I will say that this adventure has brought many self-doubts. When this happens, I just pick up The Owner-Builder Book and get our confidence back. Kathy in Santa Ana, CA

Samuel's Forum Posts: 7
Journal Entries: 11
Interview Answers: 61
Average Forum Rating: 3.43



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It's All Over?

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 12/2/2009 8:20:38 PM

We have been living in the house since June, '09 and we are loving it so far. There is a long list of things that we have left to complete, but we are just happy to be done with our bank! It was not a good experience with them at all, but we managed to escape the "trap" they had set for us luckily! We will be sharing more about this soon.

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Posted by Mary in PA on 12/2/2009 Mary's Forum Posts: 101 Journal Entries: 60 Interview Answers: 15 Average Forum Rating: 4.17 Image from Mary's blog 12/2/2009

Congrats on all your hard work and your lovely new house. I'll look forward to more of your posts when you have time. You've probably learned so much from this experience that could be shared with those of us just starting out. All the best to you and your family in your new home!

MAJOR UPDATE

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 9/28/2008

I cannot believe that it's three months since my last entry here. Well, things have being moving along nicely so far for us, except for our lender. There have been some really ridiculous moments with them, but we've managed to get by without them so far. I cannot keep this blog up to date because I'm doing so much work it's CRAZY!!! When I'm done for the day I'm too tired to even eat, much less doing this. So there you go - owner-building is real work!!. There is so much to blog about but I will have to wait to do that, and I will. I have to give back to this board in order to help someone out. Well this is where we are now; the pictures will tell.

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BACK	LEFT SIDE	KIDS' TUB
MASTER BATH #2	LOOKING UP	MAIN STAIRS
MANABLOC	CENTRAL VAC

INSPECTION

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 7/7/2008 8:25:58 PM

We passed plumbing today, felt really good to know that we did it ourselves. The inspector had one fitting he wanted me to change, so I did it right there while he was there looking over my other work. Time for some concrete!.

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Fitting I had to change.

THIS IS WHAT WE WORKED SO HARD FOR!!!.

Update Plumbing

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 7/4/2008 6:15:56 PM

Things are moving slow because of me doing my own plumbing. I had to hand dig lots of trenches to lay pipe for duct work in the slab; this was very hard work but it's over now, love it! I did the ground plumbing this week, it should be inspected on Monday. Hopefully we pass so we can pour these slabs next week.  HAPPY 4th EVERYONE.

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HARD WORK DIGGING THESE!!	THE END PRODUCT	FULL BATH ROUGH-IN
BASEMENT BATH

LOOKS GOOD.

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 6/17/2008 3:04:28 PM

More photos.

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WALLS POURED

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 6/16/2008 7:53:40 PM

The walls were poured today; didn't know it was going to happen today because the wall people told me Wednesday, so I was surprised when I got a call that they were there on site working and needed to know the rough opening for the basement window. So I immediately got on the phone to find out what was going on, because I let them know before that NO WORK! should be done without my knowledge. Well they say Wednesday was the day they should be finished with the walls, but that's not what I was told, so I just said OK and went there right away.  When I got there all most all the forms were up, I needed to put 7 sleeves in one side of the walls and I didn't have the pipe on site to do so. I had to call my wife to pick it up from the plumbing supply store. I needed 8" PVC - HD and Lowe's do not sell this. These are for duct work under the slab. During the pour it started raining really hard but we were able to get it done after it held up for like 20 min.

FOOTING POURED

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 6/13/2008 8:44:28 PM

We poured all footing for the house today, it took 32 yards of concrete to get it all done. We ran into some water while digging the footing, I was a bit concerned about it, but we had a engineer on site and he said it will be OK, so I hope that's the case. Walls should be up next week.

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GROUND BREAKING.

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 6/11/2008 7:51:50 PM

Basement dug today, they did this really quick. Footing should start tomorrow.

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HOUSE STAKE-OUT

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 6/8/2008 6:21:41 PM

I started to stake out the septic, house and driveway areas with the help of our 11-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son. The weather was hot - very HOT!! and brutal, but we managed to get it done on Saturday. Our kids will be helping out a lot this summer to earn their rooms. We are currently renting a two-bedroom townhouse so they will be happy when we move into our new home.  HVAC has been a challenge to get the right people to do it, but we have settle on a company now and hope it gets done right. I'll be monitoring this one very closely.

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GOT PERMIT!

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 6/4/2008 6:13:24 PM

We went to pick up our permit today and were surprised to learn that it was $1,000 more than what they said it was back in February, but we had no choice but to pay it, so that is the first hit on our budget; hopefully there will be no more!  Called up a couple of surveyors to get an idea on cost to stake out the house. Everyone we talked with wanted $600 - $700 to do it, so we will be doing it ourselves, I stopped by Lowe's today and picked up some stakes and marking paint to do it this weekend. Hopefully it does not rain. We are looking at 6/10/08 to break ground.

READY TO BUILD!

Posted to SOPHIA--SAMUELDELAWARE by Samuel in Smyrna, DE on 5/28/2008

Greetings to all the wonderful people on this board. We are so thankful for this board; it has been a valuable asset to us for a very long time now - since September, 2004. OK, let me tell you all about our journey to this point. Very briefly, we moved from PA to FL in June, 2002. As soon as we got there in FL, here comes the hurricanes. After the third one hit, we decided it was time to leave, so we sold our house in 2005 and moved to Delaware. Why Delaware? Well, Del. has LOW PROPERTY TAXES!! COMPARED TO PA, NJ, MD; and NO SALES TAX!!! So now you know. I have so many things to blog about right now but will do that when I have the time to do so. Today is a milestone for us, because we closed on our loan today and we are very happy to finally get to start. I will try to keep this blog up to date as we progress.

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FRONT ELEVATION