Things Are Really Moving Now...

Our house is framed now, almost. Most of it is done, but there are a few things here and there that have to be finished. It feels like it has taken a long time to get to this point, but I suppose it probably feels that way for all home owners.

Over the last month or so, we've experienced a lot of things that I thought I should share.

Snow is not your friend. Now, I've never been a big fan of winter. I pretty much hate it. But, now I hate it even more. For several weeks, our home didn't have a roof. So, every time there was snow in the forecast, my heart sunk a little. There's something really wrong with seeing snow and ice in the places that you hope to cover with carpet and flooring in a few short months. We have a roof now, though, and there doesn't appear to be any major damage to anything.

You should keep up with your cleanup work. My husband and I, to save money, have opted to do most of the cleanup work ourselves. However, when the framers were working we weren't sure which piles were scrap and which piles were still being used, so we didn't actually start our part of the work until the guys were almost done. Big mistake! We're almost caught up now, but we're in the middle of a wicked cold snap and got snow yesterday. We still need to pick up all of the roofers' trash, but I think we're going to hold off until I can actually see the trash again. It's all under the snow right now.

You should talk to your builder everyday. And I do mean, everyday. Over the course of the four weeks that our builder and his crew were framing the house, I learned the hard way that I should spend a little time talking to him every morning. A couple of times, he would decide to work on a part of the house that he needed to get our opinion about. Since my husband and I were at work during the day, he would just make his own decision about what he thought he should do. It wasn't always what I would have done.

For instance, the original plans called for arched windows on the front of our house and a barrel roll arch in the front porch. While shopping for windows, my husband and I decided to move to squared off windows. So, the builder decided while he was working on the porch that since we had gotten rid of the arched windows that we didn't really want the arch under the porch. He was wrong, by the way. We ended up with a totally different look over our front door. Fortunately, we've grown to like the new look, but otherwise, we'd have had to have the builder rip it all down and do it over again. Here's how the porch ended up; what do you think?

Now that the framing's almost done, I realize that this part has been a lot smoother than it could have been. Our builder put up with a lot of questions from us, with no complaints, and I really appreciated that. Now, we're starting to move into the sub-contractor phase. My husband and I will start doing walk-throughs. I'll let you know how it all goes.