Been a while... wow.

Pandemic.. behind us?? Now what... Spotted Lanternfly... Give me a break... Hillsville is a "hotbed" for this invasive species. Soon to be in Raleigh, NC (it's going to get there sooner or later). I might as well be credited for it. We eradicated a "spot" or Tree of Heaven (from Hell). We keep an eye out for the pest, wife is an iNaturalist nerd.

After all it attacks grape vines, we need to kill this MF'er...

So an update, the taped seams in the raised living room ceiling are coming off (once again) guess I need to do it myself but got plenty of other things to do... the tile grout that they fixed is gone and missing... needs to be replaced. I should have just fixed it all myself. Might not have done any better but could not do any worst...

Lost a whole lot more roofing tiles, really should have stayed with a metal roof in the quote....


Love having the house, don't really care about the quality. It's done and we are enjoying it a bunch.
Apple tree we planted are producing and bring in the deer... the new dog, Jasper, loves apples (edible balls) what's not to love... the apples hang on the trees until very late in the season (which was the plan for hunting) yes, we have harvested an 8 pointer this year. Only need one for this year, still have last year's deer and got some extra deer sausage from a friend...

We are set for the next year... About to have another Thanksgiving. Life is good...

Same old stuff...

Painted the second bathroom green...  have decided we can live with the rest of the house as off white.    Nothing is wrong with the house, most of it is just basic.  Which is fine for now...  we have noticed some cracks in the drywall - we'll keep an eye on it to make sure they don't get much bigger.

Wood stove is great, really keeps the house warm.  I do get up around 3 am to put more wood in but I could wait until the morning and try and rebuild the fire.  It's been 17* outside the last couple nights...

When we are not here the thermostat is at 49* and usually when we come back the house is around 53* on sunny days.  The basement averages 47* with a low of 39* and high of 50*.  We need to insulate the basement more but pretty low on the priority list.

Not sure what I said about Radon abatement we did but it's been great at less than 1 (insert their measurement thingie)  The basement is a bit higher but not bad at 2 +/- 0.5 units.  I hope the fan last a long time...

We have decide that we will NOT be retiring up here...  just too lonely!  We have so much more stuff to do in Raleigh.  Take care,   DanDe

Not much has changed...

I'm checking in, and seeing if anyone else is still checking in to this site...  any questions send them to our spam account (dandemott (a t) hotmail) We do check it... 

So our kitchen is very good, love the two sinks, the dinning room is marginal but we rarely eat there (it's a bit small).  Island counter is better than I thought it was going to be... I was wanting it all the same height - now I just don't think that would have been good.

 Living room is pretty good, we like the high ceilings.  We had the couches directly across from each other but like it angled (as it is now) to view TV and see the stove.

 Stove is great but also a pain, once the house is warmed up... it doesn't take much to keep it at a comfortable level.  The pain part, lots of trips hauling wood up from the basement.  We need to figure out a better way and make that easier.

The passive solar aspect has been good (windows facing south).   We actually get a couple degrees of heating from the sun in the winter and the sun doesn't shine in to the house in the summer time.

We had big plans for the basement...  we still plan to finish a bathroom but the efficiency apartment is on hold.  Lots of other plans, insulate the basement, backyard, a pond(!?) --- it will be a few more years before moving up here full time.

Bedrooms are OK, we have not "furnished" them but we are now planning to put some dressers in each of the rooms.  There are a few things from the original plan that I would do differently but they are small details, I will not go into them here...

So that's the update on the house...   back in Nov. I thought about turning this blog into a "Hunting Rant"...  Mainly, I had nothing going on and had tons of time to just sit and think (in the deer stands) and instead of letting this blog die (like all the rest) I wanted to keep it alive and morph it into the pain and tribulations of hunting!!!

If I get bored, I'll post about that next time!!!

Update!?!

Wanted to "settle in" before updating...  Shouldn't be doing this so late at night (but then again... who's still reading this old blog?).  Had the builder back several times "fixing" issues...  worst case was a bundle of live wires that connected the left side to the right.  It was not connected, just a bundle of wire.  It shorted out when I touched the bundle.  NOT a happy camper about that.  Worried there is another bundle (or two) like this.  Will post if I actually find them.

