The Forever House Blog

Background...

"The Forever House" is a concept we've used with our daughters since they were born to communicate the idea that where we are living now is temporary, and that, in the future, we would be building a beautiful house to move into. This blog will track our progress as we build our Forever House.

The Story...

So... where to start... we've had our property, three acres in Elk River, for about five years now. We finally got through all of California's onerous permitting hurdles, and $20k+ later, we have permission to build. Everybody got their cut: planning department, building department, department of fish and game, department of public health, Army Corps Of Engineers, and probably a lot more that I'm forgetting... Thanks, California.

Then, about money... we started down the path of bank financing, but it turns out that they REALLY don't like the idea of a a family building their own home. The only model they would lend on is the one where you hand the entire project over to a contractor and have him build a turn key project in 12 months or less. Also, the loan fees and points added up to over $10k, just for the privilege of borrowing money from them. That's not what we're interested in, so we're taking the plunge and paying out of pocket as we go. This is definitely going to be an exercise in frugality. We've decided to build the garage this year and use it as a temporary living space while we save money to build the main house. Just getting onto the property and out from under our current mortgage will give a HUGE amount of breathing room.

Now... finally! ...it's time to build. We started on March 11. Hired a contractor to cut down some hazardous trees and a huge redwood snag (which we've affectionately dubbed "diablo"). The same contractor also did the digging and installation for our septic system and dug the footings. I took a few days off of work to work with them and help get it done quicker. Sweat equity!

While the contractor was working on the septic system, I found a portable sawmill guy to help me with the redwood snag. It turned out that there was a LOT of very nice wood hidden in there; looks like 4-5000 board feet. Easily enough to provide all of the siding and finish woodwork for our garage and house, and a surplus to sell to help cover the milling costs.

Then, it was my turn. Spread 8 yards of gravel to act as a capillary break under the slab on Wednesday evening after work. Then, on Saturday, I built the forms, leveled and squared them, stretched strings and finish-leveled the gravel, then installed the braces to keep the forms true under the pressure of wet, heavy concrete. That's the work to date... now it's time to start bending and tying rebar. This is an amazing amount of work, and an amazing amount of fun!

One thing that isn't obvious when you're reading about this kind of project is the amount of time it takes to shop for materials and tools. There's probably more time going into comparison shopping and finding the materials and tools than goes into the actual building. It may go quicker in the future, now that I have some competitively-priced suppliers lined up and accounts created, but I was completely unprepared for how much time it takes to procure supplies.

Starting work on tree removal. The redwoods at the edge of the cut-bank were completely undermined; best to remove before we build a house where they want to fall!