Posts (page 8)
The sill plates are attached to the building (read this in a deep, sonorous voice, akin to how you would announce “Elvis has left the building”). A day of drilling, placing, hammering, pounding, swearing and bolting resulted in the permanent attachment of the first pieces of wood to our foundation. The work is not inherently exciting, but the progress is.
The most dangerous part of this endeavour is the mental aspect. As I was working, I was trying to think of a witty title for this entry, using the word ‘sill’ in a punny way. When I came up with ‘I’m sill standing,’ I was satisfied, and ready to move on. But my brain was not. Instead of enjoying the serenity of the hillside and the random noises a patch of forest provides throughout an afternoon, my brain decided to replay the awful Elton John song, ‘I’m Still Standing,’ over and over and over, so on and so forth, ad infinitum. These are the true hazards of working alone.
Speaking of hazards, Anne had to go to the time-out corner the other day for the willful misuse of duct tape. Let this serve as a lesson to you all.
richard
Following the advice of our favorite communist folk hero Woody Guthrie, this weekend we decided to organize. While his concept of organizing included exciting elements such as marches, rallies, and protest songs, ours was decidedly more mundane. It involved stacking... and piling...and arranging. At times, we arranged our stacks into piles. This was often followed by re-stacking our arranged piles into new arrangements of piled stacks. Then would we pile our stacked arrangements into stacks of piles. Then all of our hard work would be covered by a tarp.
We spent one and a half days doing this, and we still aren’t quite finished. Luckily we had our second bit of free labor, Anne’s dad Fran. He called on Friday to see if we needed help. I informed him we would be mostly stacking and piling and arranging. Being a librarian, he salivated at the opportunity and arrived on Saturday afternoon, and dutifully helped us to organize. But we did let him have a little fun as he showed us how he used to cut boards before the advent of electricity.
He also arrived with two six-packs of beer and a dozen eggs. While not an obvious pairing of food, both served us quite well over the course of the weekend.
I cut the rest of the sill plates by hand (sill plates are the pieces of wood directly attached to the foundation), and they should all be attached by tomorrow. I believe you can count today as our first ‘official’ day of building. Insert fanfare here.
richard
It’s a funny thing, punctuality. When you want it, you rarely get it, but when you need a little extra time, people show up early. This morning the excavators and I are trying to move the wood that was jettisoned all over the site yesterday by Mr. Happy. We are working hard, but it is a big mess to clear up, and if the concrete truck would only be just 15-20 minutes late, we would be sitting pretty. No pretty for you! The concrete truck rolls in five minutes early, resulting in a mad scramble to get lumber out of its path.
In the end, however, the results were excellent. Our radiant tubing had a few mishaps with loose staples, and the concrete truck had to deal with a tough angle for his chute, but overall the guys did a great job, and the floor looks real slick. All that’s left to do is paint on the lines for the basketball court before Anne gets home, and I’ll be all set.
richard
A beautiful day, a momentous day, and an overall up-and-down day. The day began with the final bit of chipping—no, not tricky golf shots from the rough. See yesterday’s entry for specifics. Once that was done, I was awaiting the BIG delivery of our lumber. To pass the time, I decided to clear the water out of the foundation in preparation for tomorrow’s pouring of the floor. I had laid a tarp down over our radiant tubing and insulation, and it did a good job of keeping the rain out of our foundation. A very good job. A 67 gallon good job. Yes, I spent some quality time with a 4-cup measuring scoop, a 5-gallon bucket, and 67 gallons of rainwater. I took no pictures of this endeavor, as I have no wish to remember it. All in all, it was worth it, as our foundation is predominantly dry and ready for a floor to be poured.
The delivery was late—scheduled to arrive at 12, but not actually getting there until almost 2. In the meantime, the crew was working on the septic, and the news was all good. The soil was perfect, the elevations were exquisite, and this would be the best septic system in Nelson, hands down. Let me tell you, our hillside was really shaping up. With the brush gone, the logs stacked, and the site straightened up, ready to receive the lumber, I could begin to visualize what the finished product would eventually become. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and I was whistling an old Irish jig. Life was grand.
Then came the trucks. Our excavator had gone out to check on another job, and came across our lumber trucks lost in an adjacent town. Evidently, they had been lost for quite a time, and were not happy. After being chaperoned back to Nelson, the boom truck had a heck of a time making the turn up the driveway. The driver was less than thrilled. His face was a shade of red usually reserved for very ripe tomatoes, or very fast Italian sports cars, and the words that jettisoned from that cab made me cringe. Me, who has been to a number of Yankees/Red Sox games at Yankee Stadium! This man was not a happy camper.
