Are you in yet?

[MortarThePoint]

Is this the hardest question? I'm out for dinner with friends. I'm tempted to design a buildhub T-shirt that makes it clear that this is an unwelcome question.

[SteamyTea]

They are not your real friends then.

Real friends would be helping.

[G and J]

Forgive them, they know not what you are going through (albeit voluntarily).

Many years ago I ran (meaning jogged, slowly) a half marathon.  In the pub a few days after I was asked my time.  It was an hour forty. 
 

So one of them piped up ‘that’s not very quick’.  It pissed me off. Especially as the guy doesn’t run. Took me a few days to remember to be proud of my achievement.  
 

So smile, shake your head and pity the incapable.  Their inability to grasp the enormity of your achievement because they don’t have a clue is their problem.  

But I feel for you.  I know I’ll be emotionally exactly where you are now. 

 

[Russell griffiths]

I get asked this a lot, as mines been going on for 6 years. 
but just look at the people asking, got nothing do nothing achieved nothing. 

[ToughButterCup]

Your question is close to "When will you be finished ?" There's not a month goes by without us being asked. 

 

I don't think people want to know the answer, they just want to say something to show a bit of interest.

 

My reply..

"If you see me using a strimmer, I'll be finished"

[nod]

To be clear 

When you are planning a self build All your family and friends that think it’s a great idea Soon loose interest when you start 

 

[G and J]

My cunning plan is to regale the one who asks with a long winded litany of toil and woe and injustice and everything else I can think of.  Two helpings of that, leaving them wishing they’d never asked, and they’ll not ask again.  
 

See, being a boring old windbag has its upsides.

 

 

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

I get asked this a lot

 

Me too 😉

[Nick Laslett]

I think once you commit to a certain approach, you are a prisoner to that decision. 
 

We decided to do the soffits and fascia boards ourselves, and used exterior MDF. It took us 6 months to cut, paint and install them all. Every board needed 7 coatings on both sides, so each board took a week for coatings. Only had enough room to paint 6 boards at a time. The house has 6 gable ends and 2 dormers. It sounds crazy in hindsight, but before starting it made perfect sense. 
 

Once we were on this journey, how could you turn back, or bring in a trade? People would ask how it was progressing and we would talk about the same piece of work for 6 months. 
 

We are now doing the internal boarding, it took 6 months to board downstairs, and we are 1 month away from finishing boarding upstairs, which has also taken about 6 months. Again every conversation for the last year has been about the same basic task. People think you are mad. We probably are, but once you start, very hard to walk away and hand over to a trade. 
 

The crazy thing about committing to a lot of the self build work yourself, is that it is so all consuming that you have no memory of actually doing the work, how you did it, or what it looked like before. You just move onto the next task and forget. 
 

We broke ground April ‘21, so just had the 4th anniversary of the build. 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, Nick Laslett said:

We probably are, but once you start, very hard to walk away and hand over to a trade

I choose my battles, then worked out the easiest and fastest route to a good finish. MDF or wooden fascia boards and the upkeep after, no thanks, there is enough upkeep with the larch cladding. 80m of fascia and soffits took two of us under a week, doing other stuff when we got bored doing that.

 

We do have some external MDF around our lounge windows steel frame, we just got the window manufacturer to supply and install those and they came factory sprayed to match windows.

 

Internal plasterboarding was too much like hard work, so got the professionals in for that, they were joiners, so got a good flat finish suitable for Ames taping, again that was a big job, all rooms high ceilings between 6m and 3.5m high, so the right person was employed for that also.

 

Choose your battles, get finished enough to move in.

[Nick Laslett]

51 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

80m of fascia and soffits took two of us under a week.

@JohnMo Have you got aluminium fascia and soffits? This is one of the few items where I baulked at the price. It looked like you needed to fit timber first and then fix the aluminium. This seemed like almost double the work.
 

Plastic soffits and fascias were a hard no for us, like PVC windows, plastic front doors, Hardie plank and cedral. But would have loved crittall steel windows and doors, but like aluminium fascias, just too expensive. 

[MortarThePoint]

We are a funny lot here and some people just don't get it unfortunately.

 

We're 5 years in which is longer than expected. I keep getting asked "Why don't you just pay someone to finish it?" I pointed out this was like standing at the side of a marathon at mile 23 and shouting at runners to give up. Also, the use of the word 'just' grates.

[G and J]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

there is enough upkeep with the larch cladding

 

😱 we're planning larch cladding to reduce the upkeep from our current cream rendered house........what do you have to do??

[JohnMo]

37 minutes ago, Nick Laslett said:

Have you got aluminium fascia and soffits?

Decent uPVC, not wood grain. Look identical to our spray paint wooden windows.

Edited 6 hours ago by JohnMo

[JohnMo]

8 minutes ago, G and J said:

😱 we're planning larch cladding to reduce the upkeep from our current cream rendered house........what do you have to do??

We have larch, but don't want it grey. So coat with ceder oil.

[G and J]

Ah, we are going the grey route, not for everyone I know (and we're even paying money to get there quicker and more evenly 🤣), but we are fairly close to an estuary/conservation area (60m) and one of the things the planners seemed to like was the "referencing" of the cladding to the boatyards which is old and untreated......oh, and we're planning to get lazy

[Bramco]

20 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

We have larch, but don't want it grey. So coat with ceder oil.

We have larch but didn't want it grey. So had it treated with Sioox by Russwood our supplier.  3 years in and it just looks bleached...

[BotusBuild]

My standard answer for nearly 5 years to the question "When will you be finished?"  was "2 years". It was my signature on here for about 3 years also. You will see I recently changed my signature and also my answer to the above question. Still no commitment, but a tiny bit more positive perhaps 🙂.

 

Anyone interested in have some T-shirts made up with the question and first answer?

[crispy_wafer]

I’ll bag a t shirt or two…

 

5 years in here, cliche, but want to be in for this winter, well the heating season, I’ve had enough of overwintering in the bungalow.  Had ideas at the start, that we’d get watertight then I’d manage trades, but then a financial reality check with how much trades want to charge and a big I can do that attitude!  Means I’m doing it myself, the grunt work, like running cables, routing plumbing, installing mvhr, knocking up stud walls, res bar, mf ceilings, battening out for a flat plasterboard surface, boarding ceilings etc. Why the F would I pay someone to do that, I’d only be sat on my arse putting on timber.  &nbsp

 

The slowness of my pace has allowed me to do jobs and pay for materials out of my salary, leaving the build fund in the bank for emergencies.

 

Truth be told though, I’m about ready for a holiday!

 

 

[Pocster]

Never been asked this question 🙄

[G and J]

1 hour ago, Bramco said:

So had it treated with Sioox by Russwood our supplier.  3 years in and it just looks bleached...

That's we're planning, which sioox did you use original or one of the greys.....cheeky but any chance of a piccy (sorry to divert thread)

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, Bramco said:

We have larch but didn't want it grey. So had it treated with Sioox by Russwood our supplier.  3 years in and it just looks bleached...

Our south facing wall, been there for 4 years, 2 coats of ceder oil only basically after a year then at 3 years. Single coat each time.

 

Photo taken today