Around the job site

Not much happening at the build site this week. The porch footers have been dug and inspected, the tubes have been placed and packed in with fill, and they are supposed to pour them soon. Then our awesome excavators, Skip and his son Eric, will come back to scrape the porch area and tamp down the fill in preparation for the porch slab pour.

Since we're waiting on other folks to do lots of work, we decided to figure out where the as-yet-unpurchased sawmill is to be placed and to start clearing the area for it and the drying racks. All of the exterior board and batten siding, interior wood siding, cabinetry, and upstairs wood floors will be cut from wood grown on our land. How cool is that??? But it needs time to dry so we need to buy the mill and get cutting. We picked an area that I wanted to look more park-like (rather than untamed woodlot, which is what it looks like now) and started taking down the smaller trees. Tiny trees and tree tops will be chipped, medium trees will become the supports for the drying racks, and big trees will be left to provide shade and that park-like setting I so want to see from our upper deck.

The old barn foundation

Conquered!

For those wondering what the "old barn foundation" looked like - that's it behind me. It looked much like a rock wall except rectangular and really deep at parts. Hard to tell in the photo, but one section of the foundation top was at ground level, while another three-sided section had a three foot drop-off. The best description is in a modern barn where you have a low section that you pull the tractor or wagon into and it backs up against the floor of the barn for easy loading and unloading. Gee, that'd be a loading dock or bay, wouldn't it? See this is what happens when you type and think at the same time - you get a big rambling at times. The big rock I'm standing on is in that lower bay area.

We really wanted to get these walls disassembled before bringing in the big excavator because we wanted to sort the rock for future projects. Worked well even if it did take quite a while.

While pulling it apart we found some nifty stuff too - old bottles, metal bits from farm equipment, four scythe blades (four! how many did they need?), and many snakes. Now, I like snakes. Used to have them as pets even. But it's more than a bit startling to lift up a rock and find one under it - and to know that you cannot drop the rock or you'll kill it. No killing of snakes! They eat the #%$!@ mice that keep getting in the camp. So we took the time to keep moving them out of the dig area. And the next day, we'd lift up a rock and YOW! there it would be again. Nothing like a three foot snake to brighten your day.

Did I mention we have rocks?

Future rock garden

Two of these rocks will remain here (the one I'm sitting on and the one directly behind it). They are to the right side of the porch view so won't be too in-your-face. I'm going to mound up soil and fill in with hostas and flowering ground cover. The rock to the left has already been moved to a more pleasing spot and it too will get flower treatment. It's sunnier in its spot though so I'll be able to do lilies and other sun flowers.

Standing in the footer trench

Chris is in one footer trench, taking the picture of me in the other. Everything is dug out now and the cement guys are coming Friday to pour the footers.

Excavation dirt

Look at that sandy soil! We mainly have forest loam but the dirt in the foundation site has been surprisingly sandy with a hard clay base. Some big rocks as noted above but mainly Adirondack clinkers of a couple feet diameter. We're building the house where an old barn foundation stood. We kind of assumed that whoever built the barn there did so for a reason. Good drainage. Firm soil (the barn foundation hadn't really shifted at all).

For those interested, we disassembled the barn foundation and saved the rocks for use in future projects.  As we were doing the disassembly is when we decided it was a barn not a house - we've found lots of equipment related metal bits and some cool old bottles. Need to do some dating of the finds once we have time to get into the research.

We took our plans to Curtis Lumber to get the materials estimate. They're backed up with the prime summer building season (who says housing starts are down?) so we may have a materials delay. But we still need to install the radiant floor tubing before pouring the slab so we have some time yet. And it won't hurt anything if the slab sits for a little while before the framing starts. Although since the cement is going to be our finished floor we'll likely need to do something to keep it safe and clean. Huh, have to give that some thought.

Digging the Foundation

We've gone from this:

The site in summer 2011

 to this:

The site in summer of 2012

Chris was doing a great job of clearing and digging the site but after encountering boulders like this one, he decided it was time to bring in the big equipment.

Now that's a big rock

Our neighbors T&S had recently built their house and recommended their excavation team. Skip and his son came out and got started right away. So far they've come up with three additional boulders twice the size of this one (plus many smaller rocks). I've got one heck of a rock garden in my future.

Digging stumps, picking rock, and finding sinks

One big stump

Now that the trees are down we're starting to clean the building site. Lots of rocks to be scavenged for future projects like rock walls, the woodstove wall, and flagstone patios. Also lots of really big stumps that need to be pulled and moved. We've pushing them off the hill and letting them roll as far as possible. Of course they inevitably catch on each other and bunch up - but I'm liking the look. The rain is washing the dirt from the roots and they're starting to look like those cool stump fences that people pay insane amounts of money for. So we're getting them for free!

