Construction -- Interior Casework

It was the fall of 2023 when this post was posted -- a little over 9 years since we broke ground.  That it has taken this long to be within a few months of finishing shouldn't be a surprise considering our unwavering insistence on time as the variable and quality the constant, that we would spend whatever time necessary to do things as well as we were capable.  And, of course, much of what has gone into the project is entirely without precedent and therefore much more inefficient and time consuming than standardized construction.  Then add DIYing.  I lacked experience in the "real" construction world and, when assisted, it was mostly by other DIYers.  

The interior casework has followed the same pattern but even more so.  Doing it with raw sawmill lumber has been extraordinarily time-consuming, not even counting the time it took to sticker and dry the green lumber.  The advantage of using sawmill material, though, is that it lowers costs sufficiently that a committed worker with the proper shop equipment can produce high grade casework at reasonable cost. 

(Reminder: click on any picture for an enlarged view.)

Acclimating the Sawmill Lumber

Sawmill oak for interior trim

Using the saw table as a "paint station" when the
dedicated area for staining and painting was not enough.

The rough red oak for the interior trim was purchased from a local sawmill.  Since its lengths, widths and thicknesses had to vary to meet our needs, its sawing was done while I watched/helped.  It was "stickered", meaning carefully stacked in level layers separated by thin strips of wood (the stickers) and covered with corrugated metal roofing.  Thus it was protected from direct rain, snow and sunlight but was open on all sides to circulating air so that the sap in the wood gradually dried over time without warping.  The recommended drying time is at least a year but longer is better with the knowledge, however, that stacking too long risks "sticker burn" which occurs when the stickers cause discoloration in the milled lumber.  Fortunately, we saw sticker burn on only a few pieces despite our extended timetable,   And our extra effort in stacking and stickering paid off when even the longer pieces were straight and easy to mill.  When crookedness did occur, the boards were usually okay flatwise but somewhat bent, mostly around knots close to the edges of the boards.

Milled lumber in vertical basement

When it was finally time to begin work on the interior trim, the sawmill lumber was de-stacked and stored for awhile in the vertical basement of the house so as to acclimate to the interior temperature and humidity levels.  Thus, its moisture content was matched to that of the house so that the fit of the installed woodwork would stay tighter over time.

Milling and Sizing

In the garage workshop, a piece of sawmill lumber went through at least four processes to become a useable board.  A jointer was used to plane one side perfectly flat -- no concavities, no convexities, no twisting.  With one side flat,

The window sill is extra wide to hold potted plants.  Notice
in the background the raised metal vegetable gardens
and the fenced solar collector for the AGS system.

the thickness planner shaved the other (rough) side flat, smooth and to the desired thickness of the finished board, say 3/4" for most applications.  Next the jointer was used to true up and smooth one of the rough edges of the board.   And finally, the table saw with a long and stable rip fence was used to cut the board to the desired width, running it through the saw with the true edge against the fence.  The sharp blades in the jointer and thickness planer and a fine-tooth blade in the saw minimized the amount of sanding needed to produce a smooth surface ready for staining and "varnishing".

I milled most of the raw sawmill pieces before starting the trim work so as to know what was available to work with.  Then I segregated the pieces; first the widest for baseboards then the narrower pieces for door and window trim -- head casings, side casings, sills, aprons, plinths, jam extenders, etc. --  in order to be sure there was an adequate supply in each category to finish the job.  To my pleasant surprise, the sawmill operator and I had communicated pretty accurately on the width and thickness of lumber needed -- with one hitch -- I forgot to include jam extenders in the order but was able to use oak veneer plywood for them that blended in well enough.

Fitting, Staining, Poly-coating and Installation

We used pre-hung unpainted solid core oak veneer doors rather than making doors from scratch.  After hanging, the doors were moved one-by-one to the shop for staining and clear finishing.  And the casework was dry fitted then stained and poly-coated before installing.  Only the door frames had to be stained and poly-ed in place.

The doors and windows had been set into the 15" thick exterior walls such that there was a 5" space between the window frame and the back surface of the side and head casings that had to be filled with "vertical jam extenders" on the sides and "head jam extenders" on the tops.  Since I was short sawmill lumber for them, I used oak veneer plywood for an acceptable result.  The windows are set back from the plane of the exterior wall at least 8".  Not having them flush on the outside ruled out windows with nailing flanges, making it necessary to eliminate air leakage by traditional means.  Minimally expanding foam filled the gap between the windows and the rough openings supplemented by generous caulking when the exterior casework was installed then more caulking as the jam extenders and sills went in.

