Dec 2 2009

Tons of progress today.
The roof is completely sheeted, and the septic system is going in.

The 1500 gallon septic tank, the field will go out to where the farthest guy is standing, three rows of chambers across more pics of them tomorrow.


Here is the trench on the inside for the sewerlines.


Here is where the sewer lines exit the house and enter into the tank. (Which in this picture the tank hasnt been dropped in.)


An inside look at the living dining and kitchen, note the roof.


I climbed the neighbors hill and took a pic down into our valley. And a nice shot of the greenhouse too.


An end shot of the house looking towards the bedrooms. Note the black loops, those are the chambers for the septic field. Also note the finished roof...ok so not finished, but it is sheeted completely.


And a pic from the valley up to the house and the hill behind from where the other pic was taken.


And a pic of the kitchen end and utility room, the big gapping hole under the small roof, will be blocked up awaiting the garage, then it will become part of a connecting walkway forming the south side of an enclosed courtyard.

November 30th

We have our trusses set, and they are sheeting it as I type.

The first truss going up, they set the orange beam before I got there this morning.


This is only the second month that the crane operator has been running a crane, we were a bit nervous when he showed up, never seen before, braces, and a heavily bandaged finger he had severed recently. But he did an OUTSTANDING job moving those trusses around.

The final truss on the main house beeing set.

The end truss on the master besroom being set.

And here they are sheeting the horth side keeping in mind that the plywood leaning against the house are full 4x8 sheets. Not bad of a height for a one story house.

And a look inside while they were still setting the trusses.

Night Sky At Our Home Site.

Night sky from our drive way.

Ah the night sky, this pic is of the "Seven Sisters" just using our camera, beautiful dark crystal clear skys the last two nights, Wednesday Morning at 1:00 there were also several shooting stars.


Remember this is taken with our camera, it is Jupiter, and you can see three of its moons right up close to it. I love our camera, now all I need is a sky-tracker so they don't blur into little lines.

I will get new house pictures up tomorrow.

!!!!! Finally !!!!!

All the walls are up to their final height, 12 feet. Now we just need to pour this level, and we can start on the water lines and the floor before putting on the roof.

The kitchen is at the far end.


The dining room picture window.


Mary standing in the 8 foot tall entry door.

The house seen from the row boat....just kidding the flood waters have receeded, and it is dry again in our front yard. Here Mary is standing in what will be the screen porch french doorway off the living room.

And the house seen from D'Artagnon's sand pit.

Again With The October 31st, 2009

This is the neighbors across the river, it seems to be mere inches above the water.


Here is our beach front from the diningroom window.


Our dog Riley.


Another view this one towards the northwest.

And part of the burm I would like to see go to the river... one day... some year... or I might find a better use for the dirt... like a driveway turn-around.

October 31st, 2009

We have two more layers to put on, most all the window headers are carved out ready for the pour. Yes it looks like a pile of crap, but we are using as much of the bits and pieces as we can.


By the way we now have ... Beach Front Property! ... We had about three inches of rain last week, and had a good sized flood, we got another three inches of rain and got this. It is still six to seven feet vertically to our house, can't say the same for the neighbors across the river, it was to within a few vertical inches of their house.


WOW!!! Blue sky, haven't seen that in along time. This end of the house is the only place they are still carving out the window headers.

A few wall braces.

Kitchen windows, Dining picture windows and front entry door. Only two layer more til we pour.

We are finalizing the truss plans and they will be cranked out ASAP.

We got the pour done bringing our walls to 8' finish, they are now starting on the next four feet of wall height. Sorry no pics of this last pour, I was at home waiting on our mattress to be delivered, while Mary was helping with the concrete, no second pair of hands to take pics.


The bracing is still in place, the anchoring bolts for the windows and doors are in, each block will then need carved out and fitted accurately tricky stuff, after this layer of difficult carvings the last two layers should go real fast.



Thanks to all the rain, about 3 1/4" from one storm, we now have beach front property. It went up a few more inches since this picture. and this was a gentle flood, wait til late winter early spring, it will be up two to three more feet, on average, could go up to almost five more feet.



Here is D's sand box, in this pic, the flood waters are actually higher than the floor of the pit, this didn't last too long, a couple of hours later we went back and it was inundated. But it was cool to be standing on dry ground two feet below water. Riley of course loves water, this is a gentle flood, during the big ones, it is flowing strongly past where she is standing.



Here is a view of the house from the sand pit.

This is as the house looked two days before the pour. I do not recall what I was pointing at, nor did I know I was being filmed either. Note the ever-present shorts, a year round phenomenon.

As of the Sixth Day of October, in the Year of Our Lord, Two-Thousand Nine

Not much going on because of all the rain comming this week, but a few things of note.

Here I am standing by the Dining Room picture windows, in the house, in the rain, huh, imagine that, rain...as if we haven't HAD ENOUGH OF THAT !!! The Kitchen windows are on the right side of the picture. Now imagine the wall heighth four feet taller than they are now. P.S. I am 6'3" and these walls are currently 8 feet tall.


And we finally got the green house covered, kinda looks as if it is smiling. We had Kevin Dirks help yesterday, all day and into the evening, it was getting rather dark when we finished up, but it is enclosed, I have a few things to do inside to make it for usable conditions (ie. double walls and heat) all winter.

The smiley part and the central nose, are zippered ends; to get the truck and tractor in and out.

I cleaned up the site in the rain, and this picture was taken before then; so yes, the yard looks littered, but it is much nicer now.

As of September 28th 2009

This is looking at D'Artagnon's room, the OSB is eight feet tall right now, we are going another four feet taller.

D'Artagnon and his sister Jessi, sitting in D's window. Nice size windows, ehh?


Construction is a messy job, but we have Big D to help clean up the site.

Starting to look like the castle it will become.

Two eight foot french doors will open out onto our front porch.

ALL WET

Here we go again with all the rain!

However we did get the windows and doors sized right, and the window and door bucks are in the shop out of the rain. If the rain stops, hopefully we can pour the cement mid next week, then we can start on the next level.



And since Mother Nature has decided that it should rain this week, we have wrapped up the house as best we can to weather the storms. There is an inch to six inches of mud all over the place, thanks to two inches of rain.

I think we will put sand around the outside of the house, and till it into the soil when we are ready to plant grass, since the inside of the house isn't nearly as soggy as the outside, and the only difference is there is sand on the inside.

The color of fall is begining to appear along our driveway.

The driveway ends at what is starting to appear as a house.

There is a bit of an optical illusion at the corner so kindly

ignore that, but the large space is for the picture window

which is flanked by two doublehungs in the dinning room.

Then there is the space for the 8' tall french entry doors,

then the other 8' french entry door is flanked by two

doublehung windows, and then the far window is the library.

The kitchen counter runs along the wall on the left, across

the way where the pallet is sitting will be a double frige

which faces the kitchen counter, and a walk in fireplace

facing towards the right front which is the dining room.

Things are coming along very nicely.

Here is a blueprint, we are building it very close

to this, minus the garage, we will add it later.

Along the top are a bedroom on the left and the

library on the right, a very long screened in porch

along the right side over looking the river valley.

The master suite has a large walk in closet with

laundry facilities, then the master bath with

elongated tub and wall mounted toilet.

The kitchen and dining room along the lower end of

the house and everything in between is the

great/livingroom.

A walk way on the lower left joins the kitchen to

the garage with a court yard between.