I’m building a house!

When someone asked about what I had been up to and I shared that one of the big things was building a house, the following conversation took place -

Oh, so you are having a house built?

No, I’m building a house.

So, you’re out there with like a hammer and stuff?

Yes, exactly that.

Except there are also other tools involved too.

I am currently working with my family to build a small house on my families land. I figured it was about time I share some photos of the process and how it came to be.

Have you ever built a house before?

No, I’ve never built a house for humans before.. but it’s something my step father actually does (just more in the commercial industry) so don’t worry, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds! 😉

We made the decision to build last year and while we were mapping out areas on the land for the build location, getting quotes on the foundation, utilities etc (aka the stuff we couldn’t do ourselves) we realized something - we already had a foundation, utilities etc in a spot being used for just storage currently.

An older house that was re-purposed to be used as a carport after the larger house my folks live in was finished.

It sure doesn’t look like much, but with a water well, septic system, electrical and a solid foundation already in place, using it instead of starting from nothing would save us a good 20k.

So off I went to design the plans, over and over and over again. Change this, move that.. repeat. Until we had something that made full use of the space, gave me what I wanted, and worked on a technical level as well...

Next was to begin the process of building new construction onto existing construction... which is not as fun as it sounds, but has its advantages. Like easier permits, cost savings etc.

We needed to frame and raise the exterior walls to add support to the structure before removing the metal poles that had been put in place when it was re-purposed into a car port storage area.