Unique Staircase

When I approached the sawmill operator about "showy" wood species for an open riser staircase, he recommended an option new to me -- hackberry.  We stickered and dried it in the roughed-in walk-in closet lined by plastic sheeting.  Aided by a dehumidifier, it was dry by the time we needed it.

The rough hackberry was drab and uninteresting but, once milled, "showy" did not do it justice.  Pieces wide enough for 12" steps were not available but, just as well, my jointer was only 8" wide.  So the steps had to be assembled from narrower hackberry boards with a filler of black walnut interposed.  The stringers were conventional 2-bye lumber veneered with hackberry.  Clear poly-coating made the unique character of the hackberry pop and the dark walnut added a nice touch.  The store-bought balusters and handrails, stained to match the other woodwork in the house, provide a pleasing contrast to the light colored stair treads and stringers.

Door and Window Trim

In order to mimic the country style of a bygone era, the head casings and the splinth blocks (below the side casings next to the floor) are wider and thicker than the 3/4 inch thick door side casings and the baseboards.  The thickness of the head and side casings of the windows are dissimilar in the same way.  And the baseboards are 6" tall, definitely a throw-back. 

Filling the nail holes in the woodwork was no small task.  It was done with stainable wood filler and a long learning curve to be able to know how soon to remove the excess stain in order to reach an optimal result. The hole filling and wood filler staining nevertheless caused enough blemishing of the poly-ed surfaces that a final (third) coat of poly was required throughout.                                                                                             

Early Spring, 2024

The interior casework is finally finished leaving only three major projects before the house is complete.  The build-ins for the second floor office still have to be done, the porch needs screening and the temporary solar chimney needs to be replaced with a proper chimney with the conduits running to it buried rather than exposed as they are now, mainly for esthetic reasons but also to make mowing easier.

The office project will be the most time-consuming in that the cabinetry will be custom-built from the sawmill walnut that I stickered many years ago then stored under cover until there was a good use for it.  A walnut dining room table is also planned.

A Note of Appreciation

Despite being 90, I continue to work on the house at least six hours daily and often seven days a week but getting up from the floor is harder now.  I completed the more accessible door and window trim but was only too happy to delegate the baseboards to son-in-law, David, a retired machinist who made hundreds of ups and downs from his knees to the saws in the workshop in order to stick to the machinist-like tolerances that made him happy.  He also took on the fastidious job of installing the balusters for the stairs and the second floor catwalk -- about 140 total -- which also required dozens, if not hundreds, of trips to the workshop in order to meet his workmanship standards.  If I had attempted the baseboards or the balusters, there's no doubt the quality would have suffered.

Odds "N Ends - Estimated vs. Actual Costs - A Preliminary Analysis

It is safe to say at this stage that the cost overrun for our project will be formidable, even as much as twice my original estimate but still less than half the cost of contractor-built comparables.  (Reminder: click on any picture to enlarge it for better viewing.)

                                                 UNDER-ESTIMATING COST

A page from the original estimate

For a DIYer to think s/he could come even close to estimating the cost of such an atypical custom-built home is the definition of naivety if not insanity.  When the project is done, I will, as best I can, spend the time to research invoices, credit card statements, cash payments, etc. and compare the findings with my original estimate in order to quantify my naivety.  
In the meantime, it's interesting to look at our project in view of online cost estimates for home construction in the Midwest.  What follows is a theoretical analysis (read: wild guess) based upon industry averages for traditional stick-built homes having some degree of customization.  

While we avoid the cost of conventional HVAC, we add costs for French drains, the various components of the AGS system*, greater volume of concrete, insanely higher R-values for the building envelope, a free-standing energy recovery ventilating system, top-of-the-line windows and doors, ventilated (double-layered) roof and compulsive air sealing for the building envelope to name some of the unique attributes of the home.  Except for the AGS system, all of the features enumerated would improve the energy performance (and raise the cost) of a conventionally built house as well.  So it seems fair to say that not having to buy and support a HVAC system (initial cost, long-term maintenance and energy consumption) more than pays for the AGS system, leaving the cost of the rest of the building fair game for comparing with conventional construction but, at the same time, realizing that "conventional construction" is merely a poor stand-in for the lack of comparables for our advanced and enhanced project.

(Spoiler alert.  If your interest level is waning already, you might want to forego the details in the next three paragraphs by skipping to the last, summarizing, paragraph in this section.)