The site was not level. There was no room to put anything. He couldn’t turn around. The sky was too blue, the ground was too brown, etc, etc. Without getting into too many tedious details, the lumber was all off-loaded with the magical boom arm of the bigger truck (it truly is a wondrous machine), and they headed out, as did the wonderful excavating crew, who hung around to help me deal with the prickly situation. I was left alone, staring at the hillside which, just a few scant hours before, had left me almost speechless with its beauty. Now all I could focus on were the piles of lumber, everywhere, askant and askew with no respect to order, not to mention gravity. Luckily my excavator crew is going to help me get it straight in the morning, 6:30 am to be exact. So it is time for me to retire.
richard
Where can I shove this thing?
The chipper finally arrived today. I am not speaking of an overall state of mind that descended on the hillside. Neither am I referring in Anglo-slang to a fish-and-chips van. I am speaking of a beastly machine that can shred a human torso into bite-sized pieces in under ten seconds. That’s right—heavy machinery. As if the backhoe and bulldozer weren’t enough, in comes this monster. We fed it all day, and it still wanted more. Quite the insatiable appetite.
When you clear a site for building, you have a few options of what to do with the tree limbs and brush. You can either leave it in big piles and let it slowly degrade over fifteen years, pile it to be burned in a series of bonfires at a later date, truck it out, or shred it to tiny pieces which can be later used for things such as landscape mulch and barbecue seasoning. Chipping is a cost-efficient way to get rid of it without leaving huge piles all around your new house.
Four of us worked all day and still did not get it all. The rest will be finished tomorrow, in time for the shipment of our lumber. The hillside is really starting to shape up.
richard
this thing is about as loud as The Who in concert circa 1968
Labor day couldn’t have been more aptly named for us this year. A whole weekend of work was squashed into one day due to the remnants of Ernesto that blew through the northeast. It was a long day indeed.
On Saturday, Anne and I laid out the plastic sheeting for a vapor barrier on the basement floor. We then moved all of the blue-board insulation into the hole, and were ready to start cutting it to size. But then a thought struck: if it does pour down rain tomorrow, won’t the floor become a big swimming pool as no water can drain past the plastic? A call to our excavator, a well-timed lunch break, and a return call confirmed we should cease and desist and wait until Monday. So we did, even though our first laborer arrived that afternoon. That would be Bridget, who arrived with three bottles of wine, a plethora of fancy cheeses and chocolates, and dinner from an Indian restaurant. Hooray for Bridget. She received a swift promotion to “Chief Assistant to the Head Laborer.”
Sat and Sun were spent in a very leisurely fashion, as there wasn’t much choice. We were marshalling our strength for Monday, and by 8 am Monday morn we were on the hillside and getting work done. We laid the plastic back out on the floor, and then began laying out the blue-board. It went smooth, with everyone keeping busy cutting or measuring or moving pieces. There was a long break in the action as we did some math and soon figured out that we were one board short—I believe I said something to the effect of: “You have got to be sh**ing me.” I probably said a lot more than that. Use your imagination (I sure did). Anyway, Anne ran down to Hamshaw’s lumber to pick up a sheet while Bridget and I laid out the rest of the insulation, and then started on the radiant tubing.
The tubes came in 300 foot long rolls, and seemed to be spring loaded. It was quite a wrestling match and took some doing to un-do the mess I quickly had in my hands. But we soon got it under control and had four or five runs laid out by the time Anne returned from Hamshaw’s. Soon afterwards, Carrie and Simon arrived to whisk Bridget away from us and back to her non-tubing and insulation related life. Carrie and Simon quickly received the title of “Most Esteemed and Thoughtful Visitors” since they came bearing two important gifts:
1) A battery powered saw/drill kit (borrowed from our friends Cecily and Brett, who have the honor of being titled “Last-minute Lifesavers”)
2) Cookies and brownies
I hope all of you out there who are planning on stopping by are seeing the trend of visitors arriving with edible gifts. Let’s try and keep that theme going!
Bridget’s VW barely made it down the driveway, and it was just Anne and I left to finish the job. After some layout discussions, we figured out what would work best, and motored onward. During our discussion, we had one more visitor, a quick stopover by Barb (who brought M&M’s) who stopped by after a busy day monitoring the boats at Lake Skatutakee. She witnessed one of many long strategy meetings, and quickly beat a retreat.
