We’ve had some delays (again) trying to get the foundation walls up. the footings have been there for a week now, but it’s all about scheduling to get the concrete forms in and poured now. As of right now that is scheduled to be finished middle of next week and we can begin framing right away when it’s done.
For lumber, we’re trying to limit how much we leave laying around. The plan is to order smaller loads of about what can be put up in a day, and just order small loads every day. For OSB, we will pick it up on a trailer and haul it to the job site and home again every day. Wood prices being what they are, it’s way too tempting a target for theft. If we do have to leave materials onsite, I’ll probably pitch a tent and sleep on top of it at night.
OSB in particular is hard to come by, the lumber yard we are using isn’t sure they can get it, and if they do it’s easily $20 per sheet more than Home Depot or Lowe’s. That just means we’ll be mixing and matching lumber, I’ll buy as much as I can from Home Depot for things like OSB in order to save money in the long run.
The downside to that plan is the lumber yard operates on a credit account, meaning I can install it and then draw from the construction loan to pay for it later. Buying from Home Depot means paying for it up front, which creates a cash flow issue that will limit how much of that I can do.
My solution has been to open a couple of credit cards. We had closed all our credit cards many years ago and have been operating with only debit cards since then. Its been a great system for us and has saved us from entering into this project with credit card debt.
It feels very strange to be opening credit cards again after avoiding then for so long. The good news is there are some great 0% interest introductory rates that should last until the end of the project until I can pay them off and close them again. Or at least I can use them until I can pull money from the construction loan to pay them off.
A lot of this is going to be unconventional and not the way that I would have planned it, but it’s 2021 and we all have to get a little creative.