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ATG&D Dream Home | Driveway & Front Stoop

March 17, 2016 By Dusty Rogers 10 Comments

Ready to dive back into house talk?

I know it’s been a while and I’d love to gloss over that, but so many of you have been wonderful followers and incredible cheerleaders, and you deserve an explanation. So here’s the deal – there’s a little part of the home building process that I don’t think we hear about often enough. I’ll call it The Burn Out. And I’m not quite sure how to describe it without sounding like an asshole, so let me just say this:

Building a house is all-consuming. YES, it’s amazing and incredible and our end result has truly been a dream come true and I feel so SO grateful and lucky to have this beautiful, amazing home that we love so much.

But don’t for one second think this sucker didn’t suck the life out of me.

It’s been a long road and 100% worth it, but oh my goodness you guys sometimes I just feel so BURNED OUT over it all! To the point where I don’t even want to talk about the house, let alone write about it.

And I know that makes me a terrible blogger.

But hopefully you can see that it also makes me a real person.

I think focusing on any one thing so intensely for so long is going to have that effect on anyone. So please know my break in posting never means that I don’t want to share with you – it’s just that sometimes I need a little white space to get back to a place where I can give it my all. And I feel so grateful to those of you who patiently wait for me. Thank you so much.

Alright, back to house talk!

The next phase in our home building process was the installation of our driveway and the front stoop – basically all the concrete stuff.  To refresh your memory, here was the exterior of our house when you last saw it (before the concrete truck rolled in):

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Installing the driveway at this point was really one of those things G and I went back and forth about. We live in Wisconsin and it was getting dangerously close to being too cold outside for the concrete to set properly. But then again – did we want to go through our entire winter with a gravel driveway? We had a hard time imagining that. (How the heck do you even shovel over gravel?) So we rolled the dice and had the concrete poured. The one thing we did decide to wait on, however, was the concrete in the back of the house for our outdoor patio. Winter was closing in and we obviously weren’t going to be using our backyard outdoor spaces anytime soon, so we decided to delay that project (and that expense) until spring.

G and I really liked our concrete guy. Our builder (Classic Custom Homes of Waunakee – they’re amazing) subcontracts with a great guy named Dave (of Dave’s Concrete & Bobcat Service in Wisconsin). Thank goodness he and his wife were so nice because one of the first things we had to chit-chat about was undoing some of his hard work.

Here’s a look at our front stoop before they framed it out for concrete steps:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

And here’s a look at the original framing for the front steps:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Basically the stairs’ width ended at the side of the sidelight instead of ending at the end of the entire stoop. As soon as I saw it I was perplexed because I couldn’t for the life of me think of what I would possibly do with that open space in front of the stoop to the right of the steps if they stayed this way. We maybe could have done staggered flower beds, but I totally suck at keeping flowers alive, and we live in Wisconsin so they’d be dead half the year anyway. G and I just weren’t feeling it, so we asked Dave to reframe the stairs and bring them all the way across the front of the stoop.

Meanwhile, here’s a look at the cement pad in front of our house all framed out! Since we had to go with a sideways garage (due to our narrow lot) we needed a large parking/pull out/turnaround pad at the top of our driveway.

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

G and I also went back and forth about the size of this concrete pad (and the width of our driveway) a bit. You know that saying “It’s not set in stone” (meaning you could always change it later)? Yeah…no. This literally would be set in stone. No turing back (and no turning around at the top of our driveway) if we didn’t get it right! Of course every extra foot seemed like another extra $1K (it wasn’t, but you know how it can feel) so G and I had to strike that balance between function and budget. In the end, it was G’s call on how to frame it all out. He’s always been the yard/landscape/driveway guy (while I take care of the inside) so I really wanted this to be something he’d be happy with, and he made some really great decisions.

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

My car testing it out before the driveway is poured.

The top of the driveway and our front steps all poured! (This picture below is taken from our front door.)

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Installing the culvert at the end of our driveway.

