House update #2 (find the first one here!) as promised! Since we last posted SO much has gotten accomplished. It felt like we were underground for an eternity – with the footings, foundation, underground plumbing, getting the septic and propane in order. And then once we had that done it felt like things have really sped up. It’s so fun to see progress everyday and to see our sketches, our dreams, our heart on the line, take shape. 
Russ (gratefully) hired a team of 4 or so guys to work on the framing with him and that makes all the difference. As much as I love the three teenagers he employed this Summer. The basement is all framed, but I took video footage and it’s terrible so I’ll catch you up on that later! 
Okay, let’s do this!
GARAGE > MAIN LIVING SPACE
So this is the living room which leads to the cantilevered spot (left) for the dining area, kitchen, mudroom + bathroom as well. The loft extends just over the kitchen island making the kitchen have 10 foot ceilings, but the living room ceilings are 22. Please send all tips and prayers for the acoustics situation.
Back behind the kitchen goes off to the garage and you can see a little better view of the loft situation on the right. They have the ricketiest ladder up there right now and I didn’t dare. Maybe next time we’ll get a good look!
And this shows the dining nook (and also Russ’ handmade cement window wells which I am obsessed with. And then the stair well to the loft and basement.
This is hard to illustrate but I’ll try: left is the mudroom bathroom, which has a door leading to the yard. Hopefully to make it easier for outdoor entertaining. We’ll have an outdoor shower right off this entrance, too! Then right is an entrance to the house from the garage as well as a small room that is disconnected to the house.
The right image above is the view from the garage inside. The right door goes to the mudroom and the disconnected left door will be to a boot/dog wash. And maybe goats. Do goats get baths? #rookie. It won’t be anything too crazy, just a showering system with the faucet waist-height to rinse boots and dogs, and maybe goats upon confirmation. I.E.:
ENTRY Â > HALL > OFFICE > MASTER
In order of openings, left to right: front door opening, window in the office, transom in the master, transom in the master bath. AND! The start of a roof! Woot woot.
This was taken from the backyard…that long middle opening is the door to the yard, the slightly higher set of windows to the right are behind the stair case, the top level windows are the loft and the left side windows are the hall to the master.
Hall way + Office
One of the many reasons I loved our architect Spencer was his dedication to views. He spent a lot of time up at the lot figuring out how to position the house, where to put the windows and how many should go where. He shares my love of odd numbers of things so they’re ALL in sets of 3, bless him. In turn we have a whole heap, but man these views take my breath away.
VIEWS
Living Room view:
Master View:
The view above our tub:
Even the closet has a nice one. Spencer for president.
And a few new FAQ’s:
Do we have neighbors? We do! We are in a traditional cul-de-sac and our nearest neighbors are about 400 and then 700 feet from the house. Our house backs up onto federal preserve which helps us keep that spacious feel.
How did you decide on Wallsburg over somewhere else? Wallsburg wasn’t the first (or second or third) place we looked but our friends from Heber told us to check it out. We both fell in love and from that point refused to look elsewhere. This was already touched on in our first post but I’ll go into a bit more detail! —Within Wallsburg we looked at 4 different lots until this one! They were all varying sizes, the first was 18 acres which we planned to split with my sister, but the owners had a really unrealistic list of things we had to comply with, like they told us which trees we could and couldn’t cut down, etc. The second was 8, but we found out unsuitable to build. The third was a GORGEOUS 5 acre lot (owned by Bronco Mendenhall for you locals) and the day we sold our house we found out someone had paid cash for it. I was heartbroken but it was all for the best. For the record and in hindsight we DO NOT need 5, 8 or 18 acres. #rookie. For what we want to do with our land 1.3 is PAH-LEN-TY. And I hope this isn’t in poor taste, but the lot was $160k. Which for where we live now is the biggest deal of all time. Trade-offs, right? Move to the country, get land for cheap.
How did you find your lot? The more we learn about Wallsburg the more we realize what a unicorn lot this is. The whole town is under covenants that you can’t build unless you have 5 or more acres. But then there are a few random spots within it that have exceptions. We happened to find one, which happened to already have a well on it (saved us $40k) and since we bought it we haven’t seen another one like it since. I am Wallsburg’s biggest advocate though so if you want to be my in-townie neighbor I will keep my eyes open!
And the most frequent of all FAQs: When will it be done? Russ still claims Christmas. I still claim we’ll finish the school year and then head up. Who wants to move in Winter anyhow? Our townhouse contract is up in January but they will go month to month after that which is nice!
Is he REALLY building it himself? Yes, he really is. Everyday 9-7 typically. If you are reading this here blog you are the reason we can keep our heads above water, so when I say thank you for being here, I am dead serious. We know how incredibly blessed we are and I am trying to not feel guilty about that. I haven’t forgotten how much it stings to watch other people progress and fulfill their dreams while I had to keep waiting. Keep hustling. Keep trying. Who knew you could hear the word NO said in so many different contexts? We were in “No, not yet”-ville for a long, long time. I guess it just further bolstered my gratitude for this whole process. We are having the best time and I can’t imagine it ever getting old!
If I missed any questions or if there’s something you want to see covered in the next update, let me know!
xoxo, seriously.
The Frame family.
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