Little House on the Hillside

A musical prelude

Here is a bit of back-story. Actually, it’s more than a bit. It’s a bunch, stretching back to March 2005. And I have told it to so many people in so many ways, that I have decided to set it to music, to make it more interesting. So call to mind the tune of  “The Star Spangled Banner,” and apply the following words:

 

In March of last year

We heard of some land

Nice acreage on a hill

With southern exposure

 

It was right in our town

But we did have to fight

Oh the battles we lost

As we struggled for closure

 

The sale was so hard

Our psyches were scarred

Bluffed and bamboozled

But we pressed on for-ward

 

Delays and disasters, but our hearts stayed strong

After all we have been through---!

What else--could go—wrong.

 

(note: As I was writing this, the excavator called to inform us that we will have to blast away some ledge to pour our foundation. So the moral of the story is, don’t write smart-alecky songs that tempt fate because fate generally isn’t known for having a healthy sense of humor).

Welcome to our blog.

Richard

The house has to move HOW much?

This morning, a knock on our door. It is our excavator. He didn't look like he had the best of news. In his classic New Englandesque style of understatement, he informed me that their was some problem with the house site due to tricky elevations. Actually, before he said any of this, he just asked if I could come down to the site. Of course I could, but why? Then he got into elevations, and foundation heights and such. Needless to say I sped down there, and after alot of moving of stakes, phone calls to Anne and shooting of lasers (not in a 'Hey look at me I am Han Solo,' type of way but more like a 'Hey, where the hell are we going to put this house' type of way, which is not nearly as exciting),  the house site moved abut twenty-four feet back from where we originally planned to build it. It all happened so fast, but so easily. I always pictured that when one builds a house, the decision as to where the house is actually going to sit would be a major one, accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets and a silver shovel. Instead, it was just me, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and two guys with big yellow machines, and my wife on the phone trying to accept my poor explanations of what was going on.That is how it really is, I guess.

I returned home, blew a lusty fanfare on my Honer kazoo, and had a cup of tea.

Richard

 

Solar noon

A busy day with the first order being to give the excavator a check for $10,000. I had never written a check that large and it felt good. Of course, that good feeling was followed by me wondering why I felt good giving away a large sum of money which was followed by me analyzing why I wondered and couldn’t just be in the moment which was followed by me trying to quiet my mind which never really works and which only resulted in a muted buzzing in my head accompanied by a vague feeling of guilty achievement.

In preparing for a delivery of concrete, it occured to me that not many things are concluded concretely. The vagueness was starting to wear on me, until I had a chance to experience the most true and positive event since this whole building process began: solar noon.

Solar noon is the exact midpoint between sunrise and sunset. An object on the ground which runs straight up and down will cast a shadow which will run exactly north-south. Pretty cool, eh?

It is one of very few sure-fired ways to make sure your house is aligned the direction you wish, in our case the long axis facing due south. With a plumb-bob, a level, some string and a few stakes, at 12:51 this afternoon I created a true north-south line, off of which we aligned the foundation, thus getting our house site perfectly situated to take advantage of the warming sun. Not bad for an English major.

May the gods of homebuilding look down kindly upon us

Nelson

Red star = our site. (This photo not to be used as an aeronautical map, a targeting aide for airborn political pamphleteers, or as an inspiration for a really difficult skydiving landing pad).

Who turned up the heat?

When I came home from doing some work and getting another quote for our countertops yesterday, on our porch were about nine or ten cardboard boxes, which is the entirety of our radiant floor heating system from Radiant Floor Company. It seemed so small. Having grown up in an old three-story Victorian, a heating system was always a massive and mysterious bunch of copper tubing, temperamental pilot-lights, huge water heaters and even huger oil tanks and furnaces. To see it all so simply laid out on our porch, as something I can pack in its entirety into my Subaru with room to spare, was an odd feeling. But I am cool with it. It is quiet, extremely energy efficient, and relatively inexpensive. Time to dig into those cartons.

 

Richard

 

Yeeha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They never let me drive the big yellow machines. I wonder why...

Lovely Nelson, NH

Nelson Center

Here is the town we are building in, Nelson, NH. Our road is just to the right of the church. This is a composite pic of the town center, featuring the church, library and town hall.

 

cellar hole

Cellar hole (8/21/06)

A game of inches

Met with the excavator yesterday at the site. We talked about window placement, and decided to not bother with windows on the south side since we are building a deck there eventually. Also some confusion on the actual width of the foundation, allowing for a 2”foam insulation on the outside. He is used to shrinking the foundation 4” to allow for the extra 2” all around. This seemed to make sense, but the closer we looked at the plans, the more it seemed he needed to do a full pour. We called J. at first day and left a message and hopefully will hear from him. At any rate, we need to figure this out before Monday.

Why Monday? Because they are coming to pour the footings on Monday. Then the walls Tuesday. Then they prep the floor for a pour, and we install the radiant heat over the weekend (which is Labor Day weekend, so we get an extra day to finish). Then they pour the floor next Tuesday (5th), and the house arrives Thursday. All in all, full speed ahead.

richard

Gray is this year's black

Gray soup has never looked so good

Concrete

These guys had the forms built and footings poured by 11 am. Rock on fellas!

In praise of overhangs

 

I was working today at Granite Lake Pottery, installing some storm windows on the studio. It was raining off and on, more on than off truth to tell. But I managed to stay pretty dry because of the generous overhangs on the building. I am a big fan of overhangs and was extremely happy when "First Day" decided to offer them as an extra. They make sense in so many ways. If nothing else, they give a poor dubber like myself a little shelter from the storm.

The forms went up today—it looks striking, almost alien, or maybe mad maxian. What it really serves to do is to give one a sense of how the house will sit on the land. The grade is not as bad as I had once thought. Of course, it is not fully graded yet, we have a ways to go.

 

Forms

The pour happens tomorrow, weather permitting. In the meantime, if anyone needs a bit of mud, drop us a line.

 

richard

The gentle physicality of concrete pouring

 

It is an education in opposites to watch a crew pour concrete. At first glance, it appears completely physical, requiring more muscle than technique. Quickly, though, you begin to see the art. It’s a hidden dance, but it is there. The juxtaposition of a huge spinning concrete truck shooting gray sludge down a crusted, rusty chute and two guys on the other end, positioning the chute this way or that, ultimately smoothing the surface with a quick motion and nonchalant air, with a grace that comes from motor memory and repetition, is striking. The whole affair is akin to watching a rugby match—brutal, physical, yet highly skilled and fluid.

Proof is in the details: a line of bolts belies the thought and order needed to complete a successful pour. It also reveals the art.

 

 

Bolts

And when the forms come off, when the odd-looking braces and apparatus are stripped away, you are left with the deliciously familiar: walls. Ah, here it is. This is what I’ve been looking for. Here is the beginning of my house.

 

richard

 

Walls

 

Our favorite supermodel

     It was brought to my attention that I have not mentioned the type of house we are building. After many months of looking at plans, shuffling room sizes, and grappling with square feet, we finally settled on a simple cape-style house, 32 feet long by 24 feet wide. Even better, it is a do-it-yourself house kit. This design is the brainchild of David Howard, founder of First Day Cottage. I won’t go into many details right now about First Day—you can click on their link to find out about how their ideas can revolutionize your homebuilding experience. Don’t worry, plenty more will be said about them as the building actually gets underway. But I will say we are grateful that our paths have crossed with theirs, for without First Day Cottage, this process would have been improbable, if not impossible.
     Back to the house itself. We toyed for many months with the idea of a very narrow, long, two-story design—16’ by 40’. It was economical, easy to build, and fast going up. The more we tried to layout the interior, however, the more problems we would come up against. Little things, like the placement of a kitchen table, to bigger things, such as the placement of a functioning staircase. Whenever we mentioned these dimensions to any one else, their brows would furrow in consternation as they tried to envision what such a long narrow house would be like to live in. We finally grew exhausted tying to make it all work, un-furrowed our own brows, and moved on to a new design. After kicking around a few other ideas—a saltbox, a ‘cape’ with a five-foot knee wall--we came around to our present little gem: a traditional cape with a two-and-a-half foot knee wall. The upstairs will be funky, with angled ceilings and secret tunnel closets, not to mention soaring ceilings. A master bedroom, two small kids’ rooms and a nice bathroom will provide for all of our sleeping and showering needs quite nicely. Downstairs is more open concept, with a kitchen flowing into a dining area, which in turn flows into the living space. A woodstove is the visual divider of these two spaces, possibly with a band of slate flooring running between them. There is also an ‘away room,’ a library/study which will be separated from the living room by a glass door, so it will be private but not shut off entirely. Next to this room will be the second bathroom, which will be accessible from the front hallway as well.
     The basement will be full and heated. This space will probably evolve into many things over the course of time—playroom, music studio, workshop, storage facility. The outside will be vertical siding to start, eventually clapboards. The roof will be metal, a charcoal gray color. Trim will be a yet-to-be-decided color, as will the front door. Of course, many of these details are subject to change, and probably will.

