Momplex

After spending a couple of days covering the upstairs subfloor in strips of plywood with 3/4" spacing grooves in between, we are really eager to move on to the next step.

Well, it might have taken us a few months longer than we'd have liked (decks, flooring, and trim got in the way), but we are finally taking you up on your suggestion to focus first on finishing out this room,

Hi Everyone, and Happy Friday!

Today, I'm so excited to share one of the biggest bang-for-your-buck weekend projects you can undertake (in my humble DIY opinion).

Someday, this blank space is going to be Grandma's dream sewing room.  It may take months, maybe even be a year before we get to it, but we've got big plans to convert this large basement bonus room to the perfect spot for Grandma to make her beautiful quilts in.  And Gracie has requested a kids craft area in t

It finally stopped raining. As if the weather knew that today mud was coming for the footers.You can tell it's early morning.  There are no clouds in front of the Alaska range.  And today is going to be a busy one.Onsite babysiter still on site.Footers backfilled for extra support and to keep the mud in place.And the concrete truck is here!The concrete truck has a spout on the front where the mud comes out.And what looks like waterslide pieces are attached to the spout to extend the

Now that the walls are all up in the Momplex, we can work on putting the upstairs floor (and downstairs ceiling!) in. I've had my doubts about how this whole thing is going to work out ... since back when we put the anchor bolts in the walls. Just to refresh ... We cut out a pattern to use to cut pieces of the foam blocks out.  We don't want any foam to be between the floor and the walls - a concrete to wood joint will have the least wiggle room.Then we made a bunch of these up - the

Well .... Mom likes the kitchen plans!

This I promise is the last post on these little roofs!

 

We just finished the underside of the little roofs - the part that you look up and see - with locally milled tongue and groove.  And man is she pretty!!!

But we've run into a potential problem.  Our tin screws are 1" long.  Will the screw tips show through the beautiful tongue and groove?

We got a little white surprise up at the Momplex. I'll give you a hint. It's white. And it's here to stay.

Happy Monday!!!

A few weeks back, we built Mom a master closet system, and she's been loving it so far!

But we wanted to add a little more storage and functionality to the tower itself.  I'm not a huge fan of low shelves (maybe it's because I'm ready-to-pop-preggers and reaching into a low bottom shelf is a monumental task right now?).

Mom was going to add some baskets on the lower shelf, but those baskets cosst $20 - and we'd need two per sh

So what walls did we end up choosing? Was it Walls #1, the oversided legos that you fill with concrete?Or was it Walls #2, stick framing the old fashioned wayOr did we go with Walls #3, the pricer SIPS that go up in no time at all?Well, I'm going to tell you.  In this post.  I promise.Our New General ContractorBut I want to share with you something else first.  You need to meet the REAL business mind behind the Momplex, the General Contractor will all the smarts.This is the Mom

Except for a very brief stint on the scaffolding system, we've been working in a giant hole in the ground all summer. This giant hole in the ground to be exact.Depressing, I know.Especially since outside that hole, it looks like this. Well, it looks like this in the summer anyway.So you can imagine how antsy I've been to get out of that giant hole in the ground and start working upstairs in the Momplex.  I've waited all summer for this stage of the building process.  Hooray, to

Thank you for your comments and advice, real ideas that have helped shape the form of our first Momplex kitchen layout.

Ah the doors ... almost the last part of the Momplex not sealed in. 

The doors should have been put in a long time ago.

But you see, we built out of ARXX blocks - Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs) which are basically giant hollow foam legos that you fill with concrete. And the ICFs are much wider (11 1/2") than a standard 2x6 wood framed wall.  So we will need a special door jamb to fit the wider walls.

The doors are late to go in because we wanted to D

Do you work with your spouse on projects? Now be honest with me. Do you always get along? What happens when you both have different ideas for doing the same thing? Imagine working on a Momplex together!

I am so proud to tell you that we have indeeded finished putting up all the drywall in the Momplex! You know the upstairs has been done for quite a while. But then we stopped and put in an above the floor heat system in the upstairs. We kept the downstairs free of drywall to hook up all the water lines to the upstairs heat system. But that wasn't the only thing keeping us from finishing up the Momplex. Biggest hurdle? The weather. Normally, spring comes in April in Alaska for