Dometastic

  I am finding it hard to update this blog regularly as we make a huge push to finish all the projects that will get us a CO. Our goal is to be moving in a little over a month! All we do is march back and forth from home and day jobs to working on the house.  We have so much to do but so little left to get a CO. Because we do not have a construction loan, we are not tied to what a bank considers a finished house. Often construction loans can't be closed out until everything is 100% complete including trim. This is not the case for us, so we are concentrating on the projects that are required by our building department for a CO. The bar is surprisingly low.... a little too low...so we will go a bit beyond for comfort reasons. Required for a CO in our town. Potable water Septic system Enclosed building envelope that meets the minimum for safety and insulation requirements One sink One toilet No exposed wiring Heat Pass a Blower door test Nothing "unsafe" (this can mean a lo...

  We are DONE with dry wall and everything is painted!!! It looks almost like a real house inside. I can top that news by saying WE HAVE HEAT!!! Lets take a moment to celebrate having a functioning heating system in a cold climate in the middle of winter! The marathon of drywall is done for now. We still have the master wing of the house to do after we move in but we would like to just pretend we are done for awhile. It was a long slow dusty process but it looks amazing. The flat walls are a cool white and the dome surface is a warm cream. All our color will come from materials not paint colors. We have plans for wood, metal and stone throughout the house. We are finally getting to install more lighting fixtures and finalize all the outlets and switches. To watch a five minute video walk through CLICK HERE . Greatroom floor outlet in the center of the room. We decided that since the room is 32' across it needed an outlet in the center where furniture would be. Kids bathroom sconces...

  We finished off 2021 with a flurry of work. We took a ten day holiday vacation to work harder on the house. Our goal was to get all the drywall hung and taped with the first coat of joint compound. We almost made it. The missing pieces of sheet rock in this photo are the only ones left. We still have a bit more to tape as well but many other areas are completely done. We even convinced the kids to do some painting. They did a pretty good job with the primer but there was some coloring outside of the lines. They at least kept the extra coloring confined to each other. Only some clothing was sacrificed during their "paint fight".  It was a long ten days of repetitive motion inducing soreness but it is amazing to have almost finished interior walls. When I start to complain about my sore arms and hands I just have to remind myself that at least we are indoors and we are not using shovels. All tasks pale in comparison to hand digging trenches or.... .....that super fun time whe...

  We have POWER in the house! This is such a big milestone heading into winter. After many delays trying to get the supplies we needed, things finally came together and we were able to turn on a few circuits. We now have some lights and a few outlets working. The days are dark early now so it is so nice to just turn on a switch in the house. Better yet is the ability to run electric space heaters until we get the radiant floor system up and running. We can't get over how cool it is to have a lit up house in the dark! We were delayed all through the early fall due to canceled or backordered supplies as well as some family related things. If there is one thing we have learned by building this house it is that timelines mean nothing.  We could not get the electrical panel that we needed. It took us several weeks to finally find the one we needed in stock. The wire was also an issue. We ended up buying a 500' roll of 4/0 awg aluminum and pulling three lengths of it together with a...

  So much has happened this summer that I needed to split my post into two. Click here to go to End of Summer Update 1.   This second part is dedicated to just windows and doors. We have finally gotten all the big windows and doors installed. All we have left are the small skylight windows that will be installed after we move in. There are a total of 41 of those. We took a week vacation and successfully installed both the very large arch window and the equally as large door system on the front of the house. This is a huge milestone for us. It completes the exterior envelope and we have already done more spray foam. (we have just a small amount left to do before it gets cold) Without more delay here are the photos of the large arch window installation. We are very thankful to have friends that still answer their phones when we call for extra muscle! First step that took most of the day was removing the airform and wood spray block that helped create the shape of the front ...