Building Again!

 I'd love to keep the blog up to date, and I do have the pull to get back into it. Until then, I am posting daily updates on Instagram. 

Instagram Account

In 2020, we started our hunt for land to move our family and give the boys an experience of life at a slower pace. We found beautiful 90 acres and were so close to moving, but not everything was falling into place, so we decided to stop pushing the idea.

Creek on 90 acres

In 2022, we found another beautiful but smaller piece of land and this time, everything fell into place. We spent 2023 getting it ready to build a house and get it ready for animals. 

creek on 16 acres

We broke ground on the house in January and things are moving at a fast pace. We are using a lot of the same contractors, and adding some new ones. We are building using ICF again.

I also bought a drone so I could have my updated version of Google Earth. This has been especially helpful for landscape planning.

I'm excited to bring you along on this new journey!

Interior Framing Has Begun

Monday was Dad's birthday. It was his second to celebrate in Heaven. The day was a quiet one, but so much progress was made on the house.

On Friday, the crew surprised me with framing in a bedroom and closet. On Monday they went to town! They framed the entire first floor! Just look at the difference.

Those are all taken from the same spot. You can't see across the house anymore.

So much lumber was delivered on Monday, that our make-shift driveway was packed.

Going inside, was awesome! It was so neat to walk in and smell lumber.

You couldn't wipe the smile off my face.

Before the guys left for the day, they were walking around with a really large level and bracing the walls they had just set up.

Every day I never want to leave.

With so much done in one day, I was excited to see what they would be doing the next day. Sure enough, they started laying the beams that will create the ceiling.

It really made a difference. You could feel how tall a room was.

Normal beams were laid where there would only be attic space.

I-joists were laid where a second floor would be above.

There are special LVL beam's that are in the house. They were delivered this morning.

It is really so much fun to walk through now.

You can picture things.

My only hope is that we get a roof on this house SOON! Then I won't care what the weather does.

Tomorrow we are getting more snow. I'm excited it should be a lot to play in. We'll just have to wait to see how it impacts the build schedule.

ICF Framing - Days 5 & 6

To build the first floor walls with ICF, it took seven courses of blocks with a half-size block as the seventh course.

Day 5 of ICF framing involved laying that seventh course.

The guys also went around and put all these boards up around the windows and doors.

And if there were cracks between the blocks larger than desired, they used a special foam to seal them.

The house sure did look funny with all the boards up, but this was to ensure that there was no shift once the concrete was poured into the walls.

On Thursday, the concrete pump arrived at 11AM and they got started around 11:30. We had to wait to start for the temperature to get above freezing. One main reason was because the concrete can splatter as you're pouring it into the wall cavity. When it splatters and hits the foundation, it would instantly freeze if the day were that cold. That would be a bigger mess than cleaning up wet concrete, so we waited for the rise in temperature to start.

They had the pump operator inside the house, a man directing the pump into the walls, two men following with a "machine" and a man walking ahead making sure things were perfect as the concrete approached.

The "Machine" that the two men had I still don't know what it is. But it was a long wand they would stick down into the wall and it sounded like a vibrator of some sorts. This wand would make sure there were no air bubbles in the wall. So, for the second time they'd come around, they would see where they needed to add more concrete.

The wand was also used for the windows. The concrete would be poured on either side of the window, while the wand went down in the hole they prepared at the bottom of the window.

It took them about 4 hours to pour the concrete and be done. At the end of the day, they put boards on the top of the concrete walls.

They also poured concrete into the blocks and added rebar (for the garage and porches).

On Friday, there wasn't anything done on this beautiful day. Because of the cold temperatures, they were ensuring the concrete was curing before removing the braces.

The concrete had no problems with the cold. The foam with the boards on top helped protect against the drop in temperature this week.

I really didn't expect to see any work done on Saturday, but we had two guys out there removing the boards and braces.

The particle board was removed from around the window and door joints.

They also put a layer of some material on the tops of the walls and used the 2"x12" boards they were using as scaffolding, to nail to the tops of the walls.

They are preparing to frame for the second floor next week.

The boys have fun visiting. We take them by all the time, but we don't always let them inside. Especially if there are workers.

Now that the interior is cleared out from the extra material we can see them from all angles.

There may have been one time when Little JCrew was "hiding" and scared us to death! (Wish I was kidding).


I'm sure our new neighbors will be happy that this part is done.

Enough with the concrete trucks! They'll just see them one more time when we pour the driveway and walkway.

Next week, snow is predicted in the forecast. I'm not sure if it will really happen. The weather guys like to tease and it either doesn't happen or it doesn't stick to the ground. But the roads could be nasty with black ice. We'll see if stick framing starts this week or not. I'm happy with the progress so far, that I am happy with whatever! It has been a smooth process.

Oh, I ordered the exterior doors last Friday (6th) and ordered the windows this past Friday (13th). The windows made me second guess myself with the color I chose. The pink house I've mentioned before has the same windows I picked out and I didn't like them on that house.

I went to the supply store and took my trim paint colors and held them up to the sample of the window color. It doesn't "match" but I think it goes. The house that has our selected brick used this color window and it looks fine. So I keep reminding myself that it will look great!

I'm usually very decisive, so this was bugging me. I couldn't order the windows right away. Pretty soon I'll have to order the brick. At least I know I am still in love with our brick selection. It took us long enough to decide on one.

I do love looking back at what the land looked like before we started and how far we have come!

ICF Framing Days 1&2

ICF Framing Days 3&4