Things are really moving up at our house. Two weekends ago, just the two of us spent all day Saturday cleaning up the area around the house preparing for imminent, permanent snow. Funny because it was almost 70 degrees, sunny, warm and beautiful. We also moved a lot of things inside the newly concreted basement – like the huge piles of wood in the driveway and all around the house. We picked up tools, trash, logs, nails, pallets, plywood, plastic, beer cans, water bottles, coffee cups, rebar and the many other bits and pieces of junk that managed to find our “yard.” So now our messy yard has filled up our pretty, flat, smooth, clean, empty basement… But at least we have that huge space to use to keep certain things sheltered, like the four-wheeler and plumbing parts and ladders and tools. The random wood piles were sorted by size so they can be reused. Curt even built a couple of sawhorses to create a makeshift work table with a plywood top. It was nice to have a more quiet, calm day to ourselves in gorgeous weather, not in a rush and not surrounded by contractors. I needed that! I needed to like our house again after the stressful weekends there recently. We cleaned up the deck to prepare it for staining too. The siding is finally complete on the wall of the house with the big windows. We took Sunday off because I had to work all day. Curt spent the day moving a bunch of stuff out of our storage unit so we can start moving those things up to our house.
This past Saturday, it was a little cooler but still around 50 degrees and sunny. We went up with Martin and our friend JJ to start framing. Curt was so excited because we are FINALLY at the stage of actually building. Wood, saw, hammer, nails, nail gun! They framed in the start of a few walls in the basement – most importantly the stairway leading to the main floor. Our contractor Chris started building the landing of both stairways and the actual stairs could be complete this week. He also built out the landing at the top of the stairs to the open loft area in front of the two upstairs bedrooms. Looks really cool – I didn’t even know the floor was going to jut out like that but I haven’t paid close attention to the plans. Curt also had to tear out the wood framing the garage. Our garage doors should be in this week or next but our steel guy needs to do some fixes to the beams on the sides of where the doors will go. He made quite a few mistakes which is unfortunate because he was the only steel guy we could find in the mountains. We had a structural engineer out to the house last week and he found a number of snafus that we are waiting on being fixed.
While the framing was going on inside the basement, I spent a few hours cleaning inside the main floor. More trash, misplaced tools, nails and a ton of sawdust. I also scrubbed down the deck to prep it for stain. While I was cleaning, we also had a guy come over with a skidster – something that scooped up dirt and gravel so it could be moved around. He flattened out the driveway and moved a bunch of gravel to the back patio where we needed to raise the ground height up a few inches. He also moved the last remaining boulders to the landing leading up to the front door. Then he even sawed down a dead tree, managing to make it fall in exactly the right spot (not on our house or cars) but taking another smaller tree out in the process. I was sad to see both trees go, but found a tutorial online for how to make tree stump side tables which should be cool. I also raked out the remaining gravel in front of the driveway to prepare it for a concrete apron. Curt staked it out Sunday and Chris poured Monday – just in the nick of time because snow will be coming down heavy this week. We left Saturday evening a little after 7pm and the temp had dropped to 36 degrees. We got a lot accomplished though. Curt and JJ spent Sunday doing a little more framing and staining the deck until they ran out of stain. Curt and a friend and two contractors are up there today finishing framing in the garage doors and finishing staining the deck. The final missing window was delivered and installed in the kitchen and Chris is finally putting siding in the last spot needed, under the deck. Ready to wrap up this outside work and spend the winter inside!
Working with contractors has been a real learning experience, definitely for me and I think even for Curt. He's using to doing everything himself and we didn't have the time to get things done this summer in the short window we had before snowfall. So we've worked with quite a cast of characters. And they are truly characters. Shawn isn't worth mentioning anymore but we have a new group led by Chris who is a single gnarly dude living in Frisco. Drives a Volvo wagon, covered in tattoos and earrings, owns a big dog with a funky name I can't remember. We like Chris and things have mostly gone well. Unfortunately for him, he way underbid the deck so he is probably losing money on us because of it. Unlike Shawn, Chris is being paid by task, not by time. The deck has taken much longer, and the siding too, in fact neither are 100% complete yet though it's been over a month.
A month ago, we pulled up to the house as they were getting started on the deck. Curt noticed immediately that the tall beams sitting upright at the front of the house were too short. He had ordered three 16' beams and two were in place that day. But they weren't 16'. Apparently Chris misunderstood what they were for and cut them down to 12' to match the other deck beams. But we needed three 16" beams to attach the roof overhang to - it just covers the front door, not the entire length of the deck. Not only were they special ordered, meaning they don't arrive quickly, they were extremely expensive! I thought Curt was going to lose it. But he handled it well and he and Chris agreed to split the cost of the new beam and Chris would cover the labor to remove and reinstall the beams. They were already placed into concrete so it was quite an ordeal. So far that has been the biggest hiccup and they smoothed it over. Chris, also unlike Shawn, communicates constantly via text, phone calls and emails. He spends a lot of time with Curt walking around the house, talking details and taking instructions. Curt is very direct with him, after getting burned with our first contractor, and it's working out great. We will probably keep using Chris on some other projects like building our stairs inside.
Chris has a subcontractor working for him named Todd, an older divorced guy who lives in his trailer in Fairplay with his dogs. He is a talker and wastes a TON of time but is a nice guy who knows what he is doing for the most part. Todd picked up the rented lift from Home Depot a few weeks ago and drove it up to the house because Curt couldn't get off work, which was a huge help. The lift's trailer had a flat tire and he had all sorts of other problems with it. The guys ended up using the lift for more days than the 7 we were alloted from Home Depot, so our tab was going up each day. He finally drove it back down to Denver after 4 additional days were used. He told us he was going to raise hell over the tire, even though Home Depot had already given us one free day for the hassle. Todd texted Curt that evening to tell him he had gotten the entire week and a half lift rental for free (saving us around $2,000). He totally pulled a Curt! It was awesome and Curt gave both Todd and Chris some cash on the side as a thank you.
Todd and Chris parted ways recently so now we are paying Todd on the side to do a few little things. There was some tension at the house between the two, no surprise. We also had a snafu last week when Todd's dogs went over to the other house project down the street (same architect and original developer as ours) and walked into some wet concrete. Todd's time is probably almost up. Every day, there is something new and different to deal with.
Last but not least is Martin! Our favorite almost-legal Irishman waiting on his green card. Martin has helped many of our friends with house projects in the past year and even house sitting and dog watching. That's because he charges $10/hour. He's amazing, and we're very lucky he hasn't tired of us yet because I'm pretty sure Curt works him a hell of a lot harder than our friends have. He helped with every step of the basement, put tar on the side of the house under the deck, carries wood, hauls gravel, destroys his clothing/shoes and basically works his butt off. He recently remarried and has a baby on the way. He's fun to chat with on the car rides, brings his own lunch, didn't complain when he was covered head to toe in tar and has a lovely accent.
Who knows who else we will find to work with in the next few months. I do know I still have a lot to learn. One of the things I'm most looking forward to with finishing this house is celebrating in it with all those who helped along the way. I've envisioned the party many times and even the menu. It will mark the end of all the blood, sweat and tears that went into the house, and the beginning of sharing it with others. It's what I think about when shoveling gravel for 8 hours, and picking up rusty nails, and vacuuming sawdust, and untangling my dog's leash for the millionth time, and clipping wire ties for days, and listening to conversations I don't understand, and watching my husband get frustrated, and seeing mistakes from others, and making mistakes of my own. But at the end of all this will be a party! An opportunity to cook and drink and eat and laugh and be thankful. There's nothing better than that.
I've been too exhausted to relive the previous two weekends of additional basement work. It became a little bit of a nightmare (mostly needlessly) and when it's less painful to remember, I'll post a few of the photos and more of the story. All that really matters is that we had our re-inspection last Monday and we passed. We both took Friday off to head up and watch our concrete pour. It took a team of 7 or 8 guys about 3 hours to pour it and another 3 hours to do the finish work and smoothing at a cost of about $2,000 for their labor. We only needed 4 trucks of concrete at $1,500 per truck, which was less than I expected since our floor was so uneven. At the end of the day, the floor looked amazing. It's FLAT. So flat and beautiful. I'm in no hurry to cover them up and I hope we just stain and seal them like we did in our last basement, at least at first. It was a big day, a big hurdle, and exciting to watch in person. Our massive garage doors should arrive in a few weeks. We'll be up Saturday to start framing in the interior walls in the basement.
Here's what it looked like when we left Friday later afternoon, after all the snow had melted. It was 18 degrees when we arrived in the morning with a few inches of snow underfoot. Probably close to 40 when we left with most of the snow melted. You can see the new roof over the front door and stairs. The siding is still not completely finished because our contractors have been focusing on wrapping up the deck so it can be inspected before winter is 100% here.
Curt's 34th birthday was Monday. Luckily we headed into the birthday weekend in good spirits to celebrate with friends visiting from out of town. Such a huge relief to get past this step.
