Momplex

So let's just say you got a team of two building a kitchen, and one hates painting and the other can't paint.

Well, it's not that I couldn't paint.  They say occassional painting in a well ventilated area is fine for pregnant women.  

But up here in Alaska, in the cold winter months, working inside a poured in place concrete building, with no ventilation, where your full time job is to build and paint or stain furniture, it's not occassional and it's not well vent

If you don't mind a leaky basement, if you don't mind soggy carpet, a "smell" that you just can't get rid ... don't bother reading this post. Today I am going to show you one of those not so glamorous or fun tasks that you must do to build a house right. But it can effect the comfort and usability - not to mention value - of your home incredibly. Today, we are going to waterproof the below grade foundation of the Momplex!

Can you believe that there was a time when the Momplex stairs looked like this?

And today, they look like this:

And hopefully soon ... they'll look something like this:

image from Centsational Girl

Man, there sure are a ton of steps (pun not intended here) to finishing out stairs, isn't there!

First, we built the upstairs railing -

And we painted the

NOTE: For our Facebook Fans, we are working hard to get our Facebook page back.  It was hacked and stolen last week.  I will update you when I have confirmed information on it's status.  Thank you for your patience.

We've been trying to work hard up at the Momplex, finishing up the other side.  It's been a struggle with a new baby. Baby usually wins, resulting in not much getting done on the second Momplex unit.

There is a lot of baby talk getting

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 .....

Seven sheets of PureBond plywood and $200 in popular boards.

Yep, that's what it took to take this blank space ....

And turn it into this:

Well, at least to build all those cabinets!

I'd love to know how to make a dishwasher out of plywood, but I'm going to stick to cabinets for now.

The Ram and I spent about a week building the cabinets, and honestly, the building was the easy part.  Once we got all th

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