With roughly 3 months till we’re moved into our new house, there hasn’t been any particular part of the construction that warranted a pause, a reflection, and/or a post about our new home construction. Quite the opposite, it’s been a steady stream of small events, some surprises, and many decisions that have consumed our lives the past 5 months. This week the drywall goes up, and it’s finally time to process the experience.
The sale of our house on Paradise Lane was remarkable in its simplicity. We’d been openly discussing the ramifications of downsizing, aging in place, and us growing old together (in no particular order). The friend of a neighbor mentioned an interest in moving to Paradise Lane, was informed of our possible interest in having a discussion and, after meeting with her realtor we fundamentally embraced the timelines and sensibility of their proposal. An ironic inquiry to our next-door neighbor about a shared electrical bill led to the involvement of yet another player looking for a place in Paradise Lane that resulted in us accepting his far-more-attractive offer and we closed within the month.
So, with the security of a year renting back our (now his) house, we leapt into the design stage with the excitement (and wisdom) gleaned 30 years earlier designing and building our current home—the only one we’ve ever owned. A local developer created a community of 50 “Net-zero” (lot line) houses in mid-Ashland, right on the bike path, and walking distance to North Mountain Park (our favorite). We purchased a piece of property in the development, called Beach Creek, and with that were promised a well-built “FireWise” home with a small landscaped yard that shared a wall with the neighbor’s garage. For efficiency, the developer offered new homeowners a basic floorplan and an extensive list of items (faucets, doors, etc.) from which to choose. In our first home, we consulted the Pattern Language, a no-nonsense guide to what works in domestic construction, and applied sensible solutions over frivolity in our initial design. We were also building on a shoestring, and did our best. With 30 years of experience, we studied their suggested floor plan and worked with the architect to reposition rooms so that our kitchen/dining area was south-facing and assessable to deep solar penetration in winter. Once signed off on the floorplan, Shrader Construction took over and got to work.
We got into the habit of driving by the site periodically, and were shocked to have the framing completed a week after the foundation cured. So much of home-building is sequential, and having a good contractor makes compete sense. Kory Shrader knows his stuff, and he schedules each sub-contractor with precision. It’s good fun to walk through a newly-framed house and imagine the completed project; we did—often. Certain anomalies began showing up that, projecting forward, would be problematic. One was the location of the water line into the house; the box was right in the middle of a potential deck location in the tiny front yard. The plumber put outside hose bibs in ridiculous places. A pocket door into the master bathroom was overlooked during framing. All readily made right.
Mind you, not all improvements were the fault of others. We happily toured friends through our house, and the suggestion to change the swing of a door into our bedroom completely opened up a wall for furniture and wall art. Another friend sensibly pointed out we’d initially be using the back door for entry much of the time. It’s not that we didn’t have access to our utility room from the single-car garage, but being a 2-vehicle household, one will be parked outside the single car garage—quite possibly backed in. This will provide the driver wth easy access to a backyard gate and a line of concrete pavers connecting the driveway and the back-door patio. Realistically, this entry will also be used should someone be using a wheelchair; the front entry has several steps.
I’m writing this from Cape Blanco State Park on the Oregon Coast. It’s the end of July and this is, alas, the first trailer camping we’ve managed this summer. Two earlier reservations elsewhere were unfortunately cancelled due to some unremarkable demand in the planning process—there’ve been so many. So, we’ve finally stepped away for a bit of R&R. But not before sweeping up all signs of shavings and sawdust in the framing; we read that if this wasn’t done prior to the hanging of sheetrock this debris could lead to mold down the road. So tidy up we did, and following our respite on the coast we hope to return to a house with “walled” rooms that will no longer require our imaginations to furnish. We also hope that all the deliberation prior to closing up (think plumbing, electrical plugs, blocking/reinforcement for wall art/shelving) will have paid off. Additional changes going forward will likely incur a change-order fee. Ouch!