My Other Build Project

[ryeguy2006a]

As some of you know, I recently moved from Upstate, NY down to central Virginia. When we were making the move we had very few houses to choose from and actually bought our house without ever seeing it in person! We only had a few virtual tours with our real estate agent. Everything worked out and it's a great house on a quiet cul de sac. That said, we are on 1/3 acre and it became obvious pretty quickly that we wanted more space from our neighbors. Coming from 6 acres surrounded by lots of trees we were quickly missing that. So late last year we started looking around for houses with good acreage, but weren't happy with what we were finding. So that lead us to start looking at having a home built. We have always wanted to build a house and so we started down the path. We found a really nice wooded lot with 2.27 acres, at the end of a very quiet cul de sac. We wanted to be part of a neighborhood for the quiet streets for the kids, walking/jogging, and etc so that was important to us too. We pulled the trigger on the lot at the end of July, found a great contractor, designed a house, got the plans approved, and found the perfect placement for the house. We closed two weeks ago on the construction loan and to our surprise, they got right to work clearing the lot! Here's some pictures that we have taken so far. We got a ton of rain so the excavation will have to wait a week for things to dry out, but otherwise we're hoping that things continue to move this quickly. Would be amazing to have the building weathered in before the really cold weather, but lots of that depends on the rain.

After we closed on the loan and before the ground work was to begin, I wanted to meet with my contractor to go over the placement of the house one more time. He said that it's a good idea to meet sooner than later because sometimes his excavator operator will let him know the day of when he'll start work. This is what we saw when we arrived at the lot. A loader dozer already there!



I arrived first, and while I was waiting for my contractor, here comes another dozer!





We came back a few days later and they were ripping down trees and shredding them!





Came back the next day and there was the start of our driveway!



We are so excited to finally be to the point of construction. It's been quite a process to get to this point, and relieved that it has all worked out. Other than interest rates that is... But the rates seem to be trending lower, so hopefully within the next year we can see a drop in the rates enough that we can refinance. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,
Ryan

[kentucky yeti]

Congratulations on the new beginning!  It’s an exciting time, for sure. I know you are excited to see things start to happen.

[FormTA]

That is awesome Ryan! Building our house was a blast! We had a great contractor too. I moved a wall and a window 3 times, added switches and lights on walk through and never got a change order bill. Usually those things will kill you. Same thing with paint colors.  He also let me buy my own doors, windows, cabinets and counter tops. At tye time I worked a big local retailer amd I could get those things at cost. I was able to get tye best Anderson windows below what he had quoted us for entry level ones.

My wife is so bad at visualizing sizes of rooms and such so I actually layer out the entire house with flagging tape. That way she could walk through each room and say ya, that's good or that's too small, maybe a light switch here or there.

Just have fun with it!!! So exciting!

[Raven]

Congratulations, looking forward to seeing your progress!

[jonathonar89]

Awesome man!  Happy for you.  I just want to see the garage.

I know the feeling of neighbors.  Grew up in an affluent community with big and spread apart houses.  Now I live in a townhouse.  Nice but it’s not exciting hearing your neighbors next door.

[ryeguy2006a]

Thanks guys! We're really excited to see the progress, but know that it's going to go in bursts. It will be good to see the lot cleared off so that we can get a better picture of where the house will be. Then we can make some small shifts of the location of the house if need be.

[Nexus]

This will be fun to watch!!

Best of luck with the process!!

[5th T/A]

Ryan, you must be on top of world! Certainly some very exciting times ahead for you and your family. Looking forward to seeing and hearing more.

PS, I hope you left room in the budget for a nice shop/garage.

[ryeguy2006a]

Unfortunately there are no immediate plans to build a detached garage, however the placement of the house will be strategic to be able to fit a 30' deep garage. The house right now will have 22'x22' attached garage. My plan is to hopefully build a 30x40 garage, and I'm thinking about going with a steel building. But that's a ways off. Once this house build is settled and we get to the point where landscaping and other misc. things are complete with the house, my plan is to start building and selling cars. If everything goes right, I'll be able to fund my garage build that way and have fun doing it. My wife is on board so that is pretty cool. I'd love to get my boys involved so that they can learn valuable skills as well as earn a little cash helping dad.

[rkellerjr]

Pretty exciting times, congrats!

[ryeguy2006a]

Progress has been moving right along. They finished clearing the property for both the house site and the drain fields a few weeks ago. After they cleared the property, we met with our contractor to confirm the placement of the house. In the meantime they also laid down the driveway and more grading.





Then a few days later, they had dug a giant hole! I thought it was only for the foundation, but after I went down to inspect the hole I realized that the entire drain field was completed too!





They left all those exposed until the town came to inspect and certify.



The boys have been having a blast playing in the huge dirt piles when we go over to the site.



