Family builds its new home in off hours, and that means pitch black construction

Posted 10/25/19

It’s novel for a family not in the construction business to build their own house.

It’s even more intriguing when that family labors after the regular work day — a project …

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Family builds its new home in off hours, and that means pitch black construction

Posted

It’s novel for a family not in the construction business to build their own house.

It’s even more intriguing when that family labors after the regular work day — a project carried out in large part in darkness through a Wyoming winter.

Meet the Sterling Reynolds family of 239 W. 10th Street. Their new home in the College Park Subdivision is all but complete — 13 months and counting after they broke ground.

Sterling Reynolds’ day job is in Cody working for Skywest Airlines. His wife, Susan Reynolds, is a speech pathologist at Parkside Elementary School and she also does contract speech pathology work for Powell Valley Healthcare. Son Ben Reynolds is a 15-year-old sophomore at Powell High School and provided a big assist to his father on the project. The Reynolds family also has a son Max, 12, and a daughter Reagan, 7.

Together they have brought to life a house of 3,600 square feet — 1,800 square feet upstairs and 1,800 feet downstairs — working evenings and weekends around the contours of regular jobs outside the home, school and family life.

 

Trying to beat the winter weather

Construction had to proceed around Sterling’s day job, working at Yellowstone Regional Airport. His routine meant starting each working day at 4 a.m. at YRA, leaving the airport for home only after the daily plane schedule was met. If things went well, he could be back in Powell around 2:30 in the afternoon.

“But it was not uncommon to get home at 4 p.m.,” he said.

That’s when his construction day began, taking advantage of daylight as best he could. Excavation on the 9,910 square-foot lot began, and the foundation was poured in September 2018.

“We were hoping to get a roof on and the home enclosed before snow came. We were trying to beat the weather,” he said. “Sometimes when I got home, I had only three to four hours to work. But I gave up sleep when it was urgent.”

Reynolds had some evening daylight in the fall months, but with the arrival of winter and the time change, daylight faded in the late afternoon, and he was pretty much plunged into after-dark construction.

Power had been run to the building site, and that made it possible to hang construction work lights here and there, the only meager illumination.

 

Finishing details

Why did Reynolds choose to build through the winter months? The timing was more circumstance than choice. The family sold its home in August 2018 and set out immediately to build a replacement. The objective was to rent for as short a time as possible.

“I was hoping to have this house done by Sept. 15, [2019],” Reynolds said recently, adding wryly, “So was the bank.”

That would have made it a one-year project — September to September. He came close.

The family has moved in under a “temporary occupancy” permit from the city, which recognizes there are some finishing touches to wrap up.

“It means the space is safe to live in, but not complete,” Reynolds explained.

Among the unfinished work is tile for an upstairs shower, baseboard and trim in some rooms and finish trim on the basement level. One door had to be reordered, and it hasn’t arrived. The exterior still needs some siding and trim work, along with stone facing on the front of the house and backyard fencing.

Again depending on the weather, Reynolds hopes the finishing details on the home can be completed within a few weeks. Fencing will be a big project, he noted.

Reynolds now looks back on the October, November and December nights of a year ago and is able to smile. If it was really snowy and cold, the work stopped. But overall, “we had great weather,” he said.

The walls were up, the roof was on and the house was enclosed by Dec. 12.

“We were truly blessed to be enclosed by mid-December,” he said. “We had some 50-degree days and no wind to get a roof on.”

Of course, while the house was “enclosed,” there was no insulation against the outside cold. And it got really cold after the first of the year.

“When it drops to negative temperatures, construction is not a priority for a family that doesn’t have a working furnace,” Reynolds dead-panned. “Things really slowed down a lot.”

February was the coldest month, he recalled, with temperatures hitting 5 to 10 below zero.

“You can put heaters out, but negative temperatures are just too much” to contend with, he said.

Heating, plumbing and electrical had to be roughed in before insulation could be applied. It was March before the insulation was sprayed on.

The Reynolds family project contracted out a number of services along the way.

“I hired out the concrete work and help with the trusses, the heating and the spray insulation,” Sterling said. “The drywall I can do, but I’m not very fast. So I also contracted drywall.”

 

A family project

Reynolds’ construction background is limited, though he has some experience in the field courtesy of family connections.

“My wife’s dad and brothers are all builders in Montana,” he said. “For a time, I worked with their dad. That was the year 2000, a long time ago. But I learned enough to make it work.”

His wife Susan was a partner in the building process as well as keeping the house going.

“Her job went later in the day than mine, plus she was on call at the hospital. Then she was here helping with whatever needed to be done,” Reynolds said. “She did things that take time, like measuring and cutting boards.”

It wasn’t all about the house building, Sterling noted.

“We have a life, too,” he said. “My wife took the kids to sports practices and our daughter to gymnastics and ran the house.”

Fifteen-year-old Ben was learning on the job, picking up the trade. He was also picking up big exterior walls with his father.

“He was being gopher, helping me with this and that. And he’s a tough kid. He did a lot,” said Sterling.

 

‘A sense of satisfaction’

The year-long effort has produced good memories.

Reynolds recognizes that work remains to be done, and the family doesn’t get to heave a big sigh of completion just yet. “But we’re here, and we’re warm. It feels good.”

He acknowledges that he (and family members) didn’t do it alone. Hired contractors helped with certain aspects along the way.

But this is also an unmistakable takeaway.

“There is a sense of satisfaction and probably a little pride,” he said quietly.

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