Can I "Build Thread" my house?

First let me say, "loving this." Thanks for taking the time to post.
Not to second guess you but is laminate really the best thing for a wet application like in front of the tub? When you say laminate I figure you mean something like Pergo.

Congrats on what looks to be a wonderful home. As I can tell you are, you should be very proud.

My wife and I moved over the summer from 1,100 sq ft that we rented for two years to 2500 sq ft that we bought. It makes for a big change. Also nice to go from one and half car detached garage to 3 car attached.
Small house on busy street shown in background:

New digs:

I am jealous of your having built new but here the real bargains are in undervalued existing homes.

The laminate is a vinyl product that's about 1/8" thick. It's completely waterproof. We did this in the old house/trailer throughout. There's a wood fiber product that's like a snap together that we would have loved to use, but it was cost prohibitive at this time. We did upgrade to the level 2 laminate/vinyl in order to get a more convincing wood grain look. LOL We get a 10 year, 1 mile bumper to bumper warranty on the house, so anything that happens, we'll get it fixed. LOL

There's not a lot of existing homes in our area, mostly trailers. This is because people bought land and plopped a trailer on there "temporarily" and then never got around to doing anything else. LOL We have 47 acres that we live on that belongs to her parents, they deeded us 1.6 acres to build the house. It's easily one of the 2 nicest homes in the immediate area. Not to brag, but we're just surrounded by 100+ yr old falling apart homes and ratty trailers. I moved here from Austin, where a $200k home is ok and in a cookie cutter neighborhood with less than 1/4 acre of property. We are spending about $170k on this new construction home and it's exactly how we want it. If we had the means to spend $250k, we could have built damn near a mansion here. That's how much the people spent on the other house and it's friggin impressive!

Conquest351 wrote: The laminate is a vynil product that's about 1/8" thick. It's completely waterproof. We did this in the old house/trailer throughout. There's a wood fiber product that's like a snap together that we would have loved to use, but it was cost prohibitive at this time. We did upgrade to the level 2 laminate/vinyl in order to get a more convincing wood grain look. LOL We get a 10 year, 1 mile bumper to bumper warranty on the house, so anything that happens, we'll get it fixed. LOL

Better pics and the brand name of that laminate would be greatly appreciated.

And, your house is on "the best build threads" list......

OK, will do with the "Good Camera" this weekend.

Oh, yes, good use of the linoleum type flooring in front of the tub. For others, this is much like typical kitchen floor linoleum but instead of having a picture of artificial tile it has a picture of artificial wood. Some examples of it that I have seen are really quite nice and great for an application like this where real word or even fake Pergo "wood" would not be the right item.

Filled in the electrical trench this weekend, got my neighbor to bring over his tractor and push in all that dirt. The cleaners came Saturday and cleaned the house. Looks fantastic!! Didn't get any new pix, except for the daughter eating dirt. LOL Ya'll wanna see that?

Just stumbled upon this today, great thread!

Maybe I'm being ignorant, but I'd say that carpeting in a bathroom is just asking for mold and mildew problems.

scardeal wrote: Maybe I'm being ignorant, but I'd say that carpeting in a bathroom is just asking for mold and mildew problems.

You'd think, but with that laminate around the tub and shower, you're killing most of that problem. It is something we're probably going to address later. Tile, laminate, synthetic wood product, something. We're just going to have to wait. $$$$$$

Eating dirt. I know ya'll wanted to see this...

This pic cracks me up. She looks like a snooty dirt aficionado.

"Mmmyes, this dirt is actually from the paleolithic era. It's keynotes are a slightly smokey and limestoney aroma. It's very smooth on the palette and really cleans out your digestive system. Would you like to try a taste?"

It's not truly your house until you're eaten some small part of it.

Conquest351 wrote: Didn't get any new pix, except for the daughter eating dirt. LOL Ya'll wanna see that?

never try to understand the actions of a 15-year-old girl.

Conquest351 wrote: Eating dirt. I know ya'll wanted to see this... This pic cracks me up. She looks like a snooty dirt aficionado. "Mmmyes, this dirt is actually from the paleolithic era. It's keynotes are a slightly smokey and limestoney aroma. It's very smooth on the palette and really cleans out your digestive system. Would you like to try a taste?"

disregard previous comment about 15-year-old.

