How to Build a House and Pay as You Go

My title is true but not for everyone…annnddd so many life lessons have been learned.  We are doing just what my title says…and the “how to” is coming in future blog posts…until then a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice, you have to have building/ construction knowledge and skill…a ton of patience – even more patience than you ever knew could exist, a lot of reminding ourselves of our personal goals and sticking with it even during the hardest of days.  It’s not easy and it’s not for everyone.  It’s a slow and sometimes painful process…but we can finally see the end in sight.  Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!

Definitely – leave your questions in the comments and I’ll circle back around to you for sure…don’t hesitate to ask us ANYTHING!

Be sure to see –> Part 1 of our journey on how to build a house debt free.

How to Build a House and Pay as You Go

For the longest time…I would only be able to post about framing with 2×4’s and electrical wire everywhere.  That was a long and drawn out – but needful – process.  For me I’m such a visual person and like to see things happening…and well things were happening but to my human eye nothing was changing.  We spent a lot of evenings out there when Bern would get home after work, doing a few hours of work and small things that needed to be done.  He and my dad have also spent most Saturday’s and any time off pouring blood, sweat and tears (oh yes on my part!) into the building process.

To say I’ve been a little impatient would be a total understatement…but I keep reminding myself one day it will all be worth it.

So to bring you up to date…and my goal is to blog regularly with the process to come…because honestly the process to come is so much more fun!

This past spring the rough in plumbing and electrical were completed…after many wires being pulled and water lines being run it was complete…yet there always seemed to be little things that kept getting added to the list to do…until that little green sticker meant we passed and it was COMPLETE!

In between the electrical and plumbing…time was spent out doors finishing up siding, caulking and painting.  For the most part that is done…but as always there is a little of that here and there that needs to be finished.

Back in May – we passed our inspection to move forward with insulation and sheetrock.  This was a happy day to see this little green sticker on our window and to hear the inspector say – great job…usually when I inspect a home where someone is building it themselves I leave them with a list of things to do before I come back and you guys passed without a thing to fix.  Talk about a happy day in our lives and a relief might I say!

We did hire out the spray foam insulation…but we were able to save some big bucks by doing the clean up ourselves.  All we had to buy was some horse brushes – of all things – and some time knocking off the excess – then cleaning up each room with what was on the floors.  Thankfully we recruited some helpers for this process.  Seeing foam on the walls was a huge step…that meant sheetrock was next in the line up.

Since foam insulation is just for the upstairs roof and exterior walls, Bern still had to insulate the interior walls – so a few bucks later insulation was done!

We had a scripture writing party – handed out markers and had everyone over to write scripture verses all of over our studs/walls.  

When I drove up one day…and saw the sheetrock delivery truck – oh my heart did a flip – it was really happening!  Real walls were going to be going up within the week! 

Next we lined up the sheetrock hangers to come in and do their job…mind you up until this point we haven’t hired out much of anything…so we were excited to see these steps move forward with lots of progress quickly.

We had a great crew finish the sheetrock and then as soon as they were done Bern came in on his stilts and began painting!    

I think this was such a monumental day in our lives…so exciting because the first phase of 2×4 studs, wires and water lines was completely complete….done..no going back…it was done!  Moving on to bigger and better things and my eyes could see progress and change!

We had to prime the entire house and then paint the entire house ceilings, walls and everything.  When you are doing an entire house, you realize how many walls and ceilings make up your home.  None the less after two weeks he was finished with painting the house.  This was a step I was able to help some…that was a nice feeling too since so much of the last year there wasn’t much I could do besides keep the place cleaned up. 

After painting was complete we picked out our light fixtures for the interior and exterior along with our ceiling fans and my dad and Bern began completing electrical.  You think – oh that will just take them a few days – nope two weeks and that process was complete.  By the time they made up all of the outlet boxes, the switches, tested out everything to make sure all switches were operating properly, fixing the few kinks and then hanging all of the lights and ceiling fans- it was a two week wrap.

The night we tested out our lights and actually used a switch to turn everything on was a glorious day in and of itself too…we could now clean up our electrical cords running from the outside temporary power poll through our master bedroom window…hallelujah!

A huge project that has to be done before we move in is getting our septic tank set up and hooked up to our tank back by the cottage.  After digging and laying pipes…we are making progress on that job as well.  It’s not complete but getting close…although with all of our rain happening it’s setting it back a bit.

In the meantime cabinets have been ordered…flooring for my bathroom has arrived…our plumbing fixtures (for sinks and pot filler for kitchen) have been ordered, toilet has been ordered….and once cabinets arrive and are put into place we can roll with finishing the bathroom and kitchen.  Those are the two rooms that have to be complete for us to get our occupancy permit…so that’s our big push!

Floors for my entire house will wait…I’ve lived on concrete floors in the cottage now for three years I think I can handle it in the house for a year or so!

Blinds (from Amazon which are half the price from Home Depot and we are super happy with them!) are being hung in the two rooms we’ll live in, until the rest of the house is complete and closet organizers are being put into those two rooms as well. 

This is a huge project…and one I knew when we set out would be…but we’re so ready for this “monkey” to be off of our back…but we still have no mortgage and that’s been our goal from day one as well.  God’s been good each step of the way even though I’m anxious and some days I don’t know how we’ve done it…it’s not so much that our cottage space gets to me, it’s more of the project as a whole I’m ready to be done with and just be able to live in our home and have a “normal” living space!!!!  No one can really relate to this unless you’ve done what we’re doing…and that is very very few and far between.

I wasn’t on the hunt for living room furniture but when God sends you a steal of a deal your way you jump on it…I’ll share more of that later until then we have living room furniture waiting for us and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

Like I said my goal is to give you more posts coming here in the future as we make progress and even share some how to’s with you all along the way.

Hi I’m Erin a Southern mama from South Mississippi, owner and chief editor of Sixth Bloom a blog helping mom-tographers capture their kiddos and life, as well as talking all things home, parenting and how we navigate through life. You will find me living life to the fullest with my mister (aka husband) and our little three year old preschooler, Miss E, in our 500+ sq foot cottage as we build our dream house on our two acres!  We are blessed beyond measure… we love to travel and love being involved in ministry opportunities at our church.

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