     Here is a picture of a model (I like to think of it as our supermodel) of our little cape. Note: goldfish not to scale.

 

Supermodel

 

     I strongly encourage anyone who is thinking of building or designing a house to make a 3-d model of it. The spatial relations of the different rooms becomes much clearer when you can hold and rotate your design. Believe me, the two hours you spend cursing at your glue-stick is worth it.

 

richard

 

You look radiant, darling

     Labor day couldn’t have been more aptly named for us this year. A whole weekend of work was squashed into one day due to the remnants of Ernesto that blew through the northeast.  It was a long day indeed.

     On Saturday, Anne and I laid out the plastic sheeting for a vapor barrier on the basement floor. We then moved all of the blue-board insulation into the hole, and were ready to start cutting it to size. But then a thought struck: if it does pour down rain tomorrow, won’t the floor become a big swimming pool as no water can drain past the plastic? A call to our excavator, a well-timed lunch break, and a return call confirmed we should cease and desist and wait until Monday. So we did, even though our first laborer arrived that afternoon. That would be Bridget, who arrived with three bottles of wine, a plethora of fancy cheeses and chocolates,  and dinner from an Indian restaurant. Hooray for Bridget. She received a swift promotion to “Chief Assistant to the Head Laborer.”

 

 

Free labor

    

Sat and Sun were spent in a very leisurely fashion, as there wasn’t much choice. We were marshalling our strength for Monday, and by 8 am Monday morn we were on the hillside and getting work done. We laid the plastic back out on the floor, and then began laying out the blue-board. It went smooth, with everyone keeping busy cutting or measuring or moving pieces. There was a long break in the action as we did some math and soon figured out that we were one board short—I believe I said something to the effect of: “You have got to be sh**ing me.” I probably said a lot more than that. Use your imagination (I sure did). Anyway, Anne ran down to Hamshaw’s lumber to pick up a sheet while Bridget and I laid out the rest of the insulation, and then started on the radiant tubing.

     The tubes came in 300 foot long rolls, and seemed to be spring loaded. It was quite a wrestling match and took some doing to un-do the mess I quickly had in my hands. But we soon got it under control and had four or five runs laid out by the time Anne returned from Hamshaw’s. Soon afterwards, Carrie and Simon arrived to whisk Bridget away from us and back to her non-tubing and insulation related life. Carrie and Simon quickly received the title of “Most Esteemed and Thoughtful Visitors” since they came bearing two important gifts:

    

     1) A battery powered saw/drill kit (borrowed from our friends Cecily and Brett, who have the honor of being titled “Last-minute Lifesavers”)

     2) Cookies and brownies

    I hope all of you out there who are planning on stopping by are seeing the trend of visitors arriving with edible gifts. Let’s try and keep that theme going!

 

 

Siblings visit

    

Bridget’s VW barely made it down the driveway, and it was just Anne and I left to finish the job. After some layout discussions, we figured out what would work best, and motored onward. During our discussion, we had one more visitor, a quick stopover by Barb (who brought M&M’s) who stopped by after a busy day monitoring the boats at Lake Skatutakee.  She witnessed one of many long strategy meetings, and quickly beat a retreat.

     This story has a happy ending, however. The tubes were laid out, the manifold hooked up and pumped with air (which was a whole separate adventure in and of itself), the cracks in the foam filled, and measurements taken for future reference. It was a twelve hour day, but mission accomplished. Our floor is ready, and now awaits the slab to be poured, which I thought was to be done today, thus staying and working until dark, but as it turns out, probably won’t be poured until tomorrow. Well, at least it is out of the way. It looks, in my opinion, absolutely radiant.

richard

 

Finished

 

Air compressor3

 

Air compressor2

 

Victory

Hello, Mr. Chips

     The chipper finally arrived today. I am not speaking of an overall state of mind that descended on the hillside. Neither am I referring in Anglo-slang to a fish-and-chips van. I am speaking of a beastly machine that can shred a human torso into bite-sized pieces in under ten seconds. That’s right—heavy machinery. As if the backhoe and bulldozer weren’t enough, in comes this monster. We fed it all day, and it still wanted more. Quite the insatiable appetite.

     When you clear a site for building, you have a few options of what to do with the tree limbs and brush. You can either leave it in big piles and let it slowly degrade over fifteen years, pile it to be burned in a series of bonfires at a later date,  truck it out, or shred it to tiny pieces which can be later used for things such as landscape mulch and barbecue seasoning.  Chipping is a cost-efficient way to get rid of it without leaving huge piles all around your new house.

     Four of us worked all day and still did not get it all. The rest will be finished tomorrow, in time for the shipment of our lumber. The hillside is really starting to shape up.

 

richard

 

Chipper

                                      this thing is about as loud as The Who in concert circa 1968

Things that make you go boom

     A beautiful day, a momentous day, and an overall up-and-down day. The day began with the final bit of chipping—no, not tricky golf shots from the rough. See yesterday’s entry for specifics.  Once that was done, I was awaiting the BIG delivery of our lumber. To pass the time, I decided to clear the water out of the foundation in preparation for tomorrow’s pouring of the floor. I had laid a tarp down over our radiant tubing and insulation, and it did a good job of keeping the rain out of our foundation. A very good job.  A 67 gallon good job. Yes, I spent some quality time with a 4-cup measuring scoop, a 5-gallon bucket, and 67 gallons of rainwater. I took no pictures of this endeavor, as I have no wish to remember it. All in all, it was worth it, as our foundation is predominantly dry and ready for a floor to be poured.

     The delivery was late—scheduled to arrive at 12, but not actually getting there until almost 2.  In the meantime, the crew was working on the septic, and the news was all good. The soil was perfect, the elevations were exquisite, and this would be the best septic system in Nelson, hands down. Let me tell you, our hillside was really shaping up. With the brush gone, the logs stacked, and the site straightened up, ready to receive the lumber, I could begin to visualize what the finished product would eventually become. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and I was whistling an old Irish jig. Life was grand.

     Then came the trucks. Our excavator had gone out to check on another job, and came across our lumber trucks lost in an adjacent town. Evidently, they had been lost for quite a time, and were not happy. After being chaperoned back to Nelson, the boom truck had a heck of a time making the turn up the driveway. The driver was less than thrilled.  His face was a shade of red usually reserved for very ripe tomatoes, or very fast Italian sports cars, and the words that jettisoned from that cab made me cringe. Me, who has been to a number of Yankees/Red Sox games at Yankee Stadium! This man was not a happy camper.

     The site was not level. There was no room to put anything. He couldn’t turn around. The sky was too blue, the ground was too brown, etc, etc. Without getting into too many tedious details, the lumber was all off-loaded with the magical boom arm of the bigger truck (it truly is a wondrous machine), and they headed out, as did the wonderful excavating crew, who hung around to help me deal with the prickly situation. I was left alone, staring at the hillside which, just a few scant hours before, had left me almost speechless with its beauty. Now all I could focus on were the piles of lumber, everywhere, askant and askew with no respect to order, not to mention gravity. Luckily my excavator crew is going to help me get it straight in the morning, 6:30 am to be exact. So it is time for me to retire.