A quick online search suggests that the per-foot cost in the Midwest for conventional construction ran $121 in 2017, a year that fell about midway through our construction period.  A figure of $121 / sq ft would bring our not quite 3,000 sq ft build in at $363K, half of which, according to the online source, would be the cost of labor with another 10% going towards contractor profit, leaving 40% for materials.  For our project, not all labor was DIY or volunteered.  Some of it was done by professionals, including a journeyman carpenter and a plumber friend.  However, all non-volunteers, whether professional or amateur, received at least $15/hr and, more often, $20, which is what I consider to be a fair range for minimum wage.  And, since we paid separately for the materials involved with all phases of construction, including the dirt and concrete work that preceded the actual build, the excavation and concrete contractors' fees were for labor only, mirroring the wages of the others that helped with later construction.  I would guess then that the ratio of hired and contracted labor as opposed to my (sweat) labor and that of volunteers would be about 

1.5 : 8.5 or 15% for paid labor and 85% for volunteer and my labor.  How that plays out in terms of dollars is the rest of the story.

First, the generic labor cost has to be reconciled to fit our situation in order to be able to consider the other costs of construction -- materials and contractor profit.  If 50% is the generic cost for labor, the labor costs for a $363K house would be $182K.  In terms of dollars, the 85%:15% ratio for labor amounts to $155K for sweat/volunteer labor and $27K for hired labor.  Subtracting $27K from the $363K leaves $336K for everything else -- contractor profit, sweat/volunteer labor and materials.  Since there is no contractor profit to be paid, all of the $336K can be allocated to materials and to the value of sweat/volunteer labor.  Since the time has not come for a tally of the cost of materials, let's assume that their cost is what is left after valuing the sweat/volunteer labor.

So where are we now?  The generic cost of labor is 50% of the cost of construction or $182K from which we have subtracted $27K for contracted labor leaving $155K for sweat/volunteer labor.  Not having to pay the 10% contractor's profit saves another $36K which, when added to $155 savings on labor means that $191K represents that part of the cost of construction for which no cash is needed.  Or, to say it another way, $191K subtracted from the total cost of $336K leaves $145K for materials and miscellaneous costs requiring cash.

So, remembering that the generic square-foot cost of construction in the Midwest is $121, how do our figures compare?   When $145K is divided by 3,000 sq ft, our per-foot cost is $48 or about 60% less than the generic cost.  My original estimate was $34 sq ft for a smaller house (2,100 instead of near-3,000 sq ft), so, on a square-foot basis, I underestimated the cost by at least $30%.  What that translates into in terms of real world expenditures will have to wait until I do the post-build analysis but I suspect that it will prove to be somewhat on the low side.  Even so, it's nice to think that my major bucket list item -- to DIY a house -- has not only kept me enthused and in better health during my golden years but will have provided a nice return-on-investment for our heirs.

UNDER-ESTIMATING TIME

                                                    

My ability to estimate cost proved to be better than estimating the time it would take to build the house and to reconfigure the surrounding grounds, largely because I grossly over-estimated how fast I could get things done working mostly alone.  Having even one other pair of helping hands throughout construction would have sped things up, not just twice as fast but three or four times faster than working alone.

Does DIYing pay dividends?  Maybe, Maybe Not.

I really did think early on that it would take only a couple of years, maybe three, to build the house.  If it could have been done that quickly, the sweat equity figure that I used above would mean that my wages would have been $57K to $85K per year.  All well and good except that construction by the time it is completed will have taken at least eight years.  Divide the $170K sweat equity by eight and $21K per year might be okay for us retirees but nothing to write home about otherwise.  So I guess the lesson here, based upon these wild-guess figures is that a person should think twice about quitting his/her day job to build a house this unique, complicated and time-consuming.  Either s/he should keep the job and hire a contractor or stick to a more conventional design such as using structural insulated panels (SIPs) that could in fact be DIYed in 2 - 3 years.  The problem with having our house professionally built is that it would be hard to find a contractor who would be willing to undertake the risk involved with a ground-breaking, non-standard project unless the owner was willing to contract on a time-and-materials basis which would probably open a bag of worms for the owner.

Dirt Work

Having never sat in a track loader, I was ill-equipped to appreciate the amount of time it would take to move dirt around for our passive solar design.  Digging into the hillside to site the house was time-consuming because of the volume of dirt that had to be moved with a 6' wide bucket and the fact that each bucketful had to be carted to the storage area behind the excavation at least 100 yards away rather than swung to the side as is typically done for basement excavations.  Lots of dirt had to be rearranged in connection with earth sheltering and for the insulation-watershed umbrella of the AGS system.  Contouring the surrounding grounds to funnel run-off to numerous rain gardens also was time-consuming. 

