FINALLY FINISHED! Building Our Home In the Mountains

Today is by far the windiest and yuckiest and smokiest day we've had since the wildfire started. Our fire is still zero percent contained and has grown to 20,000 acres. That has created some extremely hazardous air quality. So we have the kids inside the tiny home with the doors and windows shut to lessen their exposure to that. We would love to have them inside the house with the HVAC system running and actually provide them some filtered air. However, when we went to turn on the HVAC system last week, it overheated instantly and it turns out that the heat pump unit needs to be replaced. So we're hoping to have that replaced this week. And in addition to that, we're hoping to finish all of the plumbing and all of the electrical inside the house. For that, we are relying on other people. But for the things that Jeremy and I can actually control, we have about a million things to do. He has been working on that front stone wall that was left unfinished last week. But for today, we are going to get started on our list of things to do so that we can safely get our family moved into our new house. Welcome in. What are we working on first? Getting our belts on. Getting my belts on. Do you want to just start opening the master bathroom? Yeah, sounds good. So we're going to hold off on switching out the lights, right? We got towel holders, teepee holders, provided they're not broken right now. What else we got in here? The mirrors. Are you sure you want me to lift those? Oh, the mirrors, yeah. I'll carry the mirrors. Well, so we discussed your day drinking. We have another talk about this. I'm not dating. You're dropping stuff to start the day. No. So we put up the vanity lights and while I do like them, they're really dim and we put something different in the kids bathroom and I decided that I like those a whole lot better. So I went ahead and ordered those for in here. So we're going to have to swap those out, but we'll do that on another day. Another day. So indecisive. I'm not indecisive. I don't know what stuff looks like till I actually put it up and then there's been quite a few things where I'm like, yeah, I don't like that. And then it comes out and we have to put something else on. I'm sorry. So today we're getting started in our tiny little toilet room with the teepee holder. It's got to be set right beside the toilet. Now, truth be told, our family is actually a white family, not necessarily a teepee family, but, you know, it's nice to have options and such. So here we go. Important information. Very relevant to what's happening here. Too much information. To start this, we were framing walls. Now we're putting toilet paper holders. This is our, our work now. Which would you rather do? Toilet paper rolls. Really? Yeah. Cause it means that there's a toilet that flushes right next to it. I'd rather frame a wall any day. Really? Yeah. Cause I hate working with little Atlin tools like this, which are giving me a hard time. Come on. They're elf tools. I just don't like little minute detail tasks. It drives me crazy. Hey, Hey, Hey. It's what the kitties do. I'm just glad you have it set up the proper direction. Over like a cascading waterfall. Now that we have the toilet paper holder installed there in our little potty room, that room is now officially complete. And officially that is the first room in our entire house that is 100% done-zo. Believe it or not. What else you got for me? We just have some little things in here to do. While Jeremy gets some towel rings up, I'll talk to you about the master shower. We have some big plans for this shower. However, it's going to take us a while. This is still the only place in the house that still looks like a construction zone. So we don't want it holding up. It's actually moving into the house. So we'll be moving in and then we will share the kids shower with them while we work on the master shower. So we got the first hand towel ring mounted to the wall on my side of the vanity. We were going to do Melissa's, but then we realized that because hers is going on the same wall as the mirror's, it's probably gonna be best to get her mirror mounted. So we know how much space we have to work with here between the mirror and the shower. And we'll try to match the height of the other hand towel ring and go from there. Remember when we did this in the tiny home? We were living in the trailer for whatever it was, eight, nine months. We're like, holy cow. With that tiny warped mirror, we didn't know what we look like. We look neglected. All right. Quick bit of math for me. Seven and an eighth. No, that's not right. Seven and a quarter. Seven and a half. Seven and three quarters. Seven and three quarters. Math. Not my strong point. For the kids bathroom and for our bathroom vanity mirrors, we went with the thin framed farmhouse pivoting mirrors. We'll probably never actually pivot them. Oh Melissa, you're not saying you're right. It's a pivot mirror. Pivot. So we will probably never pivot them. But this whole wall is going to eventually look different. We do love the way that the airstone is looking in the living room area. And so we've talked about using the extra stone that we have because I think we're going to have a lot of extra stone and doing an accent wall in here. And so it'll be nice that the mirrors are up off the wall. And then of course we're going to be switching out these vanity lights as well. So are we done in here? That's pretty much it, right? For now, yeah. Throw some hand towels in there. So before we can actually