Well, it’s been a full year of construction. We broke ground in early November 2018 and here we are one year later.

Of course, we’ve made incredible progress…but, if you asked us if we thought we’d be further along, the answer would definitely be yes.

But, we’re doing the darn thing and our little project is looking more and more like a home as each day goes by.

Since our last post, we’ve installed the first round of windows, have the metal roof mostly installed, installed a bunch more siding, ordered the next batch of windows, fought with Xcel on our dang gas line (still not installed), sealed a boat load of cedar, installed our panoramic door, researched radiant floor, and made progress on a bunch of other stuff. It’s been a solid month and we’re full of gratitude for a warmer November with minimal snow.

Rather than dive into the details on all of that stuff, we wanted to reserve this post to express our gratitude to our family, friends, and construction partners who have made it possible for us to reach for our dream of living a simple mountain life. So, here goes…

To our beautiful sons, Laird and Corbin. Thank you for being flexible with us, playing so well and the jobsite, and understanding why we need to postpone typical family adventures so we can have even greater adventures down the road
To Cory’s parents, Neil and Cindy Gallaway. Thank you for allowing us to live at your condo (now for longer than expected), for taking wonderful care of the boys while you’re in Colorado, for spending hours and hours at the house working right alongside us, for providing some extra funding along the way, for feeding us well when we would probably just be eating rice and vegetables, and for the countless other ways you show us love and support
To Kelsey’s parents, Dave Andersen and Laurie Voss. Dave, thank you for flying to Colorado at the last minute (on a few occasions) to help us with key parts of the house build, like the steel beams, glulam beams, and SIP panels. Your attention to detail has been so helpful! To Laurie for staying with us on multiple occasions when we needed extra help with childcare, for sending the sweetest little presents for the boys, and your over the top use of emojis on our family group texts
To our siblings, Tim Gallaway and Ashlee Andersen. Tim, thanks for being the “finisher” on the SIP roof panels and helping us document this project with your awesome videos and photos. Ashlee, thanks for all of your help along the way - foundation foam, shoveling, using power tools, and bringing Rey to visit the boys.
To our sister-in-law Gina Johnson (Tim’s wife) and Ashlee’s partner, Tony. Gina thanks for teaching us the phrase “look with your hands.” It comes in so handy when the boys have misplaced tools Kelsey needs on the jobsite. Tony, thank you for the wonderful supply for Spyder gear. What would I do without my favorite hat!?
To Margaret Hudson. Thank you for all of the time spent shoveling last winter when we could have been skiing, the amazing Thanksgiving celebrations you execute, and being such a great cheerleader from afar
To Dan and Luke Hodgkin. Thank you both for visiting from Canada to each spend a whole week focused only on work! You both visited at such key times and we’re so grateful!
To James Duran. Thank you for your expertise and excellent connections for our windows. We’re so thankful that you visited twice to help us ensure that everything was accurate and to make sure we got a good start on installation
To Jeff Leigh for helping us place our steel beams and being such a great source of information on lots of subjects along the way. And, we’ll always remember your spiderman skills as you walked across the steel beams and exterior of the SIP panels. Oh, wait...you didn’t want us to mention those balance moves to your wife...sorry.
To Karl Fauland. Our neighbor, Karl, is building his own home at the top of Mesa Cortina. Karl, you’re a trooper. And, we’re all in this crazy home-building journey together! The boys love waving to you every time you go by our place.
To Dan Huckabee. Thanks to our soon-to-be neighbor from Austin, TX who helps out at the job site when he’s in Colorado by helping install siding, doors, framing, and buys us helpful stuff like garbage bags!
To Matt Hickman and Jeannine Resseguie who are building a home in our neighborood doing the bulk of the work themselves too. They are about 6-9 months ahead of us in their project and are almost ready to move in! Thanks for understanding and commiserating with us!
To Erin and Bryce Bingham who are also building a home in our neighborhood. They broke ground this fall and their soil is just as terrible as ours. We have developed a great bond over our hatred for paying for “better” dirt.
To our awesome friends who have swung by to work (for an hour or multiple days!), or just say hello. Your constant encouragement that we’re making the right move keeps us motivated to push on. A special thank you to Dave and Jackie Mack, Aaron and Kat Lowe, Josh and Lindsay Schaidle, Ricky Borst, Morgan, Chris and Lisa Moore, Zoe Epstein, Mark Beattie, Maddie and Steve Mishkind, Angie Viertal, Becca Holcomb, Danielle Steffey, Phil and Jen Willis, Ben and Emily Nachtrieb, Josh and Katherine Vaughn
To Jake and Annie Voss. Our soon to be neighbors to the east. When you’re in the midst of building, we’ll be happy to host you for Taco Tuesday, or a beer on the deck.
To Shaun Salisbury. Jake and Annie’s builder who has been super helpful as we’re planning out our window wall and also provide lots of other advice.
To our suppliers and partners who have helped us by allowing Kelsey to do as much work as possible, to providing items at a discount, and being reliable - for the most part - when we call you for a request.
To the Summit County building and planning department for answering our questions and being flexible with us as we are postponing the building of our garage until after we get our certificate of occupancy on the house.
To all of our friends who are so gracious with us turning down social invites because we’re so focused on our work here at the house. We promise we’ll reemerge soon!

It’s been an incredible year - full of highs and lows - and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Warm Thanksgiving wishes from our family to yours.

Cory, Kelsey, Laird, and Corbin

Here is a gallery of photos summarizing our progress over the last month. Enjoy!