Well, when the house is done there will be no mortgage to pay, no building materials to buy, no jobs to take up time...
That will be when I suggest visiting this seller, on ebay, for a new project....
I am guessing that the chimney will be too tall to go through the front door. 
I don't know, my front door is over 8' tall though....
Thing is, if I was to build a large scale traction engine I would avoid all the worry about boiler testing, safety valves, and hot bits of metal by building a 'Showman's' type engine with the big dynamo on the front.
However, the dynamo would actually be a motor that drove the flywheel, and hence the drive gears and 'piston', instead of the other way around, and it would be electric powered. The boiler could be painted in black and copper, like a well known brand of battery! There could even be a smoke generator in the funnel.
It would be like a 'zombie' steam engine. All there and active, but dead and cold.
I've been away, I'm OK... thanks for asking.
Was it sunny?
Was it sunny?
but luckily so were they. 