start on the kids bathroom, we have to make sure that their mirrors are intact. We ordered all of these mirrors online. Ours arrived just fine. The kids arrived completely shattered. So we reordered them and they just got here about an hour ago. But it's not looking super promising because the box is actually ripped and styrofoam is coming out of the hole. So I'm not really hopeful, but we'll see. Let's see what we got. Don't be broken. Good? I think it's okay. All right. You got at least one. Let's try the other one. Okay. How are you feeling about it? I'm feeling good about it. You were a betting man. Where'd you go? Yay! They're not broken. That's what happened last time. They were shattered. These damn gray hairs Melissa. You could shave it. Oh, so many new ones. I really do like these lights so much better. They're nice. Yeah. I'm glad we're gonna go with that noise. So these mirrors are the same, right? They're the same, they're just smaller. Here you go, mama. Two mirrors. Can you see in the mirror now? Yeah. That's pretty neat, huh? Handy dandy. Can you reach your faucet? Perfect. The electrician's coming tomorrow to hook up the hot water tank. Then there will be hot water. Then that shower roller. As we went to hang the kids towel rings up, we noticed that there's actually no good spot to hang them. If we put them on the wall that we were going to for the boys, it hangs over the light switch. We don't want to drill into that wood unit. So it leaves us with one spot, which is right between the mirrors. Jeremy absolutely hates the idea and says that kids don't need a face and a hand towel. No, that's not what I said. I said, as it stands right now, if history tells us anything, what I know about our children is that this hand towel is going to spend little to no time on this ring. It will primarily be on the countertop or on the floor so that Melissa and I can pick it up. I think that it needs a place to be able to hang and dry instead of always being on the counter because it has no available place to hang. So we're going to hang a single towel ring between the two mirrors. It's going to look okay. We'll use the candy apple green towel for now. For now, until it ends up on the floor. It's not. The kids are going to use their ring. You are far more optimistic than I am. We need a far more neutral colored towel. Where did we even get this? You don't like the green? It's like Seahawks green. I thought that was your thing. You like green. I'm not that color green. Okay, the kids bathroom is now pretty much squared away, but we have one additional project that I promised Melissa I'd get done tonight. She's very excited about it. Buy tactical black. Jeremy, we'll put it in the closet and if you ever want to swap it out. Look how sexy that looks. It's a package deal. It looks good all together in its entirety. It's it would look very greek. That's what we were working with at the time when we put all this together and none of this was in here. That's probably why I like it. Have you seen like the old greek artifacts with black and gold? That's what all their stuff looks like dad. All right mom. Okay. Boom. Yeah. Yeah. That looks good. I'm gonna plug it back in. Now just the fridge is wrong. The fridge is well I don't think I can switch that one out but I'm pretty sure I can remedy the fridge. You're on board now. I'm on board. This morning we actually got rain for the first time in six weeks. It wasn't enough rain to actually knock down the fires but it did clear out the air a little bit and I feel like we can breathe again which is so nice. So we are getting back to work on our stone wall and for that just like every other project around here we are relying heavily on our anchor power stations. Anchor portable power stations have been a huge part of our home build and our lives for almost a year now. Whether we're traveling and need to charge equipment or devices, watching an outdoor movie with the kids or pretty much any other job that has required power as we built our home. With our busy schedules it's extremely important to us that we have quality products that we can rely on. Anchor is not only reliable and convenient but it is also very durable with its automotive grade aluminum frame. The 757 is our largest anchor power station. We call this guy the beast. It runs anything we need it to with its 1,229 watt hour and 1,500 watt capacity. It also runs all day with the most advanced long-lasting premium LFP batteries. The batteries will remain in a healthy state even after 3,000 complete charge cycles. That is six times longer than the industry average and we can recharge our anchor 757 from zero to 80 percent in under an hour. The anchor 757 will easily run or charge multiple items with its 13 available ports from cell phones to drones, freezers, even fans for three to five days in case of a power outage or an off-grid camping trip. Combined with three solar panels and direct sunlight we can recharge our anchor from zero to 80 percent in just 3.6 hours. Having an anchor power station in your life is like an added insurance policy especially going into fall and winter and for even more peace of mind Anchor is giving you a five-year warranty on the 757 power station. To get your family more prepared for the chilly season just click the link down in our description box below to check out the Anchor 757 for yourself plus the other family of anchor power stations. Now it's time to get back to this wall. So over the past few days I've been making as much progress as I possibly can here with this getting stone up on this front wall. I managed to fill in all the areas between each of the gable and windows. All that's left me with now is a space up above them so that means I have to make a series of cuts for anything that butts up and touches either the ceiling and or the windows. So a lot of cutting ahead of me today. Fortunately I can take each remnant piece and actually get that stuck up on the wall as well since it'll already be cut hopefully at the perfect angle. Got a lot of work ahead of me. Let's see how today goes. Since Jerry's working up high now I can't really help as far as actually sticking the stones on the wall so my job is now to flip over all the stones to reveal all 12 colors and then tell him which color to put up on the wall. Why are you treating me like I'm colorblind? Because you're colorblind. That's not very sensitive. It's just the reality. Next color mama, next color. White color? Come on. Is that a print? Am I supposed to take that? If I fall off this ladder I'm landing on you. The HVAC guys just arrived. They brought all the people so hopefully within a couple hours we will know what is wrong with our HVAC system and have that replaced. It will be so nice. Finally check that off the list. I love it. Productivity. Progress. The HVAC guys were here for a short time and they just left. They got everything figured out. The heat pump had a low charge from the factory and it also had a sticking valve both of which have been remedied so officially HVAC is complete. Now what I'm spending my afternoon doing is laying all of the colors out by shape. There are eight different shapes. There are 12 different colors. You see how similar these look? These are two different colors. When they're all separated I'm having a very difficult time telling them apart so I figured out that if I lay all of the shapes next to each other I can see the difference and that is helping tremendously in trying to get this organized. It's helping me too. Thank you so much. I love you mama. That's nice. Colorblind. So things are going really well. They're making a lot of good progress. A lot of challenging cuts but it really hasn't been all that bad. I'm working off of a single template piece and I've had to make some fine adjustments here and there which is why we have some shims and little cardboard shims that I'm working with as well but we're maybe three-fifths of the way through. We're going to keep working our way up toward the peak for the ceiling and hopefully get this wrapped up by the end of the day. Today was quite a productive day. Everyone has packed up and gone home except for Jeremy and I because we live here. First spot. And also because our front wall is not complete. We have maybe another two hours. Not even. Okay not even. But today we got our HVAC done. We got our plumbing done and the electrical. Not quite done. We have maybe another day on that but we did get the electricians to switch out those vanity lights that Jeremy has been whining about and wanting switched. Me? No. Not I. It does look good though. Let's go take a look. All right mom are you ready? Same lights as the kids bathroom. Prepare yourself. I'm ready. Oh it looks really good. Unfortunately now we both have sunburns from instant solar flare. I changed my mind. I want the other ones put back on. Don't tell me. Tell the last change in the house. But for this room I am satisfied. I like the dust from the stone and my beard even grayer today. Come on. I got one. All right mom. Home stretch. Let's get this wall wrapped up. Oh you're so close. Not as close as you thought. Is your Walmart one? I saw a photo of a mountain home in a magazine quite a while ago with a wooden ceiling and a stone wall. I thought it was beautiful so I ripped it out and saved it. It was just a dream. Something I never thought that we could ever have. But it seemed worth saving anyway. The incredible thing about building your own dream is that you are the artist and the timeline is yours. We used to spend our days, our precious limited time, building someone else's dream. There were always limits to what we were doing, how high we could climb, and when or where we could go. We borrowed more and more trying to create a life that we thought we were supposed to have. But after a while it felt as though the only thing that we were building were limits. A prison of debt that we would spend a lifetime trying to pay for. There came a moment when we both said enough. Let's invest in us. Let's build something for ourselves and for our family. We had always wanted to do it but we didn't know how. So one day we just started. Day one of standing there in that big open field was the first time that we felt that anything was possible. That house in the magazine, the one with the wooden ceiling and the stone wall, suddenly it felt that it could be real. It was going to be the most difficult thing that we would ever do. The longest hours, the most exhausting days, and the harshest working conditions that we had ever experienced. But it would be ours. For the first time when we dragged our tired sore bodies out of bed to spend 12 hours in the freezing cold, we would feel inspired. We were writing our own story, living our own lives, and building something that before felt unreachable. Last one mama, last one. We have made it. It shall be this one. Now it shall be this one. This stone wall isn't just a pretty accent in a house. It's a daily reminder that the impossible can become possible when you break the bonds of what's holding you back. Let's give daddy a big hug. You're very funny Tom. It's so good.