My contractor called me to update on some things and let me know that the foundation should be done by the end of last week. I was skeptical because that seems like a lot of work, but sure enough this is what we found when we stopped over!



We are super excited to start seeing the our plans coming to fruition. We still have a long ways to go, but where we stand right now they are on schedule for pouring the floors very soon.

Cheers,
Ryan

[kentucky yeti]

Looking great!

[FormTA]

I'm excited for you! Looks like a peaceful neighborhood! Love the view!

[rkellerjr]

Progress is exciting! Can't wait to come up and see it.

[5th T/A]

Exciting times building from scratch the way you want it. Can you have them leave one of the dirt pile’s for the boys? They look to be at the perfect age to enjoy it.

[ryeguy2006a]

Thanks guys, we're getting really excited for this summer to get here. As much as I'd love to leave that pile for the boys, they need that pile to bring the level of the front yard up.

Rich, you bet! We'll get some work done for sure.

[roadking77]

Looking good Ryan.

[ryeguy2006a]

I haven't been as good about updating this thread as my Nomad thread, but I do have some pretty significant updates!

Basement has been poured with a rough in for a bathroom.





The next day that I stopped by, they had done the first floor floor beams.



I stopped by a few days later and I was shocked that the first floor exterior walls were completely up. As well as the basement staircase roughed in! They are working quickly.







I was scolded by my contractor because I came onto the job site during active construction. I was very careful to stay way away from them, but I got so excited that I had to see it closer! They called me a few days later to say that I could come and see the completed first floor! The first picture is standing in the kitchen looking into the living room, and the second is the other side of the living room. Built in fireplace with room on the sides for recessed bookshelves.





Drove by on Monday and they had the second floor exterior walls up and installed.



I drove by Tuesday, but didn't see much change. I was distracted though because the contractor was there and we didn't want to let them know we were peeking at the progress. They sent us pictures ironically a few minutes later that showed the rough grade in the front and back of the house as well as the garage walls being framed up! This is all super exciting and right now the progress seems to be moving at lightspeed. I know it will slow down once we start doing wiring/plumbing/drywall/etc. but so far we are beyond happy with the progress.





So far, we have been 100% without precipitation since the framing started, and we are in the clear until Saturday where there's a 50% chance. They said we are close enough that we should be able to get the roof trusses installed and the house rough weathered in with the home wrap installed. That would be a huge relief if we could make that happen. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,
Ryan

[Nexus]

That is awesome!!

Excited and stressful all at once!!

[roadking77]

Very nice Ryan. I have been thinking about giving you a call and seeing how things are going. Everything looks great! I wish I could tell my customers to stay away, LOL. I do have to say I miss doing that kind of stuff but I think those days are behind me at this point.

[kentucky yeti]

Updates?  Pics?

[ryeguy2006a]

Yes, thanks for the reminder! I've been so busy getting the Nomad ready for spring, cleaning up our current house and working with the contractor that I totally forgot to update this thread! Yes we've made huge strides forward in the last few weeks.







We had fantastic luck with the weather. Our contractor was able to get the house completely framed and weathered in before a large rainstorm!! That means that there was no precipitation during the framing process which is really cool!

This is a picture from the back corner of our lot. Will be a great back yard for the kids to ride and play. Front yard is very flat and will likely be where we put a fire pit. SOO looking forward to camp fires this summer!!



I didn't take many photos of the electrical and plumbing rough in phase, but that's kinda boring anyway. We were able to walk through the house and move around a few outlets so they made sense for our needs. I also had them add 6 110v outlets to the garage, and one 50 amp 220v outlet for my welder! My first house was the only one that had a dedicated 220v outlet for a welder, but at the time I didn't even have a big welder so I never got to use it.

Last week we checked in and the drywall guys were there hanging and finishing so I grabbed a bunch of photos. It's so crazy how some drawings can transform into reality!





This was one of a few change orders we had to make. We had a fireplace in the plans with a bump out and planned to add shelves later on to try and cut costs. However, after looking at different options the shelves really needed to be built into the wall to look the best to us. So we had them add 24" recessed shelves to the bump out. So glad we called our contractors when we did because they were ordering the materials that week, so we avoided a huge let down. Glad we planned ahead!



I also loved that they used the large drywall sheets to reduce seams in the walls. Very nice touch!



Last but not least, there's the garage roughed in! I can't wait to get in there after we move in to paint and hang up my signs and decorations. I think I'm also going to get some recessed speakers and wire them up with some exterior speakers too for entertaining in the summer! Very much looking forward to having more space between us and our neighbors.



I'll do better about keeping this thread updated too! The contractor gave us a estimated completion date of late June, so we are doing great on time. Considering they broke ground mid December, I'm quite impressed with the progress.

Cheers,
Ryan

[apfstg]

Beautiful home - being a water well driller I didn’t notice the yard ornament , usually a bone of contention in the home building scene - maybe you have town water instead . If you did drill did someone  ‘witch’ it or as my Amish neighbors call ‘twitching’?