A look at the first section of our driveway poured:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

And the rest of it (plus our gorgeous garage doors!):

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Dream house port-a-potty FTW

Straight and narrow? No way, José.

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Slap some wings on that sucker:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Another look up top:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

I’ll get to the retaining walls and grading in a future post, but here’s a look at it all with the front (future) yard finally all smoothed out:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

And our port-a-potty:

ATG&D Dream Home - new construction series; concrete driveway and front stoop installation. | www.allthingsgd.com

Thank you so much for following along – more to come soon!

New to the ATG&D Dream Home series? Catch up here:

Step by step pictures and posts about the ATG&D Dream Home being built in Cambridge, WI | All Things G&D

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Comments

  1. 1
    Ashley B says:
    March 17, 2016 at 5:23 am

    I completely understand the project burnout! (I bet they don’t talk about self care during home building like they do in the SW world… Lol) So glad to get another peak at the house though! It looks great and definitely the right call of the front steps!

    Reply
    • 2
      Dusty Rogers says:
      March 17, 2016 at 7:07 am

      Oh my goodness, so true re: the self care, lol. Thank you, Ashley!

      Reply
  2. 3
    April says:
    March 17, 2016 at 9:16 am

    In going through the (WI) building process as well. Although not as far along as you are, I can completely understand the burnout. I’m almost to the point where all the “choices” are done, BUT I’m sure more will arise that I didn’t think of given this is my first construction project. Your house is beautiful. Good luck!!

    Reply
    • 4
      Dusty Rogers says:
      April 28, 2016 at 8:42 am

      Hi April! I hope your new home construction is going well, and it’s all a distant (and happy) memory soon! 😀

      Reply
  3. 5
    Carmen says:
    March 17, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    We live in WI also moved into our new construction in October. My husband wanted to wait until the following spring to pour our concrete to allow for settling. I’m glad we did, because we had quite a bit of settling over the winter and had to have everything regraded the following spring (and subsequently had to replant the lawn, gah!) I may have done a little dance when the concrete truck pulled up. The winter and soggy spring with a gravel driveway was not a nice thing. Lots of dirt and scratched floors.

    Reply
    • 6
      Dusty Rogers says:
      April 28, 2016 at 8:46 am

      Ugh. Seems like it’s six of one, half-dozen of the other, doesn’t it?! Our driveway has fared well over the winter, thank goodness. We decided to wait on having our back patio poured until spring though, and G will likely be doing that same happy dance when the cement truck arrives, haha! We also just got our lawn seeded, and we are SO READY to kiss our mud lawn goodbye. I hope all of your projects shake out beautifully this spring, Carmen – you’re almost there!

      Reply
  4. 7
    Pam says:
    March 18, 2016 at 8:49 am

    Welcome back, Dusty!! I think everyone can understand the amount of time, stress and madness that goes into building a home. So glad you are remembering to take some time for you and your family. We will always be here waiting. ;o)
    Things are looking great! Hope you are enjoying this gorgeous house and getting all ready for Easter and Spring! Lots of landscaping fun in your future!

    Reply
    • 8
      Dusty Rogers says:
      April 28, 2016 at 8:48 am

      Thank you so much, Pam! I really appreciate your kind words. The landscaping we have in store is overwhelming, but we plan to hire a landscape architect to get us started and point us in the right direction. But first, grass! 😀

      Reply
  5. 9
    Holly R says:
    April 27, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    Love your article, we are closing in 2 days on our dream home, we have painted, landscaped, shingles, did finish work, flooring and everything in between on our own. I’m so ready to sit on the couch in our new home and drink a glass of wine, it’s been forever since we haven’t been juggling the new house and packing up the old plus figuring out everything in between! thank you for the honest blog post, it made me laugh and relate to our situation!

    Reply
    • 10
      Dusty Rogers says:
      April 28, 2016 at 8:51 am

      We need a support group, lol! Good luck to you on your closing tomorrow, Holly! It sounds like you have put SO MUCH WORK into your amazing new home and I’m certain it will all be worth it!

      Reply

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