 

richard

 

 

Delivery

                                                             Where can I shove this thing?

Stick around for the floor show

     It’s a funny thing, punctuality. When you want it, you rarely get it, but when you need a little extra time, people show up early. This morning the excavators and I are trying to move the wood that was jettisoned all over the site yesterday by Mr. Happy. We are working hard, but it is a big mess to clear up, and if the concrete truck would only be just 15-20 minutes late, we would be sitting pretty. No pretty for you! The concrete truck rolls in five minutes early, resulting in a mad scramble to get lumber out of its path.

     In the end, however, the results were excellent. Our radiant tubing had a few mishaps with loose staples, and the concrete truck had to deal with a tough angle for his chute, but overall the guys did a great job, and the floor looks real slick. All that’s left to do is paint on the lines for the basketball court before Anne gets home, and I’ll be all set.

 

richard

 

 

Floor

 

Floor

 

Floor

A journey of one thousand piles starts with the first step

     Following the advice of our favorite communist folk hero Woody Guthrie, this weekend we decided to organize. While his concept of organizing included exciting elements such as marches, rallies, and protest songs, ours was decidedly more mundane. It involved stacking... and piling...and arranging. At times, we arranged our stacks into piles. This was often followed by re-stacking our arranged piles into new arrangements of piled stacks. Then would we pile our stacked arrangements into stacks of piles. Then all of our hard work would be covered by a tarp.

     We spent one and a half days doing this, and we still aren’t quite finished. Luckily we had our second bit of free labor, Anne’s dad Fran. He called on Friday to see if we needed help. I informed him we would be mostly stacking and piling and arranging. Being a librarian, he salivated at the opportunity and arrived on Saturday afternoon, and dutifully helped us to organize. But we did let him have a little fun as he showed us how he used to cut boards before the advent of electricity.

 

 

Fran

He also arrived with two six-packs of beer and a dozen eggs.  While not an obvious pairing of food, both served us quite well over the course of the weekend.

     I cut the rest of the sill plates by hand (sill plates are the pieces of wood directly attached to the foundation), and they should all be attached by tomorrow. I believe you can count today as our first ‘official’ day of building. Insert fanfare here.

 

richard

I'm sill standing

     The sill plates are attached to the building (read this in a deep, sonorous voice, akin to how you would announce “Elvis has left the building”). A day of drilling, placing, hammering, pounding, swearing and bolting resulted in the permanent attachment of the first pieces of wood to our foundation. The work is not inherently exciting, but the progress is.

 

Sills

Sills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

The most dangerous part of this endeavour is the mental aspect. As I was working, I was trying to think of a witty title for this entry, using the word ‘sill’ in a punny way. When I came up with ‘I’m sill standing,’ I was satisfied, and ready to move on. But my brain was not. Instead of enjoying the serenity of the hillside and the random noises a patch of forest provides throughout an afternoon, my brain decided to replay the awful Elton John song, ‘I’m Still Standing,’ over and over and over, so on and so forth, ad infinitum. These are the true hazards of working alone.

     Speaking of hazards, Anne had to go to the time-out corner the other day for the willful misuse of duct tape. Let this serve as a lesson to you all.

richard

Time out

When you swish upon the tar

     A rainy Friday morning allows me some time to give the latest report. We have spent the last two days between rain showers applying the waterproofing to the outside of the foundation. A technically convoluted procedure, I will try and put it into layman’s terms. Bear with me.

 

Step 1: Dip long-handled brush into black goop

Step 2: Smear black goop onto wall

Repeat until wall is covered. Move on to next wall.

 

     That’s about it.  Actually, before you brush on the black goop, you actually apply a different grade of black goop with a trowel into the small holes created by the rebar. Then you brush on the other black goop. Then you try and get it off your hands, which inevitably leads you to wiping it on your pants, which results in you sticking to all manner of things, such as leaves, sticks, small animals, and the seat of your car.

 

     Anne and I were able to get three of four walls done before quitting due to rain. More rain today, so it looks like we will have to wait until tomorrow to finish.

 

richard

 

 

Tar

 

Tar

It's a septic--boogie woogie woogie

Not much to say, really. I just had to use that title. Enjoy this behind-the-scenes, little house on the hillside exclusive look at our leach field.

 

richard

 

 

Leachfield

Welcome to the House of Blue(board)s

     Anne and I spent the day putting up the exterior blue-board insulation around the foundation. Pretty straightforward, all in all, though a bit sad to cover up our beautiful tar. A warm day, perfect for working outside. Our smallest maples are starting to turn red, hinting at what the hillside will look like in a few weeks' time.

     With the addition of blueboard, the foundation is almost ready to be backfilled, finally eliminating our moat around the house. That will be nice, to be certain, but I am not sure what to do with the alligators. We have become quite fond of them. Maybe the leachfield...

 

richard

 

 

Blueboard

 

Blueboard

He came, he sawed, he timbered

    

     We were lucky enough to have a visit from Geoff Jones today. Geoff is a co-worker of Anne’s from The Society for the Protection of NH Forests, and is pretty handy with a chainsaw. Pretty handy is an understatement. Geoff is the New England Society of American Forester’s 2006 recipient of the Austin Cary Practicing Professional Award. Not to be confused with the Austin Powers Groovy Baby, Yeah! Award, although I bet he could win that one too, if he tried. Anne had asked him to come over and help us take down the trees needed to get in our power line from the road. Well, he didn’t help us do it, he just did it himself.

     While Anne and I spun our wheels all day trying to figure out the exact center line of the foundation and debated ratios and the Pythagorean Theorem, Geoff took down trees of various sizes, dropping them exactly where he wanted to. It was a true show of woodsman skill. Chesterfield supervised the whole operation, making sure Anne and I were well aware of who is

really in charge.

     Now we are ready for power—it should be arriving by the middle of next week. Until then, we'll keep firing up the generator.   

 

richard

 

Geoff

Chesterfield

Great Wall of Nelson (well, I think it's great)

     Our first wall is complete! The wall that runs down the center of the house through the basement that carries the weight of the floor joists and the center walls above it is finally done. Anne and I started on Sunday, sort of, and managed to build our first post. Anne wielded a framing hammer that is as long as her arm and pounded nails into submission. It was as if the mighty Thor himself returned to Earth in the form of a mild-mannered woman with a pink toolbelt. Truly a sight to behold.

     I mostly finished the wall yesterday, and was in the home stretch when Anne returned form work and we did a few readings of the level. This revealed the walls were all about ¼ inch too tall. Luckily, I hadn’t permanently attached the posts and was able to take them all down and trim them to size, just as it was getting dark.

     Today, the wall was completed, and is now ready to receive the floor joists. Now all I have to do is cut 88 2x8’s to exactly 12 feet long and nail them together with a 2x4 sandwiched in between. (Don’t worry if that made no sense. Stay tuned for pictures that will help to clarify this entire process).  I spent most of today sorting through the aforementioned 2x8’s, measuring and crowning them, and piling them accordingly. Yes, I am still stacking stuff, and probably will be throughout this entire process.