Future woodstove wall

Speaking of free, we scavenged two porcelain bathroom sinks from a bath remodel. They're in excellent shape but the folks who had them are changing the style so didn't want them anymore. We'll use one in the downstairs bath and the other in the laundry room. The big bathroom sink we got from the Habitat for Humanity Restore ($5!) will go upstairs after all. Chris is already planning the bath vanity for it - we've got some interesting ideas on how to make it attractive and functional. Always an awesome goal.

And a chipping we will go

Friends traded labor for firewood and cut down all the trees on the build site. Some were big enough to turn into lumber so he left those for us. Otherwise he got to keep anything he cut. This was an enormous help as he got it done in about two weeks versus the months it took us to partially clear the lot last summer.

He also did a great job of stacking the tops so that we could easily chip them. We rented a big chipper for 24 hours and got all the limbs cleared.

Wonky wood going into the rented chipper

We've officially got a building permit and a 911 address so we can start talking to the power company. Hoping hard that we've budgeted enough for the power run. We know it won't be cheap since we're so far off the road, but are firmly convinced it will be worth it to be isolated in the woods.
So now we're ready to start the excavation!

The site is starting look like a house will fit on it

And the clearing goes on...

We're back to clearing trees from the home site. Cut, cut, cut; chip, chip, chip. 

Chris did the cutting 

I did the chipping. 

Funny how Chris is in short sleeves and I look like it's still winter. 

Ethan came out and did the perk test and deep hole test - we passed and he should have the plans completed in the next couple weeks.

The APA confirmed their non-jurisdictional decision so we do not need to go through the agency with our building plans. That will simplify the process as we'll only need to get the plans approved once at the town offices. 

Shed

We decided to build a small storage shed (temporary it should be noted) to store future home "stuff" away from the current home so that it would be easier to stage for sale. Tractor Supply had a nice Spring sale and we picked up a steel-framed "garage in a box" for a reasonable price. Our good friends L&M came up to help us put it together.

Yes, they're reading directions

This is what happens when an accountant and an engineer assemble something

Why is the shortest person holding up the frame?

The frame went up fairly easily and we decided to stop for dinner. Grilled burgers over the fire pit and enjoyed the rest of the evening just chatting. Tomorrow we'll put up the cover and tie everything down in case of high winds.

Progress Update

Ethan has completed the concept drawings and will start the engineered plans. He's done a great job translating my floor plan into an actual structure.

We've made it to the road with the power corridor. At least the cutting portion of the power corridor - the digging stage is still to come and I'm sure it will prove much more time consuming. We altered the path a bit. After getting past the tractor shed we were showing the path to D and J. J very calmly asked why we went left (tilted hill) when we could have gone right (flat hiking path already cleared). The answer was because we started at the home site and worked North and it's only when you look back that you realize that you could have gone a different way. We measured both and they are very similar lengths so we'll take the path of least resistance when we dig.

Now we could have pissed and moaned about the wasted effort (we had to clear quite a bit of brush to get to that point) but instead let go of that to choose the better path. In accounting we call those expenditures sunk costs and they should not be considered when making decisions about the next stage of a project. You spent it, there is no way to get it back, and you don't want to throw good money after bad. Same thing applies to physical effort (oddly, it's easier when applied to physical effort - it's really hard to ignore dollars spent).

Power

Last weekend we marked the trail that the electric will follow. We used a compass, 100 foot tape measure, and the survey map to figure out the straightest path from the pole at the road to the future home site. Marked trees with orange surveyors tape and then retraced our path to see if we stayed fairly straight. Then we came back another day to start clearing the trail. Mostly saplings that we could cut with the loppers but had to do some chainsaw work too. Cleared about 200 feet of the 2000. Whew! We've got a long way to go, but at least the weather is great for working outdoors. Who would have thought that we could cut like this in February. Usually the snow is too deep for us to work safely with the chainsaw but this year we've had almost no snow and the temperature has been in the 30s. I'm not a fan of climate change, but for once I'm grateful for the mild winter.

End of season

We got a lot of clearing done this summer. This is a picture of the future home site - we've done some initial blocking and will move the strings a bit now that we've refined the home size. It will fit better on the site and give us some separation from the work shop. I'll post a layout as soon as I figure out how to do that...

In the meantime, here I am on our future porch (you have to really use your imagination).

Still clearing trees

There is so much progress being made. We continue to fine tune where the house and garage are going to go. A big question is the septic and leach field. Uncle Bob will hopefully be able to help with the placement of those. Then we'll decide on the well location.

The sun comes through beautifully. I'm basically looking Northwest in this shot.

It's June and we're still wearing long sleeve shirts, even to work. The mosquitoes are part of the reason, but it's also much cooler up here in the woods. Let's hear it for tree cover!