I think there are some new readers around here and I think they are confused by the we-built-our-house thing. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s an old blog, with lots of broken picture links, covering the entire episode in exhaustive detail. If you want to know what a rat slab is and why we have one, go there. This here is the short version.
October 2003 Michael and I get married.
2003-2005 We lead a blissful, simple life in a centrally-located, completely affordable rental house with ample amenities and generally pleasant landlords who like us. Naturally, we decide this situation must change.
Fall 2005 We look for houses in our area. Everything is either 1) twice as much as we can possibly get a mortgage approved for or 2) thirteen seconds and one strong wind from collapsing into the basement. We decide building a house is the most brilliant idea ever and plus it will be so much fun. We can’t imagine why everyone doesn’t build a house!
January 2006 We buy a 3.5 acre parcel on a wooded hill with a lot of granite ledge. We take the first picture of our house.
We are young and stupid and it still hasn’t occurred to us that this is a really bad idea. Even though it was about ten degrees that day.
March 2006 Foundation is poured.
Yes, that’s me. I have no idea what I was doing.
April 2006 Exteriors walls are up.
That’s our friend Mark. I have no idea what he was doing, either. Look, I kept a blog. I didn’t keep notes.
April-September 2006 We work unbelievably hard, hemorrhage money in a spectacular fashion, and fight almost daily.
September 2006 We move in. Most of the house looks like this:
We eat, sleep, hang out, and generally live in our bedroom, which looks like this:
Basically, we are camping in our own house. These are grim days, as you can tell from the dog’s expression. Grim days, indeed.
September 2006-February 2007 We steadily chip away at making rooms habitable. Gradually, we have a fully functioning kitchen, a bathroom with an actual sink, and a guest room that serves as our living room. We are still living almost entirely on the second floor.
February 2007 Uh-oh. Cherie’s pregnant. The kid’s probably going to want a living room, eh? And it’s probably not supposed to have a table saw in it, right?
February-November 2007 Hurry, hurry! Get the downstairs finished! Hang drywall, install floors, make a nursery! Other women buy fluffy crib bedding when their nesting instinct hits. I shingled.
November 2007 Annabel is born.
November 2007-October 2008 Nothing happens. I mean, we make a few kitchen drawers, we put up a few more shingles, we tinker here and there, but for the most part, there is no significant progress. It turns out that having a baby makes building a house nearly impossible. We probably should have thought this whole thing through a little better.
November 2008 We install the woodstove.
That may not seem significant, but that’s only because you aren’t me. Trust me. It was significant.
November 2008-May 2009 Nothing happens.
May 2009 Uh-oh. Cherie’s pregnant again. Hurry! Hurry! Finish the larger spare bedroom and move Annabel in! Except not really, because who can summon that kind of energy with a two-year old around?
May 2009-January 2010 Nothing happens, but we talk a lot about doing something.
February 2010 Sam is born.
Not coincidentally, Annabel gets a new bedroom. I don’t have a picture of that for some reason.
February 2010-October 2011 Nothing happens. Well, you know, shingling. That happens in fits and starts like always.
October 2011 The shingling is done!
October 2011-January 2012 Nothing happens.
So! There we are. I plan on doing a little tour of the house soon for those interested in such a thing. Also, if you would like to see the vision for the house, how the house appears in our heads and not in reality, I’ve added a tab at the top for it.
There’s the full story to date. Now you know. And that twitch in my left eye is fully explained.
Beyond the Dooryard 
You built your own house! I am in awe!
In 1950 my parents bought a brand new house – approx 600 sq feet which contained a kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom and dining room (which my parents used as their bedroom with NO closet, they used a small coat closet in the hall for their clothes). My sister & I shared the bedroom and when my brother was born in 1953 all 3 of us shared that room. My parents had saved to finish off the 2nd floor (2 brs & a bath); the roof got raised, one bedroom was partially finished and there was a bathtub in the bathroom. Then my Dad’s company went on strike and they needed the money to feed the kids and my pregnant mother. In 1956 my sister & I moved upstairs, my brother & baby sister (born 12/30/56) shared the small bedroom downstairs and my parents stayed in the dining room. Maybe 5 or more years later the 2nd bedroom and bath were finished upstairs and my baby sister moved up. But my parents stayed in their closet-less dining room/bedroom until 1969 when both my sister & I had moved out. They finally got a real bedroom and a closet. I had a great childhood and loved growing up in that home and neighborhood. And I was very sad to see the house sold in 2009. A finished house is nice, a loving home is much more important.