She's 15 yrs old minus 14 yrs. LOL

AngryCorvair wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: Didn't get any new pix, except for the daughter eating dirt. LOL Ya'll wanna see that?

never try to understand the actions of a 15-year-old girl.

No you were right the first time, no one understands 15 year old girls, I should know, I raised 3 of them!

It was a pre cursor to them becoming women and no one understands women.

Nice house 351, too big for me though as I like 'cosy', I would have been very happy with the shack and recently went for a 120 M2 2 bedroom unit over a 300M2 house.

It also has no grass to mow, win!

Mine has no grass at the moment... We will plant some soon though.

Update: Yesterday the brick guys were out fixing some minor things and the guys came out to grade around the house. This is where they take a Bobcat tractor and scrape around the perimeter of the house to get everything flat and then pile dirt up around the foundation and pull it back in order to make the house the highest part of a small mound. This helps with water drainage and all that crap. LOL

We are due to close on Dec. 13th or 14th. Move in exactly after signing papers. LOL

In reply to Conquest351:

Look at the grading closely. Any poorly graded areas really suck to deal with later.

It looked pretty good. It's been raining here lately, thank God, so it's hard to really go over it. Hopefully the rain will settle the ground and reveal any trouble spots before the final walkthrough. We're still on to close the 13th.

mguar wrote: In reply to Conquest351: I liked your house I wish I could post pictures I'd show my house build.. I'm radically different.. Mines a timber frame Those are the most durable homes 500 + years is not unusual.And they are cheaper to build than buying wood from a lumberyard/big box store. Well up here in Minnesota anyway. First the important thing.. The auto shop is about 1800 sq.ft. (tuck under) so it's fully heated (get's to minus 40 here sometimes) cool, on a 90+ day it never gets over 75 degrees. It will hold 9+ cars and leave me space for all the tools and equipment. Mines a double timber frame Black walnut timbers on the outside white oak timbers on the inside. It's all hardwood.. White oak, black walnut, cherry, hard maple, tamarack, hackberry, etc.. I have over 50,000 bd.ft. of hardwood in it and it cost me only $25,000 for all the wood.. The house itself is 5500 sq.ft. a similar sized home built with lumberyard wood would have cost around $100,000 to frame up and seal to the weather. Now that was rough and green at the sawmill but everytime I went past the sawmill I hauled timbers/wood home. Since the sawmill was right in the territory I sold construction equipment in basically it cost me next to nothing to get the wood home where I stacked it to dry.. I started buying wood in 1998 and started on the house in 2001 so the wood was pretty well on it's way to dry.. Timbers I used a power planer to smooth out and a router to put champhers on. Then I did the mortice and tenon work. (the frame is like fine furniture where the tenon goes into a mortice) boards I simply put through a planer. I spent about $20,000 on wood working tools.. (I'd never done any wood working before this) and when I'm finished I'll sell them off and get more than 1/2 of that back.. (I got about 3/4 of the money I spent for timber framing tools back when I sold them recently)

Damn! You're pretty much a bad ass. LOL I knew right off the bat I didn't have the necessary skills to do this. Sounds like you have a beast in the works! I'd love to see the pics.

Have the final walkthrough appointment on Thursday 12-8-11 at 10am. After that we should be able to start moving things in and closing is still scheduled for 12-13-11 (Tuesday). Been walking around the house each day noticing little things that are fixed and changed. Once the rain and cold cuts it's mess out, I'll take some good pix of the house.

Well, a little late I know, but we are officially moved in. Been in the house for about 3 weeks now. Holidays have made things crazy, I promise I will post good pix of it soon. Feels great to actually have room to move around!

Have you put them up online? You can create a photobucket account (free) and then you can hotlink from there. Just sign up for photobucket and upload all the pix from your camera. Let us know when you're done with that.

This: http://photobucket.com/

There are a couple of other, similar sites out there like Flickr.

I wish construction was that cheap here. I just spent 3 times that much on a house and didn't get as much as you did.