How’s the house? LOVE IT!

While as much as I gush about our new homestead, getting through this project took a lot of time and patience, and yes more money than we wanted to spend. Now, I am not complaining, but I am finding myself more and more, sharing about the ups and downs of a second story addition project with people who asking questions, as they are now interested. My go to response to someone saying they are thinking of doing a second story addition. “It’s not cheap.” The scary part, is the direction society or industry is moving in the US, is getting more and more expensive.

When we began this project back in 2020, it was COVID and well, our president at the time had no idea about what was real or what was important. Everything seemed to be game back then, the narrative was so focused on protecting the masses. The people who didn’t or don’t care about their neighbors were executing their disruption plan. Yes, shutting things down was awful, it sucked. The butterfly effect of the shutdown lingered for over two years.

While the planning process for the remodel dragged on for over two years, the stress of having to pay rediculous costs for materials and ridiculously long lead times for materials was mounting on the two of us. Especially me when I started seeing the number go up and up each time. Now, by the time we started the project, material costs did slightly drop, but even today, material costs are way up high. Especially with the current administrations plans for mass deportations. The biggest positive for us was the lead times on materials saw a dramatic drop in 2022.

We finally were given the permit to begin construction in late January 2023. I was bitting my nails, hoping the lumber order didn’t go over the budget our contractor laid out. Thankfully the contractors estimate was actually completed at the height of the pandemic cost plus for construction. Which gave us some relief to see most of his numbers come in pretty close to what he quoted. Now, to be completely honest, all of my change orders was where we really got dinged in the end. Literally! That was 100% on me and my lack of control during the construction.

The other day I sat down and went over a few email chains about the project. In the contract with our contractor, he quoted us 13-14 months for construction. In the end, we ran from Feb 2023-Dec 2024. Yes, 22 months is not 14 months. BUT! We experience 3 very long delays, that the contractor had no control over. One of those being the PGE drama over a pole. That delay alone was over 5 months of back and forth with the company. While we could finish up small project, the progress of the house was halted. The plumbing and floors were in but electrical furnishings is such a big task in itself. Thankfully a lot of the painting as done during this waiting period.

Ultimately I think in the end, the total time for construction was probably around the original quote, more than likely around 15 months. Which for a complete house remodel is an amazing fete! Would I do this again. Hell no! Should we have just purchased another house and live with what we just paid a ridiculous amount for. Fuck no! The goal of this project was create something we loved and wanted to live for a good decade or so. The end result is exactly what were started described to our architect back in February of 2020. It was a long road to building it, but worth it in the end. Am I going to buried in the backyard, no thank you. I am not the current president trying to get tax write off.