and back and forth and back and forth (and back and forth). Plus we have plenty of room for a tent and tunnel in our living room- and isn't that just every child's dream? Twenty feet wide is proving to be plenty big so far.

...and back and forth

b. Our shiny new house makes the furniture we do have look ugly.

Like maybe it came from the streets of Boston on "big trash day" or the "as is" section of Ikea or something. We've been taking what we have and all the little things we saved and trying to give it all a place in our new life. We certainly don't *need* new stuff, we're living comfortably and fine with what we have. Paint can do wonders. Fabric can be reused. Hardware is available on something your husband called trash three days ago.

No, I'm not going to show you a picture of our ugly furniture.

I'm going with these cute window treatments instead.

My mother was intrigued by the challenge of creating roman shades for Natalie's room by taking apart old venetian blinds from our last house to use as parts.

c. We're too afraid to commit to hanging pictures and other things that require holes in our pretty new walls. Heck, we're too afraid to commit to buying floor mats for the front door and that certainly doesn't require holes. I think this drove my parents crazy last week during their visit. How many times did we hear, "You know, you should really put something to hang towels on in the bathroom." or "You really should get a mat for the front door." After rushing to commit and decide so much in the past year we have now slowed down considerably. Yes we know things like this can be changed, but knowing us, once we've committed $12.99 to a floor mat, it's not going to be changed until it literally falls apart. Therein lies the fear of commitment.

Note the artwork resting on the repainted shelf in the background.

Feel free to come over and vote where you think it should be hung.

-J

Builder 1, Inspector 0.

Well, maybe builder -32 (up from -33), inspector 435 would be more accurate, but we'll still take the win. I'll spare you the dramatic build up...our house finally passed inspection. But, as per usual, even try #3 was not without its own drama.

With Natalie at "school" for the day, Jody and Zippy spent Monday, inspection #3 day, out of the house to accommodate a visit from the town. She returned mid-afternoon to find a cryptic note on the permit where the signature should have gone, saying only "thermostats not programmable?" Hearing of this at work from Jody, I relayed the news to John the Builder via a phone message. In truth, I also though it might be good to have fancy thermostats. We started with programmable thermostats, but they didn't work, as someone installed the wrong wires during rough in. Last week the plumbers replaced the non-working ones with old school dial thermostats. Apparently, with radiant floor heat, dials are just as good...so there you go.

10 minutes later John called back, hopping mad, and read me the appropriate line from the current edition of the Mass. State Building Codes that said programmable thermostats were required with forced-air systems, but made no mention of other heat sources. He followed up with some choice words about the inspector's level of competency. The next morning at 8am, he was at town hall to figuratively - and perhaps literally, I don't know, I wasn't there - throw the book at them.

Relaying the conversation to me later, John said that both the inspectors and the building commissioner insisted that programmable units- at least one per house they said- were required. Sliding his copy of the building code across the counter, John challenged them, "Show me where it says that." Apparently the office effectively shut down for some time, as the group of them searched the very code they are supposed to follow for something they've been requiring for years.

Finding nothing but the line John read to me over the phone, they quickly signed the permit and shuffled him onto his next stop.

So, what remains? A signature from Conservation -which could get interesting- and finalizing the loan paperwork, but occupying the structure is no longer an issue.

Stepping back for a moment, it's been surprising to me how much the events of the last few weeks have seeped into our daily lives. Yesterday I caught Jody and Natalie playing a game I now refer to as Building Inspector. They had set up little fabric block buildings on the floor (see below) and as Natalie would knock them over, Jody would call out things like "No permit for you!" or "Failed! This railing is an inch too low." or "Your bottom step is not at grade!"

Natalie playing building inspector with mom. "The roof on this one looks a little loose!"

-A

Anxiously Awaiting The End

We are currently living out of suitcases as we await the final inspection for our occupancy permit. It was supposed to happen today, but upon stopping by this afternoon it didn't look like it had been done. Shocking.

Even once we can officially occupy our dwelling there are still a lot of little things to finish up. We may stay with our suitcases a little bit longer so as to give people room to work without the benefit of Zippy supervising.

