December, 2013

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In case you’re worried

Friday, December 27th, 2013

For anyone who’s concerned that Tumbleweed might be feeling left out in all the new house excitement (or maybe I’m the only one who thinks about stuff like this), this week already, I have:

  • Done yoga in my yoga room (no longer crowded with couches)
  • Cut and finished in our workshop (no longer a spare bedroom/storage/laundry room)
  • Gone to my lovely office (no longer adjacent to my bedroom and no longer a general visiting room)
  • Started my own seed library space (in the storage room where the old pantry was)

It’s been really wonderful!

The post post

Tuesday, December 24th, 2013

It is almost five years to the day since we moved here.

And we now have finished (“finished” being a relative term) the main house and moved in. Hurray!

Of course, there are still things to do, but we are through all the big stuff, and the house is quite liveable.

Here’s Brad enjoying our first evening after moving in.

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And here’s how the kitchen counters and bar turned out.

It has been a long haul getting to this point. It took almost exactly a year longer than I’d hoped (yes, I know; everyone told me it would), but I’m glad we took the extra time to do all the little things we really wanted to do with the house. After all, we’ll likely be here a long time.

I am amazed that we actually built this house. Then, on the other hand, when someone says, “How amazing!,” I think, “Not really. Anyone could do it. You just put one foot in front of the other.” True that.

I am always gratified by how well Brad and I work together, and building this house together was just another example.

Happy holidays everyone! We’ll be enjoying ours with a little relaxation and solitude.

4 days and counting…

Saturday, December 21st, 2013

All the floors are done now, and the kitchen counters have been finished.

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Today, we installed the new range. I can’t wait to make our first meal on it.

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It’s final!

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013

We had our final county building inspection today — and we passed! Yay!

For those of you who missed it (and now that I feel freer to discuss it openly), in Arizona, owner-builders can opt to have to have standard inspections or they can opt out. For our phase 1 building, we opted to do standard inspections. Don’t ask me why. It was admittedly a mistake. The inspections were a farce. They would check some things and not others, and different inspectors often contradicted one another. One told us to do something that was onerous, and after we did it and another inspector said, “Why on earth did you do that?” You get the idea.

So for phase 2, we opted out. However, it is still a requirement to have a final inspection, though it’s supposed to be minimal.

When the inspector arrived today, we were grief stricken to see it was “Joe” (name changed to protect something I guess). In the last round, we learned that Joe seldom approves anything. It’s kind of a thing with him. In fact, once when he came out, he whipped out a camera and started snapping pictures. We knew that wasn’t a good thing.

At any rate, we had already reconciled ourselves to possibly not passing and to just calling again to take another go at it. That kind of seems to be how these go.

But low and behold, Joe passed us. Wonders never cease.

We are very happy that this will be our last encounter with the county building inspectors for a very long time.

Oh, and after Joe passed us and quizzed Brad to see if he had any pent up animosity (good thing he didn’t talk to me; I might have been more forthcoming), Joe gave Brad a customer service evaluation to fill out. I think we’ll pass. :)

Won’t be long now

Thursday, December 5th, 2013

Our washer and dryer moved into the new house today.

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And my first closet doors are done.

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