Heat System

Most days we are pretty thankful to be working up on top of the Momplex hill.And we are usually pretty happy to just keep right on working into the evening.And sometimes we even run back up to enjoy a beautiful sunset.But beauty has it's price.And after three days of wind, especially terrible hilltop and with no barrier, gusting upwards of 60MPH on the top of the Momplex hill, we were downright frightened as we drove to assess the damage.Imagine holding a sheet of blueboard out the window as you

Well, it's that time again. Time to start cutting holes in the Momplex, and blocking off wasted square footage behind walls. At least this time, we've got a pretty good reason. We are creating a secret escape passage. That once a year can be used by a strange man in the middle of the night to climb down into your house while you are sleeping. Yep, it's chimney time! That smoke's gotta escape somehow!

What to do after you've spent a year and a half building a super insulated building, so air tight it's poured in concrete?

Drill big fat holes in it of course!

We've entered my most dreaded phase of building.  

It's utility time.

I despise this stage because there is so much work, so much money invested ... but you can't see it.  In other words, you aren't getting a finished project.  You are getting what looks like a freeway interchange of pipes to be hidden i

After spending a couple of days covering the upstairs subfloor in strips of plywood with 3/4" spacing grooves in between, we are really eager to move on to the next step.

It seems like forever since I've written about the Momplex. For those of you new here, we've been DIYing a duplex for our Mother's to live in up here in Alaska. On Mother's Day this year, we'll be at it two whole years. Things take time when you do every single thing yourself. But they also cost less, and you know things are done right. That Mother's Day goal .... it's looking pretty intimidating right now. Especially since we will be DIYing every single kitchen cabinet, closet organiz