[kentucky yeti]

Beautiful!

[5th T/A]

Wow, lots of progress since last post. Bet June won't come soon enough.

While my home was being built, I checked up on it frequently. Usually on the weekends when no contractors were around.

[ryeguy2006a]

Thankfully we are far enough outside of town that we have our own well and septic, so no monthly fees. It's tucked away in the corner of the front yard. They said I won't have any issues running out of water, and our neighbors say that there water is really tasty, so I'm hoping that will be our luck as well! (get the pun haha)

Yes, we are checking up with them on a weekly basis and they are really good about letting us in when we want. They are great at coordinating the sub-contractors because there always seems to be a different truck there!

We did have an incident a few weeks ago where about 80 boards were stolen off of our site. Unfortunately they know who it is, but really can't "prove" who it was, but thankfully it was only the reject boards from our framer that were stolen and no other items. They also didn't break into the house, so that is a big relief.

[ryeguy2006a]

This was the first look at the house color with the first side completely done. We LOVE the color.



We came back a few days later, and the whole back side of the house was complete!



We stopped by to pick out the carpet with the contractor and the front siding is complete along with the railings. We opted for window trim as opposed to shutters and couldn't be happier.



Then last Saturday our contractor gave us free reign of the house to walk through and check everything out. It was great to be able to just take our time without feeling rushed. One thing that I told my contractor at the very beginning is that I was going to be picky about the drywall finishing. I hate seeing spots that are missed or butt joints that aren't feathered out far enough. I'm very pleased to see that they are doing a great job from what I can tell. The true test will be once the walls and ceilings have paint on them. All the butt joints have about 24" on each side and from my experience doing drywall, that should be plenty for it to become invisible. I also hate to cover up my son's smiling face, but as a habit I try to keep my kid's photo's off of the internet.



Not sure how much it actually saved us, but our contractor did give us the option to do a few things ourselves and we were able to stain our own front porch boards. We will also paint the exterior concrete walls when there is a time that it's not supposed to rain.



Things are progressing very nicely and we couldn't be happier at this point. They gave us a revised timeline and we may be able to move in sometime around the first two weeks of June! That will be here before we know it.

Cheers,
Ryan

[FormTA]

Really looking great Ryan! That's quite a drop off the front porch there.

[N PRGRES]

Looks great! 

[kentucky yeti]

Wow!  That is gorgeous!  So very nice!    I guess that is an eastern thing? I mean, the contractor giving you free rein.   I had 24/7 access to our place, from groundwork up.  There was no denied entry.  Gotta say- your contractor and your family are progressing fast!!!

[ryeguy2006a]

We had the same 24/7 entry, but if there were sub-contractors there they would have to stop working and that could put them behind for several hours depending on what they had to stop doing. We we for the most part have been checking in at least once weekly, but usually more. Even if it was just a drive-by.

They also were able to basically identify the guy, but with no hard evidence (catching him with a car full of boards) there was nothing that the officers could do. Even more incriminating, the black Civic that he came back three times with, is now Red! Shady business, but it could have been much worse than a stack of lumber being stolen.

[roadking77]

Looks great Ryan! Very similar style to my house. Are those bookcases/shelves beside the fireplace? I like the look of the trim on the window in lieu of the shutters, good choice. Now that you are getting finishes put into place be careful with that red honda! Keep the cameras rolling for whatever thats worth. Hes been there once and got away with it...........
When you get to painting the foundation you should try and match the mud on the garage foundation. Kidding aside, in the picks it looks like brick. If you can match that closely it would look great. Looks like the TAC home warming bbq/picnic needs to get scheduled asap.
Mike, I have been involved with building (residential and commercial) for the last 40+ years. I only wish our customers would stay away!! Never had that luxury, LOL.

[rkellerjr]

Well on the way to being finished.

[ryeguy2006a]

I appreciate all of the comments! We are very excited to move in now, it's all becoming very real now.

The drop off looks much steeper than is. It's really about 4'.

[ryeguy2006a]

We didn't get a chance to look around too much when I was dropping off the light fixtures, but I was able to snap a few pictures. They were able to spray the whole house with primer, followed by two coats of paint on the ceiling and one coat on the walls. They are going to follow up with one additional coat on the walls which will be rolled. Lights are going up this week and most of the electrical switches are installed at this point. The garage door guy is also supposed to be coming at some point this week and the doors and trim were all delivered too. We are getting ready to list our current house for sale in a few weeks, so that will be stressful... We are listing the house without a realtor, but given the demand right now in this area we're hoping that it sells pretty quickly like all of the other houses in the area.

Anyway, here's some pictures haha.

[kentucky yeti]

Nice!!!

[roadking77]

Looking good!