Exhausted... but closing in on success

(Brendan)

Tonight has been my first night not working at the house in a long time, and thus I finally have a few minutes to post some pictures. For those ever planning on building a house in the future, I do recommend doing some work yourself; you make a connection with the construction of your house that you simply cannot have when you just walk in to a finished home that was 100% done by others. It's great to see wood floor that you laid, or walls that you painted, even little mistakes that you made that will always be part of the house. That said, I (not surprisingly) do not recommend doing the amount of work that I (with lots of help from others!) am doing. I wouldn't have chosen to do this much work; this was something that ultimately needed to be done to make the numbers work for our home loan. But, after 14 straight days of 14-hour days, I think we're within striking distance of getting everything done that needed to get done by Sunday. Thanks a million to all of those who have helped during this time, we could not have done it without you! You are all a great blessing to our family!

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

My good friend Greg, and fellow member of the men's group I am a part of, priming the storage room.

My brother Evan and my aunt Mary doing some priming.

My friend and co-worker Rob, roller in hand.

My Dad after a long day of priming.

This ridiculous composite picture was taken by my sister, Allison, when I was priming the ceiling of the chasm that is our staircase. I got the longest pole I could get at Home Depot for just this occasion.

Allison, after another long day.

Here are some boards for the wood floor we selected from Lumber Liquidators. It has a distressed finish, which will mask the scratches that inevitably will happen from the kids.

A picture of the underlayment that I laid down before laying the wood floor on top (an arrangement called a "floating" wood floor, to allow it to expand and contract as the radiant heat in the concrete slab below turns on and off).

The wood floor being installed in the school room.

The floor being installed down one of the lower floor hallways.

My friend Joe, who graciously helped with the wood floor installation the first two days and lent me all of his saws to use during the installation. Thanks Joe (and Jenny)!

A first look at the painted color in the kitchen -- Tranquil Aqua from Sherwin Williams.

The palette of colors viewed together from the family room, looking down to the kitchen.

A view from the other side hallway.

I don't have pictures of everyone who helped unfortunately. My cousin Katherine has come over multiple days to paint and been a huge help, I'll have to get a picture next time!

By the way, the in-floor radiant heat is incredible! It's a completely even heat, everywhere, with no cold areas or drafty areas, and our structural insulated panel home is so well insulated and so efficient that during one 48-hour period (of roughly 10-20 deg F temperatures) I heard the radiant heat turn on one time... ONCE. It's truly amazing; the most comfortable temperature-controlled environment possible.

Lots more pictures to come, at some point!