Finished!

A house is never really finished, is it? Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge...when one end is finished it is time to start over on the other end.  With a house, there's always one more thing to hang, fix, straighten.  One nick in the wall to repair, leak to fix, bush to plant. New paint feels old before you know it.  Kids grow out of princess themed wall decals. The bathroom you swear you remodeled yesterday was actually done 20 years ago.   I get that.

But, when you build a house yourself, you have to allow for a "finish" point -- when you are done with the feverish all-consuming details that you "have" to do and are left with the details that you will get to on your own time, if ever.

So, cue the drum roll and blare the trumpets. I am so thrilled to announce our FINISH LINE!!! 

Official "certificate of occupancy".  Proof that we officially built a house.

Here is where we were in March of 2013, with a lake-side, falling-down, ancient, single-wide trailer and a dream.

And here is where we are now.



Sunset view from the deck.

Lake-side deck.  We used the old deck boards from the trailer.  Super cool and perfect deck furniture was given to us by our dearest friends (thanks Janna and Bret!)

Kitchen. "Vintage" cabinets were bought at a resale shop and happen to fit perfectly, even allowing for the kitchen "Island", perfect for bowls of noodle salad and potluck finery. We used outdoor lights indoors in several places for a bit of whimsy. My daughter and I made the driftwood wall hanging from pieces we found on Lake Superior this summer. Fridge was free from my mother-in-law.  Sink and stove were from Craigslist. 

Living room.  That rug was made by my super-talented Grandma. It is a crocheted "rag rug" made from pieces of polyester clothing she got at 2nd hand shops. We had the table and the futon in our NYC apartment.  Wall paneling and trim on the ceiling for a "clapboard" look. 

Guest bedroom.

Downstairs bath.

Kids room.  We can cram 8 kids in here for some fun sleep-overs!

Balcony at the top of the stairs.  This was my Grandmother's desk.  You can see that cool, huge driftwood piece sticking up over the wall.  I hope to occasionally be able to work from here soon.

Master bathroom upstairs.  The jet-tub was a $70 Craigslist find (works great!).  The window looks out over the kitchen, through the second story lake-side window and lets in lots of light.  We hope to get a stained glass piece in there some day.

Looking down on the kitchen from the balcony.

So, that's it.  True we still have lots of trim to paint and landscaping to do outside.  We are thinking that will wait until this winter and spring.  We eventually want to build a boat house and an attached garage and a mud room.  Its our "Golden Gate Bridge".

You'll recall that the reason we did this at all was to get out of a terrible, predatory mortgage without "walking away" and going into foreclosure since you can't re-mortgage a single-wide trailer under the post-recession mortgage rules. So, we are now actively pursing that process and close to getting into a much better situation. 

I guess that's the real "finish line".  But the emotional one came before that, just a week or so back, when we found ourselves with a day a the lake.  A whole day.  And we didn't have a nail to pound or a hole to dig or a wire to pull.  A day on boats and hammocks and kayaks with fishing poles and grills and swim goggles that ended in an evening campfire and a glass of wine and the joy of pride and relief and disbelief that it was done and now, finally, just ours to enjoy.

Thanks for reading.
Sarah

Guts and Glory

It has been a year since the last post, but -- rest assured  - there has been progress. 

A year ago, the cottage was a finished shell that looked like this:

And a completely unfinished interior that looked like this:

So, we spent last May through October working on the what I call the "guts" of the cabin:

• Electrical, which my husband completed on his own (after lots of research) with minimal help "pulling wire" from me and the kids
• HV/AC, which we partnered with a friend of a friend to complete
• Plumbing, which we contracted out because, turns out, plumbing is hard.

Here is a picture of the kids working on pulling the wiring in their room. 

They don't have much stamina for manual labor, but they will, I'm sure, be happy to brag to their kids and grand kids that they helped.

We worked until it got too cold last winter to do any more and then got back at it in early spring.

