Happy Solstice!

Well our internet is still out and we've been too busy to try to figure out how to fix it. This makes posting much more difficult but really is not a good excuse for letting more than a month go by! There's been much news on the Homer-front; Matt has gotten a full time job working for the Seldovia Village Tribe's Medical Center. It's a great job working with a fantastic organization, plus it's indoors! Poor guy has to shave and wear shirts for the buttons while I "get" to continue to freeze my toes off building our house. However, I have been taking a few weeks off from our house to help dad finish up the other house on Forest Glen. It's nice and cozy warm working on interior trim and installing toilets, I'm getting spoiled. Once that house is done we'll be able to both move up the hill and move fast to get ours done. We've got big bags of insulation sitting in our living room waiting to be installed, the wiring and plumbing is done and the HRV is done except for a few little odds and ends. We managed to string the power line up across the road so that the snow plow won't bother it and so our permanent-temporary power is set until spring. I've been dreaming lately about refrigerators lately. It may be silly with all the work to be done yet (ahem, insulated walls maybe?), but all I can think about is this refrigerator. It's the one I'm determined to get, even if I have to sell a kidney to pay for it by the time the house is done. Isn't it beautiful? Our current refrigerator is about thirty years old and if you even THINK about opening the door the motor will start to run like a jet engine. It is so loud that when we watch a movie we have to continue to adjust the volume to compensate for it. Our electric bill is a good $35 more a month because of it! I want a new refriderator!!!!
And speaking of carts before horses, here are the kitchen cabinets that are waiting for us as Spenards(it will be another month minimum before we get to pick them up) I got a good deal on them and love that I was able to get full ceiling height upper cabinets. Classy, eh?

Finally, an update!

Phew! Our internet connection has been out of order, and I have to write from my mom's computer. We've made great progress lately. The plumber has come and is nearly finished doing all the plumbing rough-in. We've recieved the parts for all the HRV (Heat recovery ventilation)unit and I've been running the ductwork myself. A bit of a learning curve, but there aren't any prizes for perfection, so...whatever.
We've finished the tyvek, and all the exterior trim and corner boards save a few little bits. It has been so so so cold lately, ugh. It's hard to imagine it ever thawing out enough to stain the siding, I'm not sure what we'll do about that...we may have to bring it inside to stain it once it we've insulated. Anyway, it still sits in a huge pile outside. Also, some bad news on the HEA front...they finally arrived last week with the big machinery and started to dig the trench across the road to lay the power line from the transformer to the house. Well, within a few minutes they determined that the ground was too frozen to dig and we'd have to wait to spring. I was initially freaked out, but we've figured out that we can run a temporary line up a pole to go across the road and that it won't affect our mortgage. Phew!

And finally, a roof.

And we are not the ones doing it, thank god! We've "sub-contracted" out the roofing and I couldn't be happier. It looks fantastic, I really like the weathered wood color that we picked, it goes nicely with the blue-green trim color.

Walls, walls and more walls!

I really love building interior walls. I mean I REALLY love it. I go to bed early just because I can't wait to wake up the next morning so that I can go to work and build interior walls. There is something about how quick it happens, how spacially satisfying it is to see rooms and closets and nooks and be able to imagine where all the switchplates are going to go and how this little corner will be perfect for a comfy chair or a potted plant. I love using the level to get everything plumb and strait. I love that you build it on the floor and then heave it up into place. I love that I get to measure and re-measure to figure everything just right. (and I love that I can use the saws-all to erase most mistakes ;-) Since our house is so tiny, it's difficult to get far enough away to take decent pictures of the interior, but here are a bunch anyway. Look at all those walls!

Our stairs...in the beginning

So we were out at the lumber yard yesterday to pay our bill and pick up a few boards. I ask our lumberman if he ever has any 1" by 12" boards that we would be able to plane down and use as stair treads. He usually doesn't but being the extremely helpful and most extraordinarily nice guy that he is he said that he just happened to have a log in the line up that he thought he could get some nice boards out of for us. And there it was, just sitting on his roller next to the saw, waiting to be cut up into boards for us to make stairs out of. He wrote our names on it as a reminder and that was that. What a romantic and beautiful thing. Really. Wow.

Exterior trim, knee walls and a dollop of freezing cold weather!

