ahhhh! May I push mine in with him?

Yes, if you can bear to wait awhile. He just came back in from Kinko's with the copies. Three, my own drawings on lined graph paper, got cut off on the copies. He knew it when he did it, but thought we could just send the draftsman MY ORIGINALS and it wouldn't matter that I would no longer have a complete copy of the drawings!!! Unbelievable. And why did this happen? All women reading this know the answer to that, don't we?! Because, just as he will not ask for directions on the road, he will not ask for help from the clerks at Kinko's!!!

He went back immediately. I think he knew, once I told him I wasn't letting go of my originals, that he had to. This man works in a field where documentation is everything. He KNEW better.

I'm not sure we're gonna be excavating a big enough pit and I don't know how long it's gonna be till we start. Since I don't know where to hide the body until then, I think that my DH is a very lucky man today! And he can just sit with his little sulky mood over making 2 whole trips to Kinko's till H--- freezes over and it's not gonna bother me one little bit!

Are we having fun yet?

OK, this house is YOUR 'baby'. You go make the copies next time. It is a relatively new thing to expect Daddy to change the diapers; your DH is 'old school' on this.LOL

We 'looked' for two years. Bought an old ranch 'to remodel'. Another year later, after consulting with multiple GCs, we learned it was wiser to do a teardown. The city's building review board gave us fits for another year. I'm just happy DH didn't follow through on planting that For Sale sign on the house -- a threat he made after each agonizing BRB meeting.

Now we have been enjoying our house for six years! Have faith. It will happen for you, too! (Really sorry about the dangerous neighborhood situation.)

chisue: Well, it helps to hear from folks in the same shoes. Half the time I do make the copies. Just under the gun timewise and he made himself available "to help" (you know, like with entertaining, or unpacking, or anything very tedious). So he was the copy-maker. Pitiful.

He's all cheery now because he "learned how to trick the big copier" at Kinkos's. So that he got the copies made right this time. Without help. Of course, that trial and effort trickery at $3.50 a copy mounts up! (I didn't say a word.) Man triumphs over machine.

We've stayed here too long. We just didn't realize how fast things were degenerating. And, although nowhere is totally free of gang-related crime, we (that is, I) looked at demographics and crime records and all kinds of things to find a neighborhood we hope we can safely grow old in. It has provided us the impetus to do that. And we're stretching financially because old people feel so vulnerable and we're willing to pay for some margin of safety and peace of mind. So, even bad things can have some good in them.

Hi Pinktoes,

Oh BOY do I feel your pain!! On Friday, our driveway was graveled, and after admiring the GREAT work the excavator did and the wonderfully neat and precise line of white gravel the truck from the quarry lay down, I asked for the receits (I'm the agreed-upon keeper of all records). Housemate handed me several small printouts from the quarry showing only that 4 trucks had been loaded with gravel, and a bank printout showing he had withdrawn $1200 from our joint account. No, really, I said -- Where's something from the quarry saying that we gave then $1200 for 4 loads of gravel? Why, Housemate had saved us $120 by agreeing to take delivery of the gravel without getting a receipt!!!

I didn't know whether to cry or scream. Laughing should have been my first choice but I didn't find it the tiniest bit funny at the time. Housemate insisted that the bank withdrawal printout plus the quarry printouts = documentation, until I asked him to prove to me that he didn't give the quarry $600 and put $600 in his pocket.

Needless to say, He Is Not Happy With Me, because people are rarely happy when someone catches doing something unwise. And I imagine I'm WAY more understanding than any mortgage company would be.


------------ Trilby (Way Way WAY more)

OK, my DH is now off the hook over this since he corrected his screw-up and without any bad attitude. Plus, neither of us can bear strained feelings in the house, so we get straight with each other pretty quick.

However, I am now taking reservations for the excavation pit. Looks like there might be a demand for it. Oh, and we haven't broken ground yet so I still might need to reserve one personal space for my own use.

Pink
heres the scoop. We are building this house on a shoestring budget. Doing ALL the work ourselves. Ive been drawing the inside layouts for kitchen, baths etc. The house is NOT square. Long story short, I get the plans drawn, he changes something everything is changed my drawings are no longer valid!!!!! After hours of sitting with an architect scale T square and triangle.
Now hurry up and dig THAT PIT!!
LOL
Oh WAIT if I do that, the house will never get built. Never mind!!