 

 

Sept20 017

     Entries may become a bit more random and a bit less frequent from this point onwards. Not only will I be spending the bulk of my time on the hillside, but our computer situation just got a bit more dodgy, if that is even possible. So unless someone out there has an extra low-Earth-orbit satellite they can task to Nelson, NH, our dial-up woes continue.

richard

Time to back-Phil

     This morning is a gusty, wet introduction to autumn. All of the little red and yellow leaves that have been hiding up in the canopy have been driven to the earth and amassed themselves in rusty-colored piles on roads, lawns, and decks throughout the town. Just like that, my brain processed that summer is over. A few red swamp maples in the wetlands by couldn’t do it. Some yellow patches in the upper branches of sugar maples didn’t do it, either. No, not even the appearance of apples at roadside stands and a gift of fresh cider from a neighbor did it. None of these things were strong enough to make me start my personal transition into fall. It took this morning--a chill, blustery wind laced with a cold rain, carrying with it the hints of colors to come--to adjust the settings on my internal clock. Now I can put away the shorts and sandals, and dig out the sweaters and heavy socks. It’s a sad farewell to fresh tomatoes, but a warm welcome to hearty soups and stews. Transitions are funny—some come gradually, and some occur at the drop of a hat (although if it happens too quickly, can it still be a true transition?). At any rate, it’s time to pull up the tomato plants in the blue containers on the porch, and shake the seeds out of the morning glory vines and store them for next year. Autumn is here.

     The luxury of autumn is mornings like these, where there is no guilt in sitting with a cup of tea and writing for an hour or so. Later today, or tomorrow even, will be time enough for work. Today is not fit for framing. However, excavators seem not to mind at all.

     Phil and his crew are working hard at the site this morning, trucking in sand and gravel to continue backfilling the foundation. This essentially means creating the proper grade up to the foundation walls. It also means the end of our moat, and the plank bridge of dubious construction we have been using for the past month. Fare the well, dear bridge, you will not be missed.

     Prior to backfilling, the foundation drains are installed, which is a simple matter of laying a perforated pipe around the perimeter of the foundation walls. It is sloped in such a way to carry any water that seeps through the ground away from the house and through another pipe that travels a fair distance away before coming out to daylight and shooting the water down the hillside. These guys have been at it for a few days now and with every truckload of sand I am amazed at how little it fills. The truck is big (at least to my eyes), and it dumps a huge (at least to my eyes) pile of sand and then rumbles off to get another.  Meanwhile, the excavator picks up sand in its bucket and drops it precisely where it is needed. I do not know how many piles we have been through, but by end of day yesterday the backfilling looked about half-way completed (at least to my eyes—that’s the last time I’ll say that, I promise).

 

 

Backfill

Drain (1)

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

     I have spent the last few days building box-beams for the first floor. I will explain this in a bit more detail next entry, when I have some pictures to illustrate my needlessly wordy explanations. For now, know that it involves a huge amount of measuring, cutting, assembling, and nailing. If the weather was more suitable, we would be installing those beams today. Hopefully we can get them in place by tomorrow.

     A funny surprise (not exactly ‘ha-ha look at the clown funny,’ more akin to a ‘holy crap, what the hell is going on here if I don’t laugh I might cry’ funny) occurred on Thursday. I drove up to the hillside and saw some boxes scattered here and there, and then saw some windows, and then spied a few doors. I quickly realized that these were not only the doors and windows for the house, but the kitchen cabinets as well! Now, I like to think that we are moving along at a nice steady pace, but two weeks is not a lot of time between your first shipment of framing lumber and your next shipment of kitchen cabinets. I called First Day and was reminded that I knew the dates of all shipments, which I did, so the blame is mine. But the difference between a penciled-in notation on a calendar and the reality of over 12 piles of tarp-covered lumber scattered throughout a tight building site is vast. I had no clue where this stuff was going to go. Somehow, we found a place, and everything is safely stowed away, awaiting its time of deployment.

 

 

I think the cabinets look good right about here

    

     Finally, I have heard a few interesting birds while working. Most mornings, I hear a loon calling as it flies overhead to one of our many near-by lakes. If you have never heard a loon call, well, you should do everything you can to hear one. It is magic. I also heard a barred owl yesterday. It gave a two-note performance, and then gave no more, no matter how hard I called for an encore.

When a tree falls in the woods

     Yes, many trees have fallen already on our hillside. It is not a pristine site—it was logged cleanly about 100 years ago, by a neighbor’s estimate. There is always a twinge of guilt as you watch the trees go down, but these lovely oaks, birches, maples and beeches will keep us warm for years to come, and we were as selective as possible when choosing what trees came down.

     A bit of debate surrounded a large oak at the end of the driveway. It was tight to the first turn, and had a large scar and cavity on one side of its base. It would be tricky to take down safely, which is why we didn’t remove it from the beginning. Today our tough-tree specialist arrived, and after some discussion and serious cogitation, we decided it had to come down. This was no small undertaking.

     Joe, the tree guy, warmed up with a dead birch, not too big but big enough to be dangerous. He climbed it with spikes on his boots and a belt he looped around the trunk, going about half-way up so he could tie off some ropes which would help guide the fall. The other end of the ropes were attached to a few sturdy trees as well as the excavator, which provided pressure as Joe made the saw cuts at the base. As the tree began its fall, and the excavator pulled the line taut, the birch snapped in half and crashed to the ground in a heap. It was a graphic illustration as to why you have to be extremely careful when cutting dead or dying trees—they can go anywhere at any time.

 

Dead birch

    

This was all business as usual for Joe, and he moved on to the big oak.  Once again, he climbed it to a big fork about half-way up, and began attaching ropes. He also attached a steel cable, which was attached to a chain, which was attached to the excavator. This sounds fast, but the whole process took about an hour. Then, he sharpened his big saw, and started cutting. He took his time, taking out a bit here and there, finally making the notch which would hopefully dictate the direction of the fall. If it fell the wrong way, it could block the road and take out power lines. He made his cuts from one side, then another, then back to the first. He then had Jeremy put a bit of pressure on the chain, kept cutting, a bit more pressure, a bit more cutting, a lean, a creak, a groan, a crack, a whoosh! and a CRASH! It came down right in the driveway, a perfect placement, in my eyes. We spent the rest of the day bucking it up and chipping all of the brush that came from it and a few more trees.

 

Run!

 

Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 Joe was a funny guy. When I asked his opinion on whether to take it or leave it, if it was healthy enough to stand or not, he said, “It could go next year, two years, ten years. Who knows? We all gotta go sometime.” And later, “Well, if it does fall, it’s not going to take out your power, just your neighbors. It’ll also block them in. But, that’s why you live in the country, right? You gotta expect this.” He was a bit nuts, all in all.

     Note to self: don’t wear your NY Yankee cap when subcontractors will be at the site. The chances of them being a fellow Yankee fan are slim, while the chances of them being a Red Sox fan are pretty good.

We interrupt this blog for a bit of poetry

The bones of my house

 

Some would say a certain

room, a kitchen’s native slate or

the way a dark curtain

frames a sunlit nook,

where easy hours have been lost

inside a well-worn book—

these would be the choices

made when asked to choose the part loved

most. But I hear low voices

call, reminding me of

days in Fall, when it was just they

and I and sky above.

The roof still lay piled,

doors and windows were in the wings

as I became dialed

in on headers and beams,

joists and posts as they rose to the

rafters, raised up in teams.

It is a fitting word,

framing, for it implies a line

where art and work are blurred

as every new stick

creates another bordered scene

to be lost to the quick

march of time. So it’s this,

when asked what aspect of my house

provides me the most bliss,

I choose above the rest—

the bones of my house, unseen by

most, that’s what I love best
 
Richard Popovic
       

    

    
    
    


    

        

    
            

        
                
        
            
            

                
Bones
            
    
        
    



.

I am floored

     It is a difficult day to be a NY Yankee fan. On paper, they had a lineup that held up to the greatest line-ups of all time. We all knew their pitching was weak, but hoped that the bats would take up the slack. I assumed that at best the hitting would be the least of our worries. And then the un-imaginable happens—shut out for 19 consecutive innings, I believe. I have nothing to say except that, regarding all things baseball, this truly shall be the winter of my discontent. And to all of the wise-acres from Detroit who called to gloat—actually, that’s just you Aunt K.C.—let me just say that revenge is a dish best served cold.  I am not 100% sure exactly what that means. Nevertheless, consider yourself warned.

