A Broader View

An efficient way to construct a house is commonly to

1. buy some building plans
2. hire a contractor
3. watch it go up
4. move in. 

We don't seem to be doing it that way and it means that our lives are in a bit of an uproar.
Then again, if I step back, I am glad for our process. Here are a few of the reasons why, in order of increasing gratefulness:

1. M built houses for a year with Habitat, but through this process, we both have learned so much that we never knew before- skills and information that we can share with others
2. We get to handle the materials that will form our house. We know the cost, the value, the trash, the chemicals, the clean-up, the time it takes. 
3. We even know the mistakes that go into a house and we make choices along the way to accept them and incorporate them into our life, instead of getting disgruntled with an imperfect product.
4. We will be able to care for the place well because M did all the design from scratch and knows every inch of the place (literally) by heart.
5. We chose materials based on longevity and environmental value.
6. Many, many people will be able to say that they helped to build our house- how rich we are!
7. This season is a very motivating crucible for our marriage, from which we can already see buds, if not fruit.

28 June 2016. From the top of this wall will start the roof.

Higher and higher

Here is the full first floor, walls ready to be poured next week.

 

While the contractor is moving the ICF walls ahead, M is in lumberjack mode, prepping lumber joists, the truss, and interior walls. This oak behind the house, we knew would have to come down some day, so better to do it now when the risk is low. It's always a little sad to cut down a tree before it's ready.

Floor Pour

By 7:00 a.m. the place was stirring with 4 different crews plus us!

The cement mixing truck dumps into a pump truck which propels the slurry through this hose. The operator poured first a layer of walls and then the whole floor.

The trowel team followed behind the cement pumper and expertly smoothed out our dance floor, and sloped it to the drains.

It took 9 workers and lots of vehicles. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big M, the otter of the family, immediately saw the potential for a huge kiddie pool!

 The curing process for concrete is long and loves water, so flooding a slab makes it happy and strong. For a week, the spring gravity fed through a hose and kept it wet, but when family came in from out of state, M rigged up a way to make a 4" deep splash-n-float pool. It was great (if irony) fun!

Toss in some foam scraps-I mean body boards- and there you have it!

Beauty

Mountain Laurel buds.

Land, dirt, growth, green, blooms, rocks, composted years, trees, shade, flow, wood thrush are to me a wealth of beauty!

Rock-top ferns and mosses

For me, far more than the structure being erected is the chance to live amongst these gifts, the chance to enjoy them,  to wonder at and play with and tend them, and to share them with others.

Bluets still blooming in early June!

Wild blue berries: ripening 2016 crop

Stars underfoot

The stream

Water rock revived with the rains

State flower of Pennsylvania: Mountain Laurel

Wintergreen berries: the coming 2016 crop

Blackberries: the coming 2016 harvest

Playing together in the green

Despite the craziness...we're better together

believe it or not!

Earthly Tent

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. II Corinthians 5:1

It has been fun to add my part to the house by writing Scripture on the 'timbers' (so to speak). 

If our hope and security rested in this existence, in our home, even the land, Hope would be very elusive...but praise YWH for the Hope planted in our hearts that has nothing to do with current circumstances.

Some inscriptions are already buried, but here are a few.

Foundation

Door Frame 1

Door Frame 2

Door Frame 3

Stacks

Construction sites are not, well, pretty.  But if you break it down to the stacks of materials around, it all kind of makes sense...

Stacks of ICF's. The foam, connected by plastic webs, sandwiches the concrete and insulates the walls.

Rebar = steel

Scaffolding ready for when the walls get high...

Foam scraps...never fear, there is a plan for these on 2nd floor.

In a house, water must be kept in its place. In this climate, water and breathability of a house are two major constraints that shape how we are allowed to build.

Here is our roof, all in 2 inches of stacked stainless steel sheets.

Rocks at the ready. They could be favors for guests who come to visit!

A Radiant Slab

We are ready for the next step: pouring a 4" slab of concrete as our first floor...but first a few shots of the 'guts' inside.

Red plastic water tubes were looped to cover the whole area, and to back-up each other if one goes bad. You can see all the pipes come up where our utility wall will be. This will be our primary source of heating.

Looking out the south side doorway

A grid of rebar will provide strength and handle tension in the slab.

Another Layer Up

Suddenly the windows and doors appear!

Kitchen windows, looking west, downhill toward the road

One day we mistakenly had two contracters/crew at the house simultaneously- a little tight and very hot, surrounded by all that foam. They dealt graciously with the overlap.

Then Mark and CM and Grandaddy put the radient floor in. It will lie beneath the concrete slab floor.

Several loops in, more to add

CM gave us 2 full days of help and those days just 'happened' to be installing radiant heat system...,in which he is personally experienced!

Mark finds a way to work invention into any process. Voila- his homemade custom foam cutter :) Main ingredient: a hairdryer wire!