Megan and Josh Torman’s Spanish Olive
By day, Josh Torman works as a nurse anesthetist at Caribou Memorial Hospital in Soda Springs, Idaho. Actually, it’s more like every day/ all day as Josh is the only anesthetist on staff and therefore, always on call.
Yet in the times in-between his hospital job, Josh Torman works as a plumber, an electrician, a framer a finish carpenter and a general contractor.
Superman, you say? Nope, just a man dedicated to building a home for himself and his family.
“We couldn’t decide at first whether to build a log home or a timber home,” Josh said. “Eventually we made the timber choice. Then it became which timber company to work with. My wife, Megan, and I had been checking out the Timberbuilt website for the last four years and while we would be drawn to other builders, we kept coming back to Timberbuilt and their Spanish Olive design. So we figured it must be our dream house.”
The Tormans contacted Timberbuilt and described their six-bedrooms, two-and-a half bath, open kitchen/dining /family room, dream. In short order, Timberbuilt’s designer Adam Scott and production manager, Adam Lincoln, put together the variables as the Tormans described them.
According to Josh, the only issue was cost.
“We have five children, ages six to 13. Our life is one of budgets,” Josh said. “So I sat down and worked out the numbers and went back to Timberbuilt. They were great in working with me to redesign and reorder some things. Next I created a spreadsheet for the cost of every detail and stuck to my budget. Then I became the general contractor/ builder.”
Josh assembled a trustworthy crew for his home building project including several local contractors who worked on the foundation, the roofing and the framing of floors. However, for the main house construction, Josh turned to a crew he trusted implicitly— his family.
The Tormans are an experienced construction group, as together they have already built a cabin and a house. On this family construction project Josh’s father, Reed, undertook the majority of the electrical wiring, his brother, Joe, worked on plumbing and general construction and Megan plied her trusty paint brush on both the interior and exterior.
Even Josh’s mom worked as part of the team, sending along food for her hard-laboring family. Ultimately though, the experience has been the greatest challenge for Josh.
“I’d never seen a timber frame home before, so I wasn’t completely sure what to expect,” Josh said. “But I have to say that while it’s been a challenge, I’ve enjoyed it so much. It’s really been fun figuring it out.”
Figuring it out has meant a number of things for Josh, including learning how to run plumbing and electric through Timberbuilt’s unique SIP panel construction. It’s a learning process that the determined man brushes aside with a simple explanation. “I got on YouTube and watched people doing it. It ended up being a lot easier than I anticipated.”
When asked if he would change anything about the house or the process, Josh is quick to answer.
“I am glad about everything with this house,” Josh said. “I can’t think of anything I would change. In fact, if I ever build another home, it will be with Timberbuilt. They deliver the product that they offer and that you expect.
They’ve been building for so long that they’ve got it figured out and their floor plans flow so nicely. You can tell that they’ve gone through the designing and building a lot to get where they are now. And their timber frame houses are beautiful. Their timbers are big and beautiful.”