     Being floored is not always an unpleasant experience, especially if you are a floor joist. I have been putting on tongue-and-groove flooring for the past week, and am finally making some progress. My brother-in-law Dean traveled up from NY last Thursday and Friday. He can proudly say that he helped to lay down the very first floorboard. Unfortunately, we didn’t get too many more laid down after that. I had hoped we would have the dining room completed and half of the living room by the time he left. But the twin-whammy of torrential rain and an incompetent foreman (that would be yours truly) slowed things down considerably. We did manage to get most of the dining area done, and his help was greatly appreciated. I thought maybe he brought the rain with him, as it cleared up beautifully on Saturday. Alas, by Sunday it was raining again, and this pattern was repeated most of the week. I spent more time covering and uncovering the flooring with tarps than I did nailing it down. But by yesterday, I had finished the entire living room and library/office area, and began to tackle the downstairs bathroom. Besides the bathroom, there is an area down the center of the house, about 6 feet wide, and the kitchen, which are yet to be done. The common denominator between all of these areas is that they are to be tiled, and so have to be handled a bit differently. But that is a story for a different day.

Dean in action

 

 

 

All is well that ends...?

    
     Cushing and Sons, the well drilling company, arrived today around 1pm. It is
 always heartening to meet someone who has the same last name as the one on
 the side of the truck, and Jeff Cushing was a nice guy who wasted no time in 
setting up his rig. The plan was to get the hole started and put in the casing on
 day one, and then actually start digging for water on day two. Before you begin
 to think that I actually know what I am talking about, let me assure you that what
 follows is what was told to me this afternoon by Jeff:
     ‘Basically, we lay down casing until we hit bedrock, around here usually only
 20 feet is needed (it is a 20 foot section of casing, so just one section). Then we
 begin to drill for water. We use water and air pressure to dig the hole—the bit is
 on the end of a pipe and spins and hammers through the rock. After the first
 twenty feet, we thread another twenty foot section of pipe onto the first one, and
 continue until we hit a fissure that will provide enough water.’ 
     Seems simple enough. The truck itself is massive, quite impressive, and
 extremely loud. No peace on the hillside this afternoon. I am crossing my fingers
 that they hit water before four hundred—the town of  is notorious for deep
 wells, and at least on of my neighbors is over four hundred. Our budget is for a
 3-400 foot well, so stay tuned.
 
    
    
    


    

        

    
            

        
                
        
            
            

                
Drilling Rig
            
    
        
    


      
    
    
    


    

        

    
            

        
                
        
            
            

                
Rock dust

            
    
        
    




    

      

    

 
      

    

      

    

 

Water, water everywhere, so many drops to drink

    
   Eureka!  We have H20, and plenty of it! I arrived at the site this morning to find some frustrated 
well diggers. It seems the hammer bit that boss-man Jeff attached yesterday wasn’t done quite right,
so they were waiting for him to arrive and fix it. I went about my business of working on the
floorboards (almost done!), and Jeff arrived soon afterwards and fixed the bit. Then the drilling began
to commence in earnest. I watched intermittently, but to be completely honest, it is not that exciting.
All of the action is underground. I did keep my eye on the number of sections of twenty-foot pipe
going in the ground, so I had a rough idea of the depth of drilling. They charge by the foot, which is
why it is so crucial to hit water early.
     The day progressed uneventfully. I kept one eye on the drill, and one on the sky, watching the rain
clouds roll in and calculating how much I could get done and still have enough time to cover
everything up. A little before , as I was returning form a lumber pile, I saw Bill (today’s driller)
give me a thumbs up. He was wearing a pretty wide grin, so I ran over and saw a beautiful sight—
water, rushing from the hole and down the hill. 
Me: “That looks like a lot of water.”
Bill: “Oh yeah. It’s great. About 12 gallons per minute.”
Me: “Hey, that’s pretty good, right?”
Bill: “You will never run out of water with this flow rate. This is more water than you can ever use in
your lifetime.” (He was smiling big now. So was I).
Me: “How deep?” I knew they hadn’t been digging for too long, but I had lost count of the pipes in
the ground. 
Bill: “I hit the first big fissure at 180 feet. I went 20 feet beyond it and hit a few more, but all of this
water is coming from the first one. So, 200 feet.”
Me: “Whoopeeeeee! You guys just made my day.”
     Finally, something came in under budget. The well was the big unknown, a huge variable in our 
accounting. To be safe, we budgeted for a full 400 feet. Now, it was as if someone placed $2,000 
in the plus column of our spreadsheet. Oh, what a feeling.
     Cushing packed up, and after struggling with the mud a bit, drove away. I packed up too, and
not even another rain shower could dampen my spirits.      

    
    
    


    

        

    
            

        
                
        
            
            

                
Our very own river
            
    
        
    



    
    
    
    


    

        

    
            

        
                
        
            
            

                
Well cap

            
    
        
    



      

    

      

    


      

    

Don't fear the router

     In case you missed it, the title of this entry pays tribute to the classic Blue Oyster Cult song, “Don’t

Fear the Reaper.” I thought it was fitting, today being Friday the thirteenth and all. Today also being

the day I finally finished putting down the floorboards. Today I also got to put my router to rest, for the

time being.

     I haven’t written much in the past week about the actual daily work I was doing because it was fairly

tedious and monotonous. I will sum it up for you as best I can. Our flooring is 1 ½ inch thick

tongue-and-groove spruce boards, five inches wide. The simple way to do the flooring is to lay it

down in its full length (16 feet), two of which next to each other equals a full house length, 32 feet. Just

like that, you have spanned every room in your house with just two boards. Great. This shouldn’t be

bad. But, in the interest of making things difficult for ourselves (as if building our own house isn’t

difficult enough), we decided to lay down tile in certain areas. The compulsive part of my nature didn’t

like the idea of just laying the tile on top of the floorboards as is—then the tile would be about an inch

higher than the rest of the floor. That would never do. So began the quest for the best way to lower our

flooring height by 3/8ths of an inch. (Trust me on the 3/8ths; you don’t want me to go into detail on that

part).

     First I thought plywood, but the extra cost would be well over $500. Then John from First day came

up with the idea of planing the boards that would go under the tile until we reached the desired

thickness. This involved renting a planer, and seemed like a lot of work. Then, Anne came up with the

idea of notching the underside of each board where it passed over the joist. Hmm, now we are

getting somewhere. Ok, I thought, I’ll just have to make a bunch of passes with my circular saw, set to

the correct depth, and clean out the notch with a chisel. Finally, our neighbor Russ suggested using a

router. That’s it! I’ll use my router. I’ve been dying to use my router ever since I brought it at the

consignment shop a few months back.

     This router, and old Porter Cable model, was made before the trend of emblazoning tools with

garish day-glo colors became de rigueur.  It lives in a battered steel case that looks as if its original

purpose was the storage of 50 caliber bullets back in World War II. I love this thing. It spins at 22,000

RPM. That’s like a small propeller. You can’t let your guard down when you are using it, because if it

kicks back and flies out of your hands, take cover, because something is going to get chewed up.

    Anyway, to make an already over-long story short, I spent many hours this past week cutting

floorboards to length and then routing out sections of their undersides, and then nailing them in place

(although Anne and I had a good system going when she was at the site last weekend—her nailing

skills are getting better every day). I finally finished the flooring today, and am glad it is behind me.

It took much longer than I ever imagined. Knowing we have to do it all over again for the second floor

is daunting, to say the least.

     So, in retrospect, I guess the title of this entry doesn’t make complete sense. The router is a

dangerous tool, so you should have a healthy respect for it. Like anything else, used incorrectly,

it can hurt you. Of course, you may end up fearing it because it bears an uncanny resemblance to a

tyrannical alien race from the old low-budget British sci-fi show, Dr Who. You be the judge. (And if

anyone out there (besides me and my brother Mike) has actually seen an old episode of Dr. Who,

then I will be the one who is afraid.

 

You know you make me wanna rout

 

Bad-ass power tool

 

 

 

Dalek

 

Masterful flooring technique

 

 

Shoeless Rich

 

Office floor in progress

I apologize for the wacky picture placement

          
            The last few posts have had major issues with picture placement, as you can see. They will not go
          
        

          
             where I want them to go, no matter how much I swear under my breath. I’ll figure it out, bear with me.
          