Our current schedule is to let the workers have the house during daytime working hours. We then appear like little elves and do what we can each evening. Natalie gets to go to bed in her own room and then when we're tired enough we pick her up and head to sleep at the house of a friend who, conveniently, is exploring Italy this summer.

"Living" in two places in the same town means that stuff is constantly being transferred back and forth. What this means for you as blog readers is that tonight there will be no pictures because the cord for the camera is back at our house. Next time...

-J

Homeless, again

Once again, we have found ourselves pseudo-homeless. This seems to happen to us a lot when planning to move. The timing just never quite lines up exactly. Of course, this time we get to be "between homes" with a very active 11 month-old and an over-anxious dog. In the past, it always worked out...eventually, so I have faith that this one will too.

This time we had to be out of our rental by the end of June, so throughout the week, before and after work each day, we incrementally moved all of our belongings into the bedrooms of our own house - the parts the were fully complete. July 1st rolled around and our house was not finished and livable, so we headed to New York to visit the fam for a while and hopefully give the workers a bit more time to pull it all together.

The risky part about this is that without us there checking up on daily progress (ahem, micromanaging... and yes, we feel it helps), things just might not happen. Or, of course, they might happen, but in a not-the-way-we-intended way.

So what has happened and what remains? The stair guy has been working at pace that Anthony politely describes as 'quite un-feverish' for the past few weeks to complete was has become (according to the stair guy) a very unique set of steps. This has resulted in piles of debris, saws, tools, compressors, cords, and cups that have covered the entire main floor.

The large amount of tools, saws, etc. required to complete the stair trim.

The side entryway was also done. Of course, in typical construction fashion the decking material we used on the front porch four months ago is now no longer made and was not to be found anywhere so we had to settle for a slightly different product (sigh).

The new side/mudroom entry deck.

The rest of the electrical work was finished. The faucets and tub/shower trim were all connected, and the earlier water leak resolved without much issue.

The glitch that did occur was that the wrong bath/shower trim was still installed, despite our efforts back in March to correct our trim order from an earlier mistake! We're beginning to wonder if they're just trying to wear us down. While I realize this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, as we'd been here before with the builder, it made it all the more frustrating to have to ask once again to have the mistake fixed.

Towards the end of the week, the stair guy(s) finally wrapped up their work and cleaned up their mess, leaving a nice clean set of stairs and clear floor. It was great to see the 'almost' finished product.

The stairs to the basement, finally!

View of the stairs and kitchen from the living-room area.

We realized our refrigerator is pretty small. Plenty of room to grow...

Natalie enjoying the clean, clear main floor for the first time.

So, now we're ready for the floor guy to come back and finish up the connecting areas. All the doorknobs are in the house ready to be installed. Some trim work needs to be finished and a few things, like some uneven dry wall work in the upstairs bathroom, need to be fixed.

The big hold-up however seems to be that the plumber cannot get the boiler to work. The current plan is to have the company rep. come out on Wednesday to take a look at it. Hopefully then we can check that off.

The boiler, mixing valve, and indirect water heater complex, currently at rest as the boiler will not start. Who really needs hot water?

-J

The Kitchen Sink is Our Fat Lady

I think with house building it can't be over until the kitchen sink is in and plumbed, and ours is sure toying with us enough! Let's recap yesterday (Thursday 6/23):

This is where we left off two days ago.

The stairs are stained and ready for their railings and balusters.

Again the day started promising enough with a truck in the driveway. Rob, our contractor's "guy", was supposedly in the house doing his work on the stairs. Then *poof* he was gone by 9:30, although he did leave all the lights on. (Apparently he didn't have my parents growing up-always asking who pays the electric bills and reminding him to turn the lights off.)

So nothing happened for a while and then he came back an hour or so later, turned off the lights and left again. We later found out that he was taking himself to the ER because he hurt his ribs.

Since the house was empty I spent part of the day moving kitchen wares over to our new cabinets so that I could reset the rental kitchen to the way it was. That's the hard part about renting this "summer house". It came furnished and we had moved all of "their stuff" out of the way to use "our stuff". Resetting it involves studying the pictures I took when we moved in and trying to return it to its original state.

The DPW guys came back in the early afternoon and told me they'd pave their patch of torn up sidewalk/driveway near the street today or tomorrow. That would just leave another little patch that we would be responsible for repaving. I shared some brownies with them.

Anthony had some phone conversations and discovered that the kitchen sink and faucet had indeed not been ordered by anyone and that the upstairs bathroom faucet had been ordered with the wrong finish. Yes, we have tried to let other people take on tasks and do their own jobs, but really it comes down to if we want it our way we should just do it. Sooooo off I went to pick up the kitchen sink and faucet.

This picture was taken today (Friday 6/24/11).

Our new classy driveway.We are thankful for the whole thing being patched.

Yes, there are workers at our right now, including a plumber! Rob is also back to work.

Lots of activity over there, so although this post may be dismal, we can sill be hopeful.

We returned home to the entire hole in the driveway repaved and some pinkish floor stain around the edge of the utility room on the basement floor. It wasn't supposed to be pink. It was supposed to be tannish-gray. Also, concrete floor stain is nothing like wood stain apparently. It went on more like paint. It was not what we had intended at all. So we back-pedaled and went back to the idea of just sealing it and calling it done. Anyone need two cans of concrete floor stain?

Note the stain around the edge of the utility room. Even Natalie looks bewildered.

We spent the evening both moving things over and prepping the sinks and counter holes for the plumber. The first sink (a round one for the basement bathroom) went together so nice and easy. (That's why we were doomed...)

Round sink for downstairs bathroom/laundry area

Our just-purchased kitchen sink of course couldn't be simple. It was going to be really big in the space. Do-able? Probably. Ideal? Of course not. So we decided that a tomorrow morning run to Lowe's (they open at 6!) was in the works to try to find a more suitable fit, while still holding onto our criteria of me being able to hide dishes in a deep sink.

So with exactly one week before we have to move out of our rental house, I feel great strides were not made yesterday. Perhaps I should head to the basement of the rental house and see if I can find our tent so we'll have somewhere to live.

-J

Will Work for Lobstah

Too busy to blog these days, but at least that means that things are getting done. The stairs are being formed before our very eyes, and so far they look great. We're still in the town's work order queue to switch out our water valve, but we hear Wednesday could be our lucky day. The concrete basement floor staining and sealing is still a bit of a question mark, but we're hopeful that will be resolved this week as well. We're thinking Sandlot Gray for a color, but more importantly we're hoping it'll happen quickly.

Stairs being formed- note the picture printed out and taped up as a guide.

There are some tall places to paint in our house. Good thing Anthony is tall.

We brought in our personal labor force again this week. My parents arrived on Tuesday and the only times I've seen them put down their paintbrushes so far were to help me with school tasks (grading papers and packing up my classroom) and for Natalie's baptism and our Father's Day dinner. Anthony and the two of them have been working non-stop painting the walls, trim and interior doors.

My mom finishing painting the kitchen.

My dad: painting doors is back-breaking work.

The paint decision has been a bit scary, which it shouldn't be since it's probably the easiest thing in our house that we can change. I've been collecting and staring at paint chips for months now, and finally had to commit. Of course, just when you've made a decision someone (like the paint store guy, Ken) has to step in and tell you their dissenting opinion, like that your yellow is too bright. So far I'm really happy with most of the colors. However, I did end up back at the paint store on Saturday to let Ken know that he was right about my yellow and could he please help me lighten it? (He tried his best.) All in all though the paint is making the place feel more put-together.

Natalie in her first-try yellow room.

Anthony's family came in on Friday and his dad joined in the fun on Saturday while Mali, Jeanie, Natalie and I drove up to Ikea to pick up the final piece of countertop, which Anthony and my dad then cut and placed on Sunday.

Anthony's dad filling in nail holes. For the record I did offer him knee pads.

Full speed ahead!

-J

The Night Job

Oceanographer by day, amateur homebuilder by night, and enough grace and stamina leftover to take a time-out and care for Natalie when she pulls her first fever (no worries- she's better now). The glow next door reflects the many nights spent working next door (and highlights the need for shades/curtains).

Sometime in the middle of the night

On Thursday most of our light fixtures were installed by the electricians. Apparently we had lost count of how many lights we actually had, as we ended up being short three fixtures...the master bedroom closet, the washer/dryer area, and the mudroom (after all the problems it's caused us, we just forgot all about it). A few others, like the ones over the island, were deferred until the island was actually secured in place with a countertop. Still, it was fun to see some of the rooms take shape with the trim work nearly complete and the lights up...some of the lights even have temporary bulbs.

Anthony and Natalie checking out the sconce in the bathroom.

We are striving for a Energy Star HERS rating that will require at least 80% of the lights to be something other than incandescent. As most electricians and 'lighting experts' abhor CF or similar energy efficient bulbs because of their un-incandescentness, most of our bulbs will be supplied by a energy rating company (the same people who will pressure test our whole house), and are yet to come in. So the electricians left a skeleton crew of bulbs in place, perhaps to show us that they all actually worked. Again, much of the house, really just the simple rooms, feels like it is almost there...and just waiting for the floor.

These little button lights are our go-to easy fix for many areas of the house.

Which brings me to the rest of the weekend - after another trip to our Swedish hardware/furniture/solution store - we came home with the three remaining lights as well as our temporary solution to a kitchen countertop. Sunday, Anthony finished putting together and securing the cabinets and placed the temporary countertop. There is still one piece of the temporary top that we'll have to pick up, but it was on back order until this coming week. We're using temporary tops in the kitchen and bathrooms so that we can complete the project enough to move in and then focus on making the real ones at our leisure.

Island with butcher block top

We also finalized our door hardware on Friday, which took a dramatic switcheroo right at the end. Many of our selection 'issues' seem to occur when we have some entrenched design preference or idea or concept fixed in our heads that, over time, becomes untenable. Of course once you've decided to go a certain direction, it takes so much longer and so much more effort to change to a direction you'd previously discounted for some, previously iron-clad reason. (Perhaps this is what our builder was going through with our stairs). We were originally heading in one direction with cool handlesets and deadbolts and fancy rectangular rosettes from Emtek, when it occurred to us we wouldn't be able to leave and lock our doors without a key (which in hindsight, everyone should be able to do). After a too-long struggle to find a workable option with Emtek, we ended up changing lock and lever style as well as manufacturers completely. Writing this, it sounds like trivial issue, which I totally agree with, but for 'frugal wafflers' this is a bad scene.

Finally, it's felt like we've been hemorrhaging monopoly money for the past few months, but we think we now have everything ordered, planned out, or waiting to be installed. Everything, that is, except the kitchen sink. We'll have to get on that.

-J

Anthony the Plumber

Putting together manifolds...or voguing

This past week I've been spending a bit of time installing the tubing for the radiant floor heating system. When I say 'a bit' you should know that I'm actually modestly understating the vast amount of time I've sunken into this aspect of our house 'project'. This system was one of the core items we wanted to have in our new house. However we knew that to do it and stay within our budget, sweat equity would be required.

A lot of measuring and a lot of cutting to finish the tube returns.

We were most plumber's worst nightmare: unsatisfied with both the cost of full systems they were quoting us and the energy efficiency of their options, and armed with a neighbor across the street who is a local expert on radiant heating after doing this for his house. It took some time to find a plumber who was willing to cut the job in half: I would handled the tubing and manifold installation (significant labor, low skill) and he'd handle the supply lines from the mani's to the boiler itself (significantly higher skill).

So, with this arrangement I have ended up spending 'a bit' of time planning for the installation, ordering parts, convincing the plumber to do 'research' on the best boiler for our house and explain to me the efficiencies of everything from mixing values to indirect water heaters. Personally, I'm surprised that he hasn't walked away from the job yet. Our first plumber did.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago, we brought in some slave labor to help me install the wood strips used to separate the runs of tubing. Later in the week, while I went to a meeting in Santa Barbara, my mother-in-law continued to work on the system, screwing down some 400 aluminum heat transfer plates (about half of the total amount used). Personally, I'm surprised that she didn't walk away from the job. Our daughter must be really cute.

So, this past week the time came to install the tubing into the tracks, attach everything to the manifolds, and pressurize the system so that we'd know if the tile installers, or someone else punctured a tube while working. I spent Wednesday evening (5pm to 2am) installing the 5 tubes that will heat the top floor (each floor has ~950 ft of tubing on it). Aside from the first one when I was quite nervous about cracking, breaking, bending, or stepping too hard on the tubing, actually laying it went really well and only took ~2 hours. Cleaning the floor beforehand took about 5 hours. The same was true this weekend for the main floor, cleaning 5 hours, tube install 2 hours.

Upstairs tubes in place

Installing and pressurizing the manifolds, what was to be the final step for me task-wise, has become a grey area. We'd like the tubes pressurized before proceeding, but it turns out that I'm a terrible plumber. For the life of me I can't get all the manifold fittings taped and on such that the systems hold a constant pressure overnight.

Upstairs manifold, or "mani" as Jody likes to call it. Once the plumber installs the supply lines, the mani will actually move down and the tubes will fit in their respective slots.

After a night of spraying soapy water on the manifolds, looking for bubbles and tightening and retightening, I'm fairly certain that it is a manifold problem and not a tube problem. But I finally had to give up and call the real plumber in early. I'll try to not ask too many questions this time, and hopefully, he'll spend a bit of time finalizing the installation.

- A

Little Games Along the Way

First a disclaimer: there are no pictures with this post. Anthony's computer has not been playing nicely lately, so my computer has recently been confiscated by him (okay so it was our computer, but I used to use it almost exclusively). All the photos are on that computer, so all you get are words while I type on a different computer.

Some musings that have come up recently...

There are signs we like to look for in certain situations- kind of like little games or mini-milestones. For example, when we're skiing you get points for being the first one to spot the guy skiing in jeans (there's always someone- and the fake points get multiplied by certain factors depending on how straight the skis are, how acid-washed the jeans are, or instantly by a gazillion if he or she happens to be on a monoski).

Another that's more relevant to homebuilding is the current quest to try to catch someone saying the word "shellac" every time we're out looking at house stuff these days.

Today I feel like we hit on a third milestone: buying something off of Craigslist from someone actually named Craig. Not only that, but we included a two-dollar bill in his payment.

I also came across the scary realization tonight that I know way too much about toilets these days. Despite this we still have yet to find the right throne.

- J

Show and Tell and a Little Rant

A gratuitous house picture and then let's start with the rant.

The siding was 'pre-primed' in grey. We haven't actually decided on the exterior color yet.

Yesterday I went over to the house to check out what has been happening. While touring the upstairs quarters I noticed a bath fixtures box. Having spent a whole day picking out something I thought I could live with (in terms of style, functionality, and price), I was excited to finally see our fixture installed. But as I opened the box I realized that this was not the one I'd chosen... Although Anthony wasn't with me at that moment, I know he can envision what my face must have looked like: a combination of bewilderment and disbelief that morphed into - dare I say - rage (a similar thing happened when we cut into our wedding cake).

It seems that we're suffering from a growing trend of the people we are paying suggesting alternative 'arrangements' for sinks, toilets, walls and doors that don't take the whole house (or budget) into account, coming up with their own solution without telling us if there is an ambiguity in the plans, or simply ignoring the plans (and not telling us). Dealing with fixture selection and sourcing has been especially difficult. We've continuously been told to pick stuff out as soon as possible (as we're on a schedule) but then told that our selection was either not 'good', or that they have access to a "better" one for some unknown $. Look, I would love to have recommendations and suggestions as long as we can have final approval.

Anyway, after taking some time to cool off, we contacted "the John" via email (it was quite late by then) and asked that he ensure the correct one be installed. In today's trip next door we noticed the offending fixture box had been removed, so hopefully all has been restored. After fighting for these, now I just hope I'm actually happy with them once we're actually living with them.

Despite all that, there are some exciting things happening. An insulation guy was hard at work today putting up the attic vents in preparation for putting in insulation.

Anthony excitedly points out the day's work while Natalie appears bored.

