At Home In The Woods

[Tororider]

Obed,
I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you taking all the time to post pictures and your experiences in building your house. I have gotten a lot out of it, and I am sure I will be better at building my future house because of it and those contributing to this thread. It amazes me when people like you and Eddie take so much time to document a project when the project itself already takes so much time.

Especially with a new baby girl. Enjoy her every second you can, as I am sure you already are. I have three, 5.5 and 3 year old boys and a 10 month old daughter. They grow up too fast.

 

[bdeboer]

OY OY! I can attest to this. I put new siding on my old house, planning on selling it, ended up being a landlord. I had new cable wiring put inside and hidden away, the cable guys came out and drilled holes right into the siding, I told them to wait for me to be there, but they did it anyway. GRRRR. All they had to do was hook up the original wiring and all would be good. Now I have cables stapled on the outside of the siding, holes drilled in new siding with no grommets or watertight protection. You have no idea how mad this makes me.

Dish guys did same thing at one of our rentals. Mounting and cable already on the outside.

 

[ruralruss]

Painting Questions
We are getting ready to interview painters. Do you guys have any suggestions as to what questions we should ask the painters? Are there any specifications we should give them regarding materials and how certain things should be done?

We need interior painting and limited exterior painting done. The exterior will all be all brick with vinyl siding on the gables and soffits. The only painting needs on the outside that I can think of are the exterior doors and the front porch railing.

Thanks,
Obed

Go for the low VOC paints, especially for the young one's benefit.

Russ

 

[jayste]

Wow! I leave for the weekend and you guys get 35 posts ahead of me! All good suggestions here this weekend. As far as the paint goes, as well as other things, seems like the pros as well as the cons are mentioned. The nice thing about all of the difference in opinions is that Obed has all of this experience to base his own decisions on. We all learn from others as well as see things from a totally different view!:thumbsup:

 

[Diamondpilot]

A thing I did was have my house wired with a 200 amp transfer switch between the meeter and the panel. I then had a plug put on the outside of the house. Its been great when the power goes out we just flip the switch, pull out the genny, fire it up and go. I have been without power 8 days in January so it was money well spent.

Another thing is make provisions to run electrical, phone, cable, water, ect out to a future barn or garage. I am so glad I did. I have internet access which is great for working on things in the shop.

Great project. Looks like you are really making headway now.

Chris

 

[mikefromnh]

Go for the low VOC paints, especially for the young one's benefit.

Russ

+1
:thumbsup:

 

[doxford jim]

We have internet and phone right now in the camper, both from the phone company. We'll just run the phone line to the house and we'll be done. We talked to the cable company (Comcast) and they wanted to charge us $5000 to run the cable from the street to our house. We were mostly interested in the cable for internet but $5K seemed over-the-top ridiculous. We even tried to see if Comcast would let us run the cable the 900' to the house ourselves but we couldn't even get them to talk to us about it. The DSL internet from the phone company has worked fine so Comcast can jump in the lake.

Hi Obed,

I like your thread and what you are doing - great stuff and a great help to others that might have the same idea.

Just a thought about the internet after reading the cable company's quote for cable :shocked::shocked:
We have satellite TV and Internet - two different companies, but both provide much better service than cable. In fact, up here in BC, the satellite charges are very reasonable.
TV - basic or bronze choice around $40.00 Ca. a month.
Internet - again basic and more than enough at 54MB/sec $49.99 Ca. a month
For the internet I have to pay for the equipment (dish,cable etc) at around $200 - a one time fee only !
The equivalent telephone package if available and it's isn't where I live, would be approx. the same price at $50 +/-.

I would consider the satellite set ups - they are very reasonable now and much more convenient.

Keep up with your documentary - I really enjoy reading it. Thanks for the insight.

Cheers

Jim

 

[MarkV]

Like everyone else I have enjoyed watching your build. I am sure you and the family are getting excited now that the house is dried in.

A couple of things I'll throw in for consideration. On your gable ends a cement based siding like Hardi Plank is worth considering. It holds paint well and is almost indestructible without distorting over time. Vinyl siding can get wavy with time and is not as easy to change colors with as your tastes change over the years.

Even if you don't intend to add television to your house it would be wise to add the cable for it now while the walls are open. You never know what you will want in the future.

Dry wall in my area is glued and screwed always if you are using a quality dry waller.

Obed, when I read about your build I always think about what it would be like to move into the house after so many years in a camper. What a huge change! I'll bet you have some furniture shopping in your future.

MarkV

 

[Obed]

HVAC

These are the main trunk lines. The one on the left is for the basement H&A and the other is for the main floor.

There will be an HVAC unit for the main floor and a separate unit for the basement. The basement unit will not be installed until a later date when we finish the basement.

Lines running to main floor registers.

There are aluminum covers over all the registers to keep construction debris out of them.

 

[Mark in WV]

On the painting I would suggest mixing some drywall primer & light drywall (finish) mud together with a drill mixer and applying with a 3/4" nap roller. This will coat the drywall & seams with a light coat of mud & primer at the same time. This also can be lightly screened to remove any minor imperfections & depending on the amount of mud used can create a wall that has a very light pattern to it. This also will reduce the amount of finish paint needed.

On the suggestion of listing your property as "recreational" in West Virginia this would mean no houses, just hunting & camping. I suggest adding some "investment" type of language to the listing, lots of folks are buying acreage for this purpose.

Great looking home, I am enjoying the updates.

Mark