Funk and Wagnall's Definition of a MoneyPit: Building Your Own House

I know...I KNOW...this is supposed to be a great thing. We're building our dream house, but it turned out to be a lot of work and even more money. This is the story about the ups and downs of building our dream house.

We have Finished the Money Pit!

12-2003


We've been in our new house for about a year and a half and this year we had a white Christmas. This is unusual for us since the lake usually acts as a thermal ballast and keeps it from getting too hot or too cold. My concerns about setting up the home network were unfounded. I just plugged everything in and turned it on...couldn't be easier.

Just About to Move into the Money Pit

4-2002

We're just about to move into the new house! The first picture is of the finished kitchen. All the applicances are in and the fridge is even working. The next few shots are down at the cabana and the dock. You can see the tram tracks leading back up to the house from the cabana.
9-2001
It has been a while since I've updated the house journal. We're in final stages now so its mostly about waiting for the stair railings, lights, and plumbing to arrive. We have started work on the cabana that's down at the beach. The first two shots are of the cabana and the last one is of the family room fireplace.

Interior and Exterior Finish Work

2-2001

We had a little trouble figuring out how to maneuver two ton limestone columns into place without damaging them. We called up my uncle John from TX for a solution. "Ya'll familiar with off shore drilling equipment?", John drawls. "I'm a little rusty on it", my builder answers. So John built us a piece of equipment that attaches to a fork lift and can grab the column. It worked like a charm so our columns are now in place. Our finish carpenter is putting in the window and crown details now. And the finishes are done on the bamboo floors.
1-2001

The floors are going in now. The wood floors are actually bamboo. Its from a company called TimberGrass. The good thing about it is that its extremely stable and can be used over in-floor heating.

Early Phases of Construction

12-2000

The sheetrockers (sounds like a promiscuous pop band) are about done now. Their last step is to go through and sand the walls smooth. Can you imagine having to sand an entire house? All my clothes are covered with a fine white dust...when I cough you can see a cloud of white dust...its everywhere.

We also started applying the stucco...or in our case Drivitt. This stuff looks the same as stucco but is more durable.

11-2000

I've started investigating home networking setups. We've got CAT5, coax, and fiber optic cable strung throughout the house so there are several options. Right now I'm thinking of going fairly traditional with 100MB Ethernet running TCP/IP (or maybe IPX/SPX if I get lazy) and using the CAT5 cable. We'll probably be using an external DSL modem connected to a DSL Router that's connected to a 16 channel hub. I'm kinda new to networking hardware but it sounds fairly straight forward...this is when I usually get into big trouble. Stay tuned to find out if this goes smoothly or turns into a nightmare.

10-2000

The last of our stone should be arriving this week. We had a delay because the pattern called for alternating 10*10" and 10*20" bricks. When we ordered half 10*10" and half 10*20" we got 20 tons of each. The problem is that 10*20" weight twice as much as 10*10". So we now have an extra seven tons of 10*10" stone. I'm now thinking that everything will use this stone...stone mailbox...stone bird feeder...stone flower bed edging...

9-2000

Things are moving along pretty well these days. The house is framed, the electrical is done, the windows are in, and the stone is being laid right now. The schedule says we will be done this April but my guess is that we'll be about four to six weeks later.

Computer Generated Images

We waited for over a year to get our initial building permits. Then after the approvals were done and the foundation was poured we completely redesigned the house and are back waiting for permits again (sometime I'll write about my theory of negative IQ spikes and use this as a proof point). To make it seem like we're making some progress I've modeled the house using TruSpace. Here are some images for your amusement.

This is a view of the house from the west. This side faces the lake front. The bedrooms are on the top floor, the living areas are on the middle floor, and the guest bedrooms and my study are on the bottom floor. Notice the reflection of the stairs in the windows and the shadows from the hand rails.
This is a view of the house from the north. From here you can see the two chimneys that support three fireplaces.
This is the southern view of the house. Not much excitement here but I guess every house has to have a back side. The freeway is a few hundred meters to the south so it was easy to pick which side would be the back of the house.
This is a view of the house from the east. Not much to see from this angle except the garage and even that will be obscured by trees. We should not stand out at all from the street side.
This is a top view of the house. You can see that it is a long skinny house so it will fit on the lot. Notice the skylight that is twenty six feet above the foyer on the main floor. We have modified the skylight to be 20 feet wide since I rendered this image. The right side of the picture is to the west.
This is an elevation view of the lot topology viewed from the north. You can see that there's quite a bit of vertical (100') between the foot of the house and the water. We are installing a tram that takes you from the back porch of the house to the cabana and 45' boat dock below. There's an acre of land in total.
This is looking at the driveway as you approach the house from the street. The driveway is large so you can turn around the cars and avoid having to back out to the street. We may need to enlarge it further since in a few years we'll have kids with cars.
This is a view of the foyer taken from the top floor looking down. This room has a barrel vaulted ceiling that is twenty five feet above the floor. There is also a six by twelve foot skylight. This should be the most dramatic room of the house.
This is my study. Nothing fancy, but very functional. You can't see it from this view but one entire wall will be covered with whiteboard (a fantasy of mine). Note the light casting shadows on the floor through the vertical blinds.
This is the media room. It is almost dedicated to watching movies. I did add a bit of flexibility for setting up small jam sessions in the back of the room since it is acoustically isolated. I figured the rest of the Random family would be thankful.

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