Salvaging lumber from one of several tear-downs

According to the hour-meter on the track loader, I spent 415 hours operating it or about 52 eight-hour days.  Within the context of my original estimate of two years and using 2,000 hours per year as working time, 415 hours would have consumed +/-10% of the total construction time.  As it turns out, 3% over six years is still not inconsequential.

Pre-Assembled Wall Trusses 
I began tearing down old houses and

Jig with truss in process.

out-buildigs  and de-nailing the salvaged lumber a couple of years in advance of starting construction.  Later, when the weather interfered with the dirt work, I worked under shelter using some of the lumber to pre-assemble 30+ wall trusses for the 15" thick exterior walls.  These pre-construction tasks took hundreds of hours, mostly for processing the salvaged lumber once it was on our property.

 Altogether there were seven French drains as long as those
on the left; all were covered with filter cloth as is being done 
to the one in the middle; notice off to the left the edge the 
huge dirt storage area behind the building site.  (Click on 
 the picture for an enlarged view.)

French Drains

Knowing that the thermal mass under the house would have to remain dry for proper performance of the AGS system we enlisted the help of a soil engineer.  On his recommendation, a contractor drilled and sank four peizometers quite a few feet below the anticipated location of the AGS conduits.  Two years later during an especially wet spring and early summer, ground water rose sufficiently high in the peizometers to threaten the future AGS conduits.  The seven French drains that

Friend, Pat, laying a conduit that starts at the white
PVC pipe angling up from the trench behind the footprint
of the building and ending at the location of the future
 front foundation of the house and later to be connected
to the yet-to-be-built solar collector. 

were necessary to mitigate the problem were installed before final excavation for the house.  They took only one day with a large crew of family and friends assisting the excavation contractor but assembly of the drains from plastic culverts ahead of time took me considerable time.

AGS Conduits

Collector shell ready for backfilling the gap between it
and where the front foundation for the house would be
 situated.  By the time the picture was taken, solid PVC
pipes had been laid and buried, joining the black  AGS
 conduits with the solar collector.  Notice the terminal
ends of the conduits in the distance.

Trenching and burying the nine AGS conduits also was easily done in a single day by the contractor with several of us helping.  The time consuming part was connecting them to the solar collector on the south and managing, late in construction, the terminal ends on the north which stuck out of the ground several feet initially.  

Solar Collector Shell   

Construction of the solar collector shell out of dry-stacked concrete blocks that were fiber-bonded-cement-parged and connecting it to the AGS conduits took several weeks mainly because of heavy spring and early summer rains, and was way more physically taxing in the summer heat than I anticipated.  Once it was completed, the conduits run to it and the open pit between it and the footprint of the house backfilled, construction on the house could finally begin.

UNANTICIPATED COST OVERRUNS

The amount spent on contracted dirt and concrete work prior to the carpenter phase of construction was indeed a major surprise.  The cost of concrete itself was somewhat anticipated but the amount paid to contractors for the final excavation and pouring was beyond pale or so it seemed to me at the time being unaware of the size of their capital investment in equipment and the seasonal nature of their work in our climate.

Once that expensive phase was behind us and we started the carpenter phase, most of the overrun was for unanticipated labor and for inflation.  Otherwise, we were doing familiar things that hued reasonably close to the original budget.  Labor costs started rising when I found that I needed a second pair of experienced hands for such things as setting trusses, sheathing walls and roofs and installing metal roofing, siding and soffits as well as for some of the drywalling and blowing insulation.  The 8 years after groundbreaking in late summer 2016 was a long enough span to see inflation of the cost of materials.  For example,  the price of 1/2" drywall rose by 33% between the time I did the estimate in 2014 and actually purchased it in 2019.  The rice hulls for insulation went from $1,400 per truckload to $5,000 due partially to inflation but also other factors (as explained in one of the posts on insulating). 

And there was an exuberance factor.  I found it too easy to have the mindset that, "Oh well, we are already overbudget, so why not spend a little more for upgrades on X,Y,Z.".  This tendency manifested primarily while wrapping up the interior for such things as flooring, bathroom fixtures, kitchen and laundry appliances and lighting.

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*For those who have not followed the blog enough to know about the Annualized GeoSolar system that will provide year-round comfort in the absence of conventional HVAC, click on the title under "Featured Post" near the top of the left column.