        

          
             Also, a note on back-dating. Since I do not get to the computer every day, I tend to write a few entries
          
        

          
             in one sitting and back-date them. So be sure to scroll past the first entry if I haven’t written in awhile, 
          
        

          
            and there may be a few more waiting for you. Also, there are a ton of pics that don’t make it into this
          
        

          
             entry section that appear over to the right in our gallery. It is completely disorganized right now, 
          
        

          
            but hopefully will be a bit more orderly very soon. Finally, all entries are archived and catalogued
          
        

          
             by month, on the right-hand menu.
          
        

          
            And just for laughs, this entry decided to double-space itself. My kingdom for a typewriter!!!
          
        

Hey Mr. Postman

Nice to make some progress. Had a very able helping hand today in the form
of our good friend Scott. It was funny, last night I was thinking about
calling him to see if he wanted to come up today to do a bit of nail
pounding. Sure enough, ten minutes later, the phone rings, and it is
Scott, seeing if I needed a hand. Pretty weird, huh? But that’s Scott—he
can get all Jedi on you when you least expect it.
He arrived early in the morning, and after showing him the layout and
going over the plans, we started to assemble the posts that will run along
the outside of the building. Scott is quick on the uptake and has a good
eye for detail. In no time, he was whipping the posts out one after
another. I had spent the previous day or two cutting all of the pieces to
length, so it was very much an assembly line atmosphere. It was quite a
rewarding feeling to have a big pile of posts ready to go by the time he
left. We even raised one to make sure it fit, and it was exciting to
finally see something go up, besides my blood pressure.

 

Mr. Postman

A plethora of posts

Tanks for the memories

I am not sure why, but I guess I always had a picture in my mind of what a
septic tank looked like. Oval, sort of shaped like a submarine. Metal,
possibly painted green or black. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I
don’t know where that idea came from, but I’ll just store it in the
section of my brain labeled ‘Not Even Close,’ right next to the vote I
cast for Ralph Nader in 2000.
Phil and his crew were working the last few days, digging a trench for the
water line to enter the house and digging a huge hole for the septic. I
was busy constructing the final posts and a bunch of floor joists. We were
staying out of each other’s way. They informed me the tank would be
arriving this morning, so I didn’t want to miss it. I arrived at the site
just as the truck was backing up the driveway. It was a big flatbed with a
boom, and on the back was a huge concrete box. A bunker, if you will.
Actually, a fall-out shelter is what it most resembled. You may remember
the episode of the sitcom ‘Happy Days,’ when the Cunninghams have a
fall-out shelter built and buried in their backyard? That is the point of
reference my brain clamped onto.
The actual lowering of this behemoth into the ground was a bit
anti-climactic. The guy had a remote control for the boom arm, and he
lowered that baby into place without breaking a sweat. Less than a
half-hour later and he was on his way. I was left with my own 1750 gallon
capacity pillbox. So if this whole North Korean thing gets ugly, you know
where to find me.

 

Bomb Shelter

Tabula Rasa

A full day of steady rain. Anne took the day off, mainly because a tile
supplier in town was having a 20% off sale on all tile orders. This
included slate slabs for countertops, so we couldn’t afford to pass it up.
We spent much of the morning figuring out the square footage of our
kitchen and bathrooms, as well as our countertop measurements. Then we hit
the store, and after a few hours of deliberation, ordered a few large
slabs of Montauk Blue slate for our countertop, and a bunch of Heathermore
and Strata Gray tiles for our floors. This was quite an accomplishment in
and of itself, for us to agree on colors, sizes and layouts, and the fact
that we saved over $400 to boot was icing on the cake. If we had stopped
there, the day would have been considered a success. But we had only begun
to interior decorate.
     On we traveled to Trikeenan Tile, an excellent, local, hand-made
artisan tile shop right in Keene. They make incredibly beautiful
high-end tiles, which are generally out of our modest price range.
But, bless their hearts, they sell seconds! An entire back room
filled with boxes of slightly imperfect or discontinued tiles. We
went to town, and after a bit of searching, discovered a few crates
of some blue-green tile that we both thought would look excellent in
our bathroom. After figuring out the number of tiles we would need,
the search was on! We went through hundreds of tiles, sorting out the
best ones that matched most closely in color and style. Midway
through, Anne came up with an excellent layout pattern that
incorporated smaller white tiles, which really made the greens and
blues pop. Over two hours later, with the help of some very patient
Trikeenan employees, we loaded five boxes of tile into the car. The
sell the seconds by the pound, and we ended up with 143 pounds worth.
Not bad—enough stunning, locally made tiles to do our entire
downstairs bathroom for $143.  Home Depot, Home Shmeepo.

A Family Affair

 

     I think my family felt a bit threatened by the strong showing of Anne’s family in the past month, so they decided to do something about it. Of course, in the true Popovic manner, instead of keeping things simple and coming one at a time, they all decided to show up at once. Luckily, the fabulous Keene Pumpkin Festival was taking place, so there was plenty for all parties to do.
Mom, Dad, Brother Mike, Sister Maureen, Sis-in-Law Paula, and nieces Erin, Zoe and Megan filled the hillside with…cars. And energy. And happiness. And, most importantly, food.  Mom cooked enough to feed the entire town of Nelson. She even brought up a genuine New York pizza. Nice touch. The young ones were excited to see each other and inspect the well and the huge piles of dirt. Everyone else got a tour from the official long-winded tour guides, and then was put to work. Paula helped move some lumber around until she had to hit the festival, and then it was down to the Popovic men and Anne (it is a testament to her iron will that she didn’t hit one of us with a claw hammer).
     Our main goal was to erect a few of the ‘goalposts,’ as they are affectionately termed by First Day Cottage. The goalposts are basically two 24-foot floor joists with a post on each end and one in the middle (check out the picture if this is unclear). Raising these goalposts was a new experience for everyone involved, and required some experimentation. We assembled the first one on the deck, positioned ourselves in the middle and on the ends, and HEAVED! CRRACK! Yeah, not a sound you are looking to hear when you are assembling the frame of your house. Luckily, the damage wasn’t permanent (all hail duct tape—just kidding). We learned a few things, and the second goalpost we raised didn’t groan quite as much. The important thing was that they went in and stayed in, and actually looked correct. A great victory, to be certain. Unfortunately, it was getting dark, and we were only able to get three up in the air. Mike’s height was a great asset, and would soon be sorely missed (How's that for a bit of foreshadowing?).

 

Hillside Invasion

Erin, Zoe and the Hammer of Thor

 

 

 

GOOOAAALLL post!

Old Man of the Hillside

Dad stayed on for a few days to help out. Good timing, as there was no way these goal posts could go up single-handedly. They barely went up double-handedly. The plan was to build them, half-stand them up and lean them against those already vertical, and then put them in place when Anne came home from work. In the back of my head, I knew Dad and I would never stick to this plan. It goes against our very nature. Sure enough, after we built one, Dad looked over and said, “You think we can do it?” I think I said something like “Hell, yeah,” and it was game on. We tried a few different methods, without success. Then, out came the ropes. By hooking a long rope over the two ends and stretching it over the erected goalposts, one person should conceivably be able to stand on the ground and exert enough force to pull the post up, after an initial lift by another person on the deck. Oh yeah, this was getting good. The rope was fastened, Dad took to the ground and I stayed on deck. After a lot of pulling, pushing, yelling, and many Band-Aids and Advil later, the goal-posts were up. Anne provided key assistance on the last few, and then directed the effort to make everything weather-tight. It was almost dark, but to be able to stand back and look at what was, finally, beginning to look like our house, was an unforgettable feeling.

Yeah, Rich and Anne helped a little too.

Old Man of the Hillside

Good bones.

Here it is. Look at those bones.

 

Good bones.

 

North view.

 

Prayer Flags.

