Back at it - plumbing part 1 and beyond
A typical site throughout the build process - trucks and outside muck.
Hey y’all - been a while, eh? Writing this intro as it’s the holiday break at the end of 2024 - this post may not go out until early 2025 - and the last time this blog was updated was March 7th, 2024. Who could have thought that moving into a mostly-finished house in the middle of March, immediately shooting a cookbook for a few weeks, and then diving into our usual busy Summer season, along with picking away at the small details of said mentioned mostly-finished house (trim, caulking, paint, storage solutions, exterior stuff, building a wood shed, etc) would take priority over updating these words about, again, said mostly-finished house? We live and we learn, and as I get older I feel like I’m learning more than I ever have.
If you follow along on my social channels, you’re probably well aware that we’ve been living, enjoying, partying, celebrating and gathering in this house for the better part of the year. But aside from some random kitchen shots and lots of photos of Signal, you probably haven’t seen much. And I definitely haven’t talked about much. So 2025 we’re starting off on the right foot and getting things updated and giving y’all the info I’ve been giving up in person for months now. So - where we left off.
Windows and doors had just gone in - major milestone as now we were basically weather tight. Siding and roofing isn’t done but exterior foam board and a waterproof membrane was on the roof earlier on so things are (mostly) sealed up. This is important at this stage - as you’re starting to look at your plumbing routing, electrical wiring and insulation, it’s preferable if that stuff doesn’t get wet or exposed to the elements too much. Understandable. But being able to stand in the shell of the house without feeling the wind hitting you is pretty nice.
That leads us to a couple of the next points - electrical and plumbing. We’ll start with plumbing first and to set expectations early - there’s not a ton I’ll chat about on this one as mentioned before - with a slab, a good chunk of your routing is done before the walls even go up so your choices are limited at this point. Good and bad. Good if you were organized and aware beforehand. Bad if you didn’t think ahead and now have to make sacrifices on your routing. Luckily, with some advice from said plumber and other tradey pals, we could plan ahead thoroughly.
From a previous post but worthy of a second shot - the view from our ensuite (the lines right in front of the frame are for the tub) showing all the plumbing work that happened before the concrete slab was poured and finished. At this point it was worth triple checking everything before it was all locked in cement.
looking into the main room from our ensuite - here you can see rough-in lines for shower taps, shower drain, main kitchen drain (left hand side) as well as water lines coming in for where our sink will be. Also Jenessa supervising.
Our design keeps things simple all around - with a two bedroom, two bathroom with a utility room setup, that leaves us with one kitchen sink, two toilets, two showers, 1 bathtub, two bathroom sinks, and our lines for our washer/dryer in the utility room. The routing for the well/main septic line have been done since the slab was poured.
Similar view to the image above but slightly to the right and a bit more finished - can see our toilet drain and water line, septic vent stack and lines for our bathroom sink. We ended up going with a wall-mount faucet for our bathroom - last minute but (and this will be more in depth later) we were working with a vintage dresser turned into our vanity and it ended up being way easier to mount them in the wall (combined with our countertop and sink choices) than it would have been to mount them on the countertop itself. Super happy with that choice.
Wall mounted faucet.
A separate look at our shower wall and plumbing rough-ins - toilet behind it and vent stack (that will be hidden in the walls once drywall is happening.
One of the more fun processes behind it - unpacking all the new stuff
Once those lines were roughed in, the fun part of testing out fitment of our faucets and such. We did the same exposed shower units in both bathrooms - they looked too good not to use them in both.
They’ll fit! Sick!
One thing that’s important to note too is that trades can’t read your mind and if you’re not using a full-out contractor for the job, you’re gonna need to lay things out exactly how you want them sometimes (all the time). Can be time consuming but time is an easy one - if you make a decision now that you want to change later, it’s time and money and frustration. This rough-in worked so we’re off to the next decision.
A look at what’s next.
That’s all for this one folks - we have the next few chalked up already so don’t expect the same 8 month delay this time (sorry again!). Next time we’ll dive into electrical rough-ins and a few other random bits while we’re at it. Again, thank you so much for following along, asking questions, and being patient. Much love!
Al