Brrrrr! It didn't get above 29 today, but I kept plenty warm building and hoisting a 27' long wall all by myself! Well, it was a knee wall, but it was made of 2 x 6's and nearly 6' tall, so I do get some burly points for the effort. After one failed attempt in which all 27' of it came crashing down magnificently, I was able to get it up by incrementally raising it and propping it on taller and taller blocks. After completing the knee walls on the second floor, I nailed the 2 x 4's to the rafters to fir (fer? fur? foor?) them out and create more space to insulate on the angled part of the ceiling. I couldn't help but put up the trim around one of the windows...it looks fantastic. Dad and Matt got almost all of the facia board on yesterday while I painted trim and built an interior wall. We're sub-contracting out the roofing (Hooray!) and they might be up at the house as early as Monday. The shingles have been ordered and should arrive Monday morning, so we'll be ready for them.
Also, sadly, the little cluster of trees that were so mercifully saved during the ground work and stood the the front left corner of our lot providing that extra "woodsy" character...have been chipped. HEA flagged them and a crew came today to clear them out in order to put our power line in. Good news is that maybe this means we'll get power before spring.

We've been making progress...baby steps it feels like sometimes. Today I built the dormer walls and Matt sanded and began painting the exterior trim. We worked over the weekend to get it all cut and put together and it looks pretty classy. I was actually thankful to see rain today, because at least it wasn't snow! No more snow! We still have a roof to shingle! Egad. It will all get done in time even if we have to shovel the roof to do it. I've finally included a few pictures of the back side of the house, which are hard to get since the ground drops off so steeply around back, it'll be a good sledding hill perhaps.

Mock-up

I couldn't help it...I had to do some fussing around in photo-shop to see if my trim ideas will work out. Since the house is so tall, we thought that a wide band of painted siding (4" T1-ll probably) around the perimeter of the house would help break up the tall verticals. I like it so far...

Front gable

We built the front porch yesterday and Dad got busy today building the front gable. It looks so cute now that the front has some different lines. Matt and I had to move the huge pile of siding from one side of the front yard to the other so that HEA (Homer Electric Assc.) will have a clear path to dig a trench for our power. Dad hung the meter box and we're waiting for them to show up. We've had snow the last few days and yesterday there was quite a bit on the ground. Fortunately it's warmed up and we had some beautiful rainbows and sunny skies this afternoon. I'm hopeful that our rainy summer will not just turn to a snowy fall...it would be nice to have a little break to finish up our exterior work. I started painting exterior trim and have the facia boards all done. We picked a pretty blue-green-grey called "Midnight Garden". I think it will look nice with the siding stained brown.

Walls and Windows

Finished sheathing the gable ends and popped in 11 of the 13 windows. Phew!

Handsome couple pose with pile 'o' siding

We borrowed a truck and were able to haul all of our siding up to the house yesterday. It's a big pile of wood! Our windows and doors have arrived as well and are taking up a lot of space inside. The windows are quite handsome, I can't wait to put one in!

Bring in the professionals!

I had been losing serious sleep thinking about getting up on our roof to tar paper. I have this bazaar kind of fear of heights where, when I am up high I am not the least bit frightened, even balanced on a precarious spot I'm completely unfazed. But when I'm standing on solid ground and thinking about being way up high I am just a ball of nerves...a complete wreck. I have a fear of being afraid of heights! How absurd is that?
Well anyway, early this morning, on our way out of Spenard's Builder Supply after purchasing some very long 2x4's for making a chicken ladder (ladder with a right angle on top to hook over the roof ridge), I stopped by the contractors desk to ask Kevin if he had any ideas regarding hiring someone to paper our roof for us. He was extremely helpful and gave me a name and number. I called, got a good quote (well, extremely cheap if the standard by which it's measured is how much I would pay to not have to do it myself) and voila, Thanks to Ryan Walker & Assoc. we have a papered roof. No more soggy, sodden, damp and moldy. Hooray! It was pretty amazing to watch these guys work too. They just scampered around up there with out being harnessed in or anything, lugging rolls of tarpaper around like it was for fun. Now the no-harness thing is admittedly pretty stupid, and they're young so maybe they just haven't figured out yet that the whole mortality issue applies to them as much as it does to the rest of us, but seriously, I've tried to walk on that roof and it's insanely steep. A 12/12 pitch is nothing to sneeze at. They have skills!

A break in the weather and some more roof!

