Building Modern on a Budget Ep.9 | Concrete Floors + Fireplace & Interior Doors

 

*This blog post is sponsored by Concreate and The Door Stud and contains affiliate links. 

We are finally working on the inside of the house! After living through the hottest summer in Phoenix history, the shade is a welcomed break. We have electrical service (more or less) but for safety reasons, only a few outlets are energized and definitely no A/C yet. It's okay. I'm so thrilled with the beautiful elements we are installing, I can deal with the sweat.

As I've mentioned before, we're going with a super modern design with this house. Since both Bryce and I love the look of natural colored concrete, we decided to use it throughout. Today, I'm talking about our DIY sealed concrete floors and our two-story concrete panel fireplace. I'm also sharing the deets on our interior doors (although not concrete but still good). 

Episode 1: Budget & Design
Episode 2: Foundation & Pad
Episode 3: Framing
Episode 4: Roofing & Windows 
Episode 5: HVAC, Electrical & Plumbing

Episode 6: Mini-Split A/C & Heat

Episode 7: Insulation, Drywall & Stucco

Episode 8: Glass Garage & Front Door + Painting

Episode 9: Concrete Floors + Fireplace & Interior Doors

Building Modern on a Budget Ep.8 | Glass Garage & Front Door + Painting

*This post is sponsored by Pinky's Iron Doors and contains affiliate links. 

When we drew up the budget for our custom house and detached workshop, I knew there were a couple areas where I was going to splurge. I was willing to scale back on light fixtures, cabinets, and even forego flooring all together (*spoiler: we sealed our concrete slab instead), but there were 3 big things I wasn't willing to compromise on: stairs (more on those later), garage doors, and a front entry door. We made sure to allow a pretty generous allowance for those line items.

In my opinion, the minimal style of contemporary architecture puts extra weight on the few ornamental elements it does feature. Basically, if your house has gorgeous moulding and dramatic rooflines on the exterior, a generic garage door is less noticeable. But, if your house is a smooth, white box, details as small as the front door knob will make a huge impact on it's overall look. 

Building Modern on a Budget Ep. 7 | Insulation, Drywall & Stucco

 

Well, I knew it was coming eventually. We've had our first problematic sub-contractor experience on our custom house build. If you've been following along, you know that we were lucky enough to secure Bryce's Dad as our General Contractor. He's incredibly knowledgeable and has been invaluable through out the construction process. However, he is absolutely swamped with work right now, so he has allowed Bryce and I to handle most of the day-to-day business. Bryce actually used to be a Foreman for his family's construction company for about 8 years, so it's definitely something he's familiar with. 

We have found most of our sub-contractors ourselves and it's gone smoothly, until now. But don't worry, we were able to create a happy ending! 

Building Modern on a Budget Ep. 6 | Mini-Split A/C & Heat for the Shop

*This video is sponsored by Mr. Cool and contains affiliate links.

I know, I know! I've been terrible about updating you guys on the house progress. The good news is, if you follow me on Instagram or YouTube, I've been much better at posting updates over there. I've decided I need to finally catch up with our progress and give you some more information about our custom house build. 

Episode 1: Budget & Design
Episode 2: Foundation & Pad
Episode 3: Framing
Episode 4: Roofing & Windows 
Episode 5: HVAC, Electrical & Plumbing

Episode 6: Mini-Split A/C & Heat

Episode 7: Insulation, Drywall & Stucco

Episode 8: Glass Garage & Front Door + Painting

Episode 9: Concrete Floors + Fireplace & Interior Doors

Not only are we building a cool, modern house, we have also built a 1,200 sqft detached workshop for my husband and I to share. We live in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, so you can probably guess it gets pretty dang hot here. In fact, this summer has been brutal here (record breaking actually). The temperature inside the shop typically exceeds 105 degrees + from late-May to mid-September. In order to be able to work year-round, we really need some sort of air conditioning. 

How We Got Heavy Duty Shop Walls | The Home Depot Rentals

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot Rentals.

I feel like the house we're building is trying to kill me. Well, maybe it's not the house. Maybe it's building a house during an Arizona summer. Also, it's just our luck that we would happen to be building a house and detached workshop ourselves during the hottest summer on record since 1895. 

Building Modern on a Budget Ep. 5 | HVAC, Electrical & Plumbing

*This post is sponsored by DAP Products and Simpson Strong-Tie. This post contains affiliate links.

The house is finally "dried in", which means the roof is finished and the exterior walls are wrapped with a water-proof membrane. It also means we can start working on the inside, bringing in more trades. As we talked about in my last post, we are dramatically over budget and we've been desperately trying to bring costs down. We decided Bryce and I are going to try to do more of the labor ourselves, splitting the jobs with contractors, like we did with the roof. 

The hardest part wasn't rolling up our sleeves and laboring, it was finding the right contractor who is willing to be patient enough to work with us. 

Building Modern on a Budget: Ep. 4 | Roofing & Windows

*This post is sponsored by DAP Products and Simpson Strong-Tie. This post contains affiliate links. 

It's getting hot here. Like, 105° by 11 am. I guess since it's June in Arizona I shouldn't be surprised by that. We were lucky enough to get a really mild May for Arizona standards, just in time to get the roof up on the house. 

New here? Did you know my husband and I are building a modern-style custom house ourselves? Check out the links below to get caught up on the series up to this point. 

Episode 1: Budget & Design
Episode 2: Foundation & Pad
Episode 3: Framing
Episode 4: Roofing & Windows 
Episode 5: HVAC, Electrical & Plumbing

Episode 6: Mini-Split A/C & Heat

Episode 7: Insulation, Drywall & Stucco

Episode 8: Glass Garage & Front Door + Painting

Episode 9: Concrete Floors + Fireplace & Interior Doors