by Alison Moore Smith | May 3, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
The roof trusses are going on! Next to the first shovelful of dirt from the backhoe, this is the most exciting thing going. With the roof on the entire house takes...
by Alison Moore Smith | May 3, 2010 | for Home
When we decided to move from the mansion to a rental home—to finally get moving on the dream home—we faced a problem. While rental homes were plentiful, the vast majority of them were small, bread-and-butter, starter homes. Even though the rental we were looking for...
by Alison Moore Smith | May 2, 2010 | for Good, for Money
Foreclosure rates have been skyrocketing and are expected to continue to rise through the end of the year. This is a tragedy. While I have never lost a home myself, some close relatives have. Just a few weeks ago the folks who lived across the street from our lot were...
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 30, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
We have decided on our exterior doors and are looking for bids on them. If you offer a similar door and would like to bid on it, please use the contact form or comment below. I'm not particularly conversant on door construction, but hopefully this information is...
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 29, 2010 | for Home
When we lived in Boca Raton, Florida—with a home that backed up to the everglades—we had two major wildlife concerns: Alligators that lived in the lake behind our home Racoons that made a stinking mess of every garbage can in the neighborhood None of those animals...
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 29, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
This is the day I've been waiting for! Today Stock Building Supply semi-truck carrying our beautiful roof trusses delivered the load. I happened to be at the construction site with Belinda and Alana when it arrived. Getting the roof on will be a huge step in defining...
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 29, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
The crew finished the upstairs framing today, in spite of random, occasional snow flurries. (Snow flurries? April 29th? What!?) This much smaller level will be entirely enclosed in a shed dormer facing into the back yard. The boys' bedrooms and bathroom, and a utility...
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 29, 2010 | for Home
One day when we lived on the five-acre lot in Eagle Mountain, I drove up to the garage to find an entire herd of deer in the side yard. There were at least 14 of all sizes. This was not good news for my beautiful square-foot garden planted near the driveway....
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 27, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
The transformation of the attic shed dormer began today. This area will be the boy's bedrooms and bathroom. After all these months with the little guys seeing only their sisters' rooms, this was an exciting day! We went to the house twice and danced under their...
by Alison Moore Smith | Apr 26, 2010 | Design Your Own House, for Home
Today the crew poured the large front porch. There are also two stoops, one for the front door and one for the office door. There will be a few steps from the front walk to the porch. We want to minimize those at it makes access more difficult. There was a problem...