Brace yourself

The last few days and the next few to come are all about bracing and nailing. Now is the time when you get your walls straight and plumb, with everything tied to everything else by a system of braces. It is a methodical process, not too exciting, but pretty darn important if you want your roof to go on correctly. It also marks the dawn of a new era of headaches, as I inevitably will walk into one brace or another at least a dozen times in the next month.

 

The Headless Foreman

Halloween on the hillside

 

Ichabod Frame

 

Flooring, part deux

     A few days of fabulous weather were a good omen for us to start our flooring of the second floor. Before we could start, however, I had to attend to some final nailing, some shimming, and cutting and installing 2x8 gussets that will support the roof. This was a bit more difficult than I imagined it would be (it seems I have a variation of that statement in just about every journal entry I write). At any rate, it got done, and Anne took a few days off so we could get some flooring down. Day one was a bit of a letdown. As an old basketball coach used to yell at me: “Popovic, if you were going any slower you would be in reverse!” Things just didn’t flow like we had hoped. It was so bad that we had to console ourselves with some Thai food. As the old saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough get curry.”
     The second day went much better than the first as we covered most of a future bedroom. More importantly, we came up with a plan for the rest of the flooring, and picked through all of our remaining floorboards, which are now organized by which room they will eventually cover. This will really speed things up later. You would be amazed at how much time is spent going through boards, looking for defects and whatnot.
     The weather tomorrow is up in the air, maybe some rain in the morning. Hopefully it will clear up early so we can keep moving forward.

Insert tab A into slot B...

November 1, 2006

An inconvenient truth?

While not usually a big fan of human-induced climate change, we could have used a little of that global warming today.

 

Shiver me timbers!

Three-month retrospective

It's been three months since we officially took ownership of the hillside. Let's look back a bit and see how we are doing...

August 4, 2006  Celebrating the sale

Cheers!

September 1, 2006  Walls are in

Walls

October 1, 2006  First floor started

Not playing with a full deck

November 1, 2006  Walls up, second floor started

Let's get vertical

Let's hope by December 1 we have a roof on this sucker.

Democratically inspired

     Awoke this morning to the wonderful news that the Democrats have taken control of the House! It's about time we do the same and show this country that we are in control of our own house and no one better stand in our way. Except Mother Nature. She has taken a firm stance and ensured that today will be a day of rest by dumping about an inch of rain onto the hillside. But nothing can dampen my spirits this morning, as a bit of sanity seems to have returned to this dear country of ours.
     Let's start this party with a few 'shout-outs,' as we used to call them in the hood. A shout-out to Aunt Carol and to Sumi and Wayne for the care packages they sent our way. Very thoughtful, and quite delicious. A shout-out to Rick and Betsy, who found space in their barn for us to store our doors, windows and cabinets, as well as providing a truck and manpower to move them. That is a big load off of our minds. A shout-out to Sasha and Evan who arrived with a beautiful basket full of beer, ten pounds of lasagna, garlic bread, a fresh apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Holy smokes, it was like hitting the lottery! One final shout-out to Scott, who you may remember from a few weeks back as 'The Postman.' Well, they say that the postman always rings twice, and it proved true. He spent a day doing flooring with us, as well as moving the cabinets and windows.
     As far as progress goes, the second floor deck is almost completed. It is looking fly (another term from my days in the hood, it means 'good') and has added some serious stability to our structure. It should be done by tomorrow (weather permitting), and then the rafter assembly can begin.
     In other progress, we purchased the tile for our upstairs bathroom. Once again, we hit Trikeenan Tile in Keene, where their annual overstock and seconds sale was happening. It is really nice stuff, and one more thing to cross off the list.
     That's all for now. We will not be working this weekend due to a wedding in NY, so if you were thinking of a surprise visit, well, it certainly would be a surprise, but not in the way you intended it to be.

A few boards short of a sandwich

     Due to weather, the deck isn’t quite finished yet. Anne and I worked a half-day this morning, and left with about six boards to go. It was tempting to try to stay and finish, but we had a long drive to NY ahead of us, so alas, it was left undone. Little did we know it would stay that way for much longer than we had planned.  Ba–ba BUM! (that is supposed to signify some heavy foreshadowing music)
Since we didn’t work this weekend…well, let me amend that statement. We didn’t work on the house this weekend, but let me tell you, we worked it on the dance floor. Some of us more than others. Do you know what you get when you mix a mild-mannered land protection assistant, a few amaretto sours and a willing partner in jive? You get this:

Dancing queens

     It was nice to cut loose and not worry about building for a weekend, although it was hard to miss a weekend of good weather. This was the first time in two months that I wore something besides Carhartts and a tool belt.

All dolled up

All decked out

     I awoke this morning to a fine layer of snow on the ground. Fine can have two meanings in this context. Fine as a modifier, meaning the snow layer was thin and powdery. Also, fine in a more Laurel and Hardy sense: ‘Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” However you look at it, it’s there, and with temps today not breaking the 30’s, and a heavy cloud cover, I don’t think it is going anywhere unless I move it.
     The good news to come out of last week is that our basement is staying fairly dry. If it could withstand last week’s storms, it should hold its own against just about anything.  This makes it a more viable storage area, and so some time was spent moving 18 boxes of tile from our living room into the basement. Anne also spent some quality time with the axe, splitting firewood and stacking it in the basement. We are preparing for the day when our house is buttoned up enough to move in the woodstove, which will allow us to work all winter long in relative comfort.
     I realized that in all of my moaning about rain last week, I forgot to mention a project I started on Thursday, namely bulkhead stairs into the basement. Up until now, we have been using a ladder, which is ok, but not the easiest thing to go up and down 20 times a day. Stairs have been on the ‘When we get time to do it’ list, and that time was last week. Let me start this story by apologizing to Ms. Korson, my ninth grade math teacher, who tried to warn us that math will prove to be a very important part of our lives some day. Since I was planning to be a rock star, I paid her little mind, and I paid math even littler mind. Well, talk about something coming back to bite you in the ass. Stairs are all about angles, equations, and geometry and they don’t involve anything that is even remotely related to rock-stardom. Yikes! But after much sturm und drang, I finally got them right (more or less), and finished them off on Saturday. Let me tell you, we should have done this on day two. What a difference in quality of life at the worksite.
     The other news from this weekend is that the second floor deck is finally done. I feel like I have been saying it is almost done for two weeks now, and I probably have, but now we can finally say that we are playing with a full deck.

Final floorboard

     I also started constructing the rafters, another math-filled angle-laden enterprise. I have one full set constructed and hope to get it in place temporarily to make sure that it is correct before I cut all of the others.
     It is another short week for us as we are heading down to NY on Wednesday for the holiday. Hopefully we can make a bit of progress before then.

Look, up in the sky...