In March we hit a major mile stone and passed our building/electrical/plumbing/mechanical "rough" inspections:

The "guts" of building a house is pretty tedious, inglorious and generally unsatisfying.  I spent half a day putting wire nuts on in every outlet and when I was done, the cottage looked exactly the same as it did when I started.  Same for plumbing, mechanical, etc.  We were thrilled to get done with that work and onto the stuff that makes a house a home!

Since passing rough inspection we have been all out with the project including

• Insulation (we splurged and went with foam on the roof and blown in newspaper stuff on the walls)
• Drywall (with contracted help)
• Paint
• Well (sub contracted -- our well is 312 feet deep! Who knew you had to go that deep to find water on a LAKE!)
• Subfloor
• Great room ceiling 
• Railings
• Electrical fixtures
• "Finish" plumbing fixtures (still in progress)
• Installing kitchen cabinets and kitchen sink (both 2nd hand) and refrigerator (free) and countertops

It has been quite a hurricane of activity and quite a complicated project to plan an execute - because one piece can impact so many others so the order of operations is critical.  For example, we didn't want to do the flooring until the ceiling was done, and we couldn't install the cabinets until the subfloor was in. So, the ceiling was important to put at the top of the list.  Excel was our friend in our late night glass-of-wine and project planning sessions.

Here are some pictures of all the progress and where we are now!

Insolation

Primer paint! 

Paint!

Well

Interior Lighting

"Kids" bedroom

KITCHEN! (cabinets and sink are 2nd hand.  Fridge was free)

Kitchen again. Notice the "island" we are planning in the font?  Also, the ceilings are done in bead board in the kitchen and LR for a cottage look.



Living room!  We are using some exterior lighting inside - so fun. And there's that awesome drift wood up top (possibly one of my most favorite things on earth)

Guest bedroom

But, no way could we have gotten this far without generous help, exemplified by our leap forward last week with the assistance of a work crew fueled by charitable hearts and desire to pay forward work and help that had been paid to them.

You see, Bob, my father in law who passed away suddenly from an accident 15 months ago (and the subject of my last post) was a hard worker who was generous with his time, the work of his hands and his long-earned experience and advice.  He was the first guy to volunteer to help someone else including heading to clear fallen trees at a local park after a storm, finishing his other son's basement, spending weeks finishing his sister's vacation house (while using a 5 gallon bucket to flush the toilet), and spending the summer 2 years ago more than full-time on our place. He was our go-to helper, advise giver, researcher, strong back, sharp mind. The major loss we felt and still feel from his absence in our lives is as acute every day of our project as much as anywhere else.  As we work, I can still hear his voice calling out measurements, directing next steps, joking and laughing. It is often that I take a moment to wish he could have the satisfaction of seeing the project now and seeing it through. I know he would be proud.

Bob is no doubt the foundation of the reason that our "work week" crew, made up of Bob's best friends, sister, brother in law, and my mother in law, offered -- no, insisted -- that they help.  To "pay forward" Bob's tireless efforts on their behalf.  And, boy did they.  Kevin, Marilyn, Bob, Ginnie, Barb...we can't thank you enough.  Here's the "crew":

Work Crew: Andy, Barb, Ginnie, Marilyn, Bob, on the newly constructed balcony railing and Kevin peeking out the upstairs bathroom window.   Pic shows the awesome driftwood that has found a cool spot at the cottage

So, we still have work to do, but the finish line is in sight! Next steps:

• Flooring
• Finished electrical and plumbing (almost done)
• Trim
• Paint the ceiling
• Septic (almost done)
• Decks  - front and back
• Kitchen island countertop
• Furniture!

The goal is to stay there on the 4th of July with working facilities and possibly get our "certificate of occupancy", finish up the cosmetic stuff the rest of the summer and be in a new mortgage in the fall.  I think we'll get there.

Thanks for reading.
Sarah