There is so much to keep track of right now. We are having the metal for the roof delivered in the next day or two, then the roofers can start putting it up. We also are finishing the battery house so we can start installing the rest of the electric (possibly this weekend and into next week). Yesterday we ordered the stones for the retaining wall and today I reserved a backhoe for this weekend so we can put up the retaining wall (which is the last piece of what needs to be done to the outside of the tires). We still need to finish concreting the inside, but with the outside finished we can breath even easier. We are supposed to meet with the people putting in she septic this week to get that started so we can finish installing the water, and we are calling some guys out to see if we can get someone to finish putting in the side walls of the house because we really just don’t want to do it. Oh, and we have our doors being delivered on Saturday as well. By the end of this month I am hoping to have a fully enclosed house! Then next month we can focus on finishing all the interior stuff (drywall, floors, etc). I am quite excited about all this, and very overwhelmed. Very overwhelmed.

We almost finished building the battery house this weekend. We have a box with a door that locks and would have finished it entirely but it started to rain just as we were putting the metal on the roof. It probably has another 2.5 hours of work Left to get it complete, then we have to put the batteries on the racks and hook up all the wiring and all that fun stuff. It looks really off because the ground was not in any way level. We are putting blocks underneath it to level it out.

Next weekend we are putting up the retaining wall that will go against the front of the house to keep the rest of the tires up so we can continue to build worry free. We also got a quote from a fourth roofer who should be coming out this week to finally get our roof on.

Things are really moving along!!

Today we met with a new roofer who we were very impressed with. As long as his quote comes back at a fairly reasonable price (which we are pretty sure it will since he already gave us a ballpark that we liked) we should be getting our roof up in the next two weeks. We also had a guy come out to give us a quote on insulation. This will be the third most expensive part of the house. The insulation should be going in a week or two after the roof. At that point we can start prepping the floors, putting up drywall, installing floors, and putting in all the finishing touches to the house. Before the roof goes up we need to finish framing the outside of the house and put up the plywood. Then we have the battery house and greenhouse to install, and the windows and doors to put in. We also need to do the finishing concrete work. It’s a lot still but with C getting the first two weeks of July off we could possibly be moving into our new house by the end of a July. I feel a bit sick to my stomach. It’s almost there but there is still so much left to do. We will be working every weekend from now until we move and two full weeks in the beginning of July. If you want to say you helped with the house we are looking for people to help us! We may even be able to provide some compensation…. let me know if you are interested!!!!

We didn’t do any physical labor on the house this weekend, but here is a picture for motivation

After setting aside the money for the roof and septic we decided that since it was way too wet today to do what we wanted to do that we were going to spend the day planning and shopping. We purchased all of the large items we need for the rest of the electric to go in, meaning we have 14 325 watt solar panels, an 8000watt inverter, and charge controller on their way. We called around to get price estimates on insulation, we have a couple people coming out tomorrow to give us quotes. Then we went to Lowe’s to price out the rest of the expensive items so we can budget the project better. We started and ended with the windows and doors. The barn doors we were going to build ourselves were on sale for half price, which was cheaper than what we would spent to make them. So we bought those. Then while helping me find the perfect front door the salesman showed me a special order return front door which was EXACTLY what we were looking for. Needless to say we were able to purchase it for about 1/6 the price we had budgeted for a front door. Then the other salesman was talking about another HUGE special order return piece that he didn’t think he was ever going to be able to move. We took a look at it, loved it for the greenhouse, and was able to get it for what we had budgeted for one greenhouse window. yes, there are two identical pieces that we bought. I would say that we had some pretty big wins today. Also Brent and Dylan at the Shelbyville Lowe’s windows and doors department are excellent. We really enjoy working with them. I’m going to be a little sad when we are finished buying windows and doors!

This post is a little late but … our part of the roof is ON!!! I’m a bit excited about this! The best option for the last bit of trusses was to build 10’foot tall scaffolding. It took three and a half hours to build the scaffolding and 45 minutes to put up the trusses. Go figure!! We will hopefully have the roof finished in the next two weeks, as well as getting the battery house up and the walls finished and plywood put up and covered! At that point it’s just putting in the doors and windows and finishing the greenhouse and we will have a completely enclosed house!!! This is very exciting! We are also quickly running low on funds. After much deliberation I think we have decided that the best option would be to take out as large of a personal loan as we can get (hopefully $20,000), get the house to the point where we can move in, and slowly finish the rest of the house over the next year or so until we can qualify for a mortgage, then get a small mortgage to pay off the remainder of the loan plus the remainder of the land payment. Hopefully all this works out. In he meantime… happy picture of a house with a framed roof!!

