Progress...

Sorry it's been so long but my computer won't acknowledge my camera so I couldn't load all those fabulous pictures I've been taking! We received a HUGE load of trusses this morning. Oh my goodness but the house is TALL! I won't bore you with the details. Let's get on with the pictures!


This is the top part of the stairs that Nick did. Wait until I get the rest of the pics loaded and you'll be blown away by the finished stairs! They are BEAUTIFUL! A very grand entry to our humble abode...
We caught a couple graffiti vandals defacing our garage floor:


And here is another view of the upstairs taken from the living room. Won't be seeing daylight for long!

Here are the guys relaxing after a hard days work:

What a difference a day makes..

Wow. I just had to show you how cool it looks now that there's an actual floor upstairs!! That would be my kitchen as viewed from the living room.

I believe we have all the second floor lumber here now and the guys are busting it out. We've discovered a few things that we hadn't caught on the plans but they're relatively minor and we can fix without a problem. This is another picture of the second floor walls:

Have I mentioned lately how much these guys ROCK???

Second Floor....Lingerie

Ok, so maybe we won't have the elevator like the Aerosmith video but we do have floor joists! They have been rolling the joists for the second floor floor. Started Friday by placing a bunch of beams then yesterday they rocked and rolled and pretty much the whole main house has been joisted (?) :-) I'm hoping to see the bonus space over the garage (AKA: Sandi's Woman Cave) developing soon. Those are my little monkeys climbing the walls. The girls are sitting on the opening that will be a pass-thru from the dining room to the kitchen. The devil's in the details!

Machine Time

I have to get done with the loader/backhoe. It's a fine tool, though expensive. What sucks about it is that the dirt is mud and the thing weighs a million tons or so it seems, and I've about wrecked the fine grading Cal did two weeks ago. But stuff has to get done...

Spent the weekend doing things related to the digging, including relocating a post base that was incorrectly drawn on the foundation plan. It was off about 16 inches, so I dug to the footing under the wrongly-placed column and added a few inches to it. Then the next day I grabbed the existing one with the digger/thumb, yanked it up and put it back down in the right place. It's anchored by gravity alone but only holds vertical loads and there is no shear so it should be fine.

I also added, on the cost-savings suggestion of Nick, a couple of post bases for the front deck. This reduced the supported span from 15' to 7-1/2' and changes from a treated glu-lam to dimensional lumber. We saved $400-$500 and it only cost me a couple of hours and a backache.

I rigged my cement mixer to the loader bucket to make it simple to move everything to the spot I was working:

The biggest accomplishment this weekend was completing the utility junction re-work. I re-built the communications ground-box and added one for the water hydrant and got water connected into the new house. We have an 1-1/4" mainline from the road and now continuing to the house. The large size reduces friction ultimately so we should get better water pressue at the tap when all is said and done. In the photo below you can see the build. I changed from PVC to Poly pipe to the house (thanks for that roll, Mark!). I also T'd off to iron pipe with a 3/4" spur going to the chicken coop and then to a fire hydrant. I put a valve in the ground box to shut off this circuit in winter to avoid freezing.

We've been cleaning around the house, picking up the tons of nails and burning the wood scraps. I have to say, it's a pretty clean jobsite so far.

I also ran a pump for awhile under the house, and have to continue that "project" this week. I'm not sure yet, but we may have an issue with ground water coming up in which case I'll have to install a permanent pump.

This week should see the framing rise to the second floor. My tasks, after grading one last time and returning the machine, will be to get electrical service to the house so we can be done with the long cords running across the yard. It's also time to start planning the plumbing, at least the DWV so I can get vent pipes located in the roof for flashing when the roof is installed hopefully in June.

We're going to burn our big pile of yard debris probably this weekend. My brother is in town and it would be nice to get some people together, also to "officially" celebrate our ground-breaking. Stay tuned, or just show up. We're here.

Interior Walls!

This is the 'front' of the garage that you will see when pulling in the driveway. Ain't she pretty???
Ramp leads to the front door. We will probably replace that with stairs although it does add a certain character to the place... Standing in the living room, looking into the kitchen. Laundry room window straight ahead: I know it's hard to really get a feel for the layout from the pictures. Especially with all the bracing keeping the walls anchored but I couldn't help but take some pictures of the progress. We can actually walk through the house with the stud walls in place and get a real feel for the room sizes. In my mind's eye, I could have held major league baseball games in my living room. The reality? Not so much. :-) But it will be perfect for family gatherings and entertaining friends. I am SOOOOO excited to see this coming together. It actually brings a tear to my eye to think that we are finally bringing the dream to reality. (And for those of you who know me, that's not easy to do!) There's still a long road ahead but I say, Bring it on!

Still Here!

Hey hey, it looks like we're slowing down a bit on the blogging (SANDI WHERE ARE YOU?). But we're not slowing down our project, in fact it seems like it's picking up speed!

I thought I'd come blog to give you a bore with technical stuff. And I will. Sandi can add her shining perspective and pictures later.

We took Sunday off for Easter and spent it at Sandi's parents place. Good thing, too, as it rained so hard there would be no hope of getting anything done in the mud. I didn't use big enough rocks, and the tarp flew off of the dirt pile and it ran like oatmeal making it un-usable for the time being. I've been spending most of my time doing ground work, and have pretty much finished the trenching. I went up the front of the property with water and low voltage lines, with a hose bib now at the north entrance. I also ran water, power and data from the house to the shed and the garden. Sandi asked me why I ran a Cat5 to the garden! Huh! Doesn't she get it? Maybe you can fill her in (because I can't answer the question....).

The biggest trenching deal so far is between our transformer and the neighbor's meter, which is currently fed overhead from our place. We cut a hole, squeezing between the mobile and the chicken coop and firewood and made a mess. I dug the hole Saturday, and Shane and I laid the conduit. We didn't think to shade the pipe down, and on Sunday the rains filled the trench and the pipes floated right up. So we had to pump out most of the water before back-filling, got the PUD inspection, and now I've mostly filled it all up. PUD will come out in a week or two or three and change the service to underground. Oh, while the hole was open I ran a water line and power to the chicken coop. Now (Wednesday) I'm working on the utility head-end, preparing to build the water connection to the house including making a permanent, frost-proof 1-1/2" fire hose bib. The low voltage conduit is also in this spot, terminating in a utility box with the other comm stuff from the street and garage. I'm looking forward to filling this big hole, probably the last thing I have to do before we return the machine. We already got a bill for the excavator, for $2000. I really don't want to spend a ton on the backhoe, as our budget number remaining was about $1600 for machine rental before the excavator.

The house is realy coming together. All of the first floor walls are up, squared and braced. The crew is taking Thursday off and will return on Friday when our next lumber drop is scheduled. That will be to start on the second floor deck. We can walk around the floor now and get a real good feel for the house; it's quite exciting!

The picture above is Hayward of Northwest Energy. He and I were building the buried, heat-fused manifold for the geothermal ground-loop.

Going Vertical

Our fabulous framing crew, Masterworks Const. - Nick, Nate, Joe & Matt!, have been working hard every day and are making great progress. I was lucky to be home and saw the first wall going vertical. The larger opening is the dining room window and the smaller will be the laundry room.

That was Thursday. And the end of the next day...

This is the back side of the house. The three windows are in the master bedroom.
These guys ROCK! :-)