Park on the Driveway!

Finally, at a final cost of $2,000, and with 15 loads of fill - mostly crushed gravel, with a nice layer of Item #4 ( a mixture of sand and crushed stone) on top to create a good surface - our driveway is done and we have a place to park when we go to the land!

Hooray! No more parking on the side of the road, hoping the neighbors won't be upset that we are taking up about half the road with our car. No more trying to find a place where we can pull off onto a piece of shoulder without getting stuck, and where the opposite shoulder hasn't been eaten away, leaving less than half the road for anyone else to get by.

Now we have to think about how to keep the people (likely kids) who leave the beer cans along our road frontage from pulling in to settle down for a night of drinking. Goodness knows that I have parked in my fair share of newly created driveways on new construction sites to hang out with my friends while they drank beer when I was younger. The empties they leave add to the house fund, but the liability has to be considered, and while the renter's insurance provides some coverage, god forbid they take it into their heads to start a fire and burn our woods down, or once we get some sort of storage setup, they decide to vandalize it or break in and steal something. We'll be screwed. I am wondering if a chain strung between trees is enough, or if we need stonger deterrents (livestock fence? Or a raising and lowering bar like some folks down the way have?). The biggest issue is that the throat of the driveway is like 30 feet wide. Nice and easy to get in and out, not so easy to secure. Ah well, I am sure Pop will have some sage advice for me on that.

We also went to visit David Howard at FirstDay Cottage in Walpole, NH on Friday, July 14th (the above photo was taken on the way). He is quite an interesting man , with a lot of knowledge and a very amicable character. My parents decided to come up and meet us there, so that they could learn more about the company and houses. I was very glad they wanted to come. Pop was a union carpenter for many years, and an overall shrewd businessman, and I figured he would ask some questions Wendy and I didn't know to ask, and he might hear or learn things Wendy and I might miss. I am also glad that they are interested enough in our house that they wanted to come along and learn about it with us. Even though I don't always follow their advice, I like to have them giving me advice.

There had been a problem with our scheduled appointment and when we thought to confirm the appointment on Thursday, David was not aware of an appointment He agreed to meet with us on Friday without hesitation though.

We finally found the place (no thanks to Google Maps - they put us on the wrong end of town) and got to sit down and talk with David. He gave us a copy of the DVD, as the information packet mailed to us didn't have one, and we learned a good deal about what David thinks. Many topics weaved in and out of the conversation, but they all related to the houses in the end.

We talked about the fact that we want a garage with an in-law's apartment for Lana and all this time I have been thinking that the apartment will be upstairs from the garage. David's suggestion was to extend the building and put the apartment on the same level as the garage, which would save having to fireproof the apartment (as it would have to be to be above a garage) and also eliminates the problem of Lana having to go up and down stairs to get in and out of her apartment, which had been an unfortunate effect of consolidating the space. Oddly, I had never thought of that, though Wendy says that she had suggested it a while back and I pooh-poohed it. Perhaps I got too caught up in the "Building up is cheaper than building out" theory.

We talked a bit about what we wanted in a house, and David recommended we think about the new design that they are building, which isn't even on their website yet. It is a 24x33, 2 stories. He showed us a paper mock up, which looked similar to the Cape, but he said they say it has 18 feet usable in the second story, and they think they will be able to claim more on the newer ones as they are starting to build bigger kneewalls on them too.

The only disappointment I had was that David recommended against our idea of using a masonry heater in the house. He said that since the houses are so tight, the masonry heater is overkill - a pellet stove like John has is much cheaper and better suited to the type of heat output one would need. He also told us about one FirstDay where the owners built in a masonry heater, and it took them 3 years to figure out how to use it right with their house. I am still not convinced that it is not a good idea though.

Masonry heaters are the most efficient and clean type of wood burning heat (when used correctly of course), and I like the idea of a stove that doesn't get over 230F on the outside surface. I am doing my own research about the use of masonry heaters in tight houses to see what I can find. I will post my finding here, if only as a resource for others looking at a similar situation. I also think that taking some time to learn to use the stove correctly for the house it is in is important and would happen if we built cordwood or if we build a FirstDay.

We went to look at John's house (his fiancee agreed to let us come visit). It is lovely, just like in the pictures that can be seen of it on the FirstDay site, on the FirstDay photo CD and DVD and in the FDBuilders Yahoo! Group. It is the 16' x 30' Original and it is cozy. After tramping around his house, looking at the work he has done, we took my parents out to lunch at the Walpole Village Tavern, which had an excellent lunch menu (in case you find yourself in Walpole NH wondering where to eat), and went our separate ways.

We spent the rest of the weekend in Portland, Maine visiting our friends Dave and Darshana and being sick. Quinn had a runny nose Thursday, and by time we got to Maine on Friday we were all infected with runny noses and sore throats. We were sick in their house, sick at the beach, sick at the neighborhood pool, and sick eating seafood. As a matter of fact, today I am home from work sick and now I am going to go lay down and die in our bedroom - the only room at our house with an air conditioner (Thank you Glen & Julie!).