360 Spin

Here- take a spin around the house!

North side

West Side. Bracings are taken down now that all the walls are poured full of concrete.

South Side. Note three round pillars/footers poured to support the balcony beams. Black u-shaped 'hangars' are sticking out of the walls where the balcony will come out of the 2nd floor.

East Side

Recent photo credits to my bro-in-law who has been helping us immensely...while he and his family are on vacation!

Recent photo credits to my bro-in-law who has been on site helping while he's on vacation!

Lumber School

Forgetful Squirrel

Acorn becomes sprout

Sprout becomes tree

200 years of sustenance

A grand White Oak finally dies

Tree is felled

Round trunk is sawn into lumber with right angles

Lumber goes to school and gets graded for its grain, strength, quality.

We are the wealthy recipients of the amazing and beautiful resources of a tree.

These are the thick boards and beams that will be used 'green' (not dried). The 1" boards are drying elsewhere.

The lumber was given excellent grades.

Grading requires a professional engineer and a square and a pencil: measuring wood grain-slopes, knots, dimensions, & tree type.  Thanks to JZ and his assistant.

Thanks to my sister-in-law, I got to be on the crew that day!

Stacking

Stacking

8 tons done

We have PD and LC to thank for all the progress this week

"Making Hay" Today

Today three separate teams were at work on the house in unique ways. It has been a gorgeous day in July!

Team Lumber:

This is a portable saw mill that processed about 10 tons of wood today. M, G, and J helped the operator by loading trunks and stacking lumber..

Team Iron:

H and Mom C, armed with breakfast, vinegar, buckets, and rags, transformed 1/4 of the concrete floor. We washed off the iron oxide (from our well) that had settled and somehow attached to the concrete. We called it 'power washing' by hand. We learned some chemistry and the original rock color is now beautifully revealed!

We also planted a patch of zinnias in honor of Dad C, watched fly-catching birds and wrote up a few more mezuzahs.

Thanks, Mom.


Team Holiday:

Little M gets the weekend off: romping all day with Grandaddy and Grandma S + cousins- yard sales, sleep overs, outings, naps.

Mr. Lumberjack

Papa M loves trees. Every aspect of these friendly giants, he loves: their shade, fruit and nuts, fallen leaves, thick ageless trunks, branches for tree swings, houses & climbing, their ability to mark and tell history, the heart-pounding challenge of felling a huge oak, the lumber, the warmth of firewood, the grain, their smell, the weight, the strength, the height, the roots, the beauty.

These days he is helping his parents to tend and thin their tall forest, allowing some to get vital sunlight, instead of all to meet an early death. It's a thrill for him to work under the green canopy, harvest a 150 yr old tree, use big machines and human strength to move logs from the forest and have them sawed into beams and boards for our house.

The rope points to the tree that will be felled

M reports that this one was 'a little intense' which means hair-raising for most (me)

Now the tree-house oak will get enough sunlight to survive.

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!