This weekend was very hot. On Sunday we were able to finish putting up the framing for the last two skylights and put up some gutter boards. We also made the decision to pay the roof guys to finish putting up the gutter boards. we also took down the wall that was the closet wall that now just extends the pantry up to the roof finally we spent some time contemplating how to get the final trusses up. They are 18 feet in the air. This is a daunting task that we are not yet ready to tackle. Although we must in order to be able to tell the roof guys they can come out.

We also got a bit too much sun. It was very hot. Some of the lovely things that happened while it was very hot out:

These words were said by me “C! The scrap piece of wood left over is exactly the same size I needed for the next piece. Wait, that’s the piece I just measured”

To make 2 boxes I cut 3 pieces of one length and 5 pieces of the other… that’s not how boxes work.

We both ran into stray beams not once, not twice, but multiple times. I have a nice shiner and C has a busted lip.

C dropped a drill bit side down onto my leg when it slipped out of our hands as he was handing it to me off a 10 foot ladder. That one gave me a nice bruise.

Needless to say I do believe it’s about that time of year where work needs to happen either before 1 or after 5.

This weekend we are bound and determined to finish putting our part of the roof up so we can FINALLY have the roof installed. In two days we have prepped for the installation of two of the four skylights, finished the roof on the closet side of the house and almost finished the last of the upstairs trusses. We also started installing the gutter boards. Today we tackle finishing it all up and possibly starting on the battery house. Next weekend we are tackling trying to finish the battery house and framing out the windows upstairs so we can put up the plywood and finally have the house almost completely enclosed.

this skylight still needs a strip of plywood to the left but that’s an easy fix that we can do during the week right before the roofer comes out. we still need to take down the wall in the middle there, but it’s basically done. This is next to our closet and will be the pantry ceiling.

we placed all of the little trusses we could, until we ran out of room. Now we need to figure out how to put the rest up (this side of the roof is 18 feet off the ground, yikes!!)the skylight plywood before we cut the holes. The next two we are building and then putting up. The shower of sawdust was not pleasant.

This year we were proactive about our gardening. We started our plants in March-ish and planted our first set by the end of March and the next by the end of April. We still have 4 more raised beds to put in (probably this week), but for now we have carrots, beets, lettuce, kale, spinach, Brussel sprouts, watermelon, spaghetti squash, corn, popcorn, summer squash, zucchini, two kind of beans, four types of tomatoes, and two kind of cucumbers growing in the raised beds. Hopefully we can start to harvest some of them in the next few weeks. The blackberries are also blooming, meaning we should have a TON of blackberries in about a month/ month and a half. Very exciting stuff!!!

We are SO CLOSE to finishing this house. We currently have enough to finish the roof, put up the exterior wall, and install the electrical. We figured out that another $40,000 should finish the house. We have been to several banks and nobody will give us money. They will lend us money once the house is finished but that doesn’t help us at all. Contractor loans only work if you use the banks’ contractors. This is so frustrating. We have good credit, the ability to pay the loan, but can’t get anything over $30,000. This is incredibly frustrating. I guess what we could do is take the $30,000 loan to get the house livable and then slowly finish it like we intended to. It’s a larger financial strain but it’s doable. That’s really the worst case scenario. In order to move in we have to install the windows and doors, put in insulation, finish the plumbing (including the greenhouse), put up drywall, finish the downstairs bathroom, and buy appliances. After that it’s finishing the floors, painting, and finishing the upstairs bathroom. Ugh this is so stressful. Here is a picture of the current status of the house to cheer us all up:

We were supposed to finish the roof trusses last weekend but…. it rained all weekend. Unfortunately we won’t try and put up trusses on ladders 18 feet off the ground. Nope. Not gonna happen. Instead we went out Sunday and put up the last bit of outer wall by the greenhouse. This will hold the last of the 32 foot trusses and will be part of the outside walkway that will lead to the back patio. This weekend the plan is to finish the trusses!! also we had some visitors make their mark on the trusses. We apparently have a whole family of raccoons