Highlights of Homebuilding

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Monday, October 11, 2010

Dollar Signs and Light Switches

Warning! Longer post :) :)


Sometimes I'll pinch myself. Mostly that happens when I'm driving up the drive to our future home and the leaves on the trees are brilliant orange and red and I can see through them to where we hope to spend the rest of our lives. Sometimes it'll happen when I've found exactly what I've been looking for for a bathroom sink or outside light sconces and the prices can't be beat. It happens when I see my hardworking hubby putting shingles on the roof or the electricians running wire to our recessed lighting. Sometimes I just can't believe it's happening...to me! But, by God's grace, it is.



Everything house-wise is soooo new to me. I get ecstatic when I see a big ball of wire sitting on the floor, just knowing that that will be used to give the study light so I can see when I'm playing the piano. Those electricians must think me wacko because I couldn't stop hanging around taking pictures and asking ridiculous question! Like, "Should I put a pendant between that stud or that stud?"

"Ma'am, it's wherever you want it."

*sigh* "I know, but where would the BEST place be?" And then Paul has to intervene to make the executive decision. I just can't seem to make up my mind! Now don't laugh, you'd be doing the same thing!


This week the subs were here. Not the sandwiches, mind you, but the workers. The electricians and the plumbers. Today the HVAC guy is doing his thing, but because he's not done, I'm not writing about him yet:) We've had quite a time getting a hold of our plumber. Evidently he doesn't have a voicemail and he rarely answers his phone (in fact, I don't know how we got a hold of him in the first place!). We had several things to talk to him about. When our septic guy was done he was very adamant about getting a septic line run from the house to the system outside, and that was the plumber's job. Mack (the septic guy) told us that if it were to rain before that line got hooked up then it would be disastrous for the septic system! Well, we were stressed even though there was no rain in the forecast for the next 10 years (!) and tried and tried gettin a hold of our plumber to let him know this news. We also had forgotten to tell him that we wanted a dishwasher. But since we could never catch him at the land or on the phone then we just decided to wait and see what he did. We were going over to the land about 4 or 5 times a day to see the progess. At the beginning our plumber was slow. We came to find out that, evidently, there are two contractors in construction (plumber and roofer) who work by contract. If they have a higher priority contract with another job then they have to go do that job first before yours. He later told us that the week he was supposed to be finishing up our house a $100,000 contract of his called him and had him do his job first. Talk about priorities:) But he got all his rough-in done:
1. running the line from the main water line to the house.
2. putting outside spigots in.
3. putting all the tub and shower valves in
4. running all the lines under the house.
5. putting in the cold and hot water lines in
6. putting all the hookups for all the sinks in
7. connecting all the inside house lines to each other
8. and anything else I may have missed. lol

All this and we were under his quote by $400!!!! yippee!! We got his stuff inspected. We had the option not to have an inspection because we own over 10 acres, but to be safe we did. :)

During the last few days of the plumber's work, the electricians came in. Now before they did, let me back up and say that we met with the main electrican (Mike Fort) to work out the details of all our placements for light fixtures. That was an ordeal! We basically had to know where all our furniture was going to be placed so that we could know where to hang this pendant or that chandelier or those sconces. We had to have our cabinets drawn on the floor and we had to know exactly where all the outlets were to be laid out. Luckily I had though about this a lot so I knew pretty much exactly what kind of fixtures we were putting in each rooms; how much recessed lighting we wanted (we had up to 20 before he started charging us); and how many outlets I wanted (a ton!). I also wanted under cabinet lighting as well as lighting under the stairs for our reading nook. Mike was very helpful with his suggestions. Something that he did though frightenend Paul and me lol! As you can see from this picture he started marking where he was putting the light switches with these dollar sign looking things. We could just imagine all our dollars flying out the window, or rather, through the wiring. Let's just hope this isn't prophetic to how much their final cost is! The electricians have been out twice and will finish up tomorrow where we will pay them. Thankfully we don't have to get anything inspected with them.
One last thing, that was a blessing. I just have to tell you! Paul and I had gone back and forth about getting someone to do the roofing. He said that it would take him over a week to lay the shingles, even with Bro. Bob Chambliss helping (a man from our church). We were paying Bro. Bob for being such a blessing, plus Paul had to get all the tools anyways for the job. We figured it would cost about $600 out of our pocket to do our own roof. I told him that we could only budget $800 to hire someone. Paul called several roofers but the cheapest he could find still charged $40 a square (we had 27 squares worth for our roof). Multiply that and you get about $1080. Too much:( Paul was working himself to the bone and after two days had only laid two squares. He fell off the roof ( we won't go there ) and I was very ready for him to just be done! Well, on the second day he went into town to get some lunch and found a guy who did roofing. Paul talked to him and the guy said he would only charge him $23 a square plus $100 to do all the ridgecap. Multiply that by $25 a square and you get only $675!!!!! The Lord very personally answered another prayer!! And the roofer told us later that he only charged us that because he had nothing to do that day! He and his crew finished the whole roof in 7 hours! Praise the Lord!!!!
There you have it...the subs are nearly done. Other than the concrete guy coming in to do our outside steps and the fireplace guy doing his deal we are done with subs! I can't wait to be officially saving money:) Check out my photobucket!

http://s793.photobucket.com/albums/yy214/edeshappyfam/Dollar%20Signs%20and%20Light%20Switches/

On to build,
Rachael

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