So we have furniture (sorry no photos but hopefully one day...) the bedroom sizes were not bad, not too big for sure.  We have 2 kings and a queen bed.  We have not brought much else in the bedrooms since we are not up there full time.  Will bring our furniture up when we plan to stay there full time.   We'll know then if the rooms are big enough.

I really like having the house facing north/south/east/west... even though the house is basically backwards on the property.  You drive up from the rear of the house...  the little measuring we've done lets the house in the winter warm up to 75 with only the sun's rays.  Summer time, the sun doesn't come in the windows at all, except for morning and sunset...  and those windows are coated to not let the heat in...

We like the open kitchen/dinning/living room, wood stove is great (maybe a little too good - need to learn more how to control it).  The large mudroom is fine - still figuring out how to best use the space but glad it's there.  Basement is nice - work in progress... and may be for the rest of our lives...

The bad, drywall (sheetrock) whatever is far from perfect - almost crappy.  Really? Does that matter?  When the house is oriented N/S/E/W the sun shines right down the hallway and every nail / screw shows up...  is it a deal breaker, not really.  Would I like it perfect, yea, sure, do I want to pay for it?  No, it looks fine...

Dishwasher is a POS, but we were warned about that.  If you didn't "get" the dishwasher the manufacturer did not run the plumbing or electrical to it.  Cheaper to get it and replace it later.

That's all I got for now...  all in all, we are happy with what we got vs. it's cost... Not really sure we would do it again (vs. stick built).  Hopefully we will not have to find out.   Take care...

Picking a builder?

I can't help you here... our first builder went bankrupt.  Second builder does great work but he has so much work that he can't do it all by himself.  His hired help are just not that great and are pretty slow...  I've lost count how many people he has fired.

Our plummer was a "new" guy that didn't work out that great.  The builder ended up hiring him since his regular plummer was busy with his other jobs.

Now, remember, we just wasted a year after the first builder went out of business.  We were happy to find a good builder and was willing to get "in-line" with him.  Hindsight, we could have been more of a squeaky wheel about getting things done quickly but glad we didn't.
 
That extra time allowed me to check over the slow progress.  Found some mistakes that I pointed out and helped fix.  I also just took it upon myself to work on the house here and there.  I wanted to do more but I also didn't want to cause any problems trying to "help".

I saw a post that wasn't posted before about the furniture we ordered...  bottom line, we were not at all happy with the couches that we received from Funitureland South.  They say that they are custom built when we ordered, but heck, it was definitely not the couch we picked out.  They are hard, not sized correctly and basically not comfortable.

Good, Bad and Ugly...

So there were a few things about the manufactured home route that wasn't the greatest.  BUT to be fair, you could have had as many problems with a stick built house.  The one thing I liked the most was being set up in one day and able to lock the doors.

If we were able to see and be at the site everyday or every other day.  I think I would rather go with stick built and watch how it was built.  With only able to get up every 2 weeks, it was nice to know the place was secure.

So with the manufactured home, the nailing down of the flooring, looks like they missed every other nail going into the sub-floor.  Hundreds of nails missing the target.  They could do better on quality control.  I think the only reason we don't  have squeaky floors is that I believe they glue it down also.

The cabinets and the hot water heater seem to fine / good quality.  Every thing else was pretty cheap.  Dishwasher is the worst, bathroom fans close behind, the sheet-rock went through hell and it looks it... it all works as it should, just not quality stuff.

One thing that did bother me was the "sealing" around openings like bathroom fans.  Pathetic at best, why only do part of it?  Again, a stick builder can screw up as well.  I feel sorry for people who just move in and not take the time to check it all over.

The joint between the two halves of the house in the attic...  was wide open,  I could see down to the basement.   A couple cans of foam spray to close that massive gap (1/2").  They bolt the bottom up tight but not the attic seam.  Dumb if you ask me. 

About time for an update...

Finally, winding down my work...  still have some more harvesting to do but the bulk of it is done.  Have not really done many of the projects with the house that we need to do.  Have not spent many hours in the house but feel that I need to "post"...

So the good news, the passive solar (heating with the sun's help) we think is pretty good.  The house stays pretty warm and does not get very cold without added heat (62-ish with 20* outside temp.).  We did fire up the wood stove and we're pretty impressed with how slow it burns and the amount of heat it puts out (maybe a bit too much).

