01-05OCT11 - Sultan, WA (final construction thoughts)

As we said in our last BLOG entry the house was finally 100% done at the end of SEP & we received our final county inspection on 28SEP. Are we glad we did it? Yes! Would we do it again? No (with caveats)! First, we are a little to old to be doing this; 10 or 20 years ago this would have been an easy thing to do. Even though the contractor did 95% of the work, we still did the remaining 5%; plus anything that had to do with getting utilities hooked up, & grading the property for future yard/landscaping.

If we were ever to do this again, we do it on property that had all utilities on site & ready to go. Looking back it took three summer visits to clean-up property, improve driveway for heavy trucks (& RVs), drill a well, run power over 450 ft, etc, etc. In addition to being time consuming, these items added substantially to the overall cost!

But the end result is a house that we are extremely happy with! Also, we feel this house is a fantastic value for the monies actually spent on its construction. Although it is a “basic” plan from Lexar Homes, it is a design we are both pleased with; & with the few upgrades we selected, feels a little “custom” (especially on the interior).

http://www.lexarhomes.com/

A pleasant surprise was the quality & strength of the overall construction, while remaining affordable. Way back when, Dan was on site when his paternal Grandmother had a “custom” rambler built on ten acres in Redmond, WA; & then when his parents had a bare bones spec house built on one acre next door. Neither house was as solid or skillfully constructed as this one. Why? Dan’s theory is because “back then” a group of carpenters showed up every day & did everything except the ventilation, plumbing & wiring; plus these carpenters had very few “power” tools. Today ever aspect of construction is a “specialty” contractor. The foundation forms are done by one team, framing by another, insulation by another, drywall by another, & so on, & so on. In addition, these specialists have the latest power tools, along with special materials that make assembly literally a snap. End result is that the back in the day a house took all summer with daily activity by multiple people to construct; while ours took all summer but with only about fifty actual days of construction & very few individuals to get it done, with better quality & far less waste!

Anyway, we reluctantly spent the first week of OCT11 cleaning up the property; parking the tractor & other equipment in the barn; & securing the house for our absence. Then it was back to our almost permanent spot at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds for one night to dump holding tanks & prepare for a hard drive back to Houma, LA.