Building a House on Whidbey Island

This chronicles our experience in building our new home on Whidbey Island. The house was completed and we moved in on July 28, 2003. If you want to see for yourself, follow these directions to our new house..

Final House Tour

When last we looked at the end of May, the interior was painted, the oak floors were installed (but not finished), and the installation of the cabinets was just beginning. I was predicting that the house would be virtually finished by the 4th of July. Well a lot did get done in June, but the house was not virtually finished if I interpret that to mean it was ready to move in. The work continued in July as we got a little concerned since we needed to be out of our rental house by August 1st. Our building permit also expired on that day (apparently it's only good for a year). We kept the faith and scheduled a mover for Monday, July 28th. The climax came the week before. Although a lot of their work had been done in previous weeks, everyone was there the week of July 21 to finish up. That included the plumbers, the electrician, the heating people, the tiling guy, the dry wall guy (to patch nicks that had occurred during the rest of the work), and the painters to touch up those nicks.

Our daughter Sonia arrived back from her trip on Monday (July 21) to help us move. Starting Tuesday, we moved everything except the large items like the washer, dryer, and beds. By the weekend, we had all the boxes moved and anything we could carry including the computer and hi fi equipment. On Wednesday (July 23), Ralph, our contractor, called for the final inspection. However, before that could happen, the clearing and grading inspection had to occur. That happened Thursday at 8 am. It went ok except that the inspector wanted a dry well (a big hole filled with rocks to help water reenter the ground) for the area where water from our downspouts came out. Ralph arranged for that to be done that day and got the inspector back to approve it that afternoon. That cleared the way for the final inspection which happened on Friday. It went relatively well. The inspector only cited five violations:

• the material used for the deck steps needed to be thicker (even though the same material was used for interior steps in the garage which apparently was ok)
• a vent was needed in the garage for the water heater since it took in air from the garage and (I guess) there might not be enough if we didn't have that vent. Mind you, the vent is not connected to the water heater. It is basically a hole in the garage wall.
• the pipes from the hot water heater needed to be insulated (that actually made sense to me)
• the bedroom deck needed to be braced (that I actually appreciated, since the deck is about fifteen feet in the air supported on the side away from the house by only two long 6x6 posts)
• the house number had to be on the house - I had been warned that we needed a house number for the final inspection and had placed one on a post by our driveway for people to see as they arrived. This wasn't good enough. There had to be one on the house itself even though our house is the only one on Apple Tree Lane.

Ralph arranged for the first four to be corrected that day (Friday) and I added the second house number that evening. The inspector returned Monday morning (our moving day) and approved the five corrections. During all of this time, Sooja and I were busy staining and finishing doors, installing shelves and poles in the closets and pantry, doing the low-voltage finishing work (cable and telephone plates in all the rooms), and miscellaneous. As a result, I didn't capture this frenzy of activity on film (er, make that a compact flash card). You didn't miss much. Installing a faucet or electrical outlet is not nearly as interesting as framing or roofing. But to close out this adventure, I thought I'd give you a final tour of the house that was the result of all this activity. We're all moved in, but we're not settled in, i.e. there are still lots of boxes around that need to be unpacked and, indeed, there is still a fairly long list of items that need to be finished, e.g. stain the rest of the interior doors, add railings for the front porch, etc. Nevertheless, the tour below concludes this odessey.

Scenic Avenue eventually turns from a blacktop road to a gravel road. Continuing on Scenic Avenue you soon get to Apple Tree Lane. Taking a left (the only thing you can do) you see the entire length of Apple Tree Lane (about a block). Our driveway is off to the left where you see a rock below a tree trunk.

As you approach that rock, our house comes into view. For those of you who have been following this story, it should look familiar. It's now all painted (including the trim which wasn't true last time), but the biggest difference is - you guessed it - there's grass.

Coming up the driveway you approach the garage and also the main deck on the right side. This is a confusion factor we're still working on since that is not the main entrance. The front door is around to the left of the garage as seen in the picture on the right.

Upon entering the front door you're in a tiled entry with steps off to the left leading to the basement.

To the right, you're in a "great room" which is the combination of the living room at the left and the dining room at the right. The windows in the LR are the large windows observed from the driveway.

Off to the right of the great room is the kitchen and dining nook (one area where we splurged).

The cabinets are light maple with a dark Cambria counter top. Three ovens (microwave, regular, and warming) are stracked in the corner. Also note the tile floor pattern.

The appliances including the cooktop and hood seen here are all Dacor except for the Amana refrigerator. Lots of lights to brighten things up.

On the other side of the peninsula counter is a dining nook with a sliding door out to the main deck. Also visible is the pier/gas fireplace exposed to both the nook and the living room.

The other splurge area is the master bath. The double vanity and linen closet on the left are made the same as the kitchen cabinets, but the top here is tiled. On the right and in the mirror you see glass blocks which forms one side of the shower.

The shower is walk in with no curtain. The controls are on the tiled wall, but the shower hose comes out of the ceiling to allow the water to spray toward the corner and minimize the amount that splashes out the entry.

Across from the shower is a "greek" soaking, jetted tub. The combination slider and glass block window provides privacy, light, and ventilation. There is also a water closet (that's a closet with a toliet), but that's not very interesting.

There is also the master bedroom, two other bedrooms, the main bath, a linen closet, and a laundry room on the main level, but there is nothing terribly unique or exciting about them so I decided to save you some download time and not display them. We'll finish up with two miscellaneous pictures.

This is a view of the big recreation room in the basement. It is a daylight/walkout basement. This area will eventually be carpeted and house a game and seating area. It extends around the corner where you see the lefthand window. It has its own bathroom and closet and we plan to add a little bar and use this as guest quarters.

This is the entry from the garage into the laundry room. There's also a double door to the right to accommodate yard tools such as a lawn mower without opening the two main car doors. In between the two doors are the plumbing utilities including, from left to right, the furnace, the water heater, and the water softener.

That brings us up to date which is in fact August 11, 2003.

We hope you've enjoying sharing our building experience. It's been fun, frustrating, hard work, scary, and, perhaps most of all, a learning experience. You're all welcome to come and verify the legitimacy of these photos and descriptions in person. Our first out of state visitors (John and Barb Harris and their two teenage daughters) arrived July 29th - the day after we moved in and two hours after our new living room set was delivered. Our first overnight guest (Tony Houle) arrived August 9th. I know that's over a week of elapsed time, but, after all of the frenzy, we did take a short vacation from July 31st to August 7 to drive our daughter and some of her belongings down to Oakland, CA and to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park on the way back).