Oh, yeah. There's always a catch. My DH will be building some of the cabinetry and furniture. Still, I could hire that done....We'll see.

pinktoes,

All you need is a jury of your peers (you know, the female in a homebuilding team). You'd walk.

zone_8grandma: Oh, gawd! Thanks for that big laugh. You speak the truth, for sure.

We have a nice, long trench in our yard...

I can join in the teeth-gritting. DH thinks banks, insurance companies, and schedules should work his way, based on his version of what's 'reasonable'... Deadlines are my own personal creation devised to stress him out.

Ours is a DIY project, too. He and sons are fantastic, precise in their building. No complaints there. They are important and they do work hard. -- I designed the house, continue the ongoing interior design decisions and plans, do the financial paperwork, the schedule planning, the ordering, the mothering, the household management, the schooling, the chauferring...You know, pretty much nothing but eating bon-bons and watching Oprah, so he's the only one who's tired or stressed.

Right now our loan runs out Nov. 1. He has cut out the bathroom vanities, but 'isn't ready' to order plywood and start the kitchen cabs. (For which I have to order and finish doors in time for installation.) I feel I must mention that he was ready to order the plywood to build our bedroom entertainment center. DH has seemed determined, ever since we got a 3 month extension in August, to prove that extension wasn't long enough. He's winning that battle.

He wants things chosen, purchased, and ready to go in on time (for about 1/2 of what things really cost), but if I ask him for opinions, "It's too soon to think about that."

Here's one of our paint color conversations:
"I thought we'd just go for the same paint color we used in our last bedroom."
DH: "No, I didn't like that color."
Me: "You don't like green or that color of green?"
DH: "I don't have anything against green, just that one. I like this green." (indicates something between Kelly and forest green)
Me: "You want something that dark on our bedroom walls?!"
DH: "No, I'm just saying it's a green I like."
Me: "But is there a green you'd like for WALLS?!"
DH: "I just don't want that green we already had. I don't want to be reminded of that house."
Me: "Would you even know which color it was if I put 4 different color chips down in front of you?"
DH: "Probably not, but I just don't want it."
OK...I WON'T choose Behr's "Rejuvenate," but still have no idea what color he might want, or even where to start. In the time it took to have that worthless conversation, he could have actually glanced at some paint chips. --It's too silly to get too mad about, though. One way or another, something will be chosen, purchased, and on-site (all via me) by Friday.

As I mentioned, we have a trench for our electrical cables, etc....About a body's width... But, like you've pointed out, if I ever want things finished, I have to tough this out... ;-D

Pinktoes, I wish I could tell you it will get better soon! What I really wish for you, though, is that you can leave that scary neighborhood soon.

OMG! Thanks for the laugh! I needed to take a break from packing and cleaning out for our moving sale when I found this! Hysterical. Not so much when it's you who's involved, but funny none the less!

You can always use the old southern gal's defense..."Your Honor, that man just needed killin'." ;~)

briosafarm: Hysterical! I should've known that one. Growing up in Atlanta (which in some ways isn't the real South), I think I missed out on a lot of those; deprived of some of the more colorful part of my rightful heritage.

I've enjoyed this thread. Look at it this way, if you push him in now, it'll save you the trouble of digging a hole later when you REALLY have had enough!

Best of luck. Remember that thread recently about drinking in the afternoon? One of these days, you start thinking about it in the morning.....

trilby23 - your story about DH "saving you $120" by accepting delivery of the gravel without getting a receipt brings up another potential BIG PROBLEM.

Whenever any one provides materials or services on a piece of real property, they have the right to file an M&M Lien (Mechanic's and Materialman's Lien) against the property if they don't get paid. The M&M Lien is a cloud on the title making it impossible to sell the property or get a primary mortgage loan on the property. To remove the cloud, the property owner either has to pay the Lien holder the amount claimed or go to court and prove they have already paid it.

If your husband didn't get a receipt, I suspect he also didn't get an M&M Lien Waiver. If the gravel company is unscrupulous - and why else would they have given a $120 discount to avoid providing a receipt - they could have you over a barrel.

