Momplex

So what's next?  Just Another Crazy IdeaIt's hard to believe that just a few months back, the Momplex was just a crazy idea, a distant dream really, full of more reasons why it wouldn't work then reasons why one family can DIY a duplex for their mothers in Alaska.Three Months AgoCan you believe that just last June, we bought this lot of trees.TodayAnd that this very same lot, in the very same spot, three months later, looks like this.One family, two houses, three months. . . Board by b

We should have plugged the lights in and just kept on working. We really should have.

Building a house is like a giant relay race. 

When you hand the baton off to the next stage, you are either giving them an advantage or a disadvantage.  But when you DIY it all yourself, you are running the entire race yourself.  And you are always thinking about the next step, and how decision you make in this step are going to affect later steps.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say we framed up the walls, and the studs are randomly placed, not 24" o

This is why I love DIY .....

After a couple of weeks of building kitchen cabinets and finishing them, I can't tell you how excited and eager I was for this day to come ...  Kitchen cabinet installation day!!!

Yep, this blank space is going to be a kitchen after today!

We are going to do the wall cabinets first.

First, we mark the height of the bottom of the wall cabinets.  Standard height is 54".

But we can't just mark 54" and pull a string line,

You know what makes for a good friend?Someone who comes through for you.And you, my friends, came through for us last week.When I asked your opinion on how we should divide up the bonus basement space in the Momplex, over 100 of you responded.  Thank you so much.OptionsSo what option did we end up choosing?  Did we choose the too big bathroom stealing the view window?  Or the dream open space a flight of stairs from plumbing?  Was it Option #1 or Option #2?Option #3: Your Opt

Today is a great day for DIY. Today, we can proudly say, yes, a family can - and have - poured a concrete house. We are not contractors. We are not professionals. We are merely a family, just like your family, with this great dream we call the Momplex.It is this great dream, this vision of my mother cooking Thanksgiving dinner in her very own home, of my mother-in-law finally having the perfect sewing room so she can be even more amazing with her quilts, that puts me in work overalls and

Today, the Momplex is going to the salon.

This Momplex we are building ... it is a big box.

In defense of big boxes, they are the most efficient to build, the most efficient to heat and maintain.

But we don't want the Momplex to look like a big box.

No. We want the Momplex to look like this:

We want the Moms to drive up and be excited about their home because it does not look like a giant b

A little over a year ago, we got this crazy idea that we would devote the next couple of years of our lives to DIY our mother's a duplex to share up here in Alaska. So we dug a big hole in the ground and built some footers and poured concrete. This is what the Momplex looked like in August of 2011 - just one year ago. Just one year ago, a giant truck dropped off a house full of ARXX blocks And we started building. And we've been building over the last year, and wit

When we decided to build with ICF blocks, the first question we had - and many of you had - was how the heck to do run electrical in the walls?  

For those of you new to the Momplex blog, the Momplex is actually built out of foam blocks.  We used ARXX blocks, and the technical term is ICF short for Insulating Concrete Forms.

Was she really that little then?

The blocks are lightweight and hollow in the center.

You simply stack the blocks just lik

Remember when we built these guys?

And then we stacked foam blocks around them?

 

And then poured concrete in the foam blocks around the boxes?

And then hung windows on the outsides of the boxes?

Well, today's the day that we are going to start finishing out the inside of the windows!

Hi everyone!

I'm really excited today to share with you how we installed crown moulding on top of the wall kitchen cabinets - finishing out the seam between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling.  

But before we get to that - don't forget - today's the day! 

The Home Depot Do-It Herself Workshop - featuring a storage trunk plan designed by me (it super simple so very beginner friendly) is happening tonight!!!

You can re

Last week, we got all the doors stained and top coated for the Momplex unit we are currently working on.

And then we hung all the interior doors.

Doesn't look like we got a lot done this week, but we did!  Did you notice the new trim?

On this side of the Momplex, we are going for a modern rustic look.  Wood doors with wood trim on a wood floor would have been way too much wood, wouldn't it have?  

So we opted for