A family's journey to build a healthy home
Maximizing the month of December... Laundry and mudroom tile...Blake discovered that his favorite part was grouting... Craig installed 16 doors and trimmed 20 windows... Master bathroom is coming together... Boys' bathrooms are getting finished... Outside house color was determined....color matched to a hardie board sample... Each board was individually stained by the Walkers and a… Continue reading December Decisions & Countertops
Why would we take on the overwhelming task of building our own house as "Owner Builder?" We have a unique story to share with you. In 2007, we had two sons, eight months old and four years old, along with a chocolate lab. We built what we thought was our dream home. Two years and… Continue reading Our Story
Life is not always an "easy road" - in fact the road has a hole again...so, our driveway guy was called to come fix the paver which was missed and repair the hole in the road... This is symbolic for us right now as we continue to face a lot of adversity and feel like… Continue reading Busyness of June & Mold and Metal Toxicity (part 2)
We love our front door! There's a lot of special details about our house, but the front door tops the list. The heart shapes on the outside and inside are special to us. When we prepped the land to build, there was one invasive cherry laurel tree which was cut down. One of the stumps… Continue reading Memorable May & Mold and Metal Toxicity
April was full of little projects, getting organized, baseball games and trying to live life while continuing to settle into our new house..... A multi-step project which Craig has undertaken....it will look amazing when it's finished and ultimately, there will be benches on each side in the nooks. Projects under construction make for creative places… Continue reading April: Stonework, shiplap and egg hunts
Surprises can be bad or good... This was our bad surprise on March 1st...the downstairs tub leaked into the storage closet under the stairs. We are SO THANKFUL that the concrete slab was sloped towards this closet and not towards the kitchen... the carpet acted like a sponge so the water did not go through… Continue reading March Surprises & Choosing Carpet Carefully
We are making progress....a driveway really helps to complete a house...and helps with less dirt coming in the house... Cleaning up the front yard and hauling away trash seemed ongoing... Tackling our list of projects...the start to the fireplace... Shiplap in the boys bathroom... Shelves to organize the homeschool room... First injury in the new… Continue reading February & Pitiful paint and texture with VOCs
Wood floors made in Tennessee.... More of Craig's great tiling work....and...Closet shelves are kind of like toilet paper - you don't realize how essential they are until you don't have them....Beckett learning how to install door handles... Boxes can pile up.....Pinterest inspired pantry shelves turned out great.... A fun mailbox and looking forward to having… Continue reading Joyous January & Wood Floors
Sunday: More tiling in the bathroom and laundry room Monday: Electricians began the final steps of finishing outlets, switches and hanging lights Tankless hot water heater was installed in the garage Tuesday: Doors and tongue & grove wood for the porch ceilings delivered Electricians continued We continued with numerous trips to Home Depot and… Continue reading Second Week of December: CRUNCH TIME
Front Door installation was done after a couple of late nights...it was a HUGE DIY project! Normally this time of year we are working as a family to secure a Christmas tree into a tree stand and make sure that it all lines up and is straight. This year, we had a different project....we got… Continue reading Essentials: Front door & Cabinets
WOW! Our paint color turned out better than we anticipated! We are so thankful! We are so thankful for so very many things!!! This was a great week of having this construction project look more like a home every day. We paused to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and talk about our blessings this year, with… Continue reading A week of thankfulness…
With our ability to schedule the subs, we are keeping things moving.... Saturday & Sunday: Craig continued working on boys' bathroom tile and continued through late evenings this week Tuesday: Drywall was textured Wednesday: Garage doors installed & Septic system install began Thursday: Craig measured all of the windows to order hurricane shutters Friday: Painter began… Continue reading Owner Builder Schedule
A HUGE step to make this house come together was the mudding and texture so that we're ready for paint.... In addition to our action packed week at our new home, it was eventful at our rental house...pressure washing, painting (good-bye yellow paint) and A/C repair... Kids are so impressionable! We all know… Continue reading Mudding and more…
Now that's a lot of buckets of mud! We are two days into the walls getting taped and mudded! Texture of the walls and ceiling will happen next week! We will quickly move on to priming the ceilings with paint and getting ready for the cabinets to be delivered... The hardie board....No it is not… Continue reading Drywall mudding & Hardie board siding
With this post, let's go with...."a picture is worth a thousand words".....
Monday & Tuesday - Insulation finished by Green Star Panels Wednesday - Drywall delivered Thursday - Bonus room window upstairs reversed to be installed normally (the window had been installed reversed intentionally so that the drywall could be delivered through the window) AND Craig finished the insulation final touches around wiring, windows and doors as… Continue reading A busy week…
We are so excited about our R-38 insulation on the roof. It is noticeably cooler inside the house than outside. The weekend was busy with Craig and helpers adding the R-13. Our inspector from the county gave us very positive feedback regarding the Green Star Panels. He shared that he has personally seen the molded spray… Continue reading Insulation 101
We know what it feels like to have to walk away from a dream home. Eleven years ago, we built our dream house and picked out our lot even before the roads were paved in the neighborhood. That dream home turned nightmare as it had chinese drywall & sinkhole! After two years and two months… Continue reading Our house is a gift!
An eventful week of inspections.... Gas inspection passed, Electric inspection passed, HVAC inspection passed AND low voltage wiring passed! WAY TO GO CRAIG!!! He is solely responsible for the low voltage inspection passing on Friday! I respect him so much as he has not only taken on this role of Owner-Builder but then took on… Continue reading A week of inspections…
With the increase of technology, the reality is that you can choose to build a home without any hardwire. Your 'Smart TV' doesn't need a cable, your cell phone can replace your land line, and your computers can all be Wifi. "We could, but should we?" became our question. Our answer was NO, because we… Continue reading Old fashioned hard wire…
With our awareness of dirty electricity and how our bodies can benefit from a calm environment, we attempted to find a way to install shielded wiring. It was not a budget friendly option. So, the best option for us was to have a "kill switch" installed per bedroom. The kill switch is an additional switch… Continue reading 1 Kill Switch per bedroom please!