Sorry to be an alarmist but one should always get both a receipt for all payments plus an M&M Lien Waiver from anyone who provides any work or materials that improve your real property.

Hi bevangel,

THANKS for the info!! I don't know how in the world I missed your post till today. You are VERY much appreciated!

------------- Trilby (Off to Google a downloadable M&M agreement.....)

Rhome410: May I suggest that you get some samples of the ugliest shades of hot pink that you can find and offer them to your husband as your potential bedroom colors? Maybe he will decide that there are some shades of green that he could live with on the walls.

You know, this is like when your kids are grown you can kind of sit back and go "oh yea... I remember that"
All I can say is I'm glad my 4600sq ft "kid" is finally grown! LOL

I agree with 8grandma. At this stage of your build...NO ONE would confict you!

Thanks, dizzy8...I finally just picked a color and he loves it... It is not anywhere close to our old bedroom color. ;-D

I have to say that he seems to love all the colors I chose for the house, and is even bragging to people at work about how many we have and how great they all are. I think the key is not to ask, which is the course I took on choosing carpet.

Of course, I am pretty much to the stage of not caring what goes in as long as it does, so we can move out of the old single wide we've been in for 20 months and get in there! The decisions come much faster this way...

Since we are talking about husbands, I thought I would relate a conversation my DH and I had yesterday. First some background, I am the GC on our build, my DH travels quite a bit and has been gone for up to a month on our build this summer, so you know who has done the lion's share on this build. Yesterday, we were talking about paint colors and he flippantly said something about the colors of the house not being conducive to having his girlfriends over, that it was too put together and not man-pad enough. Of course it was all in jest, all teasing me, but I countered with a statement to the effect that if he ever had a girlfriend over that I would find a vice and put the jewels in it. I still have our garbage trench open though...

rhome410: I'm thinking about the idea of "not asking". My approach with my DH has been to include him in on everything. Partly because I want him to like it, I value his opinion, blah, blah, blah. All the right motives. But also, because I KNOW the price of not asking. And I'm afraid the excavation pit will be closed up by the time I start hearing, "Well, I wish you had...."

It's a hard thing to navigate. That in-between. Complicated by DH's bad memory. I've often thought of having him sign a memo about some decision we made! Which means that I sometimes hear the song about how we never discussed something when we in fact did. So I pay that price innocent or guilty.

We're at the stage of needing to "go shopping" for the new house and he HATES that. So, I show him stuff on the Internet and ask if something similar would be ok. He's given me the go-ahead to select lighting and bath accessories (towel bars, etc) without him. He gets included in on anything big like windows or plumbing systems.

I think I'm probably asking him too much, on the whole. So, I'm going to correct my course a bit now.

minnt: That was a nice comeback you made about the jewels in the vice. Oh, yeah, his comment would have gotten under my skin bigtime. Not the girlfriends, but the criticism when I'd been doing all the work for awhile. I'd be tempted to start faxing him stuff and emailing him links to "keep him in the loop". Figuring that when he complains he doesn't have time for that, he then foregoes any commentary later!

To tell the truth, I have shown him my choices, so he has a chance to veto...But for our bedroom carpet in particular, he's never home by the time there's enough daylight to really look at the samples in the room, so forget it...I showed the kids my 2 top choices instead, and they weighed in for me.

I really want this to be a team project and have him care about the choices, but I have the better eye and will care more about some of the details in the end anyway.

What mine is headed for the trench for these days is thinking, even though he isn't here to help with certain things, that they should be done exactly how he would do them. Phoohey on that. The latest: he wants us to stop and test every outlet we've wired before putting on the little face plate, to avoid having to take it off later if one has a problem. We are taking bulk boxes of these things and putting them on, one after another, as far as they'll go. We're not stopping to plug a radio into each one when we're 'on a roll.' It'll take 5 seconds if we ever have to take a face plate back off, and we'll do it if/when we need to. His way is not wrong, but neither is ours.

It was his great idea to save the ceiling painting for last, over my opposite thought, and now it's me having to mask off the already painted walls, so we can do the HUGE job of painting the ceilings. That's all I'll say on that one, since I'm finding no humor in it at this point...It's the big load on my shoulders right now.

Keeping him alive is the fact that he started cutting the material for my kitchen cabinets yesterday. :-D

Thought I'd chime in...

We are building our DREAM BABY. DH has done all of the clearing, excavating, backfilling etc. We are contracting out the actual build.
Currently we need to decide on appliances before the framing starts because it may effect window placement. I convince DH that he should come with me to look at Fridges. I've narrowed my choices to Sub-zero and Thermador Freedom, (not because of the big names, but because I want integrated panels). We literally look at both models for maybe 2 seconds.

DH "I like this one", (Sub 700 36").
ME "You didn't even open the door".
DH "It's a fridge, what do I need to see?"

I then suggest we look at Ranges. We are limited to all electric, but would both like something with color, so I show him the Viking. He likes it until he realizes it is only available in 30".

DH "It's too small"
Me "Why do you say that, it's the same size we have now?"
DH "It's just too small"

On to Dishwashers:

DH "I don't need to see dishwashers, just pick one"

This lasted for all of 7 minutes then DH said "Are you ready to go?"

Jenn

OMG!!! I think we're all married to the same man!

I REALLY want DH to have input on the house, but he says he'll be happy with whatever I pick out. He probably would be, but I know better than to make the really big choices without showing him first. So far he's liked everything, but we still have an agreement....I get the final say in the kitchen and he gets it in the garages. When he learns to cook, he gets an opinion on the kitchen. :o)

NO GIRLS,DON'T HURT HIM!!!!
While working my DH fell off the ladder and fractured his pelvis. Now that puts our work on hold for probably 6 weeks. We have part of the electrical work done but so much more to do. We had planned to save a bunch of money by doing things ourselves. In fact, that is how we figured we could afford the house.
At least he will be okay. It could have been much worse (I guess). We both feel a bit discouraged at this point but the house is under roof and the outside is done so if we have to close and lock it up for a few months so be it.

My DH actually put himself in the excavation pit, (temporarily anyways). Just after the hole was dug out for the foundation he was doing some sort work up on a ladder along the edge of this 8ft. deep hole. Well as you can imagine the ladder slid with him on it down into the hole. He ended up with a huge bruiseon his head and probably a concusion, but no need to have a medical professional check him out when he can self diagnose. I swear I may have a heart attack before this process is over, then he can put me in the pit.

Ellie
Sorry to hear that! My gosh hope he heals quickly. My hubby fell off the top step of an 8 ft ladder 3 years ago while hanging one of our Beams. TG all that was really injured was his ego. He had one heck of a b&b leg though. IT could have definetaly been serious.

Jen, Hang on its gonna be a bumpy ride. LOL

ellied: SO sorry. We're just joking here, you know. That's a serious injury so I hope you'll baby him and insist he take plenty of time to heal.

jenanla: I'm dying laughing here. Do they all go to the same Male-In-Training School? "Bears with furniture" captures it precisely.

BTW, we have the remains of a 30 foot long swimming pool available on our property and it needs filling in.... Dirt is just SO expensive!

cynandjon: Thanks for the sympathy, it sure is a bumpy ride!

pinktoes: Glad I could give you a laugh. I have to find the humor in this whole process or else I might really go crazy. Whatever you do don't take "FREE" dirt to fill the pool hole. If it isn't screened you could end up with "who knows what!" on your property.

why not use dirt fromteh excavation pit to fill the pool? then just put a layer of topsoil about a foot deep on top? this is very common in my area. heck when my parents got their pool installed, the pool co only had to haul away 1 truck load of dirt, the rest ended up in all the neighbors yards.

i don't know about dirt being expensive there, here it is around 80.00 for 12 yards delivered on site. spreading costs out the butt, but the dirt and delivery are fairly cheap. many folks actually rent a tractor and do the dirtwork themselves. around here we have to build up since we are in a flood plain. my neighbor behind me was going to put a cottage on his property for his grandson. they had to build up 4 feet above grade. after all that they find out that since it was a seperate structure it required it's own septic and the lot was not big enough for 2 fields so now he has a 40x40x4 mound on the side of his yard! the dirt cost him a couple thousand bucks, but they used a Ford 8n tractor to do all teh leveling so he saved a good 10k on it! at least it was a 2k lesson and not a 12k one!