After two and half years of planning and a few design changes the bachelor pad is officially started. I'm doing all of the work myself with the guidance and help of my dad and a few friends.

I remember reading in post over the years a few people have had interest in building houses with somewhat non traditional materials so I thought there might be some interest in my little project.

It will definitively have a contemporary/industrial feel to it, all of the steel columns, I-beams and bar joist for the frame are from a huge building that was taken down about 15 years ago. My dad ended up with it and we have used bits and pieces for projects over the last 10 years so my cost on the steel was nothing.

The floor, walls and roof are all going to be insulated foam panels for the most part they have an R value of 10 per inch thick. The panels I'm using for the floor are 4" thick, we removed them from a cold storage plant that had been shut down so there wasn't really a cost to me on them. The panels I'm using for the walls are 3" thick and are 2nds, I was told they were made for the 9-11 memorial but I have no way of confirming that, however my house is 60'x25' and enough panels to do all of the walls set me back $3000. The roof panels are 2" thick and set me back another $3200.

My goal is a budget of 40k, but I have a 60k line of credit set up. If I can't finish it with the 60k it's because I've started buying guns instead of house materials.


Here my piers have been poured, and the steel columns are cut to length waiting to be welded in place.


Columns are are up.



I-Beams in place



Bar joist in place and me welding everything out, BIL in the background doing some dirt work with the track hoe.


The view from what will be the deck.


A picture of the panels that will be the floor.




Sorry for the very long delay, between the holidays, work and being sick for a week and a half it doesn't feel like I have accomplished much in a month. I have however made an ass load of welds and burned about 25lbs of rods in the last month getting everything braced and making sure it is as strong as possible. Here are some pictures from the last month.

Having the equipment to do all of this makes life much easier, if I had to rent this stuff there is no way I could have built the house.


Putting down the floor panels, these panels were used so all of the seams were filled with caulk which had to be scraped out adding about 2 days worth of work.



Little brothers helping out, the younger has a way of getting in the supervisor position even though he is a good worker too.


Me prying the floor panels in place from the bottom, pops working the top side.



Floor panels are down and the square tubing that will support the roof are up.


Got to have some fun while your working, I'm 26 and have been raised around this type of equipment my little brothers have been sheltered because they are 14 and 17 and had never "rode" the boom truck.... I remember being 9 or 10 the first time I did. Might have something to do with the OSHA and all that.


Got a few of the roof purlins up today, the rest should be up tomorrow. I have next week off before going back to work so the walls and roof will be on by then.






Last April the farm got hit by a tornado, I hauled the 2 biggest of about 20 logs I have cut and had them milled. I'll take some more this week and whenever I get time I've got another 10 trees that are down needing to be cut. Finding time to do everything sucks, there are easily 10 cords of firewood that I've cut to lenght but haven't split yet.


All the purlins are up.





The panels are "Architectural" which means they are supossed to have the 1" gap between each panel. I'm going to leave the panels solid for the time being, but eventually the holes for windows and doors will have to be cut and formed out with lumber.


Motivation is super high right now, a full day and I should get the walls up, another day for the Roof.




If anyone was wondering how the panels are attached, you drill a hole and stuff these through then tighten them. There are about 250 of these holding everything together.




I could not find 2nd roof panels the lenght I wanted so my eve's are a little shorted than I would like but I'm going to bend some metal to trim everything out and extend the eve out to about 10" instead of 6.




First look of the inside, would be nice if I had some freaking power now that the roof is on and it is dark...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sureshot45,

Very cool.

Keep up the updates.

This will be fascinating to watch.

subscribed!

PLEASE keep us updated, this post is great, good luck...Jim

Cool, keep the updates coming.

I like this very much. Please keep em coming.

I think this is the first thread I've asked for email notifications on, keep those pics coming...

Interesting,be careful to not push that clay up to the steel pilings.They will rust away in about twenty years even if painted.
learned it the hard way.

nifty, definitely keep this thread alive!

Wow! That's gonna be one solid house.

looking good so far, cant wait to see the updates!!!!

nice. looking forward to seeing this progress...

I'm working on (planning stage) a loosely similar I-Beam framed overtly-modern home in the mountains with a few cantilevered sections.

Great idea using the insulated panels! That is going to be a QUIET house.

Nice and quiet, peaceful view! Thanks for sharing, keep it up, gonna be fun to watch the build.

Stilted with steel beams...what goes under the house there...shooting range?

quote:

Originally posted by Gravebone:
Stilted with steel beams...what goes under the house there...shooting range?

Funny you mention that because if I find a good price on a bunch of metal sheets.....

I'll defiantly keep things updated, it took forever to get started but now that I've seen progress in the last 2 weeks it has jumped up the motivation.

quote:

Originally posted by sureshot45:

quote:

Originally posted by Gravebone:
Stilted with steel beams...what goes under the house there...shooting range?

Funny you mention that because if I find a good price on a bunch of metal sheets.....

I'll defiantly keep things updated, it took forever to get started but now that I've seen progress in the last 2 weeks it has jumped up the motivation.

Insulate that sucker, get some good rubber bullet absorption stuff and go to town

this thread oozes awesomeness! please keep updating it!!!!!

I'm with everyone else on this one. Please keep us up to date on your progress.