Oh, Kathy, I love this story. I totally agree. One of the things we’ve learned in this process is how many people grew up in half-finished homes. Bedrooms without doors, plywood walls, sink baths for years…I think we’ve heard it all. And not a single one of those people viewed their crazy childhood home as anything other than a great story.
We could re-work that chestnut about happy/unhappy families into: all finished houses are easily distinguished one from another, and all unfinished houses look alike? Seriously, that pic of your downstairs could be our place pre-1996 (R. had a lot more time to work once the kid started 1st grade). That’s the same saw, the same PVC pipe and rolls of insulation that I used to yell at guests for trying to sit on (Jeezus, people, don’t you know anything about raw materials?). Your staircase is nicer. If I took photos of our unfinished interior window framing, where the pink stuff still tufts out in places, would we still be twins?
Also, here’s the bonus question: you still have a 50 lb box of nails in the basement, no place to hang a towel in the bathroom, no stair railings. Are you contemplating an addition?
A 20# box, we have one hook and a 2×4 temp railing.The addition has been in the plans for the last three years. I debated not putting on shingles where the addition would be going.
I remember walking around the house admiring the shingles (DONE! IT’S DONE!) and thinking, oh crap, now we’re going to have to take them off to put on the addition. Nearly 20 years later we’re no closer to building out the back and I’d be sorely tried if that was still naked Typar there. Still, every time I trip over that gd box of nails down cellar I think, well, we’ll need it for the addition. I guess hope doth spring eternal?
Hysterical!! Can’t wait to see the tour of the house. I definitely know the significance of the woodstove, as I sit by mine right now! Must be in our blood…
I am a new reader and LOVING THIS. And I love that when you say “We decided to build a house…” it means that you picked up a motherscratching tool. For me it would mean picking up a paint chip.
I am in awe of you and this entire project.
And there was also family in Connecticut, two of my grandfather’s brothers had farms and GUEST HOUSES. In the late summer of 1960 it was decided that it was time for Uncle Cliff’s mother-in-law (Aunt Dorothy’s mother) to have indoor plumbing. Many nephews were recruited, and because of all the room for guests we made it our 1960 family vacation. Mary Hull would get a bathroom and we would get a vacation.
We spent the first couple of days with Aunt Dorothy & Uncle Cliff and were introduced to chamber pots (no plumbing in the guest house). How neat! All of us kids were up several times during the night to use the chamber pot! What a wonderful invention… I remember eating corn on the cob – Aunt Dorothy would yell outside when the water was boiling and only then would Uncle Cliff pick the corn.
When the bathroom was complete we moved over to Aunt Peggy & Uncle Elmer’s estate for a night or two. Some years earlier when their children were grown, Uncle Elmer decided he wanted to be a farmer so he bought a couple of acres and decided to build a house. It was a really neat house – it had an open floor plan with a small kitchen, eating area, living area and bedroom with no walls between any of the rooms except the bathroom. We had to go DOWN six or seven stairs to enter the house, there were very small windows that were too high for us kids to see out of, but it was well lit and quite cool. We gathered eggs for breakfast (I saw my first ever double-yolked egg!), churned our own butter, spent hours outside and had a wonderful time.
We drove back to NJ in the horrendous rains from Hurricane Donna. Several times we had to pull over because it was impossible for my father to see well enough to drive. Eventually we made it home, went back to school with great stories about our summer vacation and then forgot about it.
It was probably ten or so years ago our family was gathered and we were talking about hurricanes. I brought up Hurricane Donna and then we started talking about the Connecticut vacation. I mentioned that in all the years since 1960 I had never seen another house where one went down stairs to enter. My father started laughing -it seems that Uncle Elmer had no idea what it would really cost to build a house and he misjudged the profits he would realize from his farming. When the basement was done he ran out of money…. so he put a roof on the basement and called it done. I said – but they had the guest house… turns out that was an old chicken coop. Same thing for the “guest house” at Uncle Cliff’s.
Kathy, I am dying. Dying! Plus, I am now going to make all guests sleep in the chicken coop.
I am so very, VERY tired reading about this. You have a fortitude that I can never hope to have…