Minor problem with the sewer vent pipe, it leaked water onto the bathroom ceiling, had to rip insulation out and dry it out.  Builder is coming this week to "look" at it.  The builder himself, is a good man and does good work.  His hired help or sub-contractors are definitely not that good.  He can not do it all and he ended up firing a few of them during our build.

Now to the bad news, in my opinion, the sheet rock is pretty crappy.  They have fixed several areas but overall it's really pretty crappy looking.  I don't mind it... question is; would I pay extra for perfect sheet rock?  Most likely not...  depends on how much "extra" we are talking about.

A few years ago, we added on where we live now and pointed out a few "problems" that we saw and the contractor said, you could not afford to have me do it perfectly... which I agree is true.  The things that bother me, I will fix or correct.  I think we did ok with the price we paid.

"...Modular homes built in climate control facilities.." are basically built by factory workers at the lowest price.  The material is about the same, used the cheapest material.  I had always planned to replaced / upgrade what we deemed necessary when funds are available.  If you didn't get the factory installed (POS, BTW) dishwasher, then they did not run water and electric to it.  So, yes, we plan to replace that pretty soon.  Bathroom exhaust fans... omg; actually it's OMG!!!  ..it's loud.

Things I would change... there's a couple changes to the floor plan I would have made (might have a new post on that)...  more insulation in the interior walls.  Foam core doors vs. hollow core doors.  List goes on but I'm rambling enough as it is now...

I will update this as I see the need but based on views (only once a week and I'm not sure if that wasn't my wife "checking up" on me....)  Take care...

Very slowly moving in...

Like the rest of the house construction, we are moving in very slowly!!   Not on purpose, we are both really busy at work and have only been able to get up for a day or two at a time.

We picked up a Kenmore refrigerator, just a wee bit shiny.  Set a bolder to use as a step onto the deck.  We've ordered beds and couches... and moved in our old kitchen table.

Here's the latest photos:

Two kitchen sinks since we wanted one to look into the room and one to look out the window.  Dishwasher will be replaced sooner than later.  It was cheap and came with the house but it's too LOUD.

Wood stove, need to test it out someday!

It's a pretty big rock with one flat side.  This was dug out of the road to the creek about nine years ago.  Had this planned way back then...

Front - gets more afternoon sun than we thought it would.

When we land scape...  this will earn it's keep!

Gets way too much sun in the summer to use in the afternoon but hopefully that will change when things chill off in the fall.  We'll see...

Still need to finish the underneath...

  Grilling deck was broken in... yum!

Finished...

I still have a few things to finish up but the builder is done.   Was going to let De go furniture shopping by herself but decided to take the day off and go with her...  We went to FunitureLand South, found out we like totally different style couches.  So, lots of "Yes, Dear".  I really don't care that much and after a while, they all felt the same (ditto with beds).

 Nice to see the trailer gone!

 Plan was for very few steps...  This is the front, facing North.

 Plan to have a parking spot near here.

 View, this is the back of the house - yes, it's the first thing you see driving in.

 Grilling deck...

Another shot of the back and side porch.

Panoramic view of the side porch...  part one.

Part two...

Front porch view, panoramic.

Inside.

The wood stove, insurance inspector just left after checking it out.

Kitchen (still have to secure the new larger cabinet).

The "to do" is long and growing fast... 

Third week's the charm...

YEA!  We have our CO  (certificate of occupancy) from the county.  Builder says he is all done (and wants his money...)  I'm thinking of sending it to him slowly, say, $100 / day until he's paid off. 

Joking aside, he was a really good builder.  I've learned one thing, NEVER say that you are not in a rush to a builder.  The good ones are normally slower because they are busy.  You telling them that you are not in a rush...  really slows down the house building.

Would I change anything?  Nope, I liked the fact that I was able to see the "in-between times" of the different stages of building.  I would have liked to see more speed the closer it was to being finished - but that's that.

Last time up, the rock wall behind the wood stove was done.  They patched a ton more drywall (the wall looked fine to me except 1 or 2 spots), but over all, not much was done...

Crazy busy at work, trying to finish planting my research plots so I'm working all this weekend, so he will just have to wait for us to come up next next week...