A model home

February 07, 2020 by Nick Gowen

About a month ago, our architect Ryan visited our house with his wife and two kids. I always like it when Ryan visits. I get to show off the way that his vision is manifesting in real life, and it's helpful to get his eye on some of our design choices.

I was particularly glad that Ryan brought his family on this visit so I could watch someone new to the Dog House take it in. Since I'm out at the site every day, I sometimes forget how unique it is. When someone new shows up and they make an “ooh” or “aah,” I remember: Oh yeah! This place is cool!

Earlier this week, I got an email update from Ryan:

Nick,
My son (3rd grade) had a school project about volume. Their project was to design a house using graph paper.
He tried to re-create your house from memory. I think the site visit a few weeks back left an impression on him. He even put in a loft and a wood stove.
Hope all is well.

These final few weeks of construction have drained a lot of my enthusiasm for the project, but Ryan's email reinvigorated me. I've always semi-secretly hoped that our house would somehow inspire people—encourage them to build a smaller home, maybe, or just create something in general that excites them—and Ryan's email was a sprinkle of proof that this might really happen. Thanks to Ryan's son and his school project, I feel once again like the stress of construction is worth it.

Don't just do something; sit there!

February 05, 2020 by Nick Gowen

As a sucker for self-help, I have come across this reversal-of-a-phrase in a number of books on mindfulness: “Don't just do something; sit there!” It's meant to remind readers that stillness is a necessary antidote to the poison of workaholism.

I have always felt guilty for doing “nothing”—sitting at home all day, flip-flopping between food and naps and TV and naps. Back in my early twenties, when I signed up for online dating, I remember a matchmaking website's quiz asking, “How would feel after a day of doing nothing?” I clicked “TERRIBLE!” and envied anyone who might answer otherwise.

But the past few weeks have revealed to me just how important it can be do nothing. Since the New Year I have been out at the house for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, and by that sixth day I am a mess. I am angry, irritable, apathetic, tearful, and uninspired. I hate the house. I think it's never going to be done. My anxiety blasts off into space. I feel at my lowest.

Last week when the sixth day hit and I had yet another argument with Mark that I felt humiliated by, I realized I needed a day off. (Mark may have encouraged this revelation, too.) I woke up, put on a plush robe, and laid on the couch watching TV all day, eating, and taking naps. I didn't think about the house, didn't visit the house, and changed the subject when anyone brought up the house.

When I woke up the next morning, reinvigorated and substantially less grumpy, I saw the house for what it really is: almost done. We are at the stage of tying up loose ends—grouting the shower floor, installing baseboards, filling nail holes, polishing the floors. If the weather cooperates, we might be able to apply for our final building inspection next Friday.

After next Friday there will still be unfinished projects. The closet still needs shelves. Most of the walls need another coat of paint. The dining booth seats have no cushions. But every week, after I have taken a day or even the afternoon to sit and do nothing, I feel a little calmer and see more clearly the feat that we have pulled off. We very nearly have a home we designed and built ourselves (with a lot of help). I am proud of what we are making.

This post is meant to be a reminder to future-me to take routine breaks when we build our next house. And I'm not talking about 10 PM when I am home from the job site and flop onto the couch to fall asleep in the first five seconds of a Frasier episode. I mean 24 hours of regularly scheduled downtime without thinking or talking about the house. Doing nothing today makes doing something tomorrow much, much better.

How I cope with the feeling that this will never be done

January 25, 2020 by Nick Gowen

Remember Kimmy Schmidt: “You can do anything for 10 seconds.”
Listen to the original Broadway soundtrack of Annie and sing along to “Tomorrow.”
Watch an episode of Grand Designs and feel relief that I'm not trying to run utilities in a cave.
Eat and drink whatever I want (e.g., yesterday's fuel of seven cups of coffee, one pear-flavored Red Bull, and a big bag of Warheads Chewy Sour Cubes [“Mildly Sour, Wildly Sweet!”]).
Listen to Barbra Streisand's cover of “Everybody Says Don't.”
Put my counseling degree to work on myself.
Call someone I love and say, “I am feeling really defeated right now.”
Ask my friend Daniel to tell me about all the projects he wants to complete in his own house and relish in the joy that I don't have to do them myself (although I will certainly help you, Daniel!!!!)
When someone asks about the house, kindly respond, “I am taking a break from thinking about it right now” and immediately change the subject.
Put off all other problems, big and small, that need to be solved. (Big: What am I going to do with my career? Small: Why does Siri never work anymore?)
Remember how many people have volunteered their time to help me, think about how this project would not have been possible without them, and then get back to work.

A light at the end of the sun tunnel

January 20, 2020 by Nick Gowen

It has a been a difficult few weeks at the house. I am now rushing to complete the avalanche of jobs I signed up for this summer, many of which can only be started in the last few weeks of the project after the drywallers and electricians and excavators have made their final messes. These 60- to 80-hour workweeks are giving me a tiny taste of what Mark must have felt like over the past several years, (with the exception of the fact that the quality of my tiling job will [hopefully] not affect a person's long-term health). My neck aches, my feet hurt, my relationships feel like they are weakening, I am always hungry for carrot cake Oreos or whatever junk food might fuel me for another thirty minutes, and my hands are usually covered in paint or glue or mortar or dried blood.

With all the stresses of the past few weeks, I often forget to step back and appreciate what we are creating. This weekend, my friend Daniel and my dad visited to help me install the spiral staircase I have been fabricating for months now and planning for over a year. When we placed the final tread, I wasn't excited; I was baffled and defeated by the as-yet-unsolved issue of a landing platform connecting the stairs to the second floor. Right now, feelings of excitement or relief only last as long as it takes my eyes to register the number of uncompleted jobs in my field of vision.

However, one job last week has given me a much-needed influx of satisfaction, (perhaps because I didn't have to do a thing). We knew that our windowless bathroom would be dark and that the attic overhead would eliminate the possibility of a skylight, so back in the planning phase I read about sun tunnels. They are a high-tech version of a simple idea: You run a tube from the roof to a room far below, and natural light floods an otherwise gloomy space. Until last week, we had to drag work lights into the bathroom, but now the space is as bright as our living room with its five 10-foot-tall windows.

Every time I pass the bathroom now, I notice the difference. I'm glad we decided to install the sun tunnel. I'm glad it survived the purge of inessential items from our wishlist. It makes me feel happy, excited, and certain that the work is worth it.

Photo Update: how to appreciate every centimeter of your home

January 08, 2020 by Nick Gowen

For the past few weeks, I’ve been living up to the obligations that I brazenly signed up for this summer when I looked over the itemized construction contract and said, “Heck, I can do that.” The list included everything from tree removal to tile work to polishing floors to trim and baseboard installation to fabricating an code-compliant spiral staircase. Now, as we move into the final month of the project, most of those jobs are on my to-do-right-now list and have to be completed on time to meet our move-in deadline.

Here are photos of some of the jobs that I have begun, (most of which aren’t yet completed). Now that I have seen how the proverbial sausage gets made, I appreciate every centimeter of every home I have ever lived in.