Papa Don't Preach

What's that saying "money and blood don't mix"  Building a home with your dad/father in law can be difficult at times. You walk a fine line between a business relationship and your actual relationship.

From the moment my dad agreed to build our home we had an unsaid rule. Dad would have final say on all infrastructure and we would have final say on all finishes. In other words don't tell me how to build and I won't tell you how your house should look. For the most part we upheld this rule. Except for those few occasions where one party felt very strongly and crossed that line.

My husband had spent weeks researching windows. He had finally narrowed down his search to one specific brand, Oknas. They were simple in style, the most energy efficient and on budget. My dad wasn't sold and wanted to see the windows in person. Having built for many years he was loyal to the window titans, Anderson A series and Marvin. So my husband drove with my dad to the nearest distributor, about 40 minutes away from our home. That twenty minute appointment resulted in my dad refusing to put vinyl windows in our home or any home he ever builds. "They look cheap" he said. Respecting my dad's opinion and thinking we were going to prove him wrong we agreed to look at other window vendors. In the end we are glad my dad discouraged us from purchasing the Okna's. We ended up with Marvin windows and we love them!

My dad kept telling us that a house should breathe and it's not natural for a house to be air tight. More importantly he didn't agree we should invest in the more expensive insulation, close cell spray foam. The savings in doing a cheaper insulation like fiber glass would be huge but we were adamant. The long term cost savings to heat and cool our home outweighed the short term gain in our budget. Refusing to change our minds we finally convinced my dad closed cell is the way to go. We can't wait to show him our first heating bill in the new house.

The upstairs kids bathroom was designed with pocket doors to separate the vanity area from the tub/toilet area. As my dad was framing this room he tried to convince us to remove the pocket doors and leave the space open. After I reminded my dad of the days when my sister and I used to share a bathroom, the pocket doors were framed in!

I believe that during the building of this house my dad and I have been building on our relationship. It has grown and changed in ways I didn't expect. We still argue, butt heads, swear in Greek but now I think we respect each other's opinions and experience in a different way then we did before.