     This house kit is designed to be built by two people in reasonably good shape who do not mind working long hours. Anne and I fit that bill nicely, but during the week, it is usually just me and the chickadees. For the most part, this is not an issue. There are plenty of things that one person can do to keep busy. Case in point: yesterday, I cut 36 2x8’s into rafters. A long, monotonous job, but it will allow Anne and me to assemble the rafters more quickly this weekend, instead of waiting for me to cut each piece as needed. There are many days like that on the hillside, which is why the visual progress isn’t always stunning to the untrained eye, but to old salts like us, we know we are moving along ok.
     Then there are the days when one person just isn’t going to cut it. Even the overly-optimistic instruction book from First Day wants at least three people there when putting the rafters into place. We have many neighbors who have offered their help, numerous times. And Monday was the day I was going to take them up on their offers. I had one rafter set constructed, and was going to finish making another one by the afternoon. They go up in pairs, attached to each other with bracing. But to attach them to each other at the proper spacing, they need to be upright. This is not a job for one person. So I walked over to Rick’s house, but he was tied up for the day. Then I tried Russ, but no one was home. Hmm…I really wanted to see what these looked like in the vertical position, to make sure all of my angles were correct, and also because I just wanted to make some progress after the long rain delay of last week.
I stood on the deck, contemplating the rafters at my feet. Anne’s words from that morning echoed in my head,” You’re going to ask for help, right? You’re not going to try and do it by yourself?”  I tested the weight of one—heavy, but not impossible. After all, it’s just six fifteen-foot pieces of wood with a bunch of nails in it. I can lift this thing, I said to myself.
     My mind began to conceive ideas of how one person could do this successfully. I am by now familiar with this sensation, this feeling when my brain begins to convince itself, 'This is not impossible.' It begins concocting elaborate strategies that it knows I am a sucker for (look back to the entry about me and my dad raising the walls with ropes). I picture myself standing there with a far-off look in my eye and little gears turning underneath my wool hat.  If my life were a sitcom, this would be the point when the audience lets out a collective ‘Uh-oh.’
     So I grab a bunch of clamps, and my drill, and some scraps of wood and a handful of screws.  I screw in a couple of stop-blocks so the whole assembly doesn’t slide off the roof, put some clamps in a few strategic locations, suppress my common sense, and start to lift. With much groaning of wood and gnashing of teeth, it is up, balancing precariously on two very small points of contact. I slowly make my way to one end, praying that a strong wind doesn’t whip up out of nowhere. I manage to get one clamp on. Good. I make my way to the other end. Another clamp. Excellent. This is actually working. I slide the other rafter into position, and repeat the process. Holy cow, I have two rafters standing up, swaying slightly in the breeze. I quickly brace them together, and just like that, they stabilize themselves, now being one unit with four legs. After some minor adjustments to the spacing, they are ready to be hoisted into their final position on top of the knee wall. Hmm… I wonder how heavy two rafters are? I give an experimental lift. Yup, pretty heavy. My mind quickly shuts down the cogs and gears and the common sense mechanism comes back on-line. This must wait for another day.
     What is the lesson learned? Don’t be afraid to try something that looks impossible. With a little luck, some careful planning, six clamps, scrap wood, three-inch screws and 800mg of ibuprofen, it is amazing what you can accomplish.

Things are looking up

Walk towards the light

An idea of things to come

Surf the Turkey

     Yes, I said surf the turkey.  Most people might think this is a misprint—“Oh, he must have meant to type ‘Stuff the Turkey.’ It’s an understandable mistake. Honestly, have you ever seen him type?” While it is true, my typing skills are akin to a gumshoe from a 1940’s film noir, I actually got that one right.
     Anne and I drove down to NY on Wednesday for two reasons: to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my family, and to play a gig in NYC that night. My band, Shilelagh Law, had a 10pm show at Connolly’s, a big bar right in Times Square. It was our first show back in months, and we were expecting a robust and rowdy turnout, which we got in spades. Over 600 people decided to spend Thanksgiving eve with us. It was a blast.
     Now, for those of you who are not familiar with Shilelagh Law, we play high-energy Irish music. Denny, our fiddle player, is the clown-prince of the group, willing to do anything for a laugh. So when he informed me that he had a turkey outfit that he had borrowed for the night, I let out a groan, but I honestly was not that surprised. He played the first set in his regular clothes, and changed into the turkey suit right before set two. As I played ‘The Thanksgiving Song’ by Adam Sandler (pretty funny in its own right), out comes Denny from backstage with the turkey suit on. He dances around, plays a bit of fiddle, everyone laughs, takes some photos, and then he goes backstage and changes back into his regular apparel, and we go on with the show. I thought that was it for the turkey suit. I was soon proved wrong.
     It seems that the guy who actually owned the turkey suit was in the crowd, and after a few drinks, decided he wanted in on the action. He sneaks backstage, puts the suit on, and comes on the stage and proceeds to dance around. This was funny, but he was a whirlwind, knocking into stuff and wreaking a bit of havoc. I look at Denny and we both agree that we have to get this guy off the stage. Denny starts to corral him, but he moves right o the front of the stage and says he is going to stage-dive (which basically means he is going to jump into the crowd horizontally and hope people catch him). We get some bigger guys up front, and whippee! the turkey is launched. He then proceeds to body-surf (when a person is passed on the upraised hands of the crowd) up and down the length of the bar. Thus, surf the turkey.

Turkeyrock

Surf the Turkey

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving itself was great. The entire family managed to get together in one place, and it was pleasantly chaotic. Anne and I left early Friday in order to make it back to NH in time to do a bit of work. We arrived back at the hillside with a few hours of daylight left, and after fruitlessly attempting to move the rafter assembly into position, we realized that we would have to disassemble it, get it into position in pieces, and then re-assemble it. Not too big a deal. Once we did that, all that remained was the power-lift. We got into position, took a deep breath, and heaved. Slowly one end was lifted, lifted, and then plunked down onto the posts. Whew! Now, to repeat on the other side. Same position, same deep breath, same slow lift. With a satisfying ‘thunk!’ the rafter slid into its final resting place, and just like that, we had two rafters erected. Wow. So two people can do it. That was nice to know. Nine to go and a whole weekend in front of us. Let’s see how much we can get done.

 

Nine to go

Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters!

     It was a busy weekend on the hillside as we worked feverishly to make good use of the unseasonably warm temperatures. While our progress was a bit slower than we had hoped, it soon became clear that the rafters would not be rushed. The process of fitting together a whole bunch of angled pieces so that they all line up with each other is painstaking, to say the least. The actual raising of the rafters into place is not too bad, especially with the help of our neighbor Rick. Three people make the task very manageable. It is the assembly, cutting and nailing together that takes up most of our days. By the end of today we had six up, with one assembled on the deck. Anne is taking off tomorrow, and we hope to get four more in the air. Hope springs eternal.

Six rafters skyward

Setting roots, giving thanks

     I am a sucker for traditions, superstitions and rituals. I always throw salt over my shoulder when spilled. I love the ritual that comes with making tea from loose leaves and baking bread form scratch, or writing with a fountain pen. I relish the certain food and drink that is tied to specific times of the year—apple cider in the fall, fresh tomatoes in summer, and that first pint of stout that beckons winter onward. Things that hearken back to an older time when the pace of life wasn’t so hectic tend to warm my soul. They impart a sense of connectedness to something bigger than yourself. Traditions tie you to those who came before and will hopefully serve as a bridge to those who will follow you when you are gone.

    There is an old Scandinavian tradition where one nails a small evergreen to the high point of the building when framing is complete. It is a show of respect to the trees that went into the construction. It also serves as a symbol of the house’s roots and the roots that will be established by the family that will live there. I have been awaiting the time when I could nail my own evergreen to the peak and continue this time-honored tradition. That time was today, after the last rafter went into place, and the framing of our house was complete.

     True, we did it a bit different. We used a bunch of evergreen boughs, since evergreens are scarce on our land and we didn’t want to pull up a small tree. I screwed it into place instead of nailing it, since I was balanced on a ladder rather precariously and it was safer to do so. But the sentiment is there, and the feeling I get as I look up at the peak of our house and see the dark green branches waving against the blue sky can only be described as rooted. We are rooted to this place, this hillside. I am thankful to all of the things that have brought us this far, and await the time when traditions will be born within our four walls.

Boughs on high

Framed

B and W frame

Windows to the soul

     If the eyes are the windows to the soul, and the windows the eyes of a house, then does it follow that the soul of a house can be seen through its windows? I contemplated this and other lofty ideas (such as how do they get that filling into Twinkies, and what exactly is that filling in Twinkies, and why do I love it so?) as I worked on framing the window openings the last few days. It is meticulous work, as I made sure everything was perfectly plumb, level and square. This will result in smooth sailing when the time comes to install the windows later. It was fun to watch the views we will be seeing from our windows define themselves, like a sneak peek into what is to come. Almost like a movie trailer. If my window openings actually had a movie trailer, it might read something like this (put on your deep melodramatic voice and read aloud for optimal effect):

In a world of boundless vistas
Where eyes wander aimlessly
And minds cannot cope
One man
Dares to bring order to the chaos

This winