by Alison Moore Smith | Mar 23, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
This morning the window and door bucks were installed on the main floor. It seems like a minor thing, but you'd be surprise at how much this detail defines the rooms. With this single addition, you can more readily see the layout as well as the outlook. Standing in a...
by Alison Moore Smith | Mar 22, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
Note: The cabinet drawings have been updated. The kitchen has been modified and the master bath vanity drawing is now complete. 5/5/10 Just a quick heads up to all you carpenters and cabinet makers! We are going to be getting bids on all the cabinets and built-ins in...
by Alison Moore Smith | Mar 20, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
Building is a nightmare. At least that's what I hear. Whenever someone learns we are building a custom home, the response is pretty predictable. Generally it's something like: I hope you don't get divorced! I've heard that's more stressful than a death in the family....
by Alison Moore Smith | Mar 11, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
The floor trusses are up and the plywood for the base of the main floor started going down yesterday. It's supposed to be finished today. Since the new house plans have the garage in the basement with living space above (instead of the reverse in the old house plans),...
by Alison Moore Smith | Mar 10, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
The fibrous concrete panels we are using to build the house—stacked up and secured with polyurethane before being filled with concrete—were something of an aesthetic mess. Bumpy, lumpy, and uneven, the walls didn't much lend themselves to being easily stuccoed. Eames...
by Alison Moore Smith | Mar 9, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
When we finally closed the construction loan last November, I was sure we had missed the good-weather window and would be sitting around in our rental house watching the snow fall for a number of months. To my surprise, even the famous Utah snow doesn't completely...