More Progress On The Lake House

I know this is probably starting to sound repetitious but we spent the weekend out at the lake working on the house.  We were able to complete the siding over the deck (cedar peak) which I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time.  We also got the heat pump delivered and I wired it in.  In the next couple weeks we’ll have the company come out and fire the system up to make sure it all works.

The main item we worked on was the deck.  We previously framed it up but had not installed any of the decking.  I opted to use the Trex composite decking.  It is supposed to last a LONG time and is pretty durable.  Our plan is to use Trex on the deck boards and then we’ll use all cedar wood for the railing and posts.  We’ll also wrap the beams in cedar as well.

On Wednesday of last week I called Home Depot to order up the decking.  I ordered 32 16 foot boards and prepaid for them so that I wouldn’t have to worry about them running out before we picked them up.  They were supposed to put them in will call but they never did.  When we went to pick them up they were short.  I explained that this was a problem because we were going out to do the work when we were picking up the boards.  I was nice but firm.  I asked the employee to call the manager on his phone to explain the predicament.  They did have 12 foot boards but I didn’t tell them that we would be able to make those work.  After talking to the manager for a bit, the employee came back over to me and said the manager was sorry and that they would sell me as many 12 foot boards as I needed at 50% off.  Ahhhhhhhhhh.  We took 25 of the 16 foot boards and then bought 10 of the 12 footers at 50% off.  I had also used a 10% off coupon on the first order of 16 foot boards so I saved a total of over $400 on the decking material.  I love saving money.

Previously, I had been talking to a friend of mine out at the lake.  He is building a new house and has a ton of extra cedar 2X2’s and 4X4’s.  He offered to give me all the 4X4’s and 2X2’s I needed to build the deck railing.  That is also saving me a ton of money.  I would guess that it will save me another $400-$500.  I’ll be using all of this money that I saved to pay for insulation for the place.  I did buy my friend 4 cases of beer to say thanks and I’ll probably pick him up a few more later on, but I’m still saving a TON of money.  In the end the deck will have cost me about $1200.  That’s for a 30 by 8 foot deck with Trex decking and the rest of it all cedar.  If I had paid full price for all of the materials I could have easily gone over $2500.  That’s not including labor.  So, needless to say, I’m happy with the progress over the weekend.

One other major milestone we hit was that we passed our framing/mechanical inspection on Friday.  We got approval to insulate the place and then we’ll have the drywall installed.  It looks like I’ll meet our goal to have it insulated and heated before winter.  I can feel the weight slowly lifting off of my back………  :)