CHAINSAW PALACE

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Each door, exclusive of threaded rods, cost less than $1 to make. We also made Z-style door construction similar to the old barn-door fashion. And we made spline- and-groove doors held together by the Z-style structure. The final doors were made along the hollow-core fashion, with a framework of 1 x 4 timbers and three-quarter-inch boards installed on each side of the framing and held in place by nuts and bolts.

The Deck

We weren't stubborn to an unreasonable degree. When we found a superior bargain on tongue-and-groove knotty pine, we bought a truckload and used it for wall coverings and ceilings in several rooms. But when we priced a stairway that sold for $10,000, we quickly returned home and built our own stairway, balusters, and rails for a total of less than $30.

We did rough and finish wiring, plumbing, and carpentry all over the house, learning as we went. Some of the work was very long and tiresome, while other duties were delightful. Perhaps the most fun we had in the entire experience was building our deck.

To gain the proper determination, we always got cost estimates for the jobs if contracted out. We learned that our deck would cost us between $4,500 and $7,000, the high and low estimates for the entire job.

So we mixed mortar and built piers, then filled them with concrete. We framed the deck and bolted the framing to the house by drilling holes through the cement block wall and using huge bolts and nuts. We installed joists 16 inches on-center and added the ledger plate for extra support. When we installed the flooring, we staggered ends of decking boards and nailed happily for a day and a half.

We bolted posts to the headers of the deck and cut and fit railing before we installed bottom rails and balusters. We built the bottom rail and balusters upside down, and when we put the assembly in place, all we had to do was use a level to align the balusters and then nail through the top rail and into the ends of the balusters. During the job there was not even the slightest hitch, and we literally saved ourselves thousands of dollars in the process.

A Lasting Victory

When the house, including kitchen cabinets and all the flooring and wall covering and ceilings, had been completed, we sat down and did our arithmetic. We had determined to build the entire house for $15,000, but we wound up spending $20,000. But this figure included the cost of chain saws, fuel for saws and for driving to the store, electric drills, all the tools we used on the job, kitchen range, and much of our furniture. We counted each purchase, even if it was only a washer.

So we saved $450,000, roughly, by not financing the house and by building it ourselves. To date we have not had a single complaint about our most challenging endeavor, and even after having lived in the house for months I still cannot return home after a brief trip, even to the store, without experiencing a sudden and tremendous thrill of excitement at seeing the house again and recalling what a retired English teacher, a church musician, and a teen-ager could accomplish.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print