home → articles → Columnists | Email to a Friend

Just Your Standard Bull

published: July 10th 2009
by: Michael Sturgess

This column is the fifth installment in a series of columns I have written on my experience of being my own contractor on our new home. The May 29th column took us through insulation, drywall and painting the walls. Phase V—trim carpentry, interior doors, cabinetry, counter tops, wood floors and more.
    Up until now, the majority of our home building project has dealt with things behind or beneath the surface, except of course for the drywall texture and wall paint.
The items we will discuss in this column deal more with the exterior beauty of the home.
    It’s kind of like the difference between being called a “real looker” or “someone who just has a great personality.” If you finish strong here, there is absolutely no reason your new home can’t have great looks AND personality too!
You should know I am a sucker for quality trim work. My trim carpenter Tony
    Romo (not the quarterback) has helped me before when we remodeled our old home. I knew that when the time came, he was going to be my choice for our new home as well.
    Tony and his crew give so much attention to detail, and it truly is the details that can set your home apart from the rest. Tony’s crew was responsible for hanging doors, installing the door hardware, casings on doors and selected windows, installing the bathroom hardware, installing base boards and crown molding, and installing shelving in the closets and pantry. Because we chose to have tall ceilings (all are either 10’ or 12’) and 8 foot doors, we decided on larger 5 1/2” bases, 3 1/2” casings and both 4” and 5 1/2” crown-- depending on the room and application. Tony’s crew did a fantastic job—as I knew that they would.
    Before all the base boards could be installed, we needed to install the wood floors.
Before I go into this, I want to say that one of the advantages of building your own home is that you will appreciate it more not only because you built it yourself but also because of the stories you will have when you build it. The wood floors have such a story.
    I have had the opportunity to do some work with a good friend and customer Bill Davis, of Chimney Rock Cattle Co, in Concord, Arkansas. Some of you may recognize his name in that he also just recently sold his NASCAR racing team, which included the number 22 Caterpillar car as well as being the reigning NASCAR truck series champion.
    Last year, while doing some work to prepare for their Fall bull sale, I encountered a local friend of Bill’s who also was in the process of building a home. As it turned out, he had access to beautiful Hickory hardwood flooring at a very good price. To make a long story short, through his help and the assistance of U-Haul, I was able to purchase ?” flooring in 5” wide planks, straight from the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas to my house at a price that otherwise would have been too costly.
    So, now it was time to install the wood floors. Knowing ahead of time where the wood was going allowed me to have the slab recessed where the flooring would be installed. We allowed for 1 ?” (3/4” for a plywood sub-floor and 1/2” for the wood flooring) so that the transition between tiled and carpeted surfaces would be minimal. As this was not an engineered or prefinished floor, the floor had to be installed, sanded, screened, stained, sealed, screened again and then sealed again. It really turned out gorgeous, as Hickory has so much character.
    Once the flooring had the first coat of sealer, the trim carpenters returned to install the remaining base boards. In the mean while, it was time for cabinetry. We chose custom cabinets from a local shop called Michael Edwards Custom Cabine-try and they turned out even better than we expected. We went with knotted Alder wood with raised panel doors. Now, in many cases your trim carpenter will install the cabinets and your painter will paint or stain. But in our case, we contracted the cabinet maker for these steps so that they could add the little trim pieces, crown, furniture feet and other features that came with the package we ordered. Since we were staining, we also chose to allow the cabinet maker’s crew to do the work. His crew goes through extra steps to ensure that the finish was even throughout. After installation of the boxes and trim, they applied a quality wood conditioner, then stained, applied a sanding sealer, lightly sanded, then sprayed on two coats of lacquer. The cabinet doors were stained and finished in his paint booth at his shop before they were delivered and installed. The finished product is spectacular.
    And what better way to set off the beauty of new cabinets? It was time to install counter tops. Several years back when we remodeled our old home, we replaced our Formica cabinets with granite. We really enjoyed its durability and how easy it was to take care of so we decided to do granite again. I must say that this time around (5 or 6 years later), the prices have certainly come down. So much, in fact, that we decided to use granite for all of our surfaces. For the kitchen and master bath, we chose our slabs.
    For our other bathrooms and utility, we were able to choose from remnants at our fabricator’s shop.
    After counter tops come backsplashes—then plumbing fixtures—under counter lighting—painting base boards and other touch up painting—installing hand rails on the patio—installing your appliances. And I’m sure I am leaving out a few other details but I am getting down to the final two things we did before moving in to our new home.
Installing the carpet and having the final coat of sealer installed on the wood floors!
    To recap, we poured the slab on January 9th—we started moving in on May 23rd.
    We spent our first night in our new home on May 25th. That was 134 days or a little less than 4 1/2 months for the actual building process. Not bad for an amateur, huh?
    For my next and final installment, I’ll share with you how you too can build your own home and save yourselves tons of money without sacrificing quality or the amenities you want in a new home.