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

INTERIOR FRAMING & WINDOWS/DOORS

Hey y’all - how we makin’ out? Gotta step in and say before anything - sometimes life gets busy and all your plans for things can sometimes get pushed or delayed - whether that’s some as extravagant as a house build or as miniscule as an instagram post. In this case the house is mostly on track but mostly because we’ve been spending every available hour there that we can (and collecting content and writing words along the way). Which means we’ve had some time in between but lots of updates to come over the next couple weeks. The big thing at this point is cleaning and prep so that different trades can come in and do their thing without having a mess to work around.

Anyways - thanks for sticking around. Next up on our list we’re talking interior framing and windows/doors. Arguably some of the more important and future-proofing decisions you’ll make on a build like this.

I guess now would be a good time to rehash some of our previous chats - from the designs you could see that this build is a two bedroom, two bathroom house. Unless you’re raising an army of kids, that should be more than enough space for most people.

We decided on 2x6 construction throughout the entire house to keep things solid and also because we went with pocket doors. Great space saver for houses of this size and also because they look awesome.

Once the interior framing was done, it definitely started to feel more like a house. But when the windows and doors got installed - that’s when it really felt like a house.

The one thing I can absolutely recommend about windows and doors in this day and age is to order them as soon as you can, as early as you can. Especially if you’re looking for anything custom. We specifically chose the sizing and shapes that we did because they were pretty close to standard sizings - that saved some ordering time. To give some perspective, we ordered our windows in mid-July and they finally arrived mid-November. This also depends on the supplier and the material you choose (vinyl vs aluminum) and color. White windows are cheaper and quicker, black are more expensive and take longer. Of course.

We decided on black exterior and white interior. Until we really settle into the place, we’re going to be keeeping most of the walls white inside so that made sense. Pops of color from our furniture and appliances and fixtures will help.

The windows went in on a cold late-Fall day with a fresh layer of snow - then the snow went away and it was +10 degrees mostly til Christmas.

Here’s a bit of a rundown on sizing. Because our walls are 10’ high, we wanted to go with windows and doors that keep that same idea - make the place feel bigger than it is. Our sliding patio doors are all 8’x8’, our entry doors are 36” x 8’, the tall slim windows in each bedroom are 12”x8’-ish, our kitchen window is Xxxxx and the big windows in our main bathroom are 8’x6’ each. We also have a small window in our second bathroom that actually opens up - every other window is fixed. That saved some money and we also thought we didn’t need them all to be able to open because each room has at least one 8’x8’’ window that opens already.

Building on PEI during the Fall/Winter - muck.

A lot of people have assumed but yes, a photographer designed those. I wanted all the light in there and this definitely did it.

The patio doors and entry doors are super heavy and feel very solid. We went with Kohltech windows and doors - if anyone wants to see our order sheet, more than happy to share.

Jenessa for scale.

Another thing to mention that went up before the windows/doors did was our exterior foam board. We went with this at the time because (at the time) we thought we were going with regular batt insulation and wanted to add another layer of insulation between the steel siding. We then decided to go with spray foam insulation so we’ve definitely over-insulated but that’s better than the alternative.

Once the windows were installed, the house was more or less weather tight. Once that happened, everything else inside could happen.

On to the next!

• Al