This story has a happy ending, however. The tubes were laid out, the manifold hooked up and pumped with air (which was a whole separate adventure in and of itself), the cracks in the foam filled, and measurements taken for future reference. It was a twelve hour day, but mission accomplished. Our floor is ready, and now awaits the slab to be poured, which I thought was to be done today, thus staying and working until dark, but as it turns out, probably won’t be poured until tomorrow. Well, at least it is out of the way. It looks, in my opinion, absolutely radiant.
richard
It was brought to my attention that I have not mentioned the type of house we are building. After many months of looking at plans, shuffling room sizes, and grappling with square feet, we finally settled on a simple cape-style house, 32 feet long by 24 feet wide. Even better, it is a do-it-yourself house kit. This design is the brainchild of David Howard, founder of First Day Cottage. I won’t go into many details right now about First Day—you can click on their link to find out about how their ideas can revolutionize your homebuilding experience. Don’t worry, plenty more will be said about them as the building actually gets underway. But I will say we are grateful that our paths have crossed with theirs, for without First Day Cottage, this process would have been improbable, if not impossible.
Back to the house itself. We toyed for many months with the idea of a very narrow, long, two-story design—16’ by 40’. It was economical, easy to build, and fast going up. The more we tried to layout the interior, however, the more problems we would come up against. Little things, like the placement of a kitchen table, to bigger things, such as the placement of a functioning staircase. Whenever we mentioned these dimensions to any one else, their brows would furrow in consternation as they tried to envision what such a long narrow house would be like to live in. We finally grew exhausted tying to make it all work, un-furrowed our own brows, and moved on to a new design. After kicking around a few other ideas—a saltbox, a ‘cape’ with a five-foot knee wall--we came around to our present little gem: a traditional cape with a two-and-a-half foot knee wall. The upstairs will be funky, with angled ceilings and secret tunnel closets, not to mention soaring ceilings. A master bedroom, two small kids’ rooms and a nice bathroom will provide for all of our sleeping and showering needs quite nicely. Downstairs is more open concept, with a kitchen flowing into a dining area, which in turn flows into the living space. A woodstove is the visual divider of these two spaces, possibly with a band of slate flooring running between them. There is also an ‘away room,’ a library/study which will be separated from the living room by a glass door, so it will be private but not shut off entirely. Next to this room will be the second bathroom, which will be accessible from the front hallway as well.
The basement will be full and heated. This space will probably evolve into many things over the course of time—playroom, music studio, workshop, storage facility. The outside will be vertical siding to start, eventually clapboards. The roof will be metal, a charcoal gray color. Trim will be a yet-to-be-decided color, as will the front door. Of course, many of these details are subject to change, and probably will.
Here is a picture of a model (I like to think of it as our supermodel) of our little cape. Note: goldfish not to scale.
I strongly encourage anyone who is thinking of building or designing a house to make a 3-d model of it. The spatial relations of the different rooms becomes much clearer when you can hold and rotate your design. Believe me, the two hours you spend cursing at your glue-stick is worth it.
richard
It is an education in opposites to watch a crew pour concrete. At first glance, it appears completely physical, requiring more muscle than technique. Quickly, though, you begin to see the art. It’s a hidden dance, but it is there. The juxtaposition of a huge spinning concrete truck shooting gray sludge down a crusted, rusty chute and two guys on the other end, positioning the chute this way or that, ultimately smoothing the surface with a quick motion and nonchalant air, with a grace that comes from motor memory and repetition, is striking. The whole affair is akin to watching a rugby match—brutal, physical, yet highly skilled and fluid.
Proof is in the details: a line of bolts belies the thought and order needed to complete a successful pour. It also reveals the art.
And when the forms come off, when the odd-looking braces and apparatus are stripped away, you are left with the deliciously familiar: walls. Ah, here it is. This is what I’ve been looking for. Here is the beginning of my house.
richard
I was working today at Granite Lake Pottery, installing some storm windows on the studio. It was raining off and on, more on than off truth to tell. But I managed to stay pretty dry because of the generous overhangs on the building. I am a big fan of overhangs and was extremely happy when "First Day" decided to offer them as an extra. They make sense in so many ways. If nothing else, they give a poor dubber like myself a little shelter from the storm.
The forms went up today—it looks striking, almost alien, or maybe mad maxian. What it really serves to do is to give one a sense of how the house will sit on the land. The grade is not as bad as I had once thought. Of course, it is not fully graded yet, we have a ways to go.
The pour happens tomorrow, weather permitting. In the meantime, if anyone needs a bit of mud, drop us a line.
richard
Gray soup has never looked so good
These guys had the forms built and footings poured by 11 am. Rock on fellas!