Well, Dad and Matt are to thank for our fantastically sheathed roof. We've had a little break in the weather and they both really got cracking framing up the overhangs and throwing up all of the sheathing. With a little tar-paper, this roof will actually do what a roof is intended to do! Dad leaves on Monday and Matt and I are both nervous about being our own task-masters, but I think that we'll find plenty that can get accomplished in the two weeks that he's away. First item of business is to finish shingling the Forrest Glen house, which will be a piece of cake with that gentle 6/12 pitch to walk on. Why did I think a 12/12 pitch was a good idea for our house? Why can't I ever do things the easy way? Heck, after we had the first floor framed up I was wondering why we even needed a second story...the first floor seemed so big and spacious...
Oh well, it is what it is and if Dad says it can be done than it can. It will certainly seem like a palace to us...easily the largest place Matt and I have ever lived in before. Much more spacious than our first apartment in San Francisco which was a cute 225 sq/ft. About it, Mum said, "one had to go outside to change one's mind". True that.

Rafters in the rain

You don't really get a sense from the pictures, but it has been pouring down rain all day and for that matter, pretty much all summer. Some say the wettest summer in recorded history, I say it blows. We had to come home for lunch to change our clothes because all three of us were completely soaked. Everything is so incredibly wet and covered in sloggy mud. Ugh.
Anyway, regardless, we've managed to put up the rafters. Look! A roof! The dormer and nook bump-out are roofed as well and eventually we'll tackle the front gable over the not-there-yet porch. The current goal is to get the roof sheathed and tar-papered to stop the torrents of water pouring into our basement. Dad is leaving for two weeks on Monday, so we're struggling to get things buttoned up before he goes. We'll also try to shingle the Forrest Glen house if we get a little bit of a break in the weather. Boo rain!

We managed to get the gigantic 22' beam into place yesterday with a few wall jacks and much clever planning on Dads part. Since then we've set all the second floor joists and decked it over. The entire exterior is sheathed save for the gable ends, which haven't been built yet. I think we'll be building roof on Monday! The biocycle mound is complete and is a little higher than I expected...will make a good little sledding hill come winter ;-)

More walls and some sheathing

All the exterior walls have been stood and we've begun sheathing. It's so exciting to be able to walk around on the deck and look out a window! We've framed up a partial wall downstairs to support one end of the huge beam that will run down the center of the house and support the second floor joists. It's such a funny tall house, but I think that if we get creative with some siding detail to break up the vertical lines, it will turn out to be a pretty little cottage. Bea really likes the nook off the kitchen, and wants it to be her room...heh heh.

This is where our poop goes!!

Our biocycle is in the ground! It was a truly amazing feat getting it off the trailer and into the hole and I was impressed by the back-hoe acrobatics of Dennis, our dirt-man. Phew! It's already begun to be backfilled and tomorrow Dennis will start on the drain field and Gus, the biocycle engineer, will be back up to finish the installation. It's very exciting to have a little waste treatment facility in our back yard...more so than you might imagine. Hooray!

Walls!

Hooray! We have temporary power and put up our first two walls today. Since we're building a story and a half, we're doing partial balloon framing for the two eave walls. We're doing this instead of platform framing the first floor and then adding a two foot knee-wall to the second floor, which would create a potential problem with the rafters putting pressure on the knee-walls and pushing them out. The walls are 11 feet as is, but you can imagine that the first 8 feet is the first floor, then a foot of floor joists for the second story and then two more feet up to give some additional lift to the roof and create more space on the second floor. Trust me, it makes sense, although it takes a bit longer to do all the figuring and double figuring since it's not the standard way to build. Balloon framing is sort of old fashioned, but it seems to make sense for this little house. Also, in the exciting news catagory...Bea started her first day of preschool! She woke up this morning at 6:30 and announced proudly, "Wake up, today is my first day of school and I get my own cubby with my name on it!!" The day unfolded with as much enthusiasm as it began and Bea was beaming when we picked her up. She proudly showed us a rock and a leaf that she found to add to the Nature table. The preschool is a fabulous little waldorf-inspired place with fewer then a dozen kids. She's been attending the friday playgroup with Matt since we arrived last August, but now she's three and is ready for the three day a week program.

almost....ready....to....build....walls....

Well, we've got the lumber, but are waiting for the power. Any day now....
And just to show you out there in the blogosphere who might be thinking that we've been lazing about while things move slowly on our house, here's a before and after picture of the Forest Glen house we've been building for the last month. Now that's progress.