Our Home In The Woods!

[rustyshakelford]

This is finally happening! After lots of headaches and emails we have actually made progress in building our home. We started back in Oct '12. We bought 12.86 acres in gods country. I had my wife on board with moving to the country and raise our son and wanting to get away from all the headaches of town.

I started by getting a survey crew out to help locate the pins. We were able to find all but one! That elusive one could have been found for a hefty price due to the amount of chopping needed. I figured, it'll be ok. I'll find it...more in that later.

I knew I wanted to leave a buffer for the privacy and also keep the dust down. It's still 5 years till the road gets paved so to make the best of it we left about 60' along the roads. I drug a Dozer out dec 22 2012 and officially started clearing. This was slow going for me by myself. I was able to underbrush and burn off a couple acres before having to do some figuring. Here's the beginning. It was pretty thick.

We have a creek that runs right down the middle and it's decent sized. I was able to track down a big culvert to aid in accessing the back of the property. Here's the culvert installed temporarily.

I'll add more pics to get us caught up to where we are now when I'm on a PC. We are scheduled to pour our slab on thurs or Friday!

Some specs on the house

3 bd/2.5 bath
2703 living sq ft
750 sq ft covered porches
4000 sq ft slab

Minimum 10' walls with 8' doors
2x6 studs
Stained concrete floors throughout
Very nice kitchen for my bride

I plan on keeping this updated so we can tell the story of building our first home. Once the house is dried in, we will move out there and stay in our camper.

Brett

Any tips or tricks please share.

 

[PaulMel]

How very exciting, and very similar story to ours. We paid Amish folks to clear up to where we will build down the road, and they put a culvert in so we can cross the creek.
Did you lay out the foundation yourself, and then pour the concrete yourself too?
Best of luck to you!
PaulMel

 

[dave1949]

Looks like a nice house location. You have a nice beginning on a yard area with trees by the looks of it.

Great adventure, builds character. Look forward to watching your home progress.

 

[oosik]

What a beautiful location. i know exactly what you mean by headaches. We had our house built in Alaska and when we moved here we built this one ourselves. No matter how its done - I think there will always be headaches and memories. Believe me, the memories will last a lifetime.

 

[rustyshakelford]

How very exciting, and very similar story to ours. We paid Amish folks to clear up to where we will build down the road, and they put a culvert in so we can cross the creek.
Did you lay out the foundation yourself, and then pour the concrete yourself too?
Best of luck to you!
PaulMel

The builder is handling that. I dug a pond and used the dirt for the pad. That's my extent on the construction side. I'm responsible to get power and water. He's supposed to do the rest! Got lucky and have a great guy building it.

Looks like a nice house location. You have a nice beginning on a yard area with trees by the looks of it.

Great adventure, builds character. Look forward to watching your home progress.

Thanks. I took out the majority of pines and left the hardwoods. I might still take out a few more but for now I want everything to rest. The remaining trees were stressed in the clearing and I don't want to kill any good ones! One thing I do know is I'll be needing a big mower now!

What a beautiful location. i know exactly what you mean by headaches. We had our house built in Alaska and when we moved here we built this one ourselves. No matter how its done - I think there will always be headaches and memories. Believe me, the memories will last a lifetime.

Thanks. My wife has been very supportive even when it seemed like this was never going to happen. The construction loan alone was an ulcer. Supposed to take 30 days but was drug out to nearly 3.5 months! We had to keep submitting the same things over and over again. Closing on that was a great feeling!

Brett

 

[rustyshakelford]

We finally have our slab! They will begin framing on Tuesday!

Brett

 

[EddieWalker]

Congratulations, it's a huge step when you get your slab poured!!!!

Pouring the porches at the same time as the slab might lead to some issues down the road. Concrete expands and contracts with the change in temperatures, and since the inside of the house is usually pretty constant, and the outside porches change so much, the porches are usually poured at a later date then the slab. Some places even do the garage separately. Do you have expansion boards between the porches and the house slab? If not, be sure to cut the concrete there so you don't end up with cracking into the house.

Eddie

 

[rustyshakelford]

Congratulations, it's a huge step when you get your slab poured!!!!

Pouring the porches at the same time as the slab might lead to some issues down the road. Concrete expands and contracts with the change in temperatures, and since the inside of the house is usually pretty constant, and the outside porches change so much, the porches are usually poured at a later date then the slab. Some places even do the garage separately. Do you have expansion boards between the porches and the house slab? If not, be sure to cut the concrete there so you don't end up with cracking into the house.

Eddie

No expansion boards placed. It's structural and has full beams and full thickness concrete. Hopefully we don't have any issues. Never even thought of that so thanks for the heads up. I'll ask builder tomorrow. Any other tricks or tips?

Brett

 

[rustyshakelford]

Started getting walls up today. Builder said it will be more than two but hopefully less than three weeks of framing!

Brett

 

[rustyshakelford]

They have been making progress!

Front of the house is taking shape.

Garage side. The garage is getting a beam so the sagging boards are only temporary.

One weeks down, hopefully they will be wrapped up in a week and a half or so. Been 4 guys going at it lately.

Brett