Wood and Stone

Exquisite Timing

2008-12-11T23:31:00.004-05:00

Today I read an email from my ISP, dated 2 days ago, with a subject line of Final Notice! Don't Lose Your Home Page. It told me that the home page (and associated space and hosted files) they had been providing was being updated, and that I needed to get a new account. The old page would be shut down as of December 10th (yesterday) and if I didn't migrate my files by then they would be deleted when the old server was shut down.

I hurried up over here and found the place a bit of a mess since all the section images and the background image were being hosted from that site. I have everything backed up so I uploaded the images to a hosting service and now things are back to normal.

Since I am here I figured I would post. I had promised some pictures of the heating system. Well, here you go - heating system from Radiantec in progress.

We decided to do copper for the heating system because we didn't have all the PEX stuff yet and wanted to get going. Copper is easily accessible and a good skill to learn anyway, so I headed into it with Pop's help. Well, sweating pipe is pretty tedious and takes a lot of skill.

I think I am going to be very glad when we start the domestic water that we are using the PEX instead of sweating pipe. Fortunately much of the complicated work (putting all the little components together) is done for you in the package, but you still have to get it all together, and getting the offsets from the wall correct with the copper joints is a bit of a bear. But, a couple more workdays and it should be all done. Of course, the weather is against us too - it is icing here right now and some reports say we should have 3-6 inches of snow on top of that. But this too shall pass.

Quarterly Update

2008-12-06T22:22:00.002-05:00

OK, so despite not wanting to be 'that blogger,' here we are - over 2 months later, and 3 months since a real post. Life got in the way for a bit, and then inertia, the worst enemy of these type sites, kicked in. So let's get an update of what we have done in the past 3 months, and then we can try to start fresh, eh?

We finished the siding. After getting past the side with 13 windows, which took 7 weekends and many weekdays of staining put in by Wendy and Lana, (the most uttered phrase during those weeks was "Who in the hell decided it was a good idea to put all these windows on one side and stagger them!?!"), the remaining 2 sides were a breeze, and finished in a mere 4 weekends with a little help from our friends. We had to finally put the back door in to finish the last side, but it was a breeze compared to the front door since it fit correctly.

Our friend, Hank, came by for a few weekends between camp season and ski season.

Carol and Jaime brought their family out from their homestead to ours and helped us power through the end of the last side together, buttoning the siding up before they went home!

Pop joined us often to manage the ground duties with Wendy. I think he convinced her to join the union.

The next job was to cover the foundation foam (finally!) with cement board which we'll stucco (in the spring at this point). This took a few weekends but only because we kept running out of screws to hold it on and didn't want to run out to try to find more, since 4 1/2 inch Tapcon screws with hex heads seem to be a very tightly controlled commodity around here. I had to hit 4 Home Depots to find a couple of boxes.

Once we had the piece of cement board up behind the ground wire, we were able to drive the ground rods, hook up the ground from the service panel and get the electric service inspected. The inspector in our area seems great and was interested in the house kit. He passed my work and within a week national grid had hooked us up and metered us, so we now have power without the noisy generator. When I hooked up the first temporary outlet and plugged in a work lamp to test it, I called Wendy down to see the excitement. She told me "Turn that thing off! It costs money you know!"

With the outside work mostly done, it was time to get the well line put in, so we got the well-driller and our excavator up there to dig the trench. Well, we found out that we have rock ledge everywhere we didn't try to put the house. A day and a half of hammering with the large excavating machine later, the well line is in a trench 6 feet deep and covered over and the well pump and pressure tank are installed!

The final step outside was to get rid of our ramp - our chicken ladder. It worked fine in warm weather, but as the weather started to go colder, it was slick in the morning with frost. We took it down and built the sturdiest set of temporary stairs ever constructed, which is good since they will likely be there longer than anticipated. We built the stairs out of cast offs - decking the carpenter ants chewed holes in (wow, to think how long ago that was), left over scraps of two by stock and the rejected stringers and treads from the inside staircases.

At this point we are buttoned up and have moved to work inside for the winter. We started working on the rough electric, hanging boxes and when my brother-in-law, Michael, came up with Pop, he became an expert in drilling holes in posts with the right angle drill.

Though the house stays warmer than the outside world, we decided we need the heat working, so while Wendy and Michael worked on pulling electric cable, Pop instructed me the fine art of sweating pipe. I caught on pretty quick since it is the same concept as electronics soldering, except with a blowtorch instead of a soldering iron and a lot more area to solder. I decided to use copper for the heating system even though I am using PEX for the domestic water system since I don't have any PEX or PEX tools yet and didn't want to wait for it to arrive. It is also good to know the sweating part since I may still need to do it at some points anyway where the PEX has to marry up to copper.

The past few weekends have been less than productive. Over Thanksgiving, i pulled my Achilles' tendon, which was excruciating and kept me in a chair at my parent's house until Sunday. We worked a bit on Sunday until sleet moved in and we decided to go home before the roads got too bad. This weekend, Quinn had a ballet performance, so we worked Friday night and took Saturday off to attend that and visit with my folks who came up to see the performance. Tomorrow we will go back and try to finish up the heating system. I will get pictures of that system and post them then as well.

I know there are holes in the narrative large enough to put our house in, and I'd like to say I would go back and fill them in, but I might not. If you have any specific questions ask and I will make sure to address them. I am also going to try to keep this up to date with our inside progress. If you notice I am late in posting, please feel free to let me know - maybe knowing someone is looking for an update will help keep me motivated.

The current plan (yes, we hear the question "When will you move in?" or "Isn't it done yet?" a lot) is to work over the winter inside, getting things all done and try to move in once spring comes.

Labor Month

2008-09-28T22:10:00.004-04:00

Life has been hectic, but progress on the house continues...

Don't be fooled.... We have just those 2 sides done, though the other short side is over half done as well.

See? It's for Cookie...

2008-08-28T07:13:00.007-04:00

So the Cookie Monster left a comment that he wants more updates. I am going to try to be good about updating every week. Let's see if I can do it. The next few posts are likely to be all about siding, since that is the last big thing left on the outside of the house now. If you don't find the sight of a house slowly being covered in siding... well, you probably shouldn't be here. Me, I find the transformation of the house awesome. As Wendy said, "Just a little while ago I looked at the foam and strapping and thought, 'Wow! That looks so good. We've come so far,' but now next to the siding I think, 'Wow! That is so ugly. I can't wait until it is sided.'" The siding really transforms the house before your eyes.

We spent more time fiddling with the cuts aroudn the windows this weekend. My friend from work, Mara, came up on Saturday to help us nail up some siding, and she painted a few boards as well. We moved along the second living room window, and finally got all the way around it. The siding board on the left side of the window was a real bear - the bottom fit in but the top eouldn't make it all the way - there was a big (1/2 inch) gap at the top. After recutting it and putting it back in, it still had a 1/4 inch gap, but with some quick thinking, I cut a sliver of wood, painted it and filled in the gap nicely. No one will ever see it up over the window I bet, but now you'll know to look for it.

Sunday we spent getting over, under and around the third living room window. Wendy wasn't feeling too well (she was fighting a summer cold the kids gave her), so I did some of it by myself. It wasn't too awful and we even got a board past the window before it was time to go.

We stayed at Grandma Lana's Sunday and Monday night too since she is going to see her new granddaughter (our new niece) Kai, and Wendy and the kids took her to the airport. We all went to the house on Monday night after I finished work to paint, eat pizza, and hang more siding. We got the finicky right handed piece before the dining room windows and the board before that in before it got too dark to see.

This coming weekend, Mimi and Pop are coming up to help out, and I have next week off from work. Wendy and I are going to work on the house while the kids go visit Mimi and Pop for a couple of days, and then Emmet's third birthday is the weekend after that! SHould be lots of fun and lots of progress. Until then, enjoy the end of the summer. I can't believe we are back here already, it seems like not that long ago we were racing to close the house in and now we are working toward moving in!

Shut That Window!!

2008-08-19T23:55:00.005-04:00

We had some problems with two of our windows (they had bent frames - a 5 foot double hung and a 6 foot egress slider) and FirstDay helped get the window company to give us new frames. I figured out how to change the double hung window - it is the tilt in sash variety, the sashes can be removed when tilted in, but I couldn't figure out how to take the fixed glass out of the bent frame for the egress slider. I called FirstDay again for some help, and they got me in touch with the window manufacturer (local to the Capital District believe it or not). Friday of last week, the window company sent a guy to the house to reglaze the new frame. They told me it wasn't rocket science, but you if you hadn't ever done it you wouldn't know where to begin.

The second task Saturday was putting that last window in, but the first task took precedence - moving lumber from the living room to the basement. There was still a pile of 16 foot long 2-by material in the living room upstairs, keeping things that could fit through the door from making it to the kitchen. Moving the wood is a pain, but I felt it would go into the cellar easier without the window in place, so off we went.

Once we had moved all the wood, we started to put in the window. It was pretty basic, though it is the last window...and we finished it up just in time to stop for lunch. Shortly after we ate, Pop arrived. He came up the day after retuning from a week at the beach.

We set to work on turning the corner from the road side of the house to the window side with the siding. The process for the corners is scribing and cutting the boards. The siding boards are nailed into the strapping on the foam. A tip - extend the strapping out to where the corners of the foam meet or you could find yourself without anything to nail into. Once we realized, this we ended up extending the strapping we have.

We found ourselves short of the corner by about 8 inches. The siding boards are 5 5/8 inches wide, so that left about 2 1/2 inches to be covered at the edge. We ripped a strip the right width and length on the table saw and fit it in between the door and the corner siding piece - that way we have a full piece of siding at the edge, and the ripped piece will eventually be behind the door trim. After that we turned the corner and got the first pieces on the window side of the house.

Sunday we continued on with siding, Early on it was simple, just boards with an angle cut for the roof line and bevels where 2 boards butt vertically. When we got to the windows, things changed. We had to fit pieces between the bedroom window and the living room windows, and fit around them both on the left side. The real tricky part came with the space between the two living room windows.

We fit the siding around window #1 (closest to the road) and decided we would have to cut a piece to fit to fill the remaining two and a half inches,for the length of the window. After fighting with the piece for a bit, trying to hammer it in, we finally got it done by sliding it down into the channel frmo above using a hammer and a wood block. We think an electric hand planer would make the difference in the siding fitting easily in the channel around the windows. I am going to get one this week.

Oh No, It's Raining Again

2008-08-06T22:52:00.003-04:00

This past weekend was pretty rainy overall, following on the heels of a very wet week, but that is fine. With the roof on the house, the water stays out and we have plenty to do inside. Pop was up to help, and he and I tackled the stairs to the basement, while Wendy worked on the wall in the hallway.

Saturday we built a platform in the basement where the stairs will land. While thinking about the fact that the stairs come down pretty close to the sump drain in the basement floor, we decided to put a platform at the bottom of the stairs with a removable panel over the sump for access. This way there is a solid surface to come down on at the bottom of the stairs. Also, the 8 foot by 5 foot bottom step would be a nice transition to the bedrooms.

We started by framing it out in treated lumber and doubling up the framing around the sump drain lid. We then shimmed the frame into level and secured it to the concrete with tapcon screws before fitting short pieces and scraps of decking that were roughly the right size. AFter getting enough to work with for setting the stringers on, we called it a day.

Sunday we got up and got right to work to get a jump on the day. After re-checking the stringer calculations I got from the web with my own math, Pop and I selected 2 by 12s from the pile for stringers. We laid out the first stringer and cut it out, then we copied the second from the first by clamping the boards together and transferring the outline with a sharp pencil. By cutting that line off when we cut the stringer, it keeps the size of the stringers the same.

We put them up in the basement and put them in place with braces and scaffold nails temporarily. The next step will be securing them permanently to the concrete wall, posts, ceiling and platform, then attaching treads and kickplates.

Meanwhile, Wendy had been hard at work cutting and fitting the pieces for that wall. By the end of Sunday she had the wall built up to above 8 feet.

We Will Put In The Doorknob, And The House Will Be Finished!

2008-07-20T22:18:00.003-04:00

That was what Emmet had to say today when we finally put the lock set and doorknob into the door. "From your lips to God's ears," Pop replied.

This week I ordered the remaining closures, as well as the rake trim that ABC makes. I picked it up Friday and took it up to the site. Laurie, Michael, Mimi and Pop came up for the weekend to help out on the house, so we also went out and bought another five gallon bucket of stain. For the record this time, we ordered Behr Semi-Transparent Redwood stain. It was a minimal guess on our part, which turned out to be right. At one point, Mimi said she wasn't sure it was the same though everyone else thought it looked fine, and when I first looked at it I agreed. The color seemed much lighter. In desperation, I went and found a dry board and put it up to the existing siding, painted last year now. It was too light, and I put it down to look for a darker piece. I found one and when I put it up we all agreed it matched the existing siding.

Saturday morning we met my family and Grandma Lana up at the house. Laurie, Michael, Mimi and Grandma Lana got down to staining. Since my family was up (Who we don't get to see nearly often enough. Would you all please consider moving to the Capital District? It's really nice here, and Wendy swears it gets less snow than where you live in the winter, though I call it a draw, overall. Our place in the mountains is a separate story.), we brought the kids up too, who were playing all over the place. I suited up to go roof climbing, and the ground crew (Wendy and Pop) made preparations for the finish of the peak.

It went quite easily, I think. I put down closure strips and screwed the peak down to one channel before where we decided to overlap the final piece to. Pop had cut the last cap piece with tin snips and flatted it out. He brought it up the scaffold, and helped by pushing the cut end under the cap I was working on, not without a little difficulty. Once you tighten the cap on one end it deforms on the other end and there is minimal space below it. We split the last section of screws, him on the scaffold and me on the roof. Once we finished it out, I climbed down while Pop stayed on the scaffold. I loosed the ladder ropes and let them out, while Pop let the ladder down. Once he had it down enough, I went to help Wendy catch the ladder. We got it down and I took off my gear while Pop took apart the top scaffold frame.

The next job was fixing the Front Door Issue, which we could use the scaffold frame for. Pop came down and after everyone broke for lunch, I headed up the scaffold to lower the frames, braces and planks on a rope while Pop and Michael caught them and reassembled them in front of the door. During all this our friends from Maine, Dave and Darshana and their kids, stopped by on their way to camp for a week on Keuka Lake. The kids all played pretty well and Dave and Darshana got the tour and then helped out for a while.

With Pop pounding on it with a 2x4 and a hammer, Dave and I lifted the door out and got it up against the container just as it started to rain. I quipped, "It always rains when we lean this door against the container." And it did on and off. In his capacity as my Carpentry Consultant, Pop suggested we let out the 2x6 by about an inch or so, in the area the door contacts the frame. This would give us a little room on the hinge side of the door frame to shim, if we crowded the strike side (handle side for those who are learning the lingo) into the let out area. Letting it out a bit means trimming off a bit of the piece of wood. In this case we cut in about an inch (between 7/8 and 15/16th of blade exposed on the saw) in two vertical lines about an inch apart on the two inches of the post that the door bears on. We then used a chisel and a 2 lb sledge to knock out the pieces of the frame in the let out area.

Pop cleared out the hole of sawdust, debris and the last batch of silicone caulk, and Michael and Dave got the door back up onto the scaffold. Wendy and I did the honors of putting it back in. We leveled and plumbed it, and nailed off the molding to the strapping with the help of Dave and Darshana. The door still didn't shut right since the frame was bent so slightly in at the middle, but we would finish that Sunday. For now, it fit much more nicely and tr hat was enough. We called it a day and went to wash up and go out for a seafood dinner that couldn't be beat.

Sunday we got up to the site, and on Michael's suggestion at dinner Saturday night, I built a ramp up to the front door out of three of the 13 foot scaffold planks I have and some scrap lumber. A 2x4 nailed to the ledger board acted as a header for the planks to sit on and be nailed into. I built legs for the outer two planks from 2x8 scraps, and added a 2x4 nailed between them under the planks to take the bounce out of the center plank and the middle edge of the planks. That worked up above, but the foot of the ramp was still very flexible. I added another 2x4 below the planks, and a 1x4 above. Once nailed off, these solidified the ramp immensely.

The job of the morning was to move some of the contents of the container into the house. After a rocky start, (Worsened by the deer flies, who were biting like crazy, the humidity, which was probably about 95%, the heat, which was miserable, the closeness of family, and me), we came up with a better plan. With every one's help, we efficiently moved much of the remainder of the contents of the container into the house.

Laurie and Michael set out for home, and Pop and I set to finishing off the door. Pop helped me draw the bent strike side of the frame up a bit using some well placed blind-head screws, and then we put in the lock set. The kids have been asking about the front door for quite a while. When they saw it was in, they were then excited about the doorknob. After getting the doorknob in and adjusted, we shimmed and secured the hinge side of the frame. At this point Mimi and Pop packed it in to drive home. Grandma Lana and the kids continued to help us for a bit before heading home. We finished out by cleaning out the container so we can have it picked up. That done, we decided to head home for dinner.

A busy weekend overall, but we could share it (and more importantly the kids) with our family, and that made it better.

Blog update

2008-07-20T22:00:00.001-04:00

The blog has gotten away from me again for another month. I am going to work at backposting the missing posts over the next week(s). If you want to see what happened, go back and check previous posts to this one. I will include as many pictures as I can for your viewing pleasure.

Homework

2008-06-04T23:05:00.003-04:00

Jay and Eric couldn't make it due to scheduling and work issues, but we'll likely see them in a few weeks, which is better as well since they were talking about camping out at the site. The weather report when they started talking about it was for a low of 35F at night. Fortunately the prediction changed to a higher temp and they didn't come anyway. The night-time weather should get warmer as the Summer progresses, though the house site is at 1640 ft, so the temperature will certainly drop at night.

Anyway, the weather did have it's drawbacks - they predicted warm with showers and thunder storms for Saturday and cooler and clearing on Sunday. On Friday we decided to 'work from home' on Saturday. Wendy came to pick me up after work and we took a ride up to the house. We measured out the pieces we needed to cut to fill in the framing around the windows, collected appropriately sized pieces of sheathing and some tools. Before we left, I also sprayed down some wasps that were playing house under the tarp on the front of the house and sprayed a bleach water mix on the mildew that had accumulated in the basement.

Saturday was spent with the kids at home. Wendy took some time in the morning to measure boards while I built a new set of saw horses I had bought back in the winter. In the afternoon I cut the sheathing, ripped the tounges off (to provide a solid edge next to the flange to nail into) and stacked it back into the car to go up to the house on Sunday.

Sunday we headed up to the house and decided to put in the small windows on the road side of the house. I was on the ladder to put these in since they were small and there was no sense tearing down the scaffold on the front of the house. After the first window though, my back started yelling at me. The way we got the windows up the ladder was Wendy picked them up, then I grabbed the top and lifted the window onto the ladder. I also needed to move the window around me on the ladder to get it into place and I must have twisted the wrong way while lifting in a bad position. We finished the second window, then I took it easy and put on the Protecto Wrap while Wendy put the pieces around the window holes on the woods side of the house. We finished up around normal time and cleaned up for the weekend.

Some chiropractic care, heating pads and Advil later I will have to be more careful next weekend moving stuff around and climbing up and down.

Open A Window

2008-05-20T22:39:00.003-04:00

The window we ordered for the attic area didn't arrive in the expected time, so we'll be leaving the scaffold tower up in back of the house another week while we wait for it to come in. There is no sense tearing it down, moving it and then having to put it back, as that is hours of work on each move. We have the rear loft window to put in, but I have been thinking that an extra set of hands on that would be great since we have to either move it up three levels of scaffold or bring it out the window hole in the loft.

Either way, I also didn't feel like scaling up and down three levels of scaffold this weekend after a 5K walk Thursday. We decided to put windows in on the front fo the house. By taking the two scaffold frames not on the tower section and the short planks from on top of the tower, we were able to make a nice platform to put windows in from.

Saturday, we arrived and after discussing all the prior information, we had to decide what to do and then set it up, which took a while. We cut open the Typar and started fitting sheathing boards to frame out the window holes by lunch time. Having used sheathing and strapping, we prefer the sheathing with the tongue and groove ripped off. It gives more room to nail into with the spikes and the windows.

Grandma Lana and the kids came up during lunch and were there for a few hours enjoying the nice weather while we worked, albeit slowly since Wendy was either suffering from heretofore unknown allergies or a head cold and I was a achey from the walking. By the end of the day we put in the two windows in the living room and were about ready to move on to the dining room after restocking on window supplies at the Home Depot.

Sunday we started out by cutting out the foam over the three holes for the dining room windows. Around Thanksgiving, Pop and I covered the windows over with Typar and foam. While this combo did seem to keep a lot of the wind out of the house as well as the weather, in retrospect it is way simpler to cut the foam around the window holes when you are putting the foam on (except when 3 levels up on scaffold trying to finish the peak where you decided to put another window). Cutting foam out of the window holes is a messy, ugly process. We got it all cut out, and Wendy measured the required sheathing pieces to frame the windows while I finished the window wrap (a bituminious tape we used) around the windows we put in on Saturday,

The rain stared midday and continued lightly while we put in the first window. When we put the second one up, we foudn that the frame was bowed out, such that the top and bottom fins were snug against the outside framework while I was able to put a finger behind the fin in the middle and still have room to wiggle it. After a quick call to FirstDay about it to see what we should do (set it aside and it will be replaced), we went back to get another window out of the crate and foudn that we had a bunch fo windows in the way that had to be moved. We moved the rear loft window up to the loft inside, and then decided to clean up and clal it a day as the weather showed no signs of changing, it was cool and it as getting to be 5pm.

Next weekend is a long one - Memorial Day. Pop is coming up to help for the weekend, and the weekend after that we are expecting Jay "The Hammer" to return with another friend, Eryk, to help us out.

A Month of Weekends

2008-05-11T23:45:00.007-04:00

Life is busy. Life building a FirstDay Cottage is busier. Blogging the life building the house is probably overload, as evidenced by the occasional lapse in posting that I suffer.

I won't make excuses as to why it didn't happen for the last month (or more really). There have been lots of things that haven't happened in the past month, but what matters most is that building our house isn't one of them. I just want to say I will do my best to stay on target and not become a blog that sits abandoned part way through.

When I miss posting, I often write the entries separately, dated appropriately, for posterity. Now, you can take a look at the last couple of posts and catch up on what we have been doing since April. On to this week's update.

We picked up on the 'back' of the house pretty much where we left off last week. Saturday we finished the first layer of foam and managed to get the second layer of foam up to the third level of scaffold. Before moving on, we took and cut two of our 13 foot scaffold planks in half and added cleats to make five planks that fit one section of scaffold snugly. The cleats keep the planks from shifting and falling off the scaffold. These should make working on the high tower of the scaffold much safer.

Sunday (Happy Mother's Day!) we headed back into the fray, and finished the second layer of foam with the help of the new planks. Cutting and fitting the foam to the angle of the roof ate up a bunch of our time, but shortly after lunch it was all done

We still had some daylight left before we had to go to take Wendy and Grandma Lana out to eat for dinner, so we put in the bottom window on the back of the house. Since the scaffold is up there already, we will put the windows in before we move it around to the front to finish the foam there. We will have to move it back eventually to do the siding, but for now getting the windows in will do.

It's not on the original plans, but we decided to put a window in up at the top on the back of the house, since we plan on covering the collar ties to create a sort of attic area, and decided it would be nice to have some natural light and ventilation up there. We ordered a window for the 'attic' area last week and it should be in sometime this week to pick up. Now if the weather next weekend would only change from the rain they are currently predicting!

We're Getting the Band Back Together....

2008-05-07T22:18:00.005-04:00

This weekend, Pop came up to help us out. This was his first time back since December and the first time he Wendy and I were all there together since November, so it was a good time for all.

Mimi and Pop were in the area on Thursday evening and Pop stayed over at Grandma Lana's, so I took off from the paying work on Friday to work on the house. Friday, we were a little behind after dropping the Matrix off at the dealership for repairs and stopping to get some sweet, sweet donuts from Bella Napoli bakery, so we didn't get to the site until about 10am.

We got down to work and started putting foam on the north side of the house. The foam on the living room side of the house went on very quickly and before I knew it, I was approaching the height of the Typar we had on, and before I knew it I had put the first layer of foam over an area with no Typar, working from the third level of scaffold. It was getting late, so we called it a day and decided to remedy that on Saturday

Saturday we started even later, since we had to go pick up the car, then made a run to Harbor Freight before heading up. Grandma Lana came to work with us since Grandpa Tom was watching the kids all day. She went to work on staining siding, while Wendy, Pop and I decided to tackle putting the staircase up as it was covering our cellar access hole. Wendy and I lifted the staircase while Pop inserted some 2x6s as braces to hold the stairs in place after we lifted them up.

Once it was up Pop maneuvered the stairs into the exact position it needed to be in by walking it up and down with another 2x8 and a pry bar. We were able to get it flush to the ceiling and pretty level with that method.

When it was in place, I took the 1 inch plate we had made last week and with Pop's help, put it in behind the outside stringer to take up the space between the stairs and the beam. I think using the discarded end-piece from the stringer really makes it look good.

The best feeling was, after the stairs were up and secured, when Pop looked them over said that it was a good looking staircase. He was a Union carpenter when he was younger (when I was still little he got out of it), and of course knows or what he speaks. He told us all sorts of stories as we worked about the guys who were really good at stairs, and even admitted he found stairs to be difficult, so I took his compliment as high praise of the job we did on them. Now we just need to cut out the loft decking over the stairs so we can actually use them, but that is rainy day work.

After finishing the stairs and having some lunch, we went back to work on the foam. We pulled the remaining scaffold planks out of the loft, where they have been since we finished the roof sheathing last year. We figured that they had been I put the missing Typar in place behind the foam I put up Friday night and covered the rest of the West side of the peak with foam, as far as I could reach from my lofty perch before calling it a day.

Pop decided to stay and work until lunch on Sunday to help us get the foam as buttoned up on the back of the house as possible. We shuffled the third level tower of scaffold over to do so more work. We only have 2 short planks (short enough to cover only one scaffold section, or 2 frames) and only one of them has cleats to help keep it in place, so we put the longer planks on the top so as to have a platform to work on (especially since I needed to use a step stool to get the foam at the peak).

After adding some more foam, I had an accident. After a while of being up on the scaffold you get relaxed with it, and even though I had markers to show where not to walk past, when Pop asked a question of me I thoughtlessly stepped over the line. Fortunately we had the better part of a deck of planks below me, and the plank I was on slid 6 feet down and hit the deck on the second level of scaffold. After recovering and getting off the plank onto the second level of decking, I was a little startled, but full of adrenalin, so I started to put to planks back. When I moved underneath the tower to push the planks back, I stepped on a plank that had shifted a few inches and it swung up and fell through. I caught my weight and was able to stay on a plank on good footing, but now I was shaken. I sat down for a few to get my self settled, and afterward I put the planks back up and came down to have some lunch.

Grandma Lana came up with the kids and Mimi showed up to pick up Pop, so we all chatted for a while and ate lunch. The kids enjoyed seeing the stairs, though they were disappointed that they couldn't actually go up them to the loft. Everyone else took off, leaving Wendy and me to finish the foam. After getting up on the scaffold again, my arms and back were aching - I guess the adrenalin had worn off. I was feeling exhausted, so I came back down and We put some Typar over the bottom of the front door hole to keep the water out of the basement - we had collected a small puddle on the floor inside that had leaked in where there was no paper. At that point we called it a day and vowed to finish the foam next weekend. I also decided I would cut down two of our long planks next week to make enough short planks that this wouldn't be an issue again.

The scaffold is one of the most valuable investments we have made in this house, and we aren't even finished with it yet! I got very lucky that things went the way they did, though. The plank deck on the third level of scaffold is eighteen feet above the ground, which could have resulted in a very serious fall (even 6 feet is enough to hurt you badly), not to mention the planks and tools that could have been falling on top of me after hitting the ground. The last thing anyone needs is that. We also tied the tower of scaffolding off the the bents inside the house to keep the wiggle down and make things safer. Be careful out there, and I will be too.

"Building a set of stairs ... distinguishes an accomplished carpenter from a novice."

2008-04-16T22:44:00.008-04:00

~ from Do It Yourself Housebuilding: The Complete Handbook by George Nash

I took Friday off from work this weekend since the kids had gone to visit Mimi and Pop and go to the circus. The long range weather report for the Capital District on Monday was that the weekend would be sunny and warm, highs in the sixties. So that means it would likely be high forties, low fifties at the house, which would be a nice change.

By Wednesday, reports said Friday and Saturday would be warmish (mid to high fifties) and Sunday would be cooler, in the high forties. That could mean high thirties at the house. Brrrrr. But at least it was going to be sunny all weekend.

Thursday rolled around and the forecasts had retreated to fifties but raining on Friday and Saturday, then cooler and clearing on Sunday. Maybe the forecasters were trying to cheer us up with optimistic long range forecasts earlier in the week.

Since it was raining, we decided to start in on the stairs to the loft. We slept a little later than we normally would (because without the kids to wake us up, we could) and took our time getting to the house. After reading and rereading the information we had on stairs from FirstDay and our own resources (Do It Yourself Housebuilding: The Complete Handbook has a really good article on stair building), Wendy and I picked out two of our best 2x12s to use as stringers and went to work.

We laid out a set of stringers using the framing square lining up the rise and run each time and holding the square in place using my index fingers as guides and stops. I used the Skilsaw to cut cut the marked areas and Wendy used the pullsaw to clean up the corners where the circular saw couldn't get to. This seemed simple enough...

After getting a set cut out, we put the one atop the other and found that they didn't match. Not blatantly wrong, but bad enough - anywhere from an eighth of an inch to a half inch at one spot. I called Pop for a consultation, but we already knew we had to start over.

Pop asked if we had used stair guides, which I had seen mentioned in the Housebuilding book. When I told him we didn't, he suggested using them since it would help make sure that the measurements were all the same. Friday was shot at this point, and so I suggested we clean up and go to Home Depot to get a set of stair guides, and we would try again on Saturday. Stair guides are basically stops that you can set where you need them on the framing square and are secured with a thumbscrew. Once they are set, you can be assured that you have the same measurement each time you move the square down the stringer. At $5 for a pair, it they are definitely worth having if you are going to build stairs.

Saturday was warm and sunny when we woke up. By time we got out the door it had started raining, which we took as a sign that we should continue with stairs. We selected the best of the remaining 2x12s to use as stringers. I set the stair guides and we laid out the second pair of stringers. The FirstDay instructions state specifically not to use the first stringer as a template for the second one, so we laid them both out at the same time. I cut them with the Skilsaw even more carefully than the day before and Wendy had perfected getting the remaining wedges cut out cleanly.

As we put the stringers atop each other, I felt confident that these were much more accurate. Imagine our despair when this set didn't match either! In the depths of our madness we mixed and matched all four stringers and found that we actually had a pair (one from each day) that matched!

We tacked each stringer up in the bay to see if they fit and sat level. We did have to account for the fact that the gable wall framing outside of the bents is 2x6 stock on edge - this gave us about an inch gap from the stringer to the beam at the top which will have to be padded out with 1 inch stock, but I faked it with 3/4 plywood this time. We also had to take that into account where the stringers passed between the posts, since the extra inch would change how wide the treads should be. The stringers fit, but were slightly off level, and looking at them it seemed that the length of the stringer was off by an eighth of an inch or less.

While the stringers were hanging, we measured the narrowest point of the stair bay (between the interior post of the stair bay and the the gable wall framing) to find the tread width at that point, dictating the width of the stairway overall. I cut the treads from some of the 2x12 stock we had determined couldn't be used for stringers and then Wendy cut the risers with the compound sliding mitre saw while I took the stringers down and went over them, checking for non-square cuts.

On each stringer, the top cut was out of square by about an eighth of an inch, and so I laid out the lines needed to trim it up. Again the day was getting late and so I decided to leave that for Sunday.

We woke up Sunday to a cold, partly cloudy day. Given the fact that it would be a short day, as we had to leave at noon to pick up the kids from their weekend, we got up early and got to work. I shaved the edge off the stringers and test fitting them showed they now sat correctly. We pulled them down and got ready to assemble the stairs in the kitchen aisle when Wendy pointed out that we wouldn't be able to move the assembled stairs into the bay when we were done since the fit would be exact. That meant we had to clean up and move the scaffold frames and planks, which had been stored right near the back door. After an hour of moving and sweeping up the mounds of sawdust we created making stringers, we laid the stringers in place and started putting treads and risers on. We started with the top riser and then worked our way down, since the risers need to go down behind the treads. We got a couple of stairs done before it was 11:30 and we had to start cleaning up to go home.

After starting the first set of stairs, I am not ready to claim that we are accomplished carpenters. We still fall squarely into the novice category, but I have a healthy respect for the talent it takes to do stairs right. I also learned a whole lot about how it works, and have some ideas of how we will do the basement stairs (mostly gained from conversations with Pop), but I will leave that for another time since this post is so long already.

Return to the Planet of Funky Foam

2008-04-08T23:11:00.004-04:00

We showed up Saturday, after a week of above freezing weather, to find that the snow had melted at the house (except for where the plow had piled it up, though that dwindled to nothing over the weekend). We also found that a piece of the insulation from the front of the building had gotten bent out (on the top layer of foam) and allowed the piece behind it to get loose. Luckily it was sitting in one piece on the ground below.

This forced us to pull out the extension ladder and get the foam back up and the bent panel fixed. Adding another piece of strapping on the upper edge of the top layer of foam would keep it from bending again.

Once we had the ladder out and were in the mud, it made more sense (as it wasn't precipitating) to continue putting what we have termed the "funky foam" on the far side of the house from the road, which we started when Wendy came to visit one decent day back in February.

The funkiness of the foam comes from the scent of freshly cut foam combined with the joy of getting foam dust in your face and mouth, as happens from time to time when using a saw to cut the foam. We got a good portion of the foam put on that side before we decided to call it for the day (my excuse was that Wendy was getting back into the swing of things, so we needed to take it a little easy).

Sunday morning was a bit cooler, but we finished up the foam on the far side. Now, both the road side and the opposite side are foamed (though the road side needs foam on the narrow side of the door). We also started to prep the window holes so we are ready to go when the weather gets better.

At this point we decided to start cutting the window holes in the south wall, where we had initially covered everything with foam to keep the weather out. We only got 4 holes cut open by the end of the day, but it added a ton more light to the cellar and main floor.

The whole weekend was pretty muddy, but it was nice to get working again outside, even if the weather isn't quite ready yet. We are lucky we can choose our tasks based on the weather.

The Construction Tour

2008-03-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

Here is a video tour of the house in progress. It gives much more of the feel of the house than just straight pictures do.

Thirty-Six and One Half Degrees

2008-03-10T23:42:00.006-04:00

Saturday was slightly warm and rainy - the ice in the driveway cleared off and the snow was melting , but it was pouring most of the day. I was nice and dry, working inside, except for when I had to turn the generator on and off.

I assembled the walls of the closet using the studs I had cut last week. Since the studs go right up to the rafters and there is no top plate, I tied them together with some strapping across the face so that the wall rose all together when I picked it up. Once I secured the notched stud next to the post, the wall held in place and I was able to nail the studs into the rafters.

Sunday I did some cleanup and put some studs in over the hallway bathroom door. We want to close in the area over the bathroom for tidiness and perhaps build some more storage in up there.

Next week I need to do the headers for the doors, and then start on stairs to the basement. The 2x12s that I retreived two weeks ago had finally had all the ice melted off of them. The electrical and plumbing work are looming on the horizon before we can close in walls, and with Wendy coming back at the beginning of April, Pop back from his travels and the weather (hopefully) starting to turn to spring soon, we will be going back to foam and housewrap, followed shortly by windows and doors.

The Blizzard of House

2008-03-03T22:37:00.000-05:00

Saturday was supposed to be a rough day, weather-wise, due to the snow storms that were coming through. We decided to wait until Sunday to move ourslves all around. The storms were almost nothing where we live, so we were kicking ourselves all day (in vain at that).

When I got to the house on Sunday, we had maybe 7 inches of snow, and it had been plowed, though it is getting pretty tough - if the pile of snow gets any bigger in the driveway, I won't be able to get to the house without chopping a hole in the snow bank. It took me over an hour just to dig my way into the container and the house.

I pulled out the generator and the saw and measured and cut the bottom plate and studs for the upstairs closet wall. They all had to be plumbed and then marked and then cut, since the roof is a 9-in-12 pitch, which is an odd angle. The stud next to the post at the loft also had to be notched out to fit around the collar tie. By time I finished that up and got everything oput back away, it was time to call it a day.

Something Old, Something New...

2008-02-26T22:43:00.003-05:00

Last time I updated, I was running a fever. Well, I ran that fever through the early morning of Friday of that week. At least I didn't have to use up almost all my sick time at the beginning of the year - thankfully I was able to work from home for a couple of days. I took the weekend off to rest up and when I was still feeling rough the next week, I decided to take another weekend off. We went to Mimi and Pop's house to pick up a couple of filing cabinets and some nice wooden chairs from the 1930s that Pop had saved for me from his office.

This past week i was feeling much better so I planned on working again this weekend. Saturday I went to work putting the ceiling of the pantry/floor of the upstairs closet on using the leftover two inch decking that comprises the rest of the floor. I had a couple of 8 foot sticks laying around that I planned on using, but after measuring the length of the closet, I found that I was going to need more decking.

This posed a problem, as the remaining decking is in two places. There are a half dozen 14 foot sticks down at the end of the septic field, where we dumped them after the carpenter ants got into them. The rest (an unknown quantity) was in the basement, which has been inaccessible since we put the foam over the lower window holes back at Thanksgiving.

Frankly, I had been dreading opening a hole in the floor because I was afraid of what I would find. There has been frost accumulating on the main floor anywhere there is a decent gap in the flooring, such as where the decking and sheathing doesn't come flush, or where the post hole in the decking was too long (where I chiseled out too much when cutting the decking). This led me to fear that when I opened the floor it would be like one of those sea movies where the old whaling ship has been heading north and everything is covered with ice. Given that I surely wasn't using the ant wood though, I had no choice but to cut a hole in the floor to get to the decking in the basement.

I snapped a chalk line following the edge of the beam below the floor, pulled out the skilsaw and went to work. Fortunately we took pains not to nail the boards in the area where the floor hole needed to be when we put the decking down, so within a few minutes I had cut through the decking and had some boards that were held in only by the tension of the tongue and groove. A little hand sawing cleaned up the edges where the boards were still not free, but I still couldn't get enough purchase to pull the boards up. I figured that I could cut a few boards shorter to get a handhold and then I had a revelation.

I needed about 42 inches of board for the ceiling of the pantry, and had initially figured I needed to get the long decking boards from the basement to have enough wood to do this. As I tried to get the boards free I realized they are from the widest bay, and might actually be wide enough to use for the closet floor. Measuring showed i had 44 inches of board when all was said and done, so I could cut a one inch handhold out and still have enough board to cover the pantry! I quick cut and some chiseling gave me a handhold to pull on the boards, and judicious application of the framing hammer freed the boards and opened the hole.

Once I got it open, I decided to descend into the depth and found that it was dry. There was a thin film of ice on the ceiling, but none on the posts or floor. The sump was half full of liquid water, and my working theory is that the liquid evaporated, didn't have anywhere to go and so condensed on the ceiling and crept up wherever it could to get out, freezing in the process. Perhaps the hole in the floor will help it get out now. Anyway, I had enough scraps to complete the pantry ceiling, and so didn't end up needing the decking from the cellar anyway, but it was good to take that worry off my mind.

By the end of the day I had the ceiling on the pantry, which is a finished floor for the upstairs closet, and was thinking about framing up the upstairs closet. Wendy, Grandma Lana and the kids visited, climbed the ladders and took some pictures, and I realized that we probably need stairs soon now that we have a hole in the floor. To do that I would have to recover the 2x12 stringers for the stairs from under the tarps in back of the house. Thinking about it more I figured I should probably get the rest of the lumber in before the thaw if possible to keep it from getting mildewy and muddy. Back to moving lumber!

Sunday was spent moving a pile of sheathing and three of the six 2x12 stringers into the house, accompanied by a lot of pain. The tarp was covered in about four inches of light powdery snow from the last storm, which came off very nicely. The ugly part was the two to three inches of ice that had accumulated in the low spots of the tarp over the winter. I used a crow bar to crack the ice off the tarps, and then had to cut through the tarp so I could get to the wood - the tarp was frozen to the ground on the edges.

I am unsure if I am going to tackle tarps and wood again this coming weekend or if I will finish the upper closet framing or start the basement stairs, but you'll hear all about next week.

Separation of Bath and Study

2008-02-05T10:48:00.000-05:00

This week I was able to pull out all the old tools that I haven't seen since we finished framing the house - the nail gun and compressor, the Skilsaw and the framing square among others. I spent Saturday morning putting together the wall that seperates the study from the bathroom, pantry closet and stairs. Then I took the afternoon to get it plumbed and secured.

All in all it was easier than i expected it to be with only one person, though I did have to phone Pop a couple of times for advice. The wall tuened out very much like I had designed it in Sketchup, and even though the side where the rafters meet the posts on the outside of the house had a tricky angle that I had to cut with a hand saw (the Skilsaw couldn't adjust to cut that steep of an angle), it all came together nicely in the end.

Saturday I also started cutting the pieces for the remaining walls, and even pulled out the halogen worklight to extend my day enough to finish what I was doing. WIthout windows in, it gets too dark to work inside before the sun actually goes down outside.

Sunday I started out by finishing the cutting for the remaining walls and assembling them. The trickiest wall is the short one that seperates the bathroom from the pantry closet. I had to use the old carpenters adage of "Cut to fit; Pound into place" as the wall had to be assembled between the other 2 walls and the cutouts in the top piece of the double top plate were pretty tight. In the end though, it fit just fine and it is very sturdy.

The door to the pantry is going to be a sliding barn door, to add to Wendy's declared Barn Funk style. Note that the large openings are the rough openings for pocket doors, which we have decided to use in the bathroom to save space, given that it is so narrow to begin with.

The next step is to use the leftover 2" decking we have to put a floor over the pantry closet so we can have a storage closet on top, with a door from the loft. I also need to put in studs from that floor to the rafters so that we can sheathe all the way up in the hallway and study. I'm not sure if we will put a storage space above the bathroom or not yet, though it seems silly not to. We'll have to acce3ss it from the hallway on the main floor with a ladder, but having storage spaces is key.

Not sure yet if I will be able to work next weekend as on Monday I left work early feeling ill, and by time I got home, I went to lie down and got the chills. I ran a fever of 103 ro so overnight amd today Ihave a lower fever of 101 and feel like someone dropped that house on me. Hopefully I will be all better and ready to roll by the weekend though.

Rap Yt

2008-01-29T18:07:00.000-05:00

Last week I started to mock up the walls we need for the study/bath/closet area of the main floor using Google Sketchup 6 (free). I have to say this program is pretty awesome - you can see the results I got below. Also, I know some folks who work there from the good old Boulder, CO days.

When you are moving large piles of lumber around your mind gets to wandering a bit, since it is not a really mentally stimulating excersise. On the otherhand, there is a great physical excersise regimen based on it:

1) Get yourself a bundle of 2x4s.
2) Place the bundle on one side of your house (or lot if you don't have a house yet)
3) Now move the lumber to the other side of the house (or lot)
4) Repeat once a day until you reach your desired weight.

* You may wish to upgrade to a larger dimension of lumber such as 2x6, 2x8 or 2x10 based on your strength and results you wish to see.

Too bad I can't make iut more complicated - then I could sell it. Anyhow, while moving the last of the lumber, I was looking at the window hole covered with Typar, and saw the Typar logo from the wrong side. From that side it said rapyT (or Rap Yt, or Wrap It if you really strrech your imagination). I had a vision of a bunch of Marketing guys sitting around a table in a conference room, wondering what they would call their house wrap product.

"Well, we could call it WrapIt"
"No, that's way too obvious, besides, it makes me think of Saran Wrap"
"Let's riff on that idea..."
"What if we reverse it?"
"Tiparw? What does that mean? It doesn't even make sense!"
"How about we remove some unneccessary letters? What do you think of Tipar?"
"I think it needs a Y - like Typar."
"Hey, that even sounds kind of like Tyvek! I bet we can get some marketshare based on that!"

OK, maybe I was crazed after moving piles of wood for like 3 weeks, but it seem reasonable at the time...

Once I finished moving the lumber out of the study/bath/closet area of the main floor, I got down to cutting lumber for the main study wall. I got all the pieces cut by time the light gave out on Sunday, and next week I can actually do some construction again.

On another note, Wendy went back to the doctor last week and found she had Bronchitis again. The doc told her she will be good as new in about 2 months, so she is off the job until April or so at this point. I miss having my co-worker and the good times we've had. I had to replace her with my Ryobi battery operated radio, which keeps me entertained and lets me know the time, but isn't very good at lifting.

Updated Typeface

2008-01-22T22:04:00.000-05:00

Today I replaced the typeface that came with the original template (Scribe) that I used when creating the site. The font in the sidebar header images was a bit hard to read, and a little more refined than our house is. I created new images using a more appropriate font and created a new header image in the same vein. After the weekend (and when I can get some pictures of our walls) I will be replacing the background image. Cordwood Masonry isn't as appropriate now that we aren't building that style in the house.

No work done this past weekend - I took the kids to visit Mimi for her birthday, and Wendy stayed home and rested up - after the previous weekend she was still exhausted. Pneumonia is a real bear to get over fully. So I'll be working alone this weekend - perfect timing for another lumber moving fiesta. I have to get all the lumber I moved back in early December (remember that?) to the other side of the building. When I originally moved it, I put it right in the way of the only interior walls I have to build. If you are thinking of building a FirstDay, get used to moving lumber. It is never where you need it to be.

Updated Description

2008-01-16T11:47:00.000-05:00

Today I added links to other Firstday builder sites and updated the site description. The site has become much more of a narrative to keep folks informed of where we are at in the process than a notebook for our own use, so I updated that to match. I will also be doing some updating of the look of the site soon to reflect our house design more. For historical purposes, the description used to read as follows:

"This is an online notebook to keep track of where we are and what we need to do to move forward in building our FirstDay Cottage. If you find anything of use or interest, you have hit it big, and should probably cash out your chips and go home for good measure."

The Great January Thaw

2008-01-14T17:35:00.000-05:00

Our house is at about 1640 feet in the Taconic Mountains, east of Albany, NY. Down in the 'flatlands' we experienced one of those weeks that often comes in January, where the temeratures rise and the accumulated snow and ice melt off. As the week progressed, I found myself getting excited about the possibility of being able to get at the building materials still remaining outside without having to shovel snow or chop at the ice still remaining from the ice storm that kicked off winter's early arrival.

Despite the altitude, even up in the mountains we felt the thaw this past week. The piles of snow that had accumulated around the house melted down and exposed the tarps that are still covering those remaining building materials. Not all the snow was gone when we arrived Saturday morning, but more than enough to make getting under the tarp in front of the house where the siding lay an easy task.

This pile of wood in particular needed to be moved since it was keeping us from putting up more foam and putting in windows. The foam we had already put up was put up from the extension ladder, but just getting it that high was a precarious situation, since we didn't have enough room to get a nice angle to set the ladder up. Going any higher required that we be able to move the base of the ladder out from the building, which was impossible with the siding in the way.

Wendy and I started in moved the wood inside, and then up into the loft to be restacked for storage until we get nice enough weather again to stain the siding outside and put it up. This proved a taxing job, especially for Wendy in her weakened state. By mid-afternoon she was feeling dizzy and lying down between handing pieces of wood from the main floor up to the loft. We called Grandma Lana to come pick her up so she could take a rest, but I was a little driven to keep moving siding. I managed to finish moving the first of piles of siding Saturday before calling it day around 5pm.

Sunday was a half day. We had to go in the morning to pick up a half pig we bought that had been butchered and frozen for us by our friendly farmer. After getting home with that and putting it away, I went up to finish moving the other pile of wood by 1pm or so. This pile didn't get stacked neatly in the loft like the first one did, but ended up mostly vertical inside the house to let it dry out - the thaw has made it quite moist, and I didn't want to stack it wet. Wendy stayed home to rest while Grandpa Tom took the kids to a model train eexhibit, so I was all alone. I finished up again by 5, after getting the last of the pile moved into the house, and another week was done.

Moving and stacking wood can be a real drag. It takes so long to take apart the pile, clean it up and put it back together somewhere else. The up side is that out siding is all snug inside the house (which has remained dry since we got the Typar up) and we now have enough space to put up the rest of the foam and hang the windows if we get a decent day to do so.

Back in the Saddle Again

2008-01-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

After our Pneumonia/Holiday break, we have finally started working again. We went back for the first time last weekend, working only half days. We want to be careful tot take it easy so Wendy doesn't get sick again (far to easy to do after having Pneumonia).

The first thing we did was clean up. It had been a while (since we closed the walls and roof at least) and there was plenty of debris inside the house. We had leaves, dirt, sawdust and quite a collection of boards all over the house, but now that the openings are all covered over, no more outside junk will blow in. We picked up the boards, seperating them into a pile we could use for building and bags of scraps we could use for fires. We swept up the floors and took down the scaffolding (it was still up from when we closed the roof) to make more room in the study, where we need to build walls. It was a nice transitional day, like spring cleaning, getting the house ready to do work inside.

The next day, Wendy wanted to learn how to put the insulation and strapping on, since it was warmer out (in the 40s). We covered the road end of the house in foam and strapping, with just a 6" strip across the top of the wall at the eaves and an 8" strip down the side of the front door hole to finish before we called it a day.

This weekend we went back to work again. Saturday was still cool after the snow earlier in the week, and after shoveling out the container and the front door, we worked inside (honestly, shoveling around the house to work on the other walls was not on my list of things to do right away). We started by realizing that there are 2 large piles of lumber in the area we need to build interior walls in. Instead of setting to moving them out of the way we decided to use some and start the half wall between the kitchen and the living room, where the lower kitchen cabinets will be.

We went as high as we dare with that wall (about 3 feet) and started measuring and cutting some boards for the halfwall up in the loft. We decided on a half wall to seperate the loft from the living room a bit more, and for safety sake. The timer rang and it was time to go. Grandma Lana has moved closer to the house site (~18 minute drive away) and we stayed in her guest room for the first time, so we could cut our morning commute time. It certainly won't be the last time we stay, that is for sure.

Sunday we finished up the foam on the road side, before it got too warm and melted the snow on the roof. By time we finished it and went inside, it sounded like it was raining from the water dripping off the roof onto the building paper. Inside we put up the halfwall upstairs to a bit better than 3 feet. Time to go again, so we cleaned up and headed home for another week.

I Think This is Where it Gets Really Difficult

2007-12-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

We haven't really worked on the house for a good 3 weeks now. After Thanksgiving, Wendy got worse and went to the Doc-in-a-Box, and after a chest x-ray, was diagnosed with Pneumonia and her dosage of antibiotics was doubled. Suffice it to say I took the day off of work and kept the kids busy while she rested. I did my best to let her rest up that first weekend what with her Mom being out of town for Thanksgiving still.

I managed to get Grandpa Tom to watch the children for a half day while I went up and put a sheet of Typar over the road end of the building to keep some of the weather out. That was just too sketchy - I was only on an 8' ladder, but I was all alone in the cold and if I fell it could have been bad.

The next weekend I managed to put in at least half a day both days moving lumber - all the lumber was still outside under the tarps (and ice and snow), and I wanted to get the stuff we will use for interior walls inside out of the weather and stacked nicely where we can easily get to it.

This last weekend was the double winter punch. Snow on Thursday gave a good coating to our region and a head start on a white Christmas, then a Nor'easter plowed through and left more on top on Sunday. In between, we contacted plowers and after getting rates we engaged a local guy to clear our driveway for the season. It works out the same as if we pay for 10 plowings, which I suspect we will beat this year.

We thought about going to check it out before Sunday's storm, but we had sent the kids to go help Mimi and Pop get their decorations up (and for Wendy to fully rest for a couple of days), and had to pick them up Saturday. By time we got back the sun was going down, so we haven't seen the house since then.

Pop is coming up this weekend to help me at least get Typar over the whole thing, since the weather is going to be halfway decent (high 30s low 40s). We are really in pretty good shape heading into the winter. The house is basically closed, we just need to cover the window holes to keep the weather out. Once we get it closed, we can heat the inside and get to work on that. Wendy can come help again a bit at that point but she is going to have to be careful the rest of this season.

A-Strapping We Will Go!

2007-11-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

Remember the earlier blog post about how long things take? Yeah. This week we had a holiday and figured we could get 3 good days in which would give us a pretty good hop on covering the walls with foam. On top of that, we were dropping the kids off with Mimi for the holiday weekend and bringing Pop back with us.

After last week's episode, Wendy didn't sound too good. I took some personal time to help with the kids on Tuesday, and Wendy got in to see our doctor on Wednesday, who prescribed her an antibiotic (a Z-pack) for her Bronchitis. By Thanksgiving she still wasn't sounding too hot and Mimi convinced her to stay there and rest while Mimi watched the kids. That left Pop and I on our own to work on the walls of the house and maybe to get up on the roof to finish the last piece of roof.

We headed back up Thanksgiving night to avoid wasting daylight on Friday. Friday we got up and took our time a little in getting out as it was bitter with a wind again. Wendy was on task, checking out the Black Friday sales ads for Home Depot and Lowes and alerted us to a Ryobi 18V cordless set (Drill, circular saw, flashlight and radio) on special and so we stopped and picked it up on our way. We got there and started with Typar along the 'front' basement half wall. The ground level stuff went nicely, and we got a good start on it Friday, though not as much as hoped. We also stopped at the store in town, which also serves hot food, to get some lunch. We ran into some local color there, giving my father some insight into the local folks. It was a cold windy day, and we wasted no time packing it in as the sun headed out, and heading home.

Saturday we took our sweet time starting again, as it was still a cold day. We started out by finishing up some foam and hanging the next piece of Typar up. In the process, I managed to drop the digital camera in my pocket out the second story window onto frozen ground. It didn't spring open, but it also didn't work any more. Bummed out at my own stupidity, we continued putting up foam and strapping, and getting the hang of how this stuff goes up. It seemed to be getting easier. Saturday night I went and bought a new digital camera, so I can continue to put photos up here and so I can appease my photo-thirsty coworkers, who are always looking for the new picture on Monday morning.

Sunday came and Pop was only working a half day - Mimi was bringing Wendy and the kids back and picking up Pop. By Sunday, the weather had changed, giving us a warm enough day that the ground thawed a bit as well (that doesn't equal all that warm by the by). We got as much foam and strapping up as we could without a bigger ladder (which we will need to finish this side). Once we get a taller ladder and get the last layer started, we might be able to finish the roof out as well.

Next weekend, assuming everything is OK and we have someone to watch the kids (What with Grandma Lana being out of town), we will start in on the back of the house to get it sealed up, and then worry about the sides afterwards since they are shorter and easier to handle.

Stay healthy!

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Sickos

2007-11-18T19:45:00.000-05:00

We are definitely a few boards short of a roof (and a few nails short of a cask, if you ask most people we know). We had a 2 1/2 day weekend this week to finish up the roof, but we didn't make it all the way. The weather for Thursday's half day wasn't cooperating - it rained all day - so we worked Friday a half day instead.

Wendy told me when she picked me up at work that she felt dizzy and didn't want to get up into the rafters (she had been fighting a bit of a cold after nursing the kids through some Croup and general colds). So after getting a couple sheets of plywood we bought up into the space above the collar ties, and nailed to the scaffold planks up there (to provide a safe work surface to use the step stools on) she handed me up what I needed to get a start on remaining 2 feet of the road side of the roof. I managed to get the sheathing on and papered, but thee wind was brisk and it was cold, and Wendy was feeling so cold she had to go sit in the car for periods while I worked. Well, by time we got home, we found that she was running a fever of 103 degrees F.

By Saturday morning, her fever had broken and she felt that she was ready to come up and work. She was feeling weak and cold all day, but I couldn't talk her out of it and she persevered, though she was still not feeling up to being up on the plywood. I managed to finish the foam and strapping on the road side of the roof while Wendy cut the majority of the short boards for the far side. I started cutting the foam and Typar and figuring out how to implement Pop's idea to finish the majority of the roof from the inside before tossing the towel in a bit early. I figured she was weak and cold and we shouldn't stay much longer than necessary.

Finally, Sunday was the big day when we would finish the roof off! We got up there and set Wendy to work cutting the foam to length. The plan was this: Starting with the bay at the 'back' of the house (the big side with less windows), we would put on 4 sheathing boards that fit over just that bay (half-lapping the 4.5 inch rafter on either side). I started the nails for the far end of each sheathing board before putting it out there, so I could just knock them into the rafters without having to reach so far. The top piece had to be scribed and cut to fit for each bay.

With a roll of Typar just wide enough to fit over the newly installed boards, we stapled it between the layer coming up the roof and the layer coming over the top to create a good overlapping layout of Typar. Then two pieces of foam cut to the right width and length were put on and secured by a piece of 1x8 sheathing as strapping. This part was a little tricky, as the foam was positioned so that the joints would be broken in both directions (horizontally and vertically), which meant only one end of the strapping could be secured before moving to the next set of sheathing. I worked my way from the last bay toward the first one, and was able to get two of the four pieces of wood in the last bay nailed in before here just wasn't any more room for me up there.

The last two pieces, Typar, foam and strapping would have to be done from the outside - from the extension ladder. The great part is that the plan worked beautifully. With the scaffolding, some custom built staging in between, the planks over the collar ties, some plywood sheets and step stools, we were able to do the entire roof form inside the building, up to the last bay. The problem was that I hadn't checked the ladder height before starting to see if it was a workable plan. What happened is this - I had everything cut to the right lengths and had gotten as much done as possible without getting down. I gave Wendy the pieces I would need from outside and guidelines on the order I'd need them in and from where. Then I set up the ladder and realized that if I stood on the top rung of the ladder, I could just reach the peak. D'OH! IN order to put the roof to bed, I'd have to reach the peak AND over 3 feet in.

By the time, it was getting dark and we still had to secure the tarp against the raining coming before Thanksgiving, so grudgingly, we packed it up. After pulling out the rope (and the grommet it was tied to) we had on the tarp while trying to pull it back up and over the peak of the roof, I finally got the tarp by dragging it up and over from within the narrow hole in the front bay of the roof, then throwing it down the other side. Nailing in the battens by moonlight was no bargain - I hit my index finger with the hammer 5 times in a row trying to find the nail. In the end, we got the roof 99% complete and have a mostly watertight hat for the winter. After the holiday, we get to start covering the ouside walls in foam!

Everything Takes at Least Twice as Long as You Think

2007-11-11T21:17:00.000-05:00

Today's post title contains a piece of wisdom that we have been learning since the moment we put an offer on the land, and a message worth repeating to anyone considering undertaking a project like this. In "Real Life" (Is work my real life?) I play the part of the pessimist, but as far as the house goes, I seem to continually butt my head up against this lesson, expecting we will get much further than we do every time we come up to work. Other important items follow:

There is a week between each every step.

You don't have to be crazy to decide to do this, but it probably helps.

and

Slow and steady wins the race.

That said, it seems we are about on track. We recently went back and reread the Schluter's blog, and figured it out - they got their kit at the end of April (2006), we got ours in the end of May (2007). They got started framing in the beginning of May (2006) and we got started framing in the beginning of July (2007). They finished closing in their house near the end of August (about 4 months) and we are hoping to finish closing ours in by the end of November (about 5 months). Of course, we just do what we can do each day and keep plugging away.

This weekend, we hoped to finish the roof up. Pop came up and helped us out for Saturday, and then we worked on our own Sunday. We got the back side of the house done up to be even with the front on Saturday. The tough part of working from inside is that there is a point where the big sheets of foam will not fit up between any more. At that point you need to pass them up on the outside, which is fine in little to no wind. When the wind starts whipping, that could get pretty tricky.

Sunday, we got the front and back both sheathed up to within about 2 feet of the peak. We have to put down the last four feet of foam on both sides and finish the last 5 feet to have the roof completely closed to the peak. The last bit is going to be tricky, but Pop came up with a good idea which will let us do all but a few feet from inside where things are a bit more secure.

The plan is to sheathe the front side of the house up to the peak and put down the Typar and insulation. Then, starting in the back bay, we will sheathe, wrap and insulate a bay at a time, working our way forward to the front of the house, where we can can put on the last pieces from the extension ladder, minimizing the time on the roof or a high ladder. Getting up further then I have to (as it is going to be my job to go up on the roof or ladder) in the cold weather is something I want to avoid at all costs. We shall see how it goes next time.

When we aren't seeing big changes, I tend to get into a bit of a slump. The last one came while I was fiddling around with the wall sheathing - I was getting things done, but it wasn't really anything you could see all that much. This was resolved by the interior ceilings going up, which gave me a new thing to look at.

The sun comes in the front window openings, bounces off the floor with a warm colored beam up onto the ceiling, and set the wood to glowing. Just astounding, and once it is all closed in, I am thinking it will feel as warm as the wood makes it look!

Originally, I had envision making our bedroom in the loft until we finish the basement. After discussing it a bit, the study will likely be our bedroom to start, since it is on the same level with a bathroom. With 2 small ones, we don't want to have to worry about them traversing stairs in the middle of the night to go potty.

The light and shadows with the wood and scaffolding caught my eye in this one, even though you can't see too much of the ceiling. You can see the natural skylight that we are quickly closing up.

Who invited Murphy to this party?

2007-11-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

Roof-o-rama 2007 isn't over yet. This was a challenging weekend for us - I took my last two vacation days at work so we could get a good shot at a four day work weekend, Mimi took the children for the weekend and Pop came up to help after getting free of jury duty earlier in the week, but Murphy also came along for the ride.

After trick or treating on Halloween, we drove the kids down to my folks' house. Thursday we got up, but by time we had breakfast with the kids, got things squared away and drove back with Pop, it was 11am already. We stopped to get some warm food as it was pretty cool already, and didn't get to the site until noon or so. We spent a portion of Thursday putting the tarp back onto the house (it was still hanging and flapping from the previous weekend, since the weather prediction was that it would be fine, we figured it would be a good time to let the house dry out).

Once we got that straightened out, we moved a set of scaffold out of the house and used that and the extension ladder to put down the first layer of Typar, followed by the first sheets of foam and strapping. Despite FirstDay Cottage's suggestion of drilling holes in the strapping just larger than the spikes, we didn't have our cordless drill with us, so we took our chances and pounded the spikes through the strapping, using 16d nails to make 'pilot' holes. This is not the best way to go, as we later discovered, but worked fine in a pinch. This got us started, and as the sun went down it got cool, so we left to take Grandma Lana to dinner for her Birthday.

Friday morning we didn't make it up to the site until 10:30 or so - Mimi called Thursday night as Quinn had been complaining of an ear ache. We spent the first part of the day trying to find a doctor to see her downstate, but finally ended up getting our doctor to prescribe some medicine to help.

We started in by moving the scaffold back inside, jockeying planks and assembling some framework to span the middle areas we can't reach from the scaffolding. We also had to figure out how to make it fit beneath the roof at the highest point (remove the coupling pins from the top scaffold frames). Once we figured out how to fit it in, we had to figure out if we could disassemble it once the roof is on - no sense in getting it up there if we would need to destroy the roof or the scaffold to get it out. Luckily, that worked out just fine - we had centimeters to spare when we finally took it apart on Sunday.

After all the moving and antics, we got another four foot section of sheathing, Typar, insulation and strapping down before it was time to call it for the day. We continued driving the spikes through the strapping after making a smaller hole with a 16d nail, which took allot of time, and jostled the strapping around so you weren't really sure if you were going to hit a post with the spike by time it went through. There is no feeling like hitting a seven inch spike with a hammer and feeling it sink (too quickly) through four inches of foam, and then not have enough resistance when you are putting it through the sheathing into the post.

Saturday we had barely gotten out of the door to go get Pop and head up to the property when I hit a deer with my car. Luckily, it was a small deer, and I hit it a glancing blow (to the head at 50mph). By time i stopped, it had run off and Wendy went on with her car to get Pop while I dealt with the mess.

Once we got to the land (again, 10 am or so), we go to work in earnest and were able to put up 2 more sections of sheathing and insulation, despite it being overcast and cold, before calling it a day. We also started drilling the holes in the strapping with a 3/8 bit, which made a huge difference in driving the spikes. This got us up past the collar ties on the loft area, to where we were no longer working off the scaffolding, but rather on the collar ties in the loft.

Sunday we got in a bit more than half a day, which consisted of moving the tarp to be centered (more or less) over the roof, battening it down to cover the part we had already done, and peeling back the opposing side. We moved the scaffold out, and got the first layer on the far end of the house with the scaffold and extension ladder. At that point Mimi came up to pick up Pop and take him home. She had dropped the kids at Grandma Lana's, so We closed things up, battened down the hatches, and knocked off a little early to go see the kids after the long weekend.

The up side is that we have managed to do all the roofing so far from within the house which means except for about 2-3 feet at the end near the peak of the roof, we should be able to get it all done from inside, which is alot safer in my opinion. We are in good shape for this coming week - when I hope we will get the rest of the roof insulation and strapping completed. We didn't get as much done as I had hoped - my big plan was to be done with the insulation and strapping, and if that was all we had to do, it would be pretty quick. It is heartening that the wall insulation should go on quickly - especially if we aren't worry too much about windows to start with. We are thinking of leaving the foam over the holes until we are ready to put the windows in.

Rain on the Scarecrow

2007-10-28T23:19:00.000-04:00

This weekend the rains came on Saturday, like a deluge. Being as we don't have a roof on yet, we tightened up the tarp and went to visit Mimi and Pop (my parents) downstate for the first time since July. Meanwhile the rain poured both here and there.

We returned for Sunday, but it was hard getting back into the swing after the day off. We bought an extension ladder (I have a feeling we will need two, but at $200+ a pop, the second once can wait until we absolutely need it) and brought it up to the house. It was mighty useful in finishing up the couple boards needed tobe able to say we have completed the wall sheathing, without moving the scaffold inside.

Wendy selected and cut more roof sheathing boards while I puttered around with the final wall sheathing boards and the finishing touch of putting in the pieces of trim where they are needed to close up beneath a window sill or above a header. We considered starting on the housewrap, but as it was so windy, we decided to leave off with that for now.

This coming weekend I am taking my last two vacation days off at work, and the objective is to finish the roof with a four day weekend. The kids are going to see Mimi, so that should help since we will be able to push a little more.

Up, Up and Away (the Sheathing remix)

2007-10-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

Over all, it was a beautiful, quiet, Indian Summer weekend at the lot. The weather was mostly in the high 60s and 70s (untypical for late October in NY, at 1400 feet) and we had no helpers - Mimi and Pop were just returning from adventures abroad and we hadn't found anyone willing to whitewash the fence with us this weekend. Just as well, as we needed a little us time to just work on the house and enjoy the pace of it.

Friday, I had taken a day off work in anticipation of getting in a long weekend of work. We almost bagged it because of weather reports, but by Friday morning, it looked like the rain and thunderstorms wouldn't come until the afternoon. We worked a half day on sheathing the lofts up to the bottoms of the windows. At lunch time we went out to a local place to grab something, since we forgot our customary lunch meat (leaving mustard and mayo sammiches on the menu). We cleaned up before we left in case, and by the time we finished lunch, the rain had started, so we went shopping instead.

We hit a local bath supply place to see their "showroom" and look for shower enclosures for the main floor bathroom. I think the main floor of our house is as big or bigger than the showroom was, and their prices were fairly outrageous - $515 was their cheapest 36 inch one piece fiberglass shower enclosure. Double that for acrylic. Our next stop was the new Lowes in Colonie, which had the same brand enclosures for half as much, so I think we know where we are getting the shower. We browsed the bath kitchen sink area and found lots of inspiration for our letters to
Santa this year. After doing some much needed restocking of comestibles, we headed home for the day.

Saturday was one of those days where it felt like so little got done - there was a heavy rainstorm on Friday, which wet the floors good and filled the tarp on the roof on one side with water in spots where it hadn't been fully retightened. These bulging sacks of water were leaking slowly, dripping into the inside, and I had to get on a ladder and scaffold and lift them over the little bit of roof sheathing to empty them out. Since the tarp wasn't fully down, as the water cascaded down the sheathing and over the edge it dripped through the sheathing in places, adding to the puddles on the floor. The bigger contributor to the water problem was the water running back in the windows as it ran down the side of the building. Wendy swept the water toward the door, since with all the walls on at floor level there are only two places it can get out - the doors. I also adjusted the tarp so it was tighter and sitting right.

Once we finished cleaning up and then setting up (no sense putting all our tools in a puddle of water), we got to work - Wendy cutting boards she had measured during the week, and me setting to finishing the framing. I got everything cut, measured and assembled while Wendy cut sheathing and filled in some of the loft areas. At that point, I helped her with some of the higher work in sheathing, in the cathedral area of the living room. I am a little crazy in that heights don't bother me much. From time to time I get a little dizzy or feel weird being up there, but generally I have no problem being up high. Once we finished up as high as we felt we could there, I had Wendy help me nail some of the high framing in place while I held it in place and plumb. Once we finished that I was tuckered out and didn't want to be up high anymore, so we called it a day and packed up so we could go have dinner with Grandma Lana and the kiddos.

Sunday we came back early and hit it hard. I finished up all the framing and Wendy got sheathing ready, then we finished sheathing up the front study wall up to the collar ties, using scaffolding, which made it easier to get up higher (to a point). We moved the scaffold to the back and added a level for two purposes - 1) to get the top of the cathedral area sheathed without a handy window hole to work out of in the middle of the wall, and 2) to see if the scaffold would fit under the roof sheathing for our roof sheathing adventure.

What we found was that we could get all the way up the wall with the double high scaffold and that it would just fit under the roof sheathing (between the rafters) if we remove the coupling pins (which are wired in) where it comes closest to the rafter. This will allow us to do most of the roof from the inside. Along with the outriggers we got with our scaffolding, we may be able to do the whole roof from the inside!

All in all a productive weekend - now we just have the peak areas above the loft (and the corner above and around the upper window in the front living room cathedral area) to finish before we start the roof. If all goes well on the extra day this week, we should start sheathing the majority of the roof next Saturday. The plan is to use the scaffold and outriggers from the inside, with some plywood screwed to the scaffold planks to make a nice wide deck to work from once we get off the outriggers.

Doo, Doo, Doo, Sheathing Out My Back Door

2007-10-14T21:44:00.000-04:00

This was a big weekend for help. Jay came back to help us out for both days and we had help from Ravi, a co-worker of mine and his friend Rajan on Saturday, and a former co-worker of mine, whom we call T, on Sunday. It was also a chilly weekend. I think I spent the whole weekend in a fleece and tuque.

I had planned on taking a day off from work on Friday in order to work on the house, but what with a crazy schedule, funky weather and not getting things done that needed to be done, I just took my normal half day and we worked a half day after the rain broke, which worked nicely. I worked on measuring, cutting and assembling the back wall framing while Wendy did some work with picking boards for the roof and back wall in anticipation of the weekend help. I got the living room back wall frame assembled on the deck and ready to raise before it was too dark to continue working.

Saturday morning, having gotten an early start, Jay arrived shortly after us. He and I got started on the roof on the opposite side of the house from the road. Once Ravi and his friend Rajan arrived, Wendy took over with Jay while Ravi and Rajan helped me raise the living room back wall. Ravi and Rajan helpd it in place while I toenailed it in.

I set Ravi and Rajan to sheathing the newly raised wall while I worked on the other back wall frame (for the bathroom/study/stairs end of the house). I found it worked best to assemble the framing flat on the deck around the tall member. The cripple stud pieces are attached to the middle bent post and and the outer wall post before raising the frame up. This gives the frame something to sit on while the vertical members are being aligned, leveled and toenailed, after which the horizontal header is attached to the cripple studs on each end.

Ravi and Rajan made short work of the living room wall, at which point I had them move on to the rear kitchen wall. As they reached the top of the larger portion of the kitchen wall, I was ready to raise the back wall frame in the staircase area. They helped with that process, and then had to get going. Because it was so cold, we hadn't brought our customary cold cuts for sandwiches (we thought it wouldn't be too satisfying) and figured we would go get something warm from the store downtown. Well that hadn't happened, so not long afterward, we finished up for the day and went to get an early dinner.

Sunday morning, we noticed a sheathing board backward in the back living room wall, so Jay and I spent a while trying to figure out how to turn it around. After some brainstorms about using my nifty hole saw set to make swiss cheese of the offending board, which we could then knock out and replace by sliding a new board into the space, we ended up taking 5 boards off to get to the backward one. We got much better at removing the boards as we went down, and were able to reuse some of the boards when we put it back up.

By this time my friend T arrived. He and Jason kept sheathing up the living room wall, going up as high as they could onto the rafters. That is a continuing issue we are encountering - there is a point at which we can't really reach to continue between the outside wall and the bent, where the rafter gets too high. I think the scaffold will reach with 2 levels, but I am not sure it will work. I have to check that out.

After bringing the wall up as far as they could, they moved to the other wall until Jay had to get going. T stayed with us for another hour or two, and he and Wendy started working on the top portion of the front living room wall while I finished up the framing for the windows up in the loft. All in all, a good weekend, and something looking considerably more like a house than before we arrived.

Happy Anniversary!

2007-10-09T02:33:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to wish my sweetie a very happy 8th anniversary today. Despite my occasional crankiness, we have been having a lot of fun working on the house together. I can't believe that by our 9th we will be moved into our own house. I love you this much!

Chapter 73: In Which We Sheathe Half of the Front Wall and Start the Roof

2007-10-07T23:55:00.000-04:00

In this week's episode (the 73rd post to the blog), Wood and Stone receives unexpected (but always welcome) help from family along with expected help from one of Sean's coworkers, contributing to some quick work on sheathing the front wall, and starting the roof. Let's watch...

Saturday, I went up first thing while Wendy stayed home until Grandpa Tom was up and ready to watch Quinn and Emmet for the day. I wanted to get a head start as I expected my coworker Mara to be coming to help and I wanted to work on sheathing the basement window wall with her until Wendy arrived. I also had the south side framing to do in the kitchen which I could work on until Mara arrived. I figured we would need it later in the day.

Not long after I got there, Aunt Sandra and Uncle John arrived. We hadn't expected them to be helping, as they were going to head home before the weekend. It turns out that they decided travelling on Columbus Day weekend might be difficult and decided to come help us out again since they would be around. I saw an opportunity, and set Uncle John and Aunt Sandra to sheathing the basement wall so I could start my framing. When Mara and Wendy arrived, they each joined in the sheathing fun and worked faster than me.

By lunch time, the Dream Team had sheathed the front wall up into the first floor and I had framed out the windows on the south kitchen aisle wall. Mara had to go, so after lunch, Wendy and her Aunt and uncle finished up to the top of the first floor while I framed out the north kitchen aisle wall (the back door) and the window up in the cathedraled area in the living room aisle.

Uncle John really ran the sheathing crew and did great work. They won't be back until the spring sometime, so wished us luck and headed out. Wendy went to get more gas as the generator ran out, and while she way gone the thunder started. I started picking up and shortly after she got back it started raining. We got the tools into the storage unit, but the wood was mostly uncovered. We headed home early as the lightning got closer.

Sunday we had a later start and we brought the kids up with us. Mara came back with her daughter, Kai, and her dog, Buster Brown. Kai babysat for a few hours while we worked. We decided to start in on the roof since we didn't want to raise to south wall beyond the first floor until we can start evening it out on the north side, which requires more framing in the living room and stair aisles respectively. This in turn requires more 2x6s than we had available presently.

We worked on the roof and got between six and seven feet of it done, until we were above our heads on the scaffold. After looking at ways to get more height, we decided it would be easier to go to the other side and sheathe up until we matched the road side, figuring out what to do for height in the middle of the floor later.

Meanwhile, Buster Brown climbed the ladder to the deck to be closer to Mara. I'm not sure if I have every seen anything like it.

Grandpa Tom had come up, and brought us some more 2x6s to finish framing the north wall. The kit plan called for using doubled 2x4s, but we decided to use doubled 2x6s. We thought this would continue the size and look of the bay framing as well as lending extra rigidity, since the walls are so tall in the cathedral ends. Because it wasn't called for in the plan, we didn't have many extra 2x6s. We did have the ones that were to be attached to the sill plate to use, as we decided to use treated 2x6s there instead. We now have enough lumber to finish the North wall framing, so we can close that in at some point. He took Quinn and Emmet home, and after moving the scaffold Mara and Kai called it a day too.

At this point Wendy and I decided we should get the tarp on. Earlier in the week, after looking at the weather report for the coming week, which said, approximately, "Rain Monday through Friday", I had a flash of inspiration. The green tarps we have for the lumber piles are 30' by 50' which should cover the whole roof with some overhang on all ends. Even better I happened to have an extra tarp of this dimension sitting in the basement. This should hopefully keep a good portion of the rain off the decks and out of the basement. We are getting tired of sweeping the water toward the sump every week.

We tied ropes to the tarp and I pulled it up to the peak before throwing the rope down to Wendy. She pulled while I helped shepherd the tarp across the peak. Once we got it over the top, we pulled it out so it was fairly taut and then tied rope from one side to the other to help keep it in place. It was amazing how much that defined the space inside the house. No pictures of that yet as the camera was already put away and we still had to clean up tools and tarp the wood.

On the next episode of Wood and Stone: It's a roofing spectacular, with the return of special guest, Jason, "The Hammer". Tune in next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

On Top O' the World

2007-09-30T23:03:00.000-04:00

This Saturday Pop, Uncle John and Aunt Sandra came up to help. After lunch, Grandma Lana brought the children up, but they had fallen asleep on the way and didn't wake up for a bit.

Pop, Uncle John and I put together the framing for the basement windows as well as finshing the first floor of the cathedraled areas on the front of the house, in preparation of sheathing.

Meanwhile, Wendy and Aunt Sandra (and Grandma Lana when she arrived) worked on the sheathing on the wall that wasn't finished last week. Once that was done, Wendy worked on getting the treated 2x6s on in front of the basement window so we can really start sheathing without delay when we are ready.

Today (Sunday) was just Wendy and I. We slept in and got a later start than normal (noon actually). We arrived and cut the templates we had marked last weekend, got the rest of the wood we needed and then cut all the remaining peaks. We assembled and raised (in turn) the two back peaks and secured them. Then we put the remaining three bents together, raised them and put them in place.

Everything was secured before we celebrated, which included the tradition of attaching an evergreen to your framing. I found a site, which names this tradition the Whetting Bush and does a great job of explaining the significance of this tradition. Excited and tired (it took about six hours), we cleaned up and headed home for another weekend.

Thursday we will be working on the framing in the kitchen aisle so that the south side can be sheathed up to the loft floor at least. Next weekend we are going to try to gather a work crew to help with sheathing, framing and whatever else we have to do.

Feeling a Bit Peak-ed

2007-09-27T20:42:00.000-04:00

I have been a wreck this week. First, the rib I hurt was bothering me - especially sleeping. Then after going up and covering the wood Monday night (to let it dry out a bit from Saturday's rain and Sunday being cool) and nailing down the extra sill plate on the back of the house, my foot started hurting (and my elbow, from hammering from the ladder at a weird angle). The foot felt like it was broken when I moved it side to side Tuesday and Wednesday.

I was debating whether to work because of that and because some weather reports called for 80-90% chance of rain for most of the day, with thunderstorms in the evening. Anyway, the rib started feeling better and the foot and elbow hurt less today. The weather (after a brief, intense rainstorm) looked to be holding together, so we decided to go ahead and go to work.

Today's' adventure was to finally put up a peak and make sure it fits, so we can finish the major framing. Wendy had already measure out the 2x8s for the first peak rafter, and I cut them last Sunday, but never got back to them after the rib thing,

We still had to measure and cut the 2x4 in the middle of the rafter, but after figuring out how to make it work for the lower rafters, I found it simple to set the 2x4 correctly in the peak rafters. The secret for the bottom rafter is to line the 2x4 up with the bottom post, leaving it short a half inch or so for a little play (given a post that is wider than the norm), and then cut it an inch or two short where it matches up with the collar tie. We found on the first one we made that fitting the 2x4 exactly didn't work and we had to notch the bottom of the collar tie to allow the rafter to sit flush, as the rafter was already all spiked together.

The secret for the peak is to make the long 2x4 flush with the top of the peak, and then using a scrap from cutting the collar tie to figure out where the collar tie fits the peak rafter, and cut the 2x4 an inch or two shorter for fit, as with the lower rafter.

I got the 2x4s cut and then went up to the platform we had built on the collar ties. We took twelve 13' scaffold planks, and put them up in six groups of two with a small space in between them to create a work area the I used to nail the peak together. I set the work so that the ends were right near the collar tie that it is to sit on and aseembled it.

Once it was together, Wendy stood on the middle 4 planks (2 under each foot, straddling the space) and picked the peak up by the point. The ends rested on the planks near the edges of the collar ties, and she was able to stand it up right next to where it should go. I went to the ends, picked them up and put them down on the collar tie.

The only potential trouble zone we noticed is that the way the collar tie and the tops of the posts set, the rafter cannot sit down all the way on the collar tie. I used my hammer as a chisel and beat down the corner of the post on the top outside corner and the rafter dropped right into place. On future peak rafters we'll probably just use a chisel to knock off a quarter inch from the corner of the post, but in the heat of the moment I improvised.

Other than that, we had the first peak up. We went down to the main deck to cut another peak and made some templates to use for cutting the remaining pieces. By now the weather was starting to live up to its promises (we could hear the thunder coming) and we put the pieces up and got it put together and assembled before any weather broke. I braced the two peaks with some strapping to keep them together at least.

Just having the peak really makes the difference - it completes the hook of the house. The peaks are really very simple to put up once you know about the 2x4 shortcut, the platform and the trouble zone. Next time we work on peaks (Sunday perhaps - Pop is up Saturday to help us with the window framing), I will try to get some photos of the process to help illustrate it and our setup.

The Return of the Hammer Brothers

2007-09-23T23:43:00.000-04:00

This morning we got up there pretty early, and had to clean up a little bit of water. After we left Saturday, it rained like the dickens as we drove to eat. As soon as the Hammer Brothers and Asten arrived, they got straight to work finishing up the East wall to within one board width of the top. Wendy and Pop worked on putting in the top and bottom of the rough opening for the windows, while I cut the 2x8s for the first peak and put them up on top of the second flor bents, along with a bunch of scaffold boards to make a work platform. Well before lunch, Justin, Asten and Jason moved to working on the west side.

At one point, after putting in an additional header for the windows in the front from a ladder, I decided to move from the ladder to the scaffold directly instead of going down one and up the other. Of course, that is where things went wrong - I got partway across, and the ladder tipped over, so I had to grab on to the scaffold to keep from falling. I didn't fall, and Wendy recovered the ladder, but I think I bruised a rib while clinging to the scaffold, since it is tender when lifting things now. It doesn't hurt to press the ribs, so I don't think I cracked one though. That was the end of the peaks for the weekend though, since it takes some hauling to get myself up on the collar ties and scaffold planks.

I spent the rest of the day helping Pop with the framing again. We put together half of the framing on the the other cathedraled front of the house (away from the road) and raised it with some help. It went up really nicely and made things much simpler than building it in place like we did on the other end (which is a pain with a long post like we have in the middle).

Once we got that half in place, Pop and I put up the other side of the frame before he decided to head home and rest up.

meanwhile, Justin and Asten kept working through lunch, as they had to leave and figured they would catch some food on the road. When they left, Wendy took over and worked with Jason on bringing the West wall up to the top. They got pretty close to finishing it before Jay had to go too. At that point we cleaned up and headed home since we were pretty beat and Grandma Lana had Uncle John and Aunt Sandra visiting today and they were thinking of going out to dinner; We didn't want them to get started too late.

it's really cool having 2 of the outside walls pretty much done, and it makes me torn on whether to work on the peaks next or keep framing so we can close in the rest of the walls. I think the peaks are next though, so we can sheathe the roof and keep the darn rain off - once it rains the water starts dripping and everything ends up in the basement. That isn't too bad, as we have a sump down there that is tied into the footing drains, but there are a couple of dips that collect water, which can be annoying.

The shot of everything we accomplished for the weekend.

Full House Beats a Pair

2007-09-22T22:59:00.000-04:00

We had a full house this weekend! My friend Jason ("The Hammer") came up again, and his brother Justin and Justin's girlfriend Asten came as well. In addition, Pop came back, and Wendy's uncle and aunt came up on Saturday to help out. After a bit of getting everything setup and straightened out, we put them all to work on some random stuff in the morning.

Jay helped me out up on the scaffold to set the rafters in place and secure them, while Justin and Asten helped Pop and Wendy start the gable end framing. Uncle John and Aunt Sandra got to work on putting up the breaker box, meter pan and conduit for the electric service.

After lunch, we started Jason, Justin and Asten on sheathing the end of the house that faces away from the street. We have finally figured out that we should start something new in a spot that isn't as visible, so we can learn without making too funky of a mess. We set them up with some scaffolding, a ladder, a milk jug full of nails and an explanation of how the system works (Which side faces in, which side faces out, the fact that the inside is the finished wall and how to choose boards). We nailed the extra 2x6 onto the existing sill and let them run with it.

They quickly got the hang of what they needed to do and fell into a rhythm with Justin and Asten measuring the sheathing, Jay cutting it to size with the chop saw and then all of them hammering away to put it in place. By the end of the day they had come up with a system of sheathing that allowed them to break the vertical joints for strength and minimize their waste. They had completed over half of the East wall and it looked great! Now we just need the window header and footer in place so they know where to start sheathing again in the window holes.

I was going to work on the peaks after setting the rafters in the morning, but instead ended up spending a lot of my time playing foreman, coordinating everyone else, answering questions and hopping from job to job. Mostly, I was working with Pop and Wendy on window and gable end framing. We finished the bottom of the west end of the gable end. We wrapped it up and headed out to get some food and get rested up for Sunday!

Next Stop: The Peak!

2007-09-19T22:31:00.000-04:00

I arrived at the property around 12:30pm today, expecting to meet Joe and Lisa, a couple from the area who are considering building a FirstDay Cottage for themselves. We had emailed back and forth and it worked out that they could come up today, which was just fine, since we could use some help with raising the remaining rafters. They hadn't arrived before me which gave me a chance to get some things out and get ready. When they got there I showed them 'around' (it's becoming clearer what is where!) and we talked about the house until Wendy arrived. At that point, she motivated us to get down to business.

Lisa was on baby duty with their 6 month old and she stained more of the siding, which was great! We have a bunch to stain and the weather isn't going to be too good for that soon, so every bit counts!

Joe was ready to put up some rafters, and after putting up the rest of the scaffold, checking the post for plumb and nailing together one of the two unfinished rafters, Wendy helped and we raised the first rafter of the day. We then raised the four rafters assembled last weekend one right after the other, in quick succession. I assembled the last rafter and we raised and secured it. By then it was 5pm or so and Joe and Lisa headed out, steeped in the Firstday Cottage experience.

Wendy and I decided to trim the first floor deck off, finally, so we can put black plastic over the floor in the study/office end of the house. We will put it on the living room end too once the scaffold is down to keep the floor dry and keep the water out of the basement. While we did this a neighbor stopped by to see how we were coming along. He left shortly thereafter, not wanting to keep us from using the daylight. We raced the sun and managed to get all but a couple of board ends bear the posts cut - those will have to be hand cut, but I think I will get a pullsaw to do that with.

The ribs have nearly been completed. All that is left now (ha!) is to put together and raise the peaks and do the gable end framing, and then we can start closing it in with the sheathing!

Swinging From the Rafters

2007-09-16T21:13:00.000-04:00

This past week we started working a half day one day during the week, with some help from my boss. He was nice enough to allow me to work a flexible schedule for now until we get the house closed in (we are racing the weather). I may start putting up a summary of what we did on that half day by itself, but for this week at least, I am including it here.

We noticed at the end of last weekend that we had almost no 2x6s left in the pile to make the remaining seven posts from (each post needing two 16 foot 2x6s). On top of that, those posts are the ones in the living room, so the idea of scabbing them together from what we had left wasn't really appealing since they are exposed in the main area other people will see in the house. Wendy called FirstDay Cottage, and after checking into how many we had received, John told us they would be sending us another two dozen 2x6s on Thursday morning. Very convenient, since we would be up that day to work!

Thursday I got to the site around noon and the new lumber was there. I got started putting together the posts which had already been cut, and then began putting up what we needed of the new lumber to make the remaining posts. Wendy came up and met me after she was finished with her prior obligations and when she got there we cut all the posts and put them together. By the end of the day we were able to get all but 2 of the posts standing and braced with 2x4s. The last bracing was done by the light of our battery lantern and then, after a 2x4 dropped on Wendy and the lantern (no major injuries, thankfully), by headlight. Things had dried out for a couple of days too and we also got the upper deck covered with some 6 mil black plastic to keep the water off and from dripping onto the deck below. It is a bit slidey, but we just have to be careful when we are up there (which shouldn't be too much until the house is closed in).

Saturday we had a wedding to attend in the morning and didn't get to the site until 2pm. It was just as well, as it was rainy in the morning and cold all day. Pop met us on site (he wants to help as much as he can to help us get closed in before the weather really turns) and we got two more rafters assembled and put up (the end ones, which are the most precarious as they are right on the edge of the deck). Wendy and Pop cut a couple more for the next day, and we called it a day and went to get something warm to eat.

Sunday morning we got up, but lallygagged a little since the temperature on site was in the low 40s at 6am. We picked up Pop from Grandma Lana's place and got on site around 8:30, when the temperature had risen to the low 50s. We had long underwear, fleeces, flannels and tuques, which I kept on all day since even when it warmed up a bit the wind was blowing and cooling it back down. We hustled it and got the remaining three rafters assembled and up by about noon. Pop wanted to leave at noon to head home, and wanted to help us get the end rafters on the road side of the house up, so we comprimised. He helped us with the rear outside rafter and left around 1pm.

After Pop left, Wendy and I cut the remaining rafters and and put together 4 of them before the end of the day. We are ready to get the last six rafters put up when we work on Wednesday (a different day due to business needs for me to be at work on Thursday this week).

I Can't Stand the Rain

2007-09-09T23:56:00.000-04:00

Saturday we got up and got to it, since Pop was coming up to work with us putting up rafters. We were able to get another post and rafter up and tacked in place before the thunder storm got cloe enough that we needed to get down from the scaffold. Unfortunately, the second rafter didn't quite come flush with the collar tie, providing this weeks Scooby Doo Mystery. The rain started around 3pm and we decided to call it for the day since the prediction was more storms into the evening.

Sunday we came back and adjusted the rafter so that it fits in place. It was a bit difficult due to how the rafter connects. It sits on the post on the first floor, and slips up underneath the collar tie on the second story. The 2x4 spacer was a bit long, and we couldn't adjust the rafter without tearing it apart to cut the 2x4, so we notched the collar tie half an inch on the bottom edge. Since there is nothing that the rafter sits on (it hangs beneath the collar tie), we tacked it in place with scaffold nails until we get the others hung. Then we can can pull a line and make sure they all match before securing them permanently.

To alleviate this, we decided to make the 2x4 spacer in the rafter about an inch shorter going forward to accomodate adjustment of the rafter. We started cutting more sets, and got another post up and plumb before it started to rain around noon. We decided to keep working under the deck, but soon the floor above was leaking (we hadn't gotten it covered before Saturday's rain, and decided not to cover it up while it was still gonna be wet to avoid sealing moisture in). By time we got everything into the container and out of the rain, we were all soaked to the skin and given that the forecast was rain the rest of the day, we called it and bought Pop lunch before sending him home and going hom ourselves.

This was our first rainy weekend since starting this project. We have really been rather fortunate so far, and into each house some rain must fall I suppose. This week, I am starting a different work schedule to accomodate working half a day on Thursdays, and spending the other half on the house. Hopefully this will help us get closed in all the faster.

A visit from FirstDay

2007-09-07T22:10:00.000-04:00

Last night, we bought a scaffold from a gentleman in Voorheesville. He is a retired roofer who needed to clean out his garage. We bought 8 Safway frames with bracing, feet, jack legs, connectors, half frames, a well wheel and arms, a dozen 13 foot planks and a handful of 6 foot planks and outriggers. It also came with a set of 4 ladder hooks for putting planks across ladders. He kept it all garaged when not in use, and we got it at a very reasonable price. He even said he could deliver it all to the site for us!

I took a half day today. Our scaffold was being delivered and David Howard was coming to visit us on site as we started the rafters. He wanted to come see how things were going, especially since ours is the first Canadian being built. While we worked on getting the first post and rafter built, David checked out the house so far, taking some notes and photos.

He helped us to plumb the post and raise the rafter into place on the collar tie and the post. Being as this hadn't been done before, we were all unsure of the exact logistics. After a period of deep thought and standing around, we decided to just give it a try and see how it went. We were able to get the rafter up and secured into place before David had to go. We kept going for a while and got another set of post and rafter started before calling it a day.

Movin' on up!

2007-09-03T23:41:00.000-04:00

To a deluxe apartment in the sky...

We set out today with the goal of getting all of our loft bents up. The only thing we needed was some help in raising and setting the bents. Fortunately our friends Cindy and Kurt were able help us out.

We went to work and cut all the pieces for the remaining four bents in the morning and then assembled them on the loft deck (or Promenade Deck as Wendy likes to think of it). We stacked them as we built them, in order to utilize the space we had without trying to raise bents with 2 people instead of 4. Kurt and I did end up putting the first two bents up to lean on the doubled section so we could reverse the direction we were building the last two bents in.

Getting all of the bents standing and in place took maybe 20 minutes. Then the task left to us was to finish nailing them in and to clean up from a busy 3 days. I got a quarter of a bucket of sawdust for the toilet while sweeping, and it took another 2 hours to get ready to leave. Another milestone reached.

Next come the rafters and outside posts!

Up, up and away!

2007-09-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

Mimi, Pop, Aunt Laurie and Uncle Michael came up for the holiday weekend to help out. Grandma Lana got a break from the kids, as we brought them up with us, figuring that with all of us, someone could have an eye on them at any given time. The beginning of Saturday was spent getting everything uncovered and then a bit of maintenance. While Wendy and Pop got the chop saw back in shape (it had suffered som rust from being left in the basement for a few weekends, even though it was under cover), Laurie, Michael and Mimi were setup to start staining the siding.

We chose to go with a semi transparent stain from Behr, in a color called Redwood. We want a barn red, but what the paint companies call barn red varies wildly, from way too tomato red colored to way too purple red colored. The Redwood looked like what we want on the chip, so we bought it and went for the gusto. We went with the transparent, because while it lasts less time, you can see the wood grain, and what we haven't liked about seing this vertical siding on other houses is that it looks funky with a layer of paint on it. Fortunately the color is really nice, especially up against the container, which is a similar green to what out roof will be!

Meanwhile, I made a drying rack for the siding from a couple of 2x4s and some strapping. This was to allow for more boards to dry at once than the method we used with the decking. I also finally got our sawdust toilet constructed and setup in the basement (behind a hanging tarp, for some privacy) which seemed appropriate with the number of people we had onsite this weekend.

After lunch, we cut the first upstairs bent, assembled it on the upper deck, and experienced the horror of raising 12 foot wide bents on a 12 foot wide second story platform and installing them on the end of the desk. After much vertigo, we set the bent and braced it in place. One bent down, six to go!

Sunday, we set Pop and Michael on the saw cutting bent pieces, while Mimi and Laurie stained and kept an eye on the children. Wendy and I went up on the deck and assembled the bents. We had two more assembled and lifted in place by the time of Emmet's birthday party. We took it over to the park and had hot dogs and cupcakes by the lake.

By time we finished up there it was after 6. My family packed it up to drive back downstate, while we went back to the land with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Lana. We got a couple more boards measured and things cleaned up before taking off for home ourselves.

All decked out

2007-08-29T00:17:00.000-04:00

Witha couple of nights work, we finished the other half of the deck without much issue. Unfortunately, it took about twice as long as I expected (of course) and it's one of those tasks that doesn't show much difference once a tarp is over it. Onward to the loft bents this coming weekend!

Not playing with a full deck

2007-08-26T22:57:00.000-04:00

True to form, my prediction on finishing the deck for the loft was short. The beginning of the day was spent fiddling with measuring and cutting the boards to go between the temporary posts and after nailing them down, measuring and notching the next piece of flooring. This fiddley part takes lots of time to figure out, and once you know what you are doing it can be time consumimg. I used a folding ruler to transfer the dimensions of the temporary posts and a hand saw and chisel to cut them.

When we were decking in earnest things moved slowly, but by the end of the day we had about half the deck done. Wendy thinks its because we didn't have a third person (ala Jay) dedicated to laying decking while I fiddled and Wendy selected and put up boards. Indeed, it seemed to go faster that weekend on the first floor deck.

We'll have to finish up during the week since my parents, sister and brother-in-law are coming next weekend to help out and I would like to have them help raise the next level of bents.

So hot, those little guys in the orange robes burst into flames

2007-08-25T23:19:00.000-04:00

It was that hot, you know what I'm talking about.
~ Good Morning Vietnam (Robin Williams)

It was brutal - so hot that while standing under the loft (which had a tarp for a roof, but open on the sides) folding cardbord sleeves for posts, I had sweat pouring off me.

But we did work somehow. We plumbed the bents and secured them with strapping, so that we can start the deck tomorrow. At the pinnacle of the heat, we took a break to go for a swim at the park. Despite being some insane temperature on the beach, the water was quite chilly. I guess the week of fall we had last week cooled off the lake already. Anyway, the swim was bracing and cooled us down to thinking temperature again. Afer that we got back to it for a bit until calling it a day.

Wendy and Grandma Lana continued to paint the underside of the decking boards all last week, and Wendy finished up the last few boards today while I put in the temporary posts.

Tomorrow, we deck!

I ain't broke (but I'm badly bent).

2007-08-19T22:17:00.000-04:00

This morning we got up, shook off the Sunday ache (the feeling of the prior day's hard work) and got to it. Only four bents to go! We recruited Grandpa Tom to help us with the bents today. The instructions suggest having four people to raise bents if possible, but we figured we could do it with three.

The morning was spent cutting the pieces for all of the bents. After some lunch we assembled the bents and put them into place one by one. It worked out well with three people, though four would certianly have made it simpler (from yesterday's experience). For the next round, we will have to make sure to have helpers on hand. We finished up and were on our way to pick up the kids by 6:30pm.

Next, we have to plumb and secure the bents with strapping, and finish the paint job so we can do the decking next weekend and get the next set of bents started! Things seem to really be moving now. And just for fun, here's the picture Quinn and Emmet will show their kids one day.

Get bent!

2007-08-18T23:21:00.000-04:00

Fall arrived in August today - it was in the low 50's for most of the morning and windy as heck. By the midafternoon it warmed up enough that we could remove out sweatshirts and fleeces while in the sun, on the deck.

We started fresh with assembling the first bent this morning. Shortly, it became evident that things were not fitting as we thought they should. A couple of the interior 2x6es were too long for the spots they should fit in (they sandwich the knee brace inside the post).

About this time, Mimi and Pop showed up. They had just gotten back from vacationing at the Jersey shore and decided to come up and help out for the day. We put Mimi to work painting the bottom side of the decking for the loft with flat white ceiling paint. We visited an 18 foot Original FirstDay where the owner had painted the bottom of the decking white before installing it. We thought it gave a really nice sense of space to have the ceiling between the beams reflecting light, and easier to do by far before the deck is laid.

Meanwhile, Wendy cut decking for Mimi and Pop and I looked into our latest Scooby Doo Mystery. Once we determine the correct length, we cut the pieces we had down to size and nailed together our first bent! We got Wendy and Mimi up on the deck to help raise it, and with them guiding the legs down and Pop and I lifting from the upper corners, it went up pretty easily. Getting the post legs into the nicely cut holes in the deck was another story, but we managed it just fine.

We cut pieces for two more bents and got them up and braced in place by the end of the day.

Since the kids were passed out at Grandma Lana's house after a big family celebration type party, we went to dinner with Mimi and Pop before calling it a night. Tomorrow we need to raise the remaining four bents and see if we can get them into shape to start the decking.

Hit the Deck

2007-08-13T01:16:00.000-04:00

We finished the end of the first deck this weekend, and I can't say as I miss working on it yet. The end of the deck gets difficult as you run out of beam to use the bowrench on, and so you have to make sure you have chose good straqight boards that magically fit right with the boards you have. Saturday we finished up to where the last two end boards fit, then Sunday morning we finished up the last boards.

Once the deck was finished, we started cutting the boards for the first bent. 15 individual pieces go into each bent and nine of them have 45 degree angles on one or both ends. It took us a while to cut them all, and by time we finished it was getting late, so we wrapped it up and we will fit the first bent together later in the week.

Deckathon 2007 in full swing!

2007-08-05T23:45:00.000-04:00

I recall someone saying, "Decking is forever". I can appreciate that statement now. The days blur together and the decking continues plodding along its way.

My friend, Jason ("The Hammer"), came up to help out for the weekend. We started at the second set of temporary posts on Saturday morning (Quinn and I had set them up on Thursday night in preparation). Once we finished fiddling around with trimming boards and getting them all secured around the posts, we were able to really start.

We decked right up to the next set of temporary posts before we had to stop for the night, thanks to Jason continuing on decking by himself while Wendy and I cleaned up. Jay was pretty well worn out, which was an interesting development, as Wendy and I were tired, but not too wiped. This must mean that we have increased our stamina in the time we have been working on the house. We got Jay some dinner, a shower and a bed to fall on at Grandma Lana's and went home ourselves.

On Sunday we met Jason and went back to work. We were glad to hear that he didn't feel as sore as he thought he might and in celebration, we put him right back on decking duty. We fiddled with the next set of spacer posts until afternoon, at which point Jay needed to get going home. Wendy and I continued on until mid-afternoon, when the entire deck was in full sun. At that point, we took a ride over to the state park to swim for an hour or so until the shade was back on the deck. We finished up for the day a little earlier than we expected, but it took us longer to get everything covered, since we had taken the covering tarps off of everything to air out and we had about 28 feet of deck to cover. Hopefully we will get up there to finish the deck during the week and be able to start building the loft bents next weekend.

Driving nails with Miss Daisy

2007-07-29T22:45:00.000-04:00

This sight of Wendy cause me to think of the title of today's post, so I got a picture to go with it.

Back to decking today. We brought up our watershoes and they worked great for working on the deck - now we need to bring shoes that are easy to slip on and off for trips down from the deck to get something instead of putting on and taking off workboots.

People always hope the weather will be sunny, but after spending half the day up on the deck, I am pretty sure that overcast is perfect decking weather. The deck is pretty rough in direct sun, to the point of heat induced visions of a beach for me. We took turns between connecting 2x6 decking to the frame and finding a 7' board that matches the width of the 14' board it goes next to, in order to cool down and keep sane.

Today, I tried using the nailer to put down the decking instead of a hammer. After a bit of calibration and some mistakes that had to be fixed, I started getting the hang of it. It took until the end of the day to really get consistently good with it. My initial thought was that this method was less effort, though not quicker. After using it all day, I think it is easier and quicker to use the nailer, though you still have the step of tightening the boards down no matter which way to you do it.

Deckathon 2007 starts!

2007-07-28T23:56:00.000-04:00

After straightening everything out last week, we thought we would be able to start decking. Instead, Wendy and I played Barbie pasteup Friday night, getting everything set up: making cereal box sleeves for the post inserts, putting them in place, cutting the decking to go around them, etc...

We made it through the setup and this morning we were able to start the decking in earnest. The decking is 2x6 tounge and groove pine boards. It serves as the deck as well as the finished floor surface. It will also comprise the finished ceiling surface, for upstairs at least. In the basement, we will probably eventually finish out the rooms and ceilings in drywall, excepting the south wall in each bedroom, which will be FirstDay wood finish.

By the end of the day (with Pop's help) we had 7 courses done, enough to stand on comfortably and enough to cause us to have to wrap everything up for the night. We need a better solution for working on the deck, so we don't get our dirty bootprints all over the deck. Pop suggested watershoes, which we both have, maybe we'll try tomorrow.

Braced for action

2007-07-22T22:38:00.000-04:00

We weren't planning on working today, as we didn't have a solid plan for child care, but after sleeping in and doing some cleanup around the house, we got itchy about wasting such a plum day. We got Grandpa Tom to watch the kids for the afternoon while we went up to get some work in.

Wendy got out the chop saw and cut about twenty sticks of 14 foot 2x6 decking in half while I finished straightening and bracing the beams in anticipation of starting decking in earnest next weekend.

I continued putting on the 2x6 end pieces and straightening the beam up to it suing the bowrench. Once I figured out how to use it I was so happy. I was able to straighten up the 2x8s, use the tension to keep it straight while i got the nailer and nail it in place by myself. This, along with bracing the beams in each galley, helped to straighten it out even more. We needed a term to use while talking about the three 12 foot by 20 foot areas we have across the house - the bays are the 2 foot 8 inch by 36 foot areas. Galley was Wendy's and it stuck.

Next week - Decking!

Setting the record straight

2007-07-21T23:05:00.000-04:00

Today we needed to get the last beam on across the back wall, brace the beams and start decking. As always, Law #1 of the Owner Builder comes into play - "Everything will take twice as long as you think" Law #2 is the mandatory follow-up and was originally penned by Murphy.

Mimi and Pop came up to help out by watching the kids and help out on-site respectively. We made the last 3 beams and put them up. When we had to notch the beams out for the bolts sticking through the sill plate, Wendy learned to use the sawzall - I guess it is a bayonet saw if you don't have a Milwaukee - and I got a refresher course.

While Pop and I put the beams up, Wendy increased the Feng Shui of the basement by using a pipe wrench and breaking the majority of the concrete snap ties off, reducing our chances of impalement on a daily basis by upwards of 50 percent and making being in the basement much nicer.

After getting the beams up we started checking plumb of the interior walls and found that we were out. After some adjustments, we started measuring in order to put on the bracing and found the 'Scooby Doo Mystery' of the day as Wendy has dubbed them. It seems each weekend, we get near the end of the day and find something horribly out of whack that we need to fix, ala law #2. This directly causes law #1 to occur. This one was that the western interior wall was too far back in the house by 3/4 of an inch, throwing the beams out of whack. You could see by looking down them that they were crooked, but we didn't realize why until we took measurements.

In the spirit of getting things right, we opted to fix it correctly by detaching the wall from the floor, moving it and reattaching it with Tapcon screws. This reduced the twistedness of the beams considerably. Next was to brace the interior walls to the back sill (and beam) for stability, and we ended up connecting the front wall too. We also started putting a 2x6 across the bays at the end of the beam, in order to hold the beams straight up while decking. That involved me nailing the 2x6 in place while Pop twisted the beams with the bowrench. There has to be a better way than just using it as a simple lever. We have been putting the bars on the beam to be straightened and pulling up or down. I will figure this tool out yet.

We got one 2x6 on and it was getting to be 5pm. Pop was ready for a siesta, so we packed it in for the day and went to meet Mimi and the kids for dinner at Garcia's

Playing catch-up

2007-07-17T23:30:00.000-04:00

After a lovely weekend in Boulder, Colorado for our friends Toni and Lisa's wedding, we were anxious to get some more work done on the house. If I may say so myself, I think it is going quite well - we have only worked 2 weekends since the sill was down and done and we have a pretty impressive structure already.

Looking over the weather, we decided to work today since the rest of the week looked sketchy and we wanted to get something done. We went up after work, made up the short posts for the front wall and the beams to go with them. We then nailed them in place and called it a day so we could pack it in before sundown.

Beam me up!

2007-07-08T21:20:00.000-04:00

My father has been trying to convince me since Christmas that we had to have one. Wendy's uncle was even trying to talk us into buying one while he was up last weekend, and I poo-pooed it. Wendy wants nothing to do with it. I have been wary since FD doesn't recommend them and I have read the statistics on the number of DIYers who get hurt each year with them.

After my injury on our nation's birthday (hopefully we can all party it up for many years to come), and coupled with a shoulder (rotator cuff) strain Wendy has been fighting since the early days of this project when we climbed in and out of the cellar hole without a ladder, I decided to break the taboo and buy a framing nailer. After consulting my experts, I decided on the Porter Cable FR350A, considered to be state of the art.

I won't go on longer except to say two things: Wow. This thing cranks through production - if we didn't have it, we would still be just starting what we got done this weekend. Also, people get hurt on all sorts of tools, mostly because they have no respect for the tool, have little understanding of how to use the tool properly, and are cowboys. Use it properly and safely and nobody should get hurt. At least that is what I have always been taught.

Saturday, Uncle John cut all the lumber for the beams to get us started, while we set about making some saw horses to work on. Getting my toes wet took a little while, but once I got my feet under me, we were able to get 10 of the 21 twelve foot beams we needed assembled and put in place.

Today, we finished up 5 more beams and straightened everything out before the threat of weather caused us to pack it in and send my father driving home.

Wendy learned to use the chop saw under my father's tutelage today, and has earned herself the title of sawmistress from now on. If I need something cut, Wendy is whom I will go to.

In return, if the nailing power of the nailer is needed, I will be the go-to guy I guess. What is left to do - get the short wall built, get the beams across the back sill, start decking! We are off next weekend for a wedding in Boulder, CO, but will return with a vengeance the following weekend.

We also had some surprise visitors this weekend. Saturday, our Realtor stopped in to see what kind of progress we have made and she seemed impressed. Today, Wendy's other uncle and aunt dropped by. It was pretty cool to get to give the 2 bit tour to people who hadn't seen it yet.

Don't hit the pink nails

2007-07-04T22:10:00.000-04:00

Happy Fourth of July! We got going early and made it up to the site today to try to beat out the weather - rain and thunderstorms were in the forecast for the afternoon. We were there and going by 8:00 AM, so we got a good start.

We fixed the last mini wall we put up for starters. I realized that when we assembled the wall, we turned it the wrong direction while raising it, and put it in backwards, which explained most of why that wall was all out of level. We disconnected the 2x8 braces and used the handtruck to turn the wall around. At that point, everything was a lot closer to being level, though the last post toward the back wall had a piece that was too long by an inch. It's always the simple math that gets me in trouble. Measure A, then subtract 1.5" to get C. Somehow I only subtracted 0.5", and caused things to be out of whack. Since it was still pretty early on a holiday and we didn't have another reason to use the generator yet, I marked it and used a handsaw to trim the inch off.

Once that was fixed, we measured out the stair opening from the back wall, made sure that the walls are plumb and put the bracing back. The walls look much more level. We also tied down the last 2 pieces of sill plate with TapCon screws so that we could measure and build the short posts that will go between the basement windows.

The measuring and cutting went fine. While nailing together the posts, I managed to whack my thumb with my framing hammer though. I literally saw stars when I did it and blood sprayed across the post in the greatest horror movie style.

Luckily, the rain started right about the same time, so we wrapped up for the day and went home. I have been taking it easy since then, but it still smarts quite a bit.

To paraphrase a friend of my parents', "Hit the grey nails, not the pink nails!" Sound advice that I will be sure to heed from now on, though perhaps I should have started earlier. Hopefully I will be back in shape for this weekend, since next weekend we have a wedding to attend to. Assuming everything works out, I think we could be ready to start decking the first floor by the end of this coming weekend.

Pop-up goes the camper!

2007-06-17T21:28:00.000-04:00

All around the mulberry bush...

We now have slightly upgraded on-site accommodations! Thanks go out to Margo and Walt (friends of my parents), who gave us their pop-up camper for practically nothing. It takes me back to my childhood, when we spent some part of every summer vacation camping in my parents' Coleman Brandywine pop-up. The one we received is a 1986 Coleman Laramie, which hadn't been used for a few years.

Pop and Walt drove it up to the site for us, along with a bunch of equipment Pop has been accumulating for us for this project, including a table saw, a radial arm saw and a chop saw. They also brought the water cooler from Pop's office, which he just moved out of. We'll need to level that somewhere and maybe secure it so it won't tip before we can use it, but the 5 gallon jug should keep us from having to haul quite as much water up once we get it set up.

Once it arrived, we opened up the pop-up and set it up to survey the condition. Except for a minute when the cranking mechanism froze and we couldn't get it to rise further (fixed by application of brute force), the raising of the trailer was pretty smooth. Aside from the smell of mothballs (which has been accumulating for a number of years) and some nut shells stashed inside the locking door by a crazy chipmunk, the trailer is in pretty good shape. We removed the mothballs, but it'll need to air over the next week before trying to camp in it.

This weekend we started setting down the sill plates. This involved a little bit of cutting of wood and lot of playing the measure, remeasure, lather, rinse, repeat game. Over and over and over and.... By the end of Sunday, we had all the sills laid out they were not square yet. I need to call FD and get some advice on how to do that, and we'll finish up next time.

Making the grade

2007-06-10T21:24:00.000-04:00

We just spent the last 3-4 days working on grading our lumber. This process consists of looking at each face of the structural lumber, determining if it is good enough that you'd like to see it in your house every day, seeing which side the crown of the wood is on and how big of a crown it is, as well as measuring the width of the lumber, since not all lumber is cut evenly. Then you mark all of this information on an end that won't be seen, lather, rinse and repeat.

One should re-stack the lumber during this process in order to provide plenty of airflow so that mold doesn't grow and the lumber can continue to dry. We found lots of fun with knots, some few dead ants in a pile we never took apart, and ant holes in a pile of lumber that we didn't have ants in. The curious thing is that the board with holes were distributed fairly evenly. Let it suffice to say that we have taken to disposing of any board with an ant hole in it.

Tomorrow or Tuesday they should be pouring the floor. Also, we had noticed a deficiency of lag bolts on the north wall. When we checked, there were only two bolts drawn on our plan (each a foot or so from the corner) , so it was followed. Our excavator has agreed to drill the holes and put in new bolts. We marked those today on the wall so he knows where to drill. Once the floor is poured and the sill bolts are in, we can start making some visible progress.

Wonder Twin powers, activate!

2007-06-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

A special thanks to the twins! Grandma Lana and Aunt Sandra watched the kids for quite a bit of last week and even pitched in to help with the carrying of lumber while we searched for rogue carpenter ants.

We are happy to say that no ants have resurfaced as of yet, though the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Dead-ant, Dead-ant....

2007-06-04T21:53:00.001-04:00

Since Wednesday we finished the steps to complete the floor for the pour, except for stuffing the boxes with towels to keep the concrete out. I spoke with the foundation contractor today, and he anticipates being able to pour the floor early next week. Once that is done we should be able to start in on the basement posts.

Meanwhile, we moved on to start grading the lumber. Our first shipment of materials arrived on May 25th, but we were busy getting things ready for the floor slab to be poured. One of the first things we need to do before building is take the dimensional lumber which makes up the posts and beams and determine which pieces match in width and crown, and which ones have bad sides we need to hide. After getting started on that we decided to take a break and move some things into the storage container.

A possibility we hadn't even countered upon struck us when we moved a roll of Typar and found, to our horror, a mass of writhing carpenter ants on one of our precious piles of lumber! A storm was rolling through, so we wrapped things back up and beat a hasty retreat (being out in the open up in the mountains during a thunderstorm is pretty sobering). A call to FirstDay gave us a recommended course of action, which we started implementing the next day - kick the pile apart and go in (RAID) guns blazing - kill 'em all, let nature sort them out - then salt the earth.

In all reality, we picked the pile apart (kicking a pallet full of 2" x 6" by 14' decking apart is not as simple as all that), smashed every ant we could catch and sprayed the rest down with insecticide. Then we spread diatomaceous earth around everything. The DE was pretty tough to find in mass quantities, but our relentless search found a feed store in North Bennington that carries 25 pound bags. When we asked them for two of those bags, they asked if we were at war. Of course, we replied "Yes!". We certainly can't let them have the lumber we need for our house.

Before leaving for the night we were treated to the sight of an owl perched on the power line on our property, checking around. Owls are supposedly good omens, and we are taking it to mean that we got the ants.

We spent the next 2 days moving the adjacent piles of lumber in search of infestations, and making our land look like a dumping ground for some sort of crazy bakery - white flour like stuff everywhere. Luckily, it seems that A) the ants hadn't been there long, despite their sheer numbers - the decking was mostly intact - only a handful of boards had been chewed, which we are planning on getting rid of promptly. I think maybe we encountered a swarm that was trying to move in and hadn't gotten far enough to cause much in the way of real damage yet (I hope). B) All we have seen since then are solitary refugees, no organized resistance.

As Henry Mancini's song says, "Dead-ant, Dead-ant, Dead-ant dead-ant dead-ant dead-ant dead-aaannnnnnt....". Let's keep it that way.

Under Pressure

2007-05-29T22:00:00.000-04:00

We had a couple of days off - Sunday's weather was less than stellar, so we decided to get some things done around the house, and then for Memorial day, we set off and Emmet threw up five minutes out of the driveway. After a bath and a nap, we decided to try again and headed off to Grandma Lana's house. He was sick again, but we made it. When we finally got up to the site, we realized that we had forgotten the fittings for the manifold - they very thing we had hoped to finish! Well, it seemed that someone had not intended for us to work that day, so we packed it in for the day.

Today we tried it again. After some grunting, heaving and sweating (it's amazing how hot a basement hole full of insulation can get - as Wendy quipped, "Why do we need radiant down here? It's plenty warm already!"), we had the manifold and the loops all hooked up.

We filled the system with 50 pounds of compressed air to pressure test the fittings and went to get some breakfast. A few sausage, egg and cheese sammiches later, we came back to check the pressure. It had actually gone up to 55 pounds due to the tubing heating up and held pressure for 2 hours. During that time we tied the tubing all the way down to the bottom layer of wire mesh. Once the pressure test was complete, we put down the top layer of wire mesh and tied that down, trimming all the zip ties so that we don't have any flying up out of the finish floor slab. The top layer helps weight the tubing down, protect it from the power trowel in case it rises and diffuse the heat more evenly.

All that is left to do before the slab pour is to build out the box for the under tub access and stuff it, stuff the manifold box and wrap the toilet pipe in cardboard so that there is a gap for the flange to be fit on after the pour. We cut out early for a early birthday party for Sean and cousin Danny (born the same exact day!) thrown by Grandma Lana and Aunt Sandra.

The radiant spectrum

2007-05-26T22:28:00.000-04:00

Since the plumbing passed, we started removing two inches of gravel between the footings for the insulation under the radiant tubing in the slab. Well, after seeing how tough that was, we decided to cut back to one inch of insulation, given how the slab is underground by at least 4 feet in all places. Even so, one inch across the entire basement (720 square feet, less the footings - 8" per side on the perimeter and two interior footings of 2 feet by 19 feet) is a huge amount of gravel to move.

Wendy enlisted the help of the kids and Grandma Lana one day while I was at work, and they moved quite a bit of gravel out of the cellar hole and onto the driveway. The next day, she and I finished it up and then laid down the foam insulation, followed by the wire mesh to attach the PEX radiant tubing to.

We needed a bit more wire to finish covering the foam, which we got before starting to deal with the PEX. In opening the first box of PEX, we found that the tubing was kinked somewhere in the middle. Kinked so badly that there was a crease in the tubing, which is no good. I made the mistake of trying to uncoil the first three hundred foot coil of PEX to help get rid of the pressure on the kink and determine how far in the kink was. This exercise shortly led to quitting in frustration for the day. Radiant heat tip number 1: Don't uncoil the tubing. Keep it coiled as much as possible, and spin the entire coil to loosen the twist in the tubing as you need it. This will keep the tubing from going everywhere as well as maintain your sanity.

By the next morning I had figured this fact out in my head, as well as the way around it. We decided we should start with the other coil of PEX in hopes that it was not so badly damaged. We got the first loop laid out and noticed that the tubing has the length printed on the side of the coil. Our first loop took two hundred twenty five feet of PEX, and the other loop is smaller because we can't lay it on the heater footing. Looking over the first roll, we determined that the kink was around one hundred and five feet into the roll, and that if we started from the three hundred foot mark, we would have almost two hundred feet of good tubing to use. By doing this we were able to get both loops of tubing laid and zip tied down.

Now we simply have to make the connections to the manifold and pressure test this baby so we can have the inspector look at it and get the floor poured (finally!).

Climbing. The world's loneliest sport, where hardship and philosophy go hand in glove. And here, another American expedition, attempting to be the first woman to successfully climb the north face of the Eastern Interior Kelly footing. She has been climbing tremendously. Documentary cameras were there to film every inch.

Plumbing: Mission 1 - Complete!

2007-05-21T20:51:00.000-04:00

Sean's tips for would-be plumbers (v1.0):

1) You can do it. Yes, you read that right. You can do it. You are good enough, and smart enough and gosh darn it, plumbing ain't rocket science. I have known some good plumbers, but they aren't making giant strides for humanity or anything like that. They follow the code and get the job done. That said, if you are building your own house, I see why FirstDay recommends you get a contractor to do the mechanical systems for you - we haven't even gotten the kit yet and there is more than enough to do without dragging pipe, digging trenches in the under-slab gravel and so on. Not to mention the anxiety that comes of worrying about if it is right and whether it will pass inspection or not. On the other hand, perhaps that last is a side effect of breathing too much purple primer.

2) Get the biggest cans of cleaner, purple primer and pipe cement you can find (assuming you are using PVC pipe for your DWV). It costs a buck or two more, and you won't use all of whatever size you buy in a million years, but the secret is that you get a bigger applicator/dauber with the bigger can, which is worth its weight in greenbacks, believe me. The applicator is basically a cotton ball attached to a wire that is welded to the inside of the can lid. The small jar has a cotton ball that is maybe 3/4" in diameter. The large can has a cotton ball that is 1 1/2" in diameter. I made the mistake of getting big cans of purple primer and cement and a smaller can of cleaner. By the third or fourth joint we made, I was begging for the bigger applicator.

3) Push those pipes together tight for 30 - 60 seconds after making the joint! The instruction say this, to avoid push out. And you think - c'mon! How much will the pipes push apart? Our first 4" pipe joint came all the way out of the 2" deep hub because we hadn't held it until the chemical reaction was done.

Wendy and I finished up the under-slab Drain/Waste/Vent line yesterday. We started it last Saturday, so it took about a week and a day of nights and weekends to do. Things weren't too bad until we got to the point where the system turns 90 degrees to exit the house (see below - the dark green is the underslab DWV and the light green indicates the risers coming up out of the slab).

At that point, things got a little tight, as there was a 3" rise in about 5 feet between the sleeve going out of the house and the sleeve going to the bathroom. We had assembled the pipes backward from where they enter the slab, back toward the house exit (as the books say to do), but when we got to that turn (Friday), we put the elbow on at too steep an angle, and the pipes didn't fit together.

We had to cut the pipes apart on the bathroom side of the footing before the turn out before continuing on. Cutting a round pipe straight with a saw is a challenge when you have it up on a sawhorse with one or two people holding it and rotating it for you, which is why I am glad I had a bit of practice doing that before trying to cut it 'in the hole'. It came out very straight considering I couldn't turn the pipe to make sure the cut was straight, and I was cutting in a trench filled with gravel.

Once we had this assembly disconnected, we cemented the pipe exiting the building (with lots of pulling, pushing and cajoling the pipe and the 4-4-3 wye it connects to). We let that connection set and cure Friday night and Saturday (it rained like the dickens all day) and Sunday, we went back and reconnected the pipes we cut apart with a 4" double hub. Wendy called the building inspector this morning, who said he would go up and look at it this morning and call us if there was any problem. Being as today has come and gone and we got no calls, the only answer is that our DWV has passed and we are go for radiant heat and then a slab.

We started removing an inch of gravel (plus what we had to displace for the plumbing) so we can put the 1" of foam board under the radiant heat and flush with the footings. Let me tell you - there is way more gravel in an inch over 720 sq feet than you would ever guess. We had piles of it in the foundation, and Wendy, her mom and the kids spent a good couple of hours this afternoon moving all size containers full of gravel out so we can get the radiant in.

Clean bill of mental health

2007-05-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

I may not actually have a clean bill of mental health, but I do feel much better now. After talking to the foundation contractor and the architect yesterday, they both told me that the footings for this house are way over built and that even if the posts stand on the edge of the footing, they are OK.

We also met the foundation contractor today to go over one of the side effects of the footing move - where the tub should be in the basement is impossible. We would need to move it out 2-4 inches. into the room to make it work. He agreed to cut out some of the footing in the location so that we can at least get in to work on it later.

The water service sleeve was left out as they have a concrete drill to put the hole right where we need it instead of guessing, we just hadn't heard that yet. Now that we have these things worked out, we need to wait for the footing to be cut that so we can finish up our plumbing.

We tried to get some of this done in the rain that was falling at the site, but in the meantime, we will get started on the radiant heat tomorrow night, assuming it isn't raining.

Ready or not, here we plumb!

2007-05-13T20:23:00.000-04:00

To all the plumbers we called and never heard back from... Neener, neener, neener! We don't need you!

We called almost 2 handfuls of plumbers to get quotes over the past 2 months. We only ever heard back from one, who got a copy of the floorplan, called to ask a couple of questions, told us he would get us a quote in a couple of days and promptly disappeared.

By the time we got to that point, we knew that we would have to do it ourselves anyhow. I got a couple of books on plumbing from the library, and a copy of the Residential Building Code, and tried to figure it out. Having to do this myself has made a huge mess of my head. I spent a week feeling like the kid who hadn't been to class in weeks and realized today was the final.

OK, so it isn't as simple as it looks in the picture. Fortunately, my father came up to help us out. Having him there was a huge boon. He gave me the confidence to get my hands into it and the guidance to keep me moving in the right direction, and for that and everything else he has done for me in my life, I owe him big. Of course, this is just the beginning of this journey, and I am sure that I will rack up some more debt. Someday I hope I can pay him back in spades.

The good news is that the foundation is up and the forms are off of it! We have walls and footings and windows even!

The downside is that after today, it looks like there may be a couple of problems. One of the interior footings is off by 9 inches (too close to the center of the house). The other interior footing is also off, as they are 12 feet apart, but it is 9 inches to close to the outside of the house. We have to figure out how this impacts us, as we can't move the posts in the basement - they go all the way up to the roof and the engineering of the whole house would be affected. Also, the sleeve for the water service from the well is not in.

Suffice it to say that things are tense right now. We need to talk to our foundation guy and our architect to see what the impacts are and what can be done to fix it.

Taking Form

2007-05-10T23:08:00.000-04:00

I took an early morning ride up to the site to see if the walls had been poured on the footings yet. Much to my satisfaction, the foundation forms had been put up and the walls had been poured. Sadly, I couldn't get into it, as the concrete was still wet.

'

Took a late ride with my father-in-law to get the DWV pipe, fittings and supplies for putting down the radiant floor and drop them off at the site. We didn't get there until 9pm and didn't get home until 10:30pm or so, so thank you for your help and patience Tom! Both the DWV and the radiant have to be put in before the floor slab can be poured. Since we had problems getting hold of plumbers, we will have to do both to keep things moving along.

And Away We Go!

2007-05-04T21:04:00.000-04:00

Well, the footings are in. I took a ride during lunch today up to the property to take a look at what they had done.

They really are nice footings. I guess they were there until 7pm or so Monday night hammering the ledge out so they could get started with the footings Tuesday. While I was there today they were backfilling the footings and drains with gravel.

They expect to put up the wall forms on Monday and pour them on Tuesday, which means that we will need to do our plumbing for the DWV (Drain/Waste/Vent - the line out to the Septic tank and the in slab plumbing for the master bath) and our in-slab radiant heat next weekend so they can pour the floor the week after that, before we get started building. Va Va Va VOOM!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2007-05-02T19:47:00.000-04:00

We went up to the land two Saturdays ago, met the excavator and foundation guy, and cut some of the downed wood that is piled in the way between the house and the power line. We showed them where the house should go and where the septic tank is for their reference. They said they wouldn't be up there until the middle of last week, as they had a driveway to do early in the week.

Meanwhile, on Monday morning, I woke up and my right knee hurt. I got up and it seemed OK, so I did my morning regimen - 60 hindu squats, 20 hindu pushups and 20 situps. By the time I got to work, my knee was feeling pretty stiff. By the time I went home and had dinner it was very painful and swollen. I worked from home for the next few days and had the doc-in-a-box look at it. They X-rayed, they ultrasounded, but to no avail. Nothing broken, just a sprained knee. By Friday I was back at work, albeit on crutches. A good omen for building? Getting hurt already is bad, but I am recovering quickly.

I got to work Friday and there was a fresh fax on my desk from the excavator, asking me to call them right away. I called and they told me that they had started digging and hit solid rock, and that they would like to meet us on Saturday to look at it and discuss our options. We set a time and I gave them all of our contact information (they faxed because it was the only contact info they could find for us). Wendy and I worried what we would see and find out the next day, since the conversation had been pretty brief, not really describing anything and emphasizing the words solid rock. We consoled ourselves with the words from the Gospel according to Matthew:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

We got up there on Saturday to find that they had dug almost the entire hole before finding the rock in one corner. It was ledge for sure, and comes up pretty close to the top of the hole. It is a challenge and will cost us more, but it is not the end of the world. They own their own hammer attachment for their excavator, living and working in our neck of the woods, and said with 4-6 hours of work, they will be able to beat it into submission and continue on their way.

They expect to have the footings in and the wall forms started by the end of this week. Looks like this weekend is likely the last weekend of leisure for a while.

Red Light, Green Light, 1... 2... 3...

2007-04-18T15:36:00.000-04:00

So, a couple of hours ago, we got a call back from the building inspector. We had called to find out if he received our application for a building permit, if there is anything else he needed in order to process it and how long it generally takes to get turned around. He called and let us know that he had just put our building permit in the mail!

We are going to see the foundation contractor and excavator this evening to meet with them and try to set a timetable, and knowing that we have a permit in the mail is huge. We can actually set hard dates instead of guessing, and with the weather set to change (Accuweather says that we are looking at a week of highs in the 60s, and highs above 50 until the end of the month), maybe we will have the footings and foundation walls in by the beginning of May. The building permit is really the catalyst that will set everything in motion. Soon enough, I think, we will realize we are on a runaway train.

After our meeting (thanks to Grandma Lana again for watching the kiddies), we will stop up to the site for a few things. We need to check to see if Cingular has better coverage in our area than Verizon (our wireless carrier for now). Thanks to Mara for letting us borrow her phone for this experiment. The coverage map looks better on paper for Cingular than Verizon, but the proof is in the pudding.

If this works out we will not have to worry about getting a land line installed from the get go. If it doesn't work out, we will get the land line since the Verizon service only works when standing at the top of the driveway, on one foot, holding your right index finger up like a lightning rod and spinning widdershins at 1.23 feet per minute. OK, it may not be that bad, but it certainly isn't usable.

We may also do some more clearing of downed trees if the weather (and snow cover) is acceptable. That part may be tough, depending on how the Nor'easter treated our hill, but we shall see.

Update - 11:15pm

We met with the foundation and excavation people, who are all just great folks. We sat and chatted with them for a while and let them know we have our permit. We will meet them up there Saturday to get things going. They'll bring a machine so they can start looking at elevations and what is what.

We went up and checked out the Cingular service.... It was completely nonexistent aside from their coverage map which shows they cover the area. Ah well, this means we will have to get with Verizon to get a phone line request started.

When we finally got home, we found a piece of mail from the Town, which was our building permit! It is only No. 7 of 2007 - a limited edition, and only good until April 13 of 2008. I have blown up the plans and put them on the walls of my area at work (the word cube really doesn't do it justice), something nice to look at when I need a break from the monitor. I think I will have to put up a copy of the permit to complete the theme.

Fifty thousand pounds of FirstDay

2007-04-15T19:29:00.000-04:00

We sent in our building permit application at the beginning of last week. Godspeed! The building inspector has already spoken to the engineer who stamped the plans about the design and the requirements for our area, so this should go smoothly. We had also met with the building inspector back in January to get the details of exactly what it is that we need to make this process successful. We included all the items he mentioned with our application.

Hopefully, we will be able to find out this week when we will have our permit, as we meet the foundation and excavation contractors on Wednesday to discuss when they will able to get started. Of course, I doubt that this Nor'easter is going to help that schedule much. The house site is at about 1600', which is above the 1500' line that the forecasters had been kicking around as the rain/snow line for this mid April storm. With predictions of 1-2 feet of snow, and the basic fact that the house site is approximately 10 degrees F cooler than the temperature down here in the valley, it could be a bit before the snow is gone, or even low enough that the driveway is accessible.

We did go up yesterday and do some work while Grandma Lana played with the kids at her house. The septic contractor left (at my request) the trees he cleared, piled around the clearing for the septic. I figured "We could use the wood for fires and the masonry heater when it is built, if we stack it right,"and "Hey, we could save money". I never figured on when we would cut and stack it. It turns out that one of the piles sits between the house and the utility pole. This is problematic, as this path will need to be clear, more so if we go with underground power. We have a quote from the excavation folks to trench it, but we need to talk to an electrician about hooking up the main power to the meter and box, as well as a temporary hookup for construction. One more thing on the pile.

So, after staking out the house site (for the power company to come out and talk to us about a temporary power drop, we need to have the house site staked out) and figuring out the height differences for the drain pipe to the septic tank, we cut wood (I with the chainsaw, Wendy with the bow saw) and moved some of it. This was a lesson in how far we have to go. It showed us just how much we are 'average Americans'. We shall go back next week and do penance at the altar of the god of firewood, which will hopefully help to get us in shape. My exercise regimen, while incredible painful at first, has gotten up to 60 squats and 20 push ups a day. I am trying to increase a bit daily to push myself, though with being sick on and off again this past week, I took some time off and I am sure I have regressed.

This whole thing is getting uncomfortably close now. Its like when you decide on Monday to go see a band on Saturday night. As week progresses you get more excited, but something happens during the wait and by Friday night you aren't sure if you really want to go out on Saturday. You can think of a million things you could be doing instead that don't involve getting up off the couch and leaving the house. As we get closer, the anticipation is killing me, but I also feel that this could easily be postponed. Of course, in order to have a house, we have to decide to get off the couch and do it.

This wasn't helped much by a call Wendy made to FirstDay this week. We called to check on things and they asked us when we want to schedule the house delivery. They gave us the Friday before Memorial Day weekend as a suggested delivery date. Memorial Day weekend is our goal to get started on swinging hammers by. I only realized that this is now less than 6 weeks away when I considered that I had wanted it delivered earlier in may so we could get a couple weekends of fabricating posts and beams in before we started building. When Wendy asked about getting it earlier, they suggested we wait till the end of May, since we don't have a building permit or a Foundation yet, and said that we want to make sure we only have to move the kit materials once, since iwe have fifty thousand pounds of house to move. My blood chilled hearing that number. I have never considered moving that much stuff in my entire life, no less by hand.

Once we get started, I think that things will be moving fast enough that I won't be able to obsess on things like that number. We shall see...

An Open and Closed Case

2007-04-05T23:15:00.000-04:00

We recently requested and received quotes from two companies who sell radiant packages to DIYers. Both quotes were for open direct radiant systems - where the radiant system and the domestic hot water system are tied together, running off one water heater. Looking at the quotes we got back, I wondered if maybe I should get another one. I like having at least three of a given quote to choose from. So, I headed out to ask Google who else sells DIY radiant heat packages.

One of the sites had an article on why open direct radiant systems may be dangerous. I looked into the author's credentials, which certainly put him in the credible zone. I don't like to blindly trust anyone who wants me to give them money. A recent study (Ohio State) confirms that Legionella builds up in plumbing, and that the longer the run, the more it can build up. The downside is adding an extra water heater.

After bringing the article up for a lively (heated) discussion amongst some peers, we decided we'd rather be safe than sorry. Legionella usually only affects the very young, the very old, and the immune challenged. We have young children, older parents, and even if nothing were to happen anytime soon, we are getting older every day. There is no sense in trying to save a little money and opening ourselves (and our family) up to a potential health hazard which could be easily avoided.

We called back the companies and asked for quotes on closed systems. While we were at it, we decided to not put the heat below the first floor to begin with. The quotes include a two zone manifold for expanding that in the future, but since we won't be living in the house the first winter it is up, this will give us a chance to delay spending some money up front and see how well the slab radiant will heat the whole place, so we can get an idea if the radiant in the first floor is really necessary.

We have also been talking to the heater mason who will be building our masonry heater, when we get there. We want to get the design worked out so we know what size footing to pour for it when the foundation is done. He came up with some drawings, which I have rendered in SketchUp. I'll put the images in another post, but it is late and I must get up early to work.

The vision

2007-04-01T03:04:00.000-04:00

We have our stamped, modified plans, so we can apply for our building permit! Now to figure out the cubic feet of the house for box 10a....

Here is the final isometric view.

The revised basement plan now has space for mechanical systems and has been rearranged to make dealing with the foundation for the masonry heater easier.

Slight changes on the main floor, and no change to the loft

And a new treat - elevation drawings!

West - this is the side facing the street, and has the main entrance to the house. The driveway will lead up to it. Ignore the egress window on the lower northwest corner - that was removed from the plans in the revisions, but didn't get removed from this view.

South - this faces into the deepest portion of our land, and will provide some passive solar heating (look at all the windows!).

East - this faces toward the back of the lot. The left window is in the study/guestroom, the right window is across from the toilet.

North - the non-solar side of the house. The windows present are for daylighting. The tall first floor window is between the bathroom and the stairs, to provide some extra light to a dark area. The door will eventually open onto a screened porch back there. For now, it will have a landing and stairs.

Now back to that building permit application...

A near fatal miss

2007-03-25T18:55:00.000-04:00

Today we had a close call. We were talking about everything to be done and how it feels like things are moving toward us like an unstoppable train, as well as how we really wanted to be able to build without creating a debt for ourselves when we were done. This led to us discussing whether we should proceed with building this year, or whether we should wait a year (or more) and save up more money.

Well, it was a heck of a Sunday, I tell you. We talked and talked and it was very close to the whole process of deciding to build a FirstDay. We went through and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of waiting and everything seemed to point to wait until we got to the money question. Waiting for a year would reduce the amount we need to borrow by 1/3, but that is in today's dollars. After we figured out the interest on the loan principle we would take today and compared it to the expected cost increases of building materials, we figure we would actually come out ahead by taking a bigger loan now than by taking a not as small as calculated loan next year. On top of that, it seems of late that the economy is like a man walking on spring ice. The surface, which has been solid for so long, may be rotten and melting underneath and could give way any moment if you step in the wrong place. A drastic change to our economy could easily put the FD out of our reach indefinitely.

In the end, we decided we are better off if we continue on with the current schedule. We are calling to confirm the foundation and excavation contractors tomorrow, and get this ball on the roll. Now we just need to find a plumber to do the Drain/Waste/Vent system and the propane piping and an electrician to hook up the mains to the breaker box and meter socket.

Well done, thanks!

2007-03-12T00:08:00.000-04:00

We got the bill from the well driller on Friday, indicating that the well is done. They say that it is 460 feet deep and is running 5 gallons per minute. For the price, the driller we used could not be beat! I have a few questions for them (whether they have had the water tested and the results, if they file a well drilling report and if we can get a copy, and also an idea of the standing column of water in the well) that need to be answered this week.

So with one more piece of the puzzle in place, we are moving right along. Before we know it we will be fabricating posts and beams and decking the house. Our objective for this coming week is to choose excavator and foundation contractor and schedule them.

In a little more personal news, I decided to get in a less 'round' shape before starting this project in earnest. I started following Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning and took off 4.5 lbs in the first week and a half. We shall see how it works, although any exercise can't be wrong.

Colder than a well-digger's ass

2007-03-05T23:42:00.000-05:00

The well-driller called the first of March to say that they were finally on the property! They had drilled to 360 feet so far and had 4 gallons per minute. Since our contract guarantees 5 gallons per minute, there is still some work to do. The next day was predicted to be a big ice and snow storm and they didn't make it back.

Saturday we stopped on our way to visit some friends in MA to take a look. Despite no predictions of snow, it started snowing to beat the band on our way there. The road we live on was a bit slick and we couldn't get the car up the hill to the property. Half way up we lost forward momentum and started to slide down backwards. Fortunately, the dirt road spans two paved roads and the other end is more level with our property. We made our way around and had no trouble getting in from that direction, which confirmed both a fear (that we might not be able to get up the hill) and a hope (that the approach to the level end would be accessible) I had held about the property when we bought it.

The road to the level end of our road is paved, but leans toward the Twisted Firey Death Route category in snow. That is much better than the Non-Traversable category that the steep end of our road does, we just had to take it easy and concentrate. Once we reached the property, it was beautiful. The snow was falling, muffling the.... silence. We don't hear much unnatural noise when it is clear, and it was even more silent this day. The pictures can't do justice to the beauty of it, but right near the top of my list of things to enjoy when the house is done is a snowy day, from inside and out.

We went and checked out the truck and what they are doing with the well. They expect to finish out between 400 and 450 feet when they get up there.

By the time we got in, looked around and left (15 - 20 minutes), the tracks of us sliding down the hill and driving were eradicated in fresh snow. It is so nice to see progress being made again. We have been waiting for a while to get the water situation squared away. The next big thing will probably be the excavation for the foundation. We will have all our quotes by the end of the week, and can start making those plans.

If you can't stand the heat...

2007-02-17T10:21:00.000-05:00

One of the crises we passed through this past two months was what we are going to do about heat. We have a long term plan, which is that our main heat source will be our masonry heater. That won't be built for at least another year or two, which leaves us with the question of how we will heat our house until then. We need a system that will heat the whole house on its own until we get the masonry heater built. That means it will also be usable as a backup heating system, or the primary eventually, when we get to a point where we don't want mess with wood. Having the extra heating system will also be an asset if we ever decide to sell it, since no everyone is into wood heat.

That leaves the question of what type of system we should use. We ruled out furnaces as a whole, since we don't want to use oil for heat, and running (and hiding) all sorts of ductwork and vents for a system which will be a backup for the majority of the life of the house seems too involved. We looked into ground source heat pumps (geothermal), which could also need ductwork, but can do heat and cooling with about %300 efficiency, which is a big draw. That ended up being too expensive too. Another type of wood heating appliance to be used temporarily until the masonry heater can be built was also considered, but many of the reasons we want a masonry heater are the same reasons we wouldn't want any other type of wood stove in our house. Electric is right out, as it isn't a very efficient source of heat by my understanding, especially in a colder climate.

Eventually, we came back to the original idea we had, which was radiant hydronic heat. Someone had suggested it wasn't advisable to have a system that takes a while to heat up as a backup to another system that takes a while to heat up, but after doing all the analysis, it seems to be the best option we have. We will need a water heater anyway, and if we go with the open system, we can use just one. It also allows us to convert the water heating system at a later date to be solar or geothermal based if we want. By having two zones, we can heat the basement separately, which was a consideration since the masonry heater will be located on the first floor and won't heat the basement all that well. We have a couple of quotes now from DIY hydronic radiant places which hover around the $3,000 mark for the pieces, sans hot water heater. Now we just need to decide between our bids.

The Island of Misfit Ideas

2007-02-15T20:16:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months, we have been planning, scheming, and re-examining plans we had previously made. We started looking into cool technologies that we had seen or heard of in various places to see if it could fit with our home. All of the ideas tossed around were excellent ideas, but often too expensive for our budget. The rule of thumb we have found is this - if the technology works and reduces your environmental footprint or your dependence on oil, it costs between $15K and $20K up front to incorporate.

Among the ideas tossed around (and then out) were insulated concrete forms for the basement, a geothermal heat exchange system for heating (not the borehole type you think of in Iceland, but a water to air heat exchanger), and solar water heating and power. Sadly, we don't have any spare buckets of cash sitting around, or we may have incorporated these ideas into our house from the get go.

That said, these ideas need not fear that they will live out the remainder of their lives on the Island (except for ICFs). Many of these can be incorporated later, after we have built the house, have a place to live, and have saved up more. The heating system can be setup to use a ground source heat exchanger (the heart of the geothermal system) or solar hot water, and solar PV panels can be installed later as well. In the meantime, we can incorporate passive solar design without much investment, and we can highly insulate the basement walls to gain some of the same benefits that ICF walls enjoy. And we can keep dreaming.

The long dark winter of the spirit

2007-02-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

Well, everything has been holding patterns and research and quotes over the past few months. Rather than write an epic that will consumer hours of time, I think I will break it down into bite sized posts on the status of each component of the plan.

The short story on the lack of updates is that the holding pattern we have been in took hold of me after the New Year and inertia proved that it would win. Today, that changes. It only took the Great Valentine's Day Storm of Aught Seven for me to sit down and get to it. The long story is pretty much the same, but with a bit more blame to assign around, away from me.

Going to the Great Northeast Home Show in Albany this past week got me thinking about everything that we have done so far, and everything left to do, and so here we are.

We met with our building inspector to find out what we need to have to get our permit. We discovered we basically need a Septic Permit (check), Engineer stamped plans (bzzt), a foundation plan (check) and to fill out the application. He seems very supportive of owner-builders and open to different ideas.

We sat down, managed to make the final changes to the plans and get them to FirstDay so that the stamping process could get started. Nothing too drastic. We moved the Northwest bedroom to the center of the South wall (where the extra family room would have been) and moved our room to the West side. We used the rest of the extra space for a utility closet/area. Also, we removed a couple of North facing windows and using smaller windows for other ones.

A couple of weeks after sending the revised plans, we got a call from FirstDay telling us our site is in a special strip of land East of the Hudson that has the highest snow load and wind ratings in the state. This requires more time for the engineer to do the calculations, but the final plans should be coming within a week or 2 now, along with our final invoice. Yep, we are getting close! Keep your eyes peeled for more soon.

A picture is worth a thousand words

2006-11-24T16:42:00.000-05:00

OK, finally got these scanned in and cleaned up so they look like something decent. Click any of these images to make them big enough to really view. Here are the isometric views of the house.

The main floor, with the living room, the kitchen/dining area, study/guest room and 3/4 bath.

The lower level - the basement in most houses - with our bedrooms, a full bath and a family room with the masonry heater.

The loft. There is no plan for this currently, but it is a space we could expand into eventually. Attic storage for now.

A time to give thanks

2006-11-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

There has been little movement these past few weeks, though I wouldn't say nothing happened. The septic installers had the field all covered up and were waiting to get enough other sites prepped to rent the equipment to get them seeded and mulched. They called this past weekend to let us know that that is all done and they are sending the final bill. Our engineer and the Health Department should be out there sometime this week to have the final inspection. We will get a certificate of compliance from the Health Department once the water has been tested (I think they said it has to be tested in the house).

The well driller called back to let us know he got into the site and it started to rain and then got too muddy for him to keep his rig there. He will wait until the ground freezes to drill the well. I suppose that if he can drill through rock, a little frozen ground won't deter him. No big deal if it doesn't happen for a month or even two, though I would like it done by the end of January, just to get it out of the way. As David (the main man of FirstDay) told us, there is at least a week between every thing that needs to be done. I don't want to try to jam all those weeks together; I think it could get very intense. We have been trying to buffer that week by a bit for each thing.

Lastly, the news that precipitated the post, is that we received our plans from FirstDay yesterday! David called to check on some things last week and told us he was working on them. He also told us he changed something in the kitchen but that it was to be a surprise. We are very excited about the plans, and once I have access to a scanner (over the Thanksgiving holiday), I will post them up here.

P.S. David had to change the kitchen configuration a bit due to stair and door placement, and included an island with a built-in bench in the kitchen. We're not sure how we feel about a 4' x 7' island in a 12' x 16' kitchen, but I am going to try to render it in SketchUp and so we can see what it looks like before we make up our minds.

As the leaves fall down

2006-11-02T06:19:00.000-05:00

I have slacked off on the update these past 2 weeks, and now it is November. All sorts of things have been happening, and you didn't even know! The septic is now complete and we are waiting on the final inspection of that.

They also removed a couple of large trees and the stone wall in the area where the house is to go. In the process they also removed the small trees, which is good. The stone walls on our land go deep. I remember when they started clearing for the septic field, they pushed the stone wall off to one side, but there was still a whole bunch of stone underneath it. We have the same thing here under the house. I don't know if that has to be excavated and replaced with gravel or something, but I do know that if we need to build something with stone, we will not be at a loss!

We managed to buy a Kitchenaid double wall oven for about $750 from an overstock store down near where my parent's live - an oven that would probably run $1400 or so. They also have a GE gas cooktop that retails for like $400 for $170, so we are looking at that as well.

Finally, the well driller called last night. They will be drilling our well today or tomorrow. It's funny how everything just comes together at the same time. The good news is that now all we will have to focus on is cleaning up (and boy do we need to clean up!). We asked that all the wood and stone be left on the edges of the clearings and we would take care of it. This translates to pretty large piles of trees that have to be cut and stacked, and large amounts of rock that needs to be moved and stacked. I have a feeling that we will also need to construct a pole shed to store our wheelbarrows, since we have a whole winter of moving stuff ahead of us!

The first transport is away!

2006-10-19T18:50:00.001-04:00

I emailed our proposed plans to FirstDay on Tuesday for perusal and so we can get moving on getting our final plans made. Now we await David's response. FirstDay seems to be wary of putting a masonry heater into the houses from what we have seen. I understand their reasons for concern. I guess some people have made plans to use a masonry heater and then been put off by the cost of a masonry heater. Others have put them in and tried to burn them like conventional woodstoves or fireplaces - all day. We have done our research on this, though, and it is definitely what we want. Also everything I have read shows that a masonry heater is an excellent compliment to a tightly insulated house, you just have to find the right small charge of wood for your house.

In other news, the septic contractor called this morning and told us stage I has passed inspection and that they are ordering our tank. That might be delivered tomorrow or early next week. I guess now is the time to put up a piece of wood with our number for delivery trucks. All of a sudden, this has gone from us paying some guys with machines to push things around on the property to actual construction! Suffice it to say that they also requested that we send them the next check. We will be heading up that way Saturday, and we'll put up our number and check out what is going on then.

The Canadians - they walk among us.

2006-10-14T01:41:00.001-04:00

Since the last episode of One House to Build...

Last week, we found out that the inspection for the septic completely slipped the mind of the contractor when he called us to tell us about it. He also informed us that it was scheduled to happen this week. I followed up yesterday with him and found out that they had been waiting on the Health Department Inspector to return from vacation. He had just found out that the Health Department Inspector is going to be out for a month, so they are getting someone else to do the inspections. They expect that to happen early next week so they can move along on building the leach field before snow flies.

I also called the well driller. He doesn't know when they will get down our way. They have been very busy with some work in Vermont for the past few weeks, but he will let us know when he knows when they can get to us. And I found out that there is no seasonal restriction on well drilling, unlike septic fields, so time is not a problem there.

For good measure I called the Highway Super to check on how our driveway and the cut for the well driller are. He said he hadn't seen the driveway, but that if the septic contractor did what he was told to, we should be all set. He also said that the well cut is nothing to worry about since it is not permanent and that they could fix it if they need it. I just hope that isn't needed until after they drill the well.

We called around to some basement contractors to get quotes on a 20' x 36' basement with 8' walls vs. a 24' x 40' slab, and sat back to wait for the quotes to roll in. We waited and waited, and then one of the contractors called back to get more info on the basement (How thick of a wall? 8" - How high of a wall? 8'- Will it be a walk out? No - How many windows? 3 egress windows, 3 basement windows) and said he would call back the next night with a quote. For good measure he waited a week to call back (which was yesterday). He quoted us $3900 for the slab and $8900 for the basement. We never even heard back from the other contractors. I am sure this gives us good numbers to work with and other quotes won't vary significantly enough from that to change the results.

The results are, as you may have guessed, the Canadian house. It comes out to $8k less for the same square footage. That is the kit plus the foundation, based on the estimates we collected. Now I know you have little idea what this house looks like yet. I am still working on using SketchUp! (an awesome tool Stu, Thanks!) to create a model for you to look at, but it looks a lot like this Dutch barn (with dimensions of 20' x 36'). All of a sudden I feel so international.

I have come up with some floor plans, based on David's drawings and example layouts for the house. Just click on the small picture to see a bigger one. The main floor, where you enter the house at the main door in the west, is the main living area. Here you have a living room, kitchen and dining room, all minimally separated by posts and countertops. The biggest obstruction is the in-wall oven. We also have an office/guest bedroom, a bathroom and a walk-in pantry. Stairs lead down to the basement, and up to the loft. The door and window on the North side of the kitchen open onto a screened porch.

The stairs down lead to the sleeping area with 3 bedrooms, a full bath, a small family room, the masonry heater and the washer/dryer. The mechanicals will also be down here and the floor will have radiant heat. This is a pretty different setup as noted earlier, but I have grown to like the idea very much.

Above the Kitchen sits the loft. This is our extra space to grow into. A part of it will be storage space for sure. The rest is still open now for us to grow into, but may eventually become a more secluded office, bedroom or perhaps a game room!

Next week I will be sending these plans off to David so that we can get his feedback. Once we get our plans (I'd like to have that done by the beginning of January), we can apply for our building permit!

On a last note, while visiting my folks last week we went into this place called What-A-Store! They are like a bizarre Odd-Lot with all sorts of crazy stuff. This is one of my father's favorite stores, and they regularly have boxes of wonderful tile in the back. For whatever reason I never thought about getting house stuff there, but when we walked in, I immediately noticed the large section of bathroom fixtures, from toilets and sinks to bathtubs and whirlpools. Then I noticed that they had a KitchenAid electric double thermal in-wall oven for about half price. We need to keep our eye on this place for deals. And after doing a bit of research on the oven, if it is still there we should definitely find out what the deal is and buy it if it is in good condition.

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

The best laid plans

2006-09-25T22:20:00.000-04:00

The biggest thing I have learned so far (and we are not that far into this) is that nothing is set in stone. I was hellbent on a cordwood masonry house. BZZZZT! Wrong, try again. We found FirstDay.

After looking everything over, I thought the saltbox would be the right thing. BZZZZT! Wrong, try again. FirstDay isn't doing saltboxes anymore, and even if they did they are more difficult to build and more expensive (which would make us wait to build so we could save the difference up, but we really need to do this on the planned timetable).

After looking at the current offerings, we decided that the 40' cape would fit the bill. BZZZZT! Wrong, try again. Turns out that David's new design turned our heads in a big way.

To clarify my last post (It was late and I didn't get as much in as I wanted to before going to bed), the data that David's designs brought up are important considerations. We ended up with some space we didn't have a plan for. In my plan it is a giant labyrinthine walk in closet; In the designs David showed us it could be a playroom/family room, but that made some problems with accessing the bathroom. The roof coming down to the 2' kneewall causes some problems I didn't account for in my plan, like not being able to have passages right next to the upstairs posts due to the lack of headroom.

When we spoke with David on the slab, and the consideration of building to the north of a drop off on our site, David responded that it really depends. At this point, for the extra cost (since we probably wouldn't be able to do a floating slab in NY in his experience, and would need deep frost walls anyway), he thinks the extra room is a steal at like $12 a square foot.

The thing is we don't need a 40' cape with a basement, as it will be way too big. The 32' cape with a basement is plenty of room, but each floor is a bit smaller than I would like and there isn't a middle ground in the cape style (say 36'). We felt that the 18' x 36' Original we visited was pretty close to livable for us. This has 2 feet more on that, and looking at a 16' and an 18' was a world of difference. Since the Canadian house is 20' x 36', and the ridge of the roof is along the 20' measurement and the roof falls away to the east and west to the top of the first floor wall, that leaves a couple of cathedral ceilings on either side of the loft area, as well as 2 floors (the basement half buried and finished into bedrooms).

The more we look at this option, the better it seems.

The pros:
1) Lower cost for Canadian kit - the 24' x 40' cape on a slab is quoted at approximately $14,000* more than the 20' x 36' Canadian house with finished basement (*without foundation costs)
2) It is the same square footage for both houses (1680), so cost per square foot is less for this house
3) The Canadian has the loft, which encompasses the extra space we don't know what to do with right now in the cape. This gives us a separate storage area for present, and space to expand into in the future.
4) The sample floorplans have a basement with 3 bedrooms, a family room and a bath, as well as a main floor with a bedroom, so we could put an office/guestroom on the main level and later convert it for single floor living as we get older if we like. This combo gives us plenty of room and the unfinished space mentioned in point 3 to grow into.
5) The Canadian has 2 1/2 stories of south facing windows. The Cape has 1, which means more light and more solar gain.
6) The sleeping area is at least partially underground, meaning cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter!
7) This solves the problem of putting the house up against the change in level toward the south of the building site, as we don't have to raise the slab with fill or anything silly like that.
8) This also may save some of the hassle of having to have everything (water, drainage, gas, electric, etc) going through the slab itself.

The Cons:

1) We have no idea what it really looks like inside. Looking at floorplans and drawings gives an idea, but it definitely helped us to actually go into the other houses to see what they were like. In some cases we realized that being inside gave us a perspective we didn't get from paper (like how wide 16', 18' and 24' really are). We have no way to really see what it looks like inside, since the first one is going to be built in Canada this fall/winter. We could possibly go see it prior to delivery in the spring, even half completed. In the meantime, I am working on building a 3D model on the 'puter so we can virtually walk through it. This is by no means the best method, but we have to do what we can, you know?
2) Basement Living - I know that when we first started looking at FirstDay, one of the houses they had was an original with a walk out basement which had the sleeping rooms in it. Wendy was not impressed with the idea. So putting it in front of her again, it was an immediate con. After talking about it some more, we thought of people we knew who had bedrooms in the basement, as well as the fact that we lived in a basement at the first place we lived in Colorado. All of a sudden it didn't seem so bad.
3) More Posts - One of the things we recognize we have to learn to deal with is the posts in the middle. In the Cape, in the center of the downstairs only there is a row of 11 posts running the width of the house, aligned with the beams. The Canadian has 2 rows of 5 posts each on the main floor and the basement level, making 20 posts overall. They divide the house into 3 sections fairly naturally though, and there are only 5 of them to see on each side.
4) Slope and Fill - this house is clearly designed for a south facing slope. We have at best a building lot with a flat space to the South. At best meaning we bring in fill for the backside of the house, which raises the cost more. At worst, we have a north facing slope.

Clearly the pros outweigh the cons. The big thing we need to know, then, is what the foundation will cost, as that will tell us how this works out economically. The secret is that I am positive that we will build a Canadian, we just need to complete the research and see everything works.

On the road again...

2006-09-23T23:22:00.001-04:00

A long day was had by all today, We dropped the kids off, first thing, with Wendy's mom, who graciously agreed to watch them today while we went to meet David. By 8:30am we were all fueled up with coffee and ready to drive.

We met with David and went over what we wanted and the plans I had drawn. He thought that our plans had merit and drew them out for us in FirstDay format, given proper adjustment for headroom and other factors. Then we did some exploration of other ways to incorporate the same ideas in the Cape. This yielded very useful data.

Wendy decided to ask about whether putting the house on a slab is recommended or not. I asked if a basement made more sense in our case, explaining the lay of the land and our reasons for wanting a slab. David made things very difficult at this point by introducing their newest house to us. It is called the Canadian House, as the first folks to build one are in Canada. Now we are back to the tough part - making decisions.

Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin' our way
And our way
Is on the road again

Willie Nelson

Designing the FirstDay

2006-09-23T01:56:00.001-04:00

We are going to visit FistDay Cottage in Walpole, NH yet again tomorrow morning. This time we will take our checkbook and put down the $1,000 deposit on our house. This is a symbolic day for us - we will be committing to building a FirstDay Cottage.

I am also excited to talk to David and show him our ideas and see what he suggests for the final design. I have spent a lot of time over the past year thinking about house layouts, but somehow I never put much of that to paper. I took the last two weeks to work on a floor plan, and Wendy and I think we have definitely come up with a good one for the first floor.

Now I guess this is where the tricky part of being an architect comes in. Once you have laid out the ground floor, then you have to work with the mess you have made upstairs. Laying out the second floor took a bit of work (and cursing - 'Why did I put the stairs there? STUPID!!'), and it is not perfect.

This plan embodies a lot of the ideas we liked. I was hoping to explain what is what, and I have had some really cool ideas for details that i want to write down, but it is way late and we have a lot of driving to do tomorrow, so I am gonna hit the sack. I just wanted to put up what we are starting with for posterity before David starts changing our thought patterns with new plans.

It's all about the Cape

2006-09-11T18:32:00.001-04:00

We just returned from a trip to Cape Cod to visit three FirstDays, and their builders of course! We were of a mind that we wanted to see the new Cape that FirstDay is selling (the one with the two foot knee wall), but the problem is that there are none in New York to see, finished or not. The folks at FirstDay suggested visiting the Schluters, who are in the midst of building a 24' x 32'. They showed us around and talked about what they have learned so far. It was very inspiring to be able to connect with these folks who have made it so far in this process and see the fruit of their labors, as well as benefit from what they have already learned.

After we had some lunch and many of our questions answered, Sarah took us over to see Hammetts house in progress - they are building a 24' x 40'. We have found the size FirstDay we are going to build! I was despairing that we might not find a size and style we could agree on, but when we got done on Saturday, I knew exactly what it was we had come to Cape Cod for - to see the house we will build next year.

We camped Saturday night after some fine fresh seafood, and in the morning got up and by midday were packed up and on our way to see Billy Snowden's house further out on the Cape. He has the VIHN (Very Important New House) FirstDay, which is a cape but with 5 foot kneewalls upstairs instead of 2 foot or no kneewall. It makes the upstairs very light and big! Billy was very welcoming and told us all sort of good things about his process and what he learned. We also got to see the wonderful trim work in his house. He really went all out on the trim, and it counts double points.

>

The trip was a rousing success all around, and we met some great people with interesting stories on the way. We also got a great feel for the Cape style FirstDay and a very good direction to head in. As a matter of fact, I called FirstDay today and made an appointment to come up and give them our deposit and talk to David about our plans in about 2 weeks.

Last week we had a little scare when the Town Building Inspector called and advised us that the superintendent of Highways called him to tell him that we needed a driveway permit. We were told it was because the contractor was extending our driveway down so his trucks could get down into where the septic field is being constructed. Not wanting to cause any problems, we got in touch with the Highway superintendent and found that he was actually referring to an earlier issue he had told me about. I had met him at one of the septic contractor's offices while dropping off plans for quotes and he told me that the driveway didn't meet his approval yet because it didn't have a negative slope from the road. At the time I said I would have Ed contact him, which he did, but he is laid up after his knee surgery. Well, seeing the contractors on site, he figured that we were building and wanted to make sure that the Building Inspector has everything in line. We had the septic contractor contact him and find out what he wanted and they fixed it up. We should be all good now.

We also heard back from the well driller last week and the area for him to drill in is not leveled correctly. Since the bulldozer was there, we asked the septic contractor to do the leveling of that as well. When talking to the Highway superintendent, I asked him about that and he said we should have checked with him, and that he would look at it and tell us if there was a problem. Being that we haven't heard anything as of today and the septic contractor said he was up there Thursday looking things over, I think we are in the clear for that, though since it is not a permanent entry to the land, we can correct it later on if there is a problem I think. As I was told when I asked for a copy of the driveway permit (as we heard we needed one after we applied for one and got the go ahead for the driveway from the highway superintendent), you don't get a seperate permit from the building permit, you just don't get a C.O. if the driveway doesn't meet the requirements.

In other news, we went up to look at the progress of the septic on Thursday evening, before we left. They have removed the bulldozer from the property and it looks like the base for the septic is down (quicker than I thought). In talking to the contractor today, they tried to do their own preliminary perc on Saturday while we were gone, but it started raining and hailing, so they left off and planned to try again today. Once that is done, they will contact the engineer and arrange for the official tests and they can go on their way laying out the actual leech field.

Wendy called the Well driller today as well to tell them that the site is ready now that the septic contractor is done leveling it out. Things are starting to move very quickly now. I can't even imagine what it will be like once we really get started next year, but I can't wait to get there!

Zero to sixty in one day

2006-08-28T22:14:00.001-04:00

Since the last update, we have spent a number of afternoons and weekends cutting trees and moving them in the area where the septic has to go. It is really calming (but slow) work, and I think I may even have dropped a few pounds doing it. I set some stones from our stone wall (which is going to have to be moved for the septic anyway) into a firepit of sorts and we have had some campfires up there After it gets too dark to work. We also got a chance to go camping up there one night with Wendy's mom, and a great time was had by all. It's a shame we didn't start camping sooner - it was great sitting around the fire and being able to think that it is our place. Since then the weather has been less than cooperative for camping.

So we finally got the last of the estimates in on the septic system. They ranged from $17,060 to over $20,000. The lowest estimate was also from the guys recommended by our engineer, so it was an easy sell. Wendy called them up on Thursday to let them know we wanted to have them do the work, and their reply was "Great, we'll start tomorrow. Send us a check for 1/3 of the estimate".

Whoa. We didn't expect them to start so soon, and by time I got home and called them, they told me that the machine was already on our lot and that they would start Friday morning. We went up on Sunday to take a look at what they had done Friday and saw that the area that I had barely started clearing had been finished, the trees had been pushed to the edges and the stone wall had been pushed back as well to create the clearing that they need to work in to create our 101' x 102' septic field.

Monday I went up in the morning to see if they could clear the area for the house while the equipment was up there. Wendy and I, looking at the area on Sunday thought that it might make more sense to get the house site cleared while they are at it so we aren't dropping trees into the septic field or on the septic tank after they are done. The guy I talked to will have the owner of the company call me and discuss it.

The well hasn't been done yet, because the stumps didn't get pulled until Friday, because Wilson's machine was hosed - he had a busted bucket, and then once he got that replaced a hose burst. But finally he got up there and cleared it out, so Wendy called the well driller, who will take a look and make sure everything is good and let us know when he can get up there.

Clearance

2006-08-09T23:09:00.001-04:00

On Sunday I went up with my father-in-law and we cut down the remainder of the trees. Actually, after the first one, I cut down the trees and he bucked them. His chain was a bit dull and it was taking him longer than it took me to take them down, which gave me a chance to move the bucked wood too.

There were still a few things left when we left. The stumps were not cut flush. As a matter of fact, as the day went longer, the stumps got higher and higher. Wilson has said he can pull them out if needed with his backhoe. There is one tree hung up, very badly. I misjudged which way it would fall and it got hung way up in the branches of another tree. Wilson will pull it down when he comes with the backhoe. Lastly is the tree next to the road, which Wilson is going to remove for me.

I called the DigSafe folks. They gave me a confirmation number and asked that I wait for positive results from the utilities. The next day they called back to say that there are no underground utilities in that area and that we are clear to dig. I was pretty sure this would be the case, but you have to check, so better safe than sorry.

This weekend we hoped to camp out, but given some special situations at work, it looks like we may just get up there during the day. We need to visit with some neighbors up the road whom we know through mutual friends, and I definitely want to get some of the septic field area cleared or start clearing it at least.

One chops the wood, the other does the grunting.

2006-08-05T23:45:00.001-04:00

That is an old yiddish proverb. Despite any deeper meaning, it pretty well described me using the chainsaw today. The chainsaw did all the chopping and I did the grunting. Wendy and I went to the land while her Mom took the children to Grafton Lake.

We measured out 2 of the stone walls depicted in the picture on the post Come Together. The north/south stone wall on the east is 295 feet (approx), and the east west wall on the south is 136 feet. We still need to measure the north wall and the road frontage/wall.

I think when we remove the portion of the eastern wall for the septic that we should rebuild the roadside walls. We should continue with the rock from where the house is, building up the wall all the way to the existing wall at the south side of the land where the road turns west

After that, I started cutting for the well driller. We decided on the fixed price well driller after getting most of the questions answered.

1) What can they do to guarantee the flow rate?
---
They will do whatever is necessary to get that flow rate including hydrofracturing. WOW.

2) Can we drill near the driveway to avoid having to get the truck in and out of undeveloped portions of the land, which is what I talked to this driller about when we met at the property?
---
They felt it would be too close and that we would be better off south of the stone wall, near the road as we had discussed prior. I measured this out and it was very close to the well being at the road for the distance we need.

3) Is the price for the water system fixed once we sign the contract or subject to change based on market prices when it is installed (we would have to pay the 5k when the well is drilled and the 1.5k when the water system is installed).
---
We didn't get an answer as we forgot to ask them, but even if it goes up, it is still only going to match our other quotes most likely. No big deal.

4) Do they know any dowsers in the area?
---
The son in this family well drilling operation dowses.

So I signed the contract on Thursday and mailed it. When I finally met the guy who had dug the perc hole on Thursday, he said that he had seen the driller earlier in the week and that they had told him that they were working in Hoosick Falls and once they finished they wanted to get our well done. He was thinking this coming week. They move fast, covering a bunch of jobs in our area. Glad to catch them here, or who knows how long we would have to wait for him to get enough jobs here to come down again.

We had copies made of the septic plan and we have put it out to 4 septic contractors to bid - the guy who did the perc hole, the folks who did the neighbor's field, the guy recommended by Ed and a guy recommended by our engineer. The neighbor's contractor came back to us the next day with an estimate for 17K. Wow, I had heard raised septic systems were costing between 15K and 20K, but I hoped that was somewhere else. So, now it is time to face the music on that. All we can do is wait and see what we get.

We were warned off one of them by the engineer, as he had worked with that contractor in the past and felt that the contractor tried to take advantage of his client and he had to go to bat for them. We didn't get any more than that, but enough to think about as we go over the options.

Where was I again? Ah, cutting trees for the well truck. I got my chainsaw all setup and started cutting the small stuff. Wendy took the bow saw and cut some of the thin ones. We got most all of the small stuff cut today and I see 16 or so medium size trees that need to be felled. My father-in-law and I are going to go up tomorrow while Wendy and the children attend a baby shower; hopefully we will get the remaining trees cut to get the well truck into the property.

There is one tree at the road that needs to be removed, but it is leaning over the road, directly across from the power line on the neighbor's property, and they have an old barbwire fence right across from it too. I'm not sure if they like the fence, but I don't really want to find out. I also This tree will have to have someone better than me take it down, as it is in the middle of the access area for the truck.

This is where the guy who did the perc (let us call him Wilson) comes in. He has worked with our well driller before, and he can get the truck into and out of where you need it to be to drill. This is why they told him that they wanted to get our well drilled after they finish what they are doing in Hoosick Falls and before they head back to Vermont (where they are from). He also told me that he will see what he can do about getting fill from the town to make an incline for the truck to get in off the road.

A couple pictures of us working before I call it a (very late) night. Tomorrow we will get right back to it.

Come Together

2006-07-31T23:56:00.001-04:00

I redrew the diagram a bit. You can click it to get a bigger size, and I think most everything is pretty obvious now. H is the House (south facing) and G is the garage (which presumably will have an apartment on the north side).

Things have really started coming together in the past week or so. We found out last night that a private financier will hold a note for a mortgage comprising the balance of what we will need to be building in the spring. This is very exciting, but also a bit melancholy - I really wanted to do this without any mortgage. I believe that we could do it that way if we could continue in our current living arrangement (we live with Wendy's dad) for another couple of years to build up our bank account more. The reality though is that with 2 kids, ages 3 and almost 1, we really are going to need some more space soon. To do that, we need to take out a loan unfortunately.

The other side is that I don't feel as bad about doing it this way as I do using a bank. I would just as soon we give our interest to someone we know as to a bank. Also, private financing could make some design decisions a bit easier - where a bank might insist on the mainstream way of doing things (having a forced hot air furnace for example), this will hopefully give us some more leeway in what we do in building the house. I must point out that we are very grateful that things worked out this way, and thank our lenders for their generosity!

We finally received all the well drilling quotes just before the weekend. After analyzing the numbers, we calculated that the fixed price quote will probably give us the best deal, given a well depth of 400' minimum. A house down the hill that this driller did has a 400' well, and our neighbor to the north has a 550' well. Given that, we think that a 400' minimum depth for our well is a pretty good bet. Also, their Water System Price is $1500, which is $500 - $700 cheaper than the other quotes we have. When we saw that the contract guarantees a well with a flow rate of 5gpm, everything seems to work in their favor. I do have some questions for them before we sign anything:

1) What can they do to guarantee the flow rate?
2) Can we drill near the driveway to avoid having to get the truck in and out of undeveloped portions of the land, which is what I talked to this driller about when we met at the property?
3) Is the price for the water system fixed once we sign the contract or subject to change based on market prices when it is installed (we would have to pay the 5k when the well is drilled and the 1.5k when the water system is installed).
4) Do they know any dowsers in the area?

I left a message this evening for them, and hope to hear soon.

I heard back from the neighbor who did the driveway, let us refer to him from now on as Ed. Ed looked at it and says it needs some more fill at the top once we get to using it more (that is why it is all soft now), but that it should be fine for now. Ed is out of commission right now after having had knee surgery this weekend, so it will be 4 weeks or so before he can do much else.

I also called back the guy who dug the perc holes, as I had missed a call from him over the weekend. We are going to meet Wednesday evening to discuss the septic plan and the well logistics. Wendy is going to try calling some other septic contractors recommended by Ed and the neighbor to the north to see what we need to do to get estimates.

The last bit of excitement is that the chainsaw arrived Friday. I put the bar and chain on, and am harboring a desire to take down the pine that is shading the vegetable garden at my father-in-law's house. I have to go get some safety gear first, so maybe I will try it out next weekend!

Well, Well, Well

2006-07-23T23:18:00.000-04:00

Wendy has been busy contacting well drillers in the area trying to get estimates and the like for our well. Some of the drillers just gave us their per foot rates with and without casing. A couple are going to send us estimates and a couple more wanted to see the property. One went on his own on Friday, and we went up to the property yesterday to meet the other well driller.

The prices range from $14/ft with casing and $12/ft without casing to $16/ft with casing and $15/ft without casing. The guy we met with yesterday (from VT) actually has a fixed price. No matter the depth of the well, you pay one price. He quoted us $6500 for the well and the pump equipment verbally, and is going to follow up with a written estimate. The breakdown is $5000 for the well itself and $1500 for the pump and pressure tank and pipe, etc.

Now we need to wait for all the estimates to come in, work out what it comes to for the average well in our area (400-500 ft) and see what makes the most sense economically. I have a feeling that the fixed rate guy will come in as the best choice given how deep wells are in the area on average (they vary from 90' to 800' deep).

We also met our next door neighbor down the hill. He stopped by right after the well driller left and introduced himself. We chatted about wells and septic and told him about our plans a bit. he seems very nice, said he wanted a place out in the country to get away. After he left, we talked to the driveway making neighbor for a bit - he stopped by as we were eating some lunch. He gave us the names of some septic folks and introduced us to his wife.

After he left, we noticed Quinn was playing in a muddy section of the driveway, right at the road. The end was pretty goopy, like quicksand almost. I hope this doesn't mean that we will have an issue because of not having a culvert. The Highway Super said that was fine as long as it had a good base of stone (which it does). Called our neighbor, and he is gonna take a look at it. Maybe it is just an effect of all the rain and not having packed down enough yet (wishful thnking hard at work here)

We took out the tape and attempted to measure out and stake where the septic is going to go, so we could get an idea where the garage would have to be. The mosquitos were nuts - just ignoring the bug spray, what with the heat and rain, and we ended up cutting our visit short. We got one corner stake for the septic planted, but the next one was not lining up according to the engineer's drawing. We planted a second stake in the general vicinity of the well before leaving.

When we got home, I attempted to make a drawing of the NorthWest end of the site layout. I have put the picture below so you can get an idea of what the layout is. We need to go out and take some detailed (as possible) measurements and redraw this to actual scale. The program I am using (AutoREALM - a mapping program for RPGS) has scale on it, so I set to to 10' per square and drew from the survey, but to little avail.

I ordered the chainsaw - a Husqvarna 350 - online. It came out almost $40 cheaper than buying it at a dealer, plus it came with a second chain, 2 bottles of 2 cycle oil and a t-shirt, all free! So that should be winging it's way toward me and is another item I can check off the list. Now we need to get in touch with Septic Installers and get some quotes.

Making a list, checking it twice....

2006-07-19T01:34:00.000-04:00

We have been bitten. The building bug has decided to bite us right on the booty, and boy does it hurt. After our visit to FirstDay, Wendy and I started to seriously think about how we are gonna build this thing. We can wait and save the money, but the price of building materials (as David Howard told us) keeps going up.

The metal roofing folks send him rate increases with a 6 month lead time. The cost of the lumber keeps going up. God forbid oil skyrockets in the next 2 years, because this house idea will be down the drain. Since the lumber all comes from Europe, the cost has to be tied to the shipping and if oil goes really nuts, that will be it. Think full regional war in the Middle East - last week it was the marginal possibility. This week it may already be too late. But enough politics.

We are looking into alternatives to the traditional bank mortgage (as much as possible), and will try to keep to that path. I don't want to talk about them - it is way too early for that. But if we need to get a mortgage, we will think seriously about that too. Anyway, as a means to that end, we have a list of things we have to get done pronto. And when I say "we have to get done pronto", I really mean "Wendy has to get done pronto." She has more flexibility than I do, having the kids. Quinn and Emmet won't call her in for a meeting because they see that she is taking and placing too many phone calls on their time. In return, I agreed to make the list of items with specific questions and put it up here for her to access while making the calls. This will change as we go along. Also, some of it is in code for us to remember things.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Land
- buy chainsaw and related equipment
- saw pants
- hardhat
- eye protection
- tools (files, etc)
- have
- earplugs
- gloves (Harbinger)
- clear area for septic system
- clear area for house/garage

Well Drilling
- we need multiple quotes
- we need to schedule this
- dowser?

Septic System
- we need multiple quotes
- we should schedule by end of fall (or do we need it for building in the spring?)

Town
- Building Permits
- House
- Garage

Foundation
- slabs (garage and house), but what kind?
- need to research what we can do ourselves
- talk to neighbor about excavating footings, people who do foundations
- need multiple quotes on having these poured.

Kits
- Garage
- need to talk to David about what we can do with an expanded garage kit, price, etc.
- how long does the Garage take?
- House
- need to setup a visit of the new design with FirstDay, maybe in Kingston or Chatham (or better, both)
- need to talk to David about what we can do to get going

Tools
- Borrow?
- nail guns & compressors (RQ)
- pex crimper? (WS)
- table saw? (JK)
- framing hammers (JK)
- Have
- circular saw
- Need
- framing hammers

Electric Service
- Contact National Grid (gotta find the guys name I met with)
- find out requirements of service for new construction cost?
- they said they would replace the existing pole as it had been there for 30 years. will they?

Storage
- What are FD builders doing in this regard? Email the list.

Transport
- Research pickup cost vs Delivery (SlTx)?

That is all I can think of for now, but I will update more later.

Park on the Driveway!

2006-07-17T22:13:00.001-04:00

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!).

Drive on the Parkway...

2006-07-04T21:38:00.001-04:00

We are still awaiting approval of our driveway permit by the town highway department, but in the meantime our neighbor has started clearing the way for the driveway so that he is ready to go when they give approval. Wendy had tried contacting the highway supervisor for a couple of weeks, leaving voicemail ewach time, but never received a return call. I had mentioned this to our neighbor when he asked about our permit, and he said to tell them that he is doing the driveway.

Wendy called once more armed with this info, and left yet another voicemail. Three (count em, three) minutes later, she received a return call. The highway supervisor said that our permit would be approved no problem, and that he would meet with our neighbor and tell him what needed to be done for the driveway. So they are arranging to meet (circumstance makes it so that they cannot meet for a wek or so yet) and as soon as they do, we will have a driveway built.

I am still a bit leery, as I am unsure I understand what our neighbor's plan for the driveway is. I want to bring it out right through the hole where the electric right-of-way enters the property (from the southwest), perpendicular to the road, but he is talking about angling it to the north a bit (downhill) to make it easier to get in and out of in the winter. I need to speak to him about this.

As for the price, he expects that it will come out between $1,000 and $2,000, based on the amount of fill needed to level it up. There is a pretty big rise to the road from where the electric right-of-way is cut, but there are a number of boulders that he will push in and use under the driveway where he can to raise it up, so hopefully that will minimize the fill we need. Fortunately he is just charging us the going rate for fill and gas and then his time (bulldozer work and cutting trees in the area of the driveway).

We took a ride up after Glen, Julie and Renata's Bon Voyage party (should it be Gute Reise?) to see what he had already done with clearing. Wow! It is astounding what difference a couple of trees taken down can make. You can see all the way back to where the house is going to go (behind those two very-well-spaced-for-a-hammock trees in the center of the back!

You can see the difference from the photo in the Denial and Isolation to Acceptance post. Here is the view from the where the main door of the house will be, facing the road.

It is very encouraging to see the project moving forward in a concrete way such as this!

From Denial to Acceptance

2006-06-18T22:49:00.001-04:00

For Father's Day, we took a trip up to the property with Wendy's brother, Glen, his wife, Julie, and their daughter, Renata. They wanted to see where we are going to build before they head out to Germany for a year while Glen finishes his Master's degree. After checking it out, we all went to Grafton Lakes for a BBQ and some swimming. Here is a photo we took of the same view down the road (to the North) as seen in the Higher Ground post. Look how lush and lovely it is!

We finally put the application in for the driveway permit. We found out that our dirt road is a town road, so we need the permit before doing anything. As soon as we get it, our neighbor who is doing the work for us is ready to get started, but we haven't heard anything back yet, despite it being in for a few weeks. Here is a photo of where the driveway will go - behind us, between the birch on the far left and the birch on the far right. The birch you see between Wendy and I will have to go...

A big change of direction has taken place in the past few weeks on the house-front. I have been trying to get serious about coming up with a plan for our house recently,. I was looking for post and beam house plans on the internet a few weeks ago (for inspiration) when I ran across a blog of a fellow who is building a post and beam house. After reading through his site looking for the plans or links to plans, I found that he is building a kit house from a company called FirstDay Cottages.

Immediately I thought to myself, "A kit, eh? This could have potential for that garage and apartment we have been talking about." I checked out the site and was pleasantly surprised to find that their houses are all wood (no plywood, sheetrock or particle board), use post and beam construction (using laminated dimensional lumber for economy), and designed to be affordable, small and durable for owner-builders. They even have a garage kit!

I mentioned it to Wendy as a possible solution for the garage, and finally got her to take a look at it. Once she did, things got quickly out of control. She loves the look and design of the FirstDay, and told me that she thinks we should build one of these for our house.

Well, let me say that I was floored. I had my head and heart set on cordwood masonry and I thought it had been cemented with our Earth Day trip to EarthWood. I was pretty sure that Wendy liked what she saw there (at the time) and that we were all set to build cordwood. Later on, thinking back on the gleam in her eye after looking at these, I know for sure that cordwood had been OK with her only because she hadn't seen anything else she liked better.

Let me be honest. Things were tough for a few days after that as I tried to work FirstDay into my world view. I was a bit snippy, as my plans seemed to twist and writhe out of my control while their contents changed entirely. I went through the classic stages of grief for my plans:

1) Denial - No way. NO WAY. I have plans and this doesn't fit in. She will lose interest and things will just go on the way they have.
2) Anger - I can't believe you don't see how ridiculous this is! These houses are too small! 16 feet wide - there is no way we can live in that. We can't afford that anyway. The whole idea of building cordwood was to minimize expenses. If we do this we might as well get a mortgage on a McMansion in Loserville! Is that what you want? To beg the bank to chain us to the grindstone so they can suck us dry for the next 30 years? FINE! Snap, snap, grumble, grumble.
3) Bargaining - Well, if there is one that is the right size, I might consider it. And if they aren't too expensive I might consider it. But we'll keep the cordwood on the back burner for when this falls apart.
4) Depression - I can't believe this. My plans, my glorious plans, all dashed to smithereens on the sharp rocks of reality! Sulk, sulk, grumble, grumble.
5) Acceptance - Ok, these are pretty cool, and I like the look, and you are happy about it, and...

By time I got to Acceptance I had realized a few things:

1) Both Wendy and I being happy with our house is our highest goal, and this is the first time I have really seen Wendy be excited about a house design since we started.
2) I do like the FirstDay Cottage. It isn't cordwood, but it is a beautiful home and I think I would be very happy building, owning and living in one.
3) Cordwood masonry does have its own problems, such as leaky walls that need to be resealed over time, wood shrinkage and expansion (contributing to the leaky walls), a variety of issues with wall thickness, including dark interiors, loss of floor area to walks a foot and a half thick, and interior air dryness due to the end grain of the cordwood sucking up the moisture in the air, among others.
4) I am guilty of handwaving these problems, and figuring that they will take care of themselves eventually.
5) I can build other structures with cordwood masonry than the house, structures that may make more sense to be built with cordwood masonry

Eventually I came to terms with the change in plans, and I eagerly await our upcoming visit to Walpole, NH (home of FirstDay Cottage) to visit them and see a house first hand. Meanwhile, we got their information packet and Wendy and I have spent every free moment checking out the plans and photo CD that FirstDay Cottage sent, as well as various FirstDay builder blogs. Our visit is scheduled for July 14th, and we hope to know better by then if this is the house we will build.

FirstDay - Wendy's point of view

2006-06-14T12:00:00.000-04:00

It all started one evening, when Sean showed me this website he had found. At that point we were still seriously considering building our house with cordwood masonry. He had stumbled upon it looking for house plans for our cordwood house. He had me look at the plans. I started looking at the plans and then the pictures of finished houses and the descriptions. I quickly became obsessed. Up till this point in the planning of our house Sean had done most of the dreaming and planning. When we went to Earthwood I agreed that a cordwood house was nice and livable but I realize now I didn't have a spark for it. I thought I was just to busy with the kids to really be concentrating on the house like Sean was. But once I started looking at FirstDay Cottages I got the house planning bug. I started reading every thing I could about them on the site and on FirstDay Cottage builders blogs. I started calculating how much we could save and how quickly we could do it. I began telling everyone who would listen about FirstDay cottages. And when we were out and about I started noticing houses roofs, lay outs, wood siding , beams etc. I started acting like Sean and Sean started getting cranky.

Posted: Private Property

2006-05-30T21:32:00.001-04:00

Hunting, Fishing, Trapping or Trespassing for any purpose is strictly forbidden. Violators will be prosecuted.

That is what our new signs, posted the morning of Memorial Day, read. We figured that we had gone through enough hassle getting clear title to the property because of unclear property lines and posted signs, that we should get it set where our lines are and who has posted them.

With hammer, staple gun and signs in hand, we set off the walk the boundaries once again. As we started into the property, I realized that there were webs hanging from the trees on the far side of the electric right-of-way. Thinking maybe we had run into a patch of spiders making their homes in the trees, I directed Wendy and the kids around, only to have them run into more webbing. Checking it out further, we discovered we have massive amounts of Eastern Tent Caterpillars.

The whole thing was rather disgusting. We kept walking into webs and dangling caterpillars as we made our way from the northwest corner of the property to the northeast and then toward the southeast. Somewhere along the east side of the property, Wendy got the bright idea to use a stick to clear the webs in your way (I had just been dodging them). This made things much better.

It took from 11 am til 1 pm to get about 24 signs hung, one every 100 feet or so. It was hot, buggy, sticky work even just walking, and by the end everyone was ready for a break. We headed to Grafton Lakes to enjoy a deserved picnic and the beach.

I have looked into the caterpillar mess and there is not much to be done presently. They are already at such a point in their lifecycle that any attempt at killing them is merely retaliatory. Soon they will crawl off to transform into moths or butterflies, and they will be no trouble for a time. Once they transform, the trees that have been hit hard will put out a second set of leaves.

The time to really watch is the late fall/winter when the moths lay their eggs. Apparently the egg masses look like molten glass. If you are diligent about scraping these things off of the trees and burning them, you can save a lot of headache. We are also near the end of a 3 year cycle of these caterpillars, so they may seem more prevalent.