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The Journey Begins

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

MLM and Izzy, the Corgi, playing in the creek bed near my Dad’s house.

Thanks for joining us on a new adventure. We are building a cottage on land in the country in Houston, MO, near my Dad’s house. I’m a new blogger, so bear with me while I learn how to navigate this new world. As a child, my siblings and I spent summers at my Dad’s house. It was a different world than ‘city’ life, in many ways. After bringing my adult daughter, Brittney, and our exchange student, Tim, on a visit a couple of years ago, Brittney told me that working cattle was one of the most rewarding experiences she had ever been a part of. This prompted a lot of reflection, discussion, and soul searching about what really matters in life. It planted a seed, so-to-speak, of how we could give our family more time in the country, with nature, and interacting with animals.

Hanging Out aka Family Time

In between all the work on the house, we enjoy hanging out with each other. Family time is the most important part of this project.

Selfie on the front porch.
Chatting with Logan.
Charlie hanging out with me at Dad’s clinic while I’m working.
Spending time in Dad’s wood shop while cutting wooden blocks for Brittney.
Somebody really enjoys eating peanuts on the back porch. 🥰

Water lines installed

We started putting in the water lines through out the house. Blue pipe for cold water and red pipe for hot water.

Cold water line on blocking.
Cold water line and more blocking.
Very exciting to see the water lines being threaded through the floor joists as a first step of installation.

Homework

Each day, Rick Ichord, retired builder who is guiding us through the building process, gives us homework tasks to complete on our own and after he leaves for the day.

I rode along on a work call Dad had for a horse because the location was near a fabric store.
Baby, the golden retriever, is keeping watch on the back porch while we do our homework tasks.
Working on blocking homework. Rick’s favorite thing to do. 😂

How to ‘hide’ the center post?

We need your input and ideas. How can we ‘hide’ the center post in the stair area of the basement? It can not be a solid barn beam since there is a drain pipe that runs through it. We’ve thought of many options, but we haven’t settled on a good solution yet.

Before the barn beams and drain pipe are installed. The post on the right is framing for the drain pipe.

Drain pipe from upstairs bathroom. it is not connected at the top yet, but you can see why a solid post is not possible.

Barn beams and center post are installed.

You can see the center post all the way on the right of this photo, which I took to show the wax treatment we were putting on the beams. Isn’t my model handsome? 😂

Blocking, Blocking & More Blocking

Rick has done so much blocking, he never wants to hear the word blocking again. Blocking is a very important, yet tedious and time consuming, step to building a house. For example, our advisor shared a story about how many builders and/or plumbers don’t add blocking under the toilet waste pipe/drain. Over time and after many flushes, the pipe can work itself loose, which creates a very big mess that leaks waste into the floor and through the ceiling below it. Adding a wooden block under and supporting the pipe in the floor joist prevents the pipe from dropping down or coming loose. This blocking was needed in multiple locations throughout the house. Rick also added blocking to the locations where we likely will hang curtains on both sides of each window.

A birds nest was build under the back porch ply boards that we we had laid down temporarily.
Mikiah reading his book on top of one of the plywood boards.
Selfie on the back porch.

Shower Delivery & Framing Walls

I ordered a fiberglass shower insert for the basement and a different type of insert for the upstairs bathroom. All materials were purchased from Harry Cooper in Springfield, Missouri.

The delivery truck unloading the walls to store at Dad’s clinic.
Upstairs bathroom framing. The drain floor piece is already in place under the piece of cardboard that is protecting it from construction debris.
Upstairs bathroom vanity in storage, but sharing to give an idea of ‘the look.’
This framing isn’t nailed in yet, but will support the shower nozzle and plumbing.
Shower insert in the basement.
Roofing tiles as shims across each 2×4 that required spacers. Creative and cost effective.

Backyard Dirt Work

The backyard needed topsoil and smoothing out. We hired Westin Walker, son of Cotton Walker, the guy who completed our concrete work, to help make the backyard accessible and mow-able.

It only took Westin about an hour to smooth things out.
He had to be very careful around the white pipe that is sticking up out of the ground. It is a critical component of our septic system.
Top soil is hard to come by in and around Houston, Missouri. We were lucky to buy a couple of dump truck loads full from Westin.