More metal is showing up. Some of it is to make sure the stairs stay where they're supposed to and some of it is to make sure the house stays where it's supposed to.

Metal strapping, complete with way too many nails, connects the landing to the floor joist above allowing the open space and light of the living area (where the picture was taken from) to flow all the way down into the basement

Giant, 50-bolt straps from **** and...

7 foot long threaded rods tie the main floor decking and main floor walls down to the foundation. Again, we'd not going to dare a tropical storm, but...

In addition, the electrical, plumbing, and gas tie-ins (outside the house) continue to be planned for and put in. These have brought up some odd compromises. Since the boiler vent has to be more than 4 feet away from the gas meter, which has to be more than 4 to 5 feet away from the electric meter, which has to more than 6-7 feet above the water line, not all of these can fit on the right front corner of the house (where the wall is ~10 feet long) as we'd prefer. At least one has to be placed on the opposite (south) side and come across the house inside. So much for saving money by placing all the inside utilities close together...

- J

This Isn't All We Do

Although our daughter may think grooving to tunes while choosing fixtures is the cat's pajamas- we would like to officially post this here to let her know that that kind of superfun is only made possible by the lives we started before she came along.

Deploying moorings off of Nauset along the outer (lower) part of Cape Cod, a self portrait (of me, Craig was collateral damage)

So for her, and the one of our two readers who might have thought otherwise, let the record show that we actually do work. For example, last week, along with my busy schedule of micro-managing the house construction and annoying our builder, the plumber, and most of the radiant floor heating experts east of the Mississippi, I managed to do some field work. We were deploying a set of moorings off the coast of Nauset, MA to look at the advection of Gulf of Maine freshwater along the Cape Cod Coast. Unfortunately, I've been told that this doesn't make me an expert in plumbing.

How do we have the time to lead these exciting multiple lives? Apparently being woken up at regular intervals every night gives you extra time to pick out fixtures, review papers, and write lesson plans.

- A

When Cheap People Try To Build Nice Houses

Despite our setbacks, and the growing number of people in the Cape Cod house-building industry that are probably cringing when they see us coming (being extremely budget-minded and involved in the decision-making seems to be a rarity on the Cape), we feel like a ton of stuff happened this week. It's a wonder we both have real full-time jobs. And a daughter. And a needy dog.

We are hoping to include our architect interfacing with the contractor more as we go forward, just to make sure inches don't get lost (again). In addition, the sheer amount of decisions is overwhelming at times, and we're hoping to have a little more help with them. Understand that we are people whose furniture comes from the streets of Boston on "big trash day". Now we have people telling us that the quality of something we picked out at Home Depot won't be as good. Really? Not as good as this dresser I carried home in the pouring rain and nailed back together? Our aim with building this house has always been to put our money into things we deemed important things and unchangeable, like insulation and the heating system. Of course, this is the part that you don't really see. The Cape Cod housing scene is more used to the opposite: putting on the glitz and glamour show within the paper-thin walls.

As far as our progress this week, we have moved things the five inches back to where they needed to be moved. This included moving a door and re-siding that side of the house.

Side door that was moved, house re-sided and electrical rough-ins in place

While we were on the subject of moving things we also asked to have our doors raised a tad so that after all the floors were laid we would still be able to put a little mat by the door and be able to open it without having to kick the mat out of the way (as was our experience in the previous "shack"). Apparently this then became an issue with the height of the stairs.

View of stairs from the main floor- going up and down

The exterior siding and all three doors are now in place. The basement was also poured this week, and then the stairs down to it were framed in. The electrical and plumbing rough-ins are also almost complete.

Finishing the basement floor

The debate over how to do the radiant floor heating on the upper two levels rages on. Part of the problem is obviously our own frugality. Anthony has likened it to how we buy ski coats: we absolutely have to know we're buying the best coat out there for the cheapest price, although there are probably ten or more coats that we would likely not be able to tell the difference between. (Of course this is coming from someone who is wearing his brother-in-law's ex-roommate's hand-me-down coat.) Apparently we've also learned that frugality and radiant floor heating don't really go together- but hey, cheap people want warm feet too, right?

-J