D E S I G N /// ck

Well folks, we're in the final stretch here. The bank is pushing hard to have the project mostly finished by next weekend. So I'm trying my hardest. This feels like a huge complex version of the intense deadlines I had back in architecture school, where I had to just power through and work, work, work. It feels good to know that it will be over soon, the meantime is daunting. In school we worked ourselves to exhaustion knowing that we'd sleep when it was all over. Once, I slept 24 hours straight after finishing a project. That's basically the working philosophy here.

I ordered all the appliances yesterday. That made this all seem very real. I'm going to live in this house. This is where I'll keep my food. I've built so many houses for other people, this one started to seem like just another construction project. But this is my house.

The plumber finished up this morning, and the electrician is underway. But I've had a hard time keeping him on site. So it's going a little slower than I'd want. The drywall is finished upstairs, so we're in the process of priming and painting it. I have one more bedroom and two closets to trim out. But the biggest thing left on my plate by far is the stairs. This weekend will be dedicated to putting in all the treads and the handrails. Sound simple, but it's one of the easiest things for a trim carpenter to screw up. So wish me luck.

Well, after wowing everybody with internet nonsense that last few days, I'm sure it's time for an update:

Alice and I moved out of the apartment this weekend! This morning, the pod people will come and take all our stuff away until that glorious sun-filled day we can move into the house. Until then, we're staying at Alice's brother Wilson's apartment. We gotta get that house done! Last night as we were moving the last stuff out, Miles went AWOL. All the doors were open to the outside, so he could've been anywhere. After two hours of tromping through bushes and ivy, and me trying to keep Alice from completely flipping out, we gave up and went back up to the apartment. Alice was preparing to sleep in a sleeping bag with all the doors open in case he came back. I sat down, exhausted, and a little cat head came poking out of a closet. It was Miles. We had searched EVERYWHERE in that apartment, and there was no way he had been there. Either he had some super secret hiding place we didn't know about, or God miraculously teleported him back to us. Alice thinks it's the latter.

In this photo: Miles "Lil' Houdini" King

The Epic Hardwood Laying Campaign of '08 is at long last finished! Severely testing mine and Cullin's friendship, with the most hellacious splinters that bamboo could muster stabbing our hands, and sore lower backs tormenting us in our sleep, we prevailed to victory. After many late nights of blaring AC/DC and the constant fear of "fluffing" a nail and having to tear up planks, we have a killer-looking, eco-friendly hardwood floor.

That's right, I have nothing intelligent to put up here this week. I'm too tired.

This video makes me want to be a Pants Man! And apparently it's painful for Japanese children to poop.

This commercial has been around for a while, but I saw it afresh last night. The editing is awesome, writing a vivid story without a word in one minute. The slow dawning realization of the gloating team that they didn't really win, as the disappointment of the losing team turns to condescension... Look for the long shot of the kids with the trophy and in the blurry foreground the kid slowly raises his red Happy Meal in response. Brilliant. And when the kid drops the trophy right as the music pauses- the whole story has flipped around. Even though I don't go to McDonald's that often, I do appreciate that they've really gotten clever with their advertising.

I brought this Simpsons episode up last night when Cullin told me he was thinking about voting for a third party:



Best lines:

"...and always twirling, twirling towards freedom!"

"The politics of failure have failed. We need to make them work again!"

"It's a two party system! You have to vote for one of us."
"I believe I'll vote for a third party candidate."
"Go ahead! Throw your vote away!"

Well, things are moving fast. The downstairs electrical work is mostly done, the heating and air conditioning is hooked up, the water and sewer lines are hooked up. Mark, the plumber, is doing all the tile work for me and is about 40% done. The bathtub tile surround looks awesome! Now that I have AC working, I can start laying hardwood downstairs, which I'm picking up today.

Now it's down to:

-finish upstairs drywall
-finish upstairs trim
-paint upstairs
-get upstairs carpet installed
-trim out stairs and handrail
-lay hardwood downstairs
-put in plumbing fixtures (once the tile is done)
-install stove hood
-paint porch floor
-finish porch ceiling
-build back porch steps

Still a lot to do, but much better now that i can get off of drywall finishing. Oh yeah, that's the other thing- Rose, my banker involved with all this, found a good drywall sub to do the remaining work for me. Yes!

Mom, Ethan, and Mary Kay are coming down from West Virginia to help for the weekend. Alice's mom should be showing up sometime too. So hopefully we can get a ton of stuff knocked out.

I could use a cat like this. See? Funny stuff here on the blog. I'm not stressed out- no sirree, I'm just escaping my worries by looking at all the junk the interweb has to offer and bringing here for you.

For those of you who haven't been around me this year, you may not realize that this house has been a race against time due to the constraints of the loan we needed to make all this possible. We could get enough money to do it, but just. It meant that most of the work had to be done by yours truly, since there wasn't enough money left over to hire people to do it for me. This wasn't a big deal, because over the last ten years I've acquired a lot of knowledge about to construction. What was working against me was time. It takes a long time to build a house, much less by yourself and holding a regular job at the same time. So I've taxed everyone I know for as much work as they've been willing to give me. Jason, Cullin, and Ryan deserve mention for their many, many evenings working with me.

But now it's crunch time. The construction loan is maturing on November 6th. That means our mortgage has to be closed by then. We can't close until the house is finished, inspected, and appraised. It takes a few weeks to process a mortgage. The 6th is four weeks from now. You do the math.

Please pray that God gives me strength through this, and that the other people involved (drywall, electric, plumbing, heating & air, ect.) would be swift and timely. Pray that the mortgage company and bank would work with us to make this all come together. Pray for Alice as she deals with the realities of her new job basically without a husband. Pray for our marriage as we hardly ever see each other. Pray that this task would be completed well and that good will come from it.

Thank you...

...to become hyper-aware of everything going on for the election, Alice renews my subscription to this:


I love my wife!

Things are moving quickly this week at Casa King.

Here's a progress shot of the kitchen. The upper cabinets are in now and the countertop will be in on Monday:


We've been trimming away- here's the custom mantle I built:



There will be a tile surround in the middle.

I've been so busy at the house that I haven't had much time for blogging about it. I'll try to add more updates this weekend. Please pray for us- our lives are very hectic and stressful right now! We know that God wants this for us, and that He will work things out, but right now we can't see how. We've got to get our final inspection and then process our mortgage, and be out of our apartment by Nov. 1! Pray that things will fall into place and the timing will work out.