It’s hard to believe but I finished building my house. I am in a state of exhausted shock. To celebrate I took my first shower in three weeks.
It’s all a bit of a blurr. The last email I sent on the 11th of November I said I was out till Thanksgiving but my plumber’s helped drag it out 7 extra days with the emergency boiler replacement at a local elementary school. I needed the extra time.
I can’t really remember the day to day, each day went from 7 am to 11 pm, or longer. we finished the wood flooring upstairs, that took five days to install,plug, sand and oil finish. Next we stained and installed the wood ceiling in the entire downstairs. 3-4 days. the electricians showed up while we were finishing the ceilings. they made some extra work by drilling through a floor truss that required an engineer to repair. That was a low point for me. we had just finished the ceiling. the cork bathroom floor went in. Then the kitchen cabinets. the next day Anna helped me prep for the poured in place concrete countertops. I was up till 2:30 AM finishing these. Never fall for how easy counter tops are to pour in place. felt like it could have gone sideways pretty easily. After that day, night, i was pretty useless. our friend Jason came over and built most of the stairs. My son Arlo laid out and tiled the entire kitchen. the tile grouting took four of us. I built the bathroom vanities. then Arlo and I put in doors and all the baseboard trim. The plumbers showed up and took 3 days to finish while i built slat walls from local Ash for the stairway and second floor. While all this was taking place my wife Bevin & Stella, my daughter, with help from Anna, painted endless trim boards, primed and painted the walls. down stairs was all lime based paint, like the plaster, but more of a multi coat wash. Somehow it all came together and I was up till 3:30 am finishing the concrete floors in time for our 9 AM bank appraiser visit this past Thursday. Felt a little surreal to me as i put all my tools back in the storage container Wednesday night thinking I had nothing left to do on the house.
that was 15 months of work onsite, with a solid 5-6 months spread out over a year of planning and design.
Was it worth it? probably. we have a house I could never afford to buy. in fact, the house and shop were built for less than the average VT house price. ended up costing $126 per square foot. that’s a lot of sweat equity. I am too tired to seperate myself from the experience right now. It’s like finishing a thru hike and waking up with no place to go. I will need a week or two to get back in the swing of it.
The shop interior still needs to be finished. that will be a few more months. I plan to stay where I am for awhile.it’s easier to find if you’re up here to climb and want to stop in.
For Alpine Luddites it means I am back to work full time for the first time in a while. my goal is to get caught up to a 12 month wait list by spring. I’ll see if that’s possible. So, I am here 40-50 hours a week with shifting days. I have a 3 day private class later this week, and another in January. I am working on getting reorganized this week and finishing John’s custom ski pack prior to my class on Friday.
I really just want to sleep for a couple of weeks then go climbing and ski as much as I can and have a more normal life for a while.
Thank to everyone who has been so patient throughout this process.
J
C
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