Also worth mentioning 2026 - 4 = 2022. Not a great year to be stick building from a cost perspective.

You got raked over the coals. You can downvote me, but as someone who knows how to build structures man, I feel so sorry for people reading your message thinking this is OK.

This is really, really poor quality for the cost.

I’m not even a commercial builder. A bag of Portland cement concrete is $5/bag. You don’t need to pay $2k for such a small foundation.

Maybe he could have saved a few thousand with different subs (maybe) but your comments are nonsensical. I see tons of janky builds people post on Reddit and this is not one of them. You should spend your commenting time over there.

youare the same type that tell foreigners to go back to their country because you dont like being called stupid more than you dont like actually being stupid20k for this is a joke like yoi

It looks poor, it is poor.

But we also have a whole nation who thinks paying rent, an HOA, who can take your home from you, is a good idea so everyone can look equally poor together in lower middle class homes with textured walls.

The expectation is higher.

PS I was saying that $20k is too little to spend for this type of thing - not a great price for this result.

My calculus is to evaluate time, cost, and quality. If someone can match or beat me on 2/3 of those dimensions then I'll hire them.

This is the danger of "cheap projects" - they can grow legs before you know it, and you end up paying half the cost of increasing the square footage of the house (or the garage).

You get a finished and conditioned room, and it most likely added value to his house.

Walls, floors, ceilings and everything in between them are both less complex and cheaper to fix than foundations or trusses.

An 8x10 6” slab has 1.5 cubic yards of concrete. Making concrete takes more than a bag of Portland cement, you also need gravel, sand, a mixer, a wood frame, a source of water, shovels, floats, et cetera. If you want rebar, add in steel and rebar tools and wire.

You could frame up the wood yourself and have Cemstone deliver the concrete but you still need to spread it out, float it, and finish it.

Instead of buying or renting all of that, I would sub it out. I subcontract out light pole bases and concrete pads for transformers, EV chargers, and other equipment all of the time.

You can buy all the Quickcrete you want (not sure the last time you priced it), but it won’t make you good at pouring a level pad. That alone puts me off trying to do it some days.

The main thing I’d advise people against and say you could have possibly saved on is the structure. Tuff Shed is usually over priced and could be built usually with $2k-3k of material and labor. But the time you did this may have made that hard too, all the contractors were slammed.

Thank you for the cool post.

I am very glad that the grainy 40 year old photos of me at that sort of age with my father are us digging a hole together or me crawling around on a freshly poured slab of concrete - rather than at a soft play venue.

What memories with a 1 year old? Besides the fact that it's almost impossible to actively access memories from when you're 1 year old, a 1 year old shouldn't be anywhere near a construction site.

There are much better and safer uses of time together with a 1 year old that don't revolve on hoping they'd see a grainy (or nom grainy) photos 40 years later.

I did not reference memories anywhere at any time. I did not imply or state that I had memories of such, could access memories of such nor suggest it was possible in any way.

My handprints however are still in that concrete slab to this day.

I understand the choice of a different activity for a 4 year old or something, or even for a very calm and prudent 2 year old.

Just for the photo? Who cares? You could have had the same grainy photo at the soft play center and it would have been as nostalgic.

I hate these ill intentioned judgemental comments like yours.

Do you have a mirror handy by any chance?

Someone shared their benign personal experience and the FIRST reply was the Holier-Than-Thou typical garbage of "akshually, you're a bad parent because you did not do X Y Z parenting micro-optimization".

One one hand, "implicit memory" [0] begins at birth and being around one's father building impressive things is a huge bonding experience. Research seems to say that even at 1yo these things imprint on our brains.

On the other hand, it shouldn't get to a point where a 1yo is crawling into freshly laid concrete. There are safer ways to do it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_memory

Also, the first 18 months establish a good deal of a person's attachment security, connection to parents, and emotional intelligence. The brain continues to be flexible for some time, but gradually becomes harder to rewire.

> Then from 4 or 5 upwards they're at school a lot and starting to lose interest in what their parents want to do

I had to disagree with this. Thought this might be a European experience, in the US there probably isn't a lot of time to interact with the kids during the typical work week.

I would say that interest in what we do has stayed steady if not increased after about 3 years old because now they understand more things.

At this rate I expect the "losing interest part" to start during the tween (8-12) or teenage years.

So long as it is safe, a kid even at 1 years old should be tagging along with the adults doing things. Like building, working out in the yard, helping friends with projects, whatever.

It is very settled science that brain connections happen rapidly in these years. Bubble wrapping your children is not the way to go in my opinion.

Everyone is going to have a different take on this, but for me the choice is immediately obvious. Kids should fit into your life (within reason), not have you change to revolve around theirs.

That said - I highly doubt a 1 year old did much more than watch and have short visits while being cared for by someone not doing the construction work. It’s a great bonding experience even with limited direct involvement.

Part of the reason someone DIYs isn't that you're just trading time for money, it's that you understand the value of what you pay for in expertise. Even if you contract out in the future, you'll be better at getting value.

To put it another way, DIY is an investment in yourself. The things you learn doing the work you get to keep forever.

There are a few exceptions:

1. pouring a concrete pad (too dirty, too much work, needs a crew to really be done right) 2. adobe mud plaster (once you've seen people who know what they're doing do that thing, you'll know why) 3. diamond and venetian plaster (same as #2) 4. 3-phase anything (i understand the concept, but that's not enough)

but electrical, plumbing, framing, finish carpentry, flooring ... I'm sorry guys, but I'm better and I care more than most of you.

What I'm not: faster than you.

I'm sure there are amazing trades folk out there who could put anything I do to shame, but finding them and being able to pay them is another story altogether.