Housebuilding in Finland

[His Divine Shadow]

Money is the main reason, lots to be saved by doing the last bit yourself. It's quite common here, even has its own term which translates to something like "5 minutes before completion". I went there today at 11AM, when I was getting tired I figured I'd take a snack as it was probably 16:00 or so, clock said almost 20:00 Time flies when you're working!

Today I've painted a room to start off, then I went outside. First I redesigned the sawhorse a bit to give it a wider stance and lower it, it was a bit high at first, now it also folds back up again.



Then I continued with the woodshed, I had to do so much cutting of boards with my circle saw that I built a jig to use with my so I'd get consistent 90 degree crosscuts, I should make one so I can do 45 degree cuts too, you can really do a lot with such a simple tool.

[His Divine Shadow]

We're finally done with spackling and sanding, walls are primered and also properly finished where there won't be wall paper. It's really hard to show this however on photos, everything just looks white. Still waiting for the concrete plate to give up that last amount of moisture before we can start putting down the floors in the bathrooms.

Also got a delivery of our laminate flooring and wall tiles for the kitchen:





Other than that though I've been mostly at work cleaning up the yard, cut up all the logs in the smaller piles we have at the front of the yard:


That Stihl MS170 I got with the house has been extremely useful.

Anyway I got my new splitting maul:


And so far I got this:


I can't keep it for more than a few hours at a time because my back starts hurting, I don't have a decent enough block to split the wood on (too low and narrow), stupid small trees. And I've been working pretty hard the last weeks, usually get up before 6 to feed the kids, then work during the day, then go to the house after work and maybe get home at 19-20, sometimes then I get to start making dinner too. Usually sound asleep by 21:00. I've been collecting a bunch of minor aches, scrapes and dings for a while and it's starting to build up.

I also bought a drill press, not my image:

[madd0ct0r]

chain three blocks together to make a decent width block.

[His Divine Shadow]

Height is more problematic than the width, I made a riser recently to put it a bit higer as well as a stable surface, could be higher still though, But I am probably getting a big block from my dad soon since he's getting some lumber and I can then just cut a nice thick piece for myself.

[His Divine Shadow]

Also boys are turning 8 months next week, time sure is flying by:

[madd0ct0r]

two sons, too xinh!

[His Divine Shadow]

very xinh indeed, they're moving about now, I never see them do the moving but when I look back they're not where I left them, Daniel worked his way under the cradle today and David got stuck under his baby chair.

Just done some spring cleaning on the yard. Used to be a huge mountain of crap under a tarp behind the house. I've spent the last few days sorting the good wood that I can use for stuff like woodworking and the stuff that's only fit for firewood. Part of the reason is we're getting 40-50 cubic meters of soil next week and we need to clear the yard so the truck can dump the soil.

Finally having a nice spring day:


Love how clear the back yard is now:


Here's all the crap that's only fit for firewood:


And here's the stuff suitable for lumber and woodworking:

The darker planks aren't actually surplus but for the frame of the terrace.

The ground is clay and now that the water has evaporated it's rock solid. Will make a good foundation we're told once we got a layer of topsoil above it:

[LaCroix]

Make sure there are no "hollow" spots on that clay- though - you will have localized mud holes there. There is no way to get those dry but to dig them up and add more clay under the topsoil.

I got one such spot, about 10 meters diameter, and it's a literal swamp. If it wasn't just a meadow, I'd need to deal with it.

Make sure the whole thing slopes gently away from your house after you compact it.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah it's already been compacted actually by the guy who laid it out, he knows this stuff so it all slopes away from the house. We're also gonna make stone walls to break up the slope on the front side, looks nicer and saves filling material.

[LaCroix]

Good, a friend of mine did not heed this warning, here, and after 3 days of rain his riding hall had turned into an indoor pool. All clay ground, and at least 200 m to the next suitable place to pump this water to (without it returning a few hours later to the inside of his hall).

[His Divine Shadow]

The main protection against that here in addition to the house being the highest spot is the layer of gravel under and around the buildings that helps drainage and underground drainage pipes and wells that go around the house and garage both.

[His Divine Shadow]

Today we got 100 cubic meters of soil:




I want 50 more still. I was quite impressed by the truck driver who backed in, around the house and around the big stones we got there to get to the side of the house.

Klinker tiles in the bathroom and laundry room are almost done:


Small toilet:


Started on the kitchen:


It's been between 26-28 degrees celcius here today, pretty sweet weather for May, but I bet we'll have a crappy summer as usual, good spring and warm winters tend to equal cold summers, I hope the trend breaks.

[His Divine Shadow]

Tiling continues, we've started painting the house (me & my parents) yesterday as it was a holiday but had to stop due to weather, no pictures of that, but I should have some later. I also had to stop the painting early to go into the city last night to find an open drugstore as David had run out of his heart medication (beta blocker to help with the heart rhythm after his surgery, should be off it in a few months).





And since it's my thread I'll post some pic of the boys, got to see the sea for the first time, being held by grandparents:


Daniel is a happy kid, they both are:

[His Divine Shadow]

Also all this working on construction and the like wetted my appetite for woodworking, after many months of consideration and deal hunting I found this german table saw (the table saw is the center of a workshop, incredibly versatile so you can live without dedicated tools for a while):


Rapid PK-100, 3-phase motor, 250kg (550lbs). Will need to build a mobile base for it so I can move it around the workshop, it will so big it has to be moved aside when not in use. There's a nice design by a german-canadian on youtube called Matthias Wandel, lifts the whole thing via a lever, only a few cm, then you let it down again so it stands on its own legs 99.9% of the time.

[His Divine Shadow]

House painting pics:

[Borgholio]

I don't know why...but for some reason I thought you were building the house out in the country somewhere. It threw me for a bit when I saw you had a paved road and a neighbor across the street.

[Lord Revan]

I don't know why...but for some reason I thought you were building the house out in the country somewhere. It threw me for a bit when I saw you had a paved road and a neighbor across the street.

that's fairly normal in finnish cities and towns, even Helsinki that's our largest city by rather wide margin has only 500 000 people in it (the greater Helsinki area has about a million people in total), not so far from my parents place there's a small valley where you might think you're on the countryside even though you're still within the city limits of Espoo which is the second largest city and part of that greater Helsinki metropolitan area

[His Divine Shadow]

The road is not paved but yeah we got three neighbors on our little road. It's a rural municipality called Malax, if you google it you'll see it's not a very big place. This area is a place the municipality has developed for residential living.

[Spoonist]

Hey its starting to look like its close to finnish-ed. When are you moving in.

[His Divine Shadow]

No idea really. still left to do are the following things:

Contractors jobs left:
-Installing the roof (shoulda happened this week, didn't)
-installing all the electric outlets and stuff in the walls and ceiling
-installing the sauna heater, paneling and other toilet related stuff
-build the front porch
-plumber needs to install the water to the heatpump and other places
-installing the FTX air pump / circulation unit

Our jobs:
-Laying down laminate flooring
-Wallpapering
-Roof and floor moulding trim
-Installing all the cabinets
-Installing the kitchen
-painting the house (not required to move in)
-build the terrace on the side and back

No real idea how long it will take since we have to wait for the contractors to finish certain parts before we can start on our parts, such as wall papering, and there's no point in laying down the floor now just so it'll get destroyed by contractors walking on it with boots and shit.

[LadyTevar]

That pale blue looks nice with the red roof. Will you be painting the window and door frames a different color? Will you paint the doors as well?

And OMG, your twins look so adorable!!! Such cute little faces, and deep brown eyes!

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah we'll be painting all the trimmings around the windows and doors and so forth white, so blue, white and red will be the colors. The doors came ready from factory and don't need to be painted. We're going for the same color scheme as in the house from the manufacturers website (here).

And thanks, they're a pair of little charmers for sure, never gone shopping yet with them and not have complete strangers come up and look at them and talk to us. And they just smile and laugh at all strangers.

[Enigma]

So you decided to paint the house so it would match your car?

[His Divine Shadow]

Been very busy painting the last few weeks so no updates. It goes slowly, I paint a few hours every day after work, then I try and spend the whole day there during weekends, though we've had several weekends booked with other stuff so I haven't been able to spend every day painting.

I guess I am 3/4 or more done now, doing all the trim that's supposed to be white, takes a long time due to all the masking tape required, probably gone through 10 rolls so far.







Also been putting up wallpapers.

Kitchen:




David's room with green moomins:


Blue for Daniel:


Nothing in the living room, but you can see the ceiling has been installed, MDF panelling:


We also got the sauna almost done but I forgot to upload pics.

[His Divine Shadow]

Kitchen cabinets and stuff have been put up:








Almost done painting


Difficult to paint with the weather we had on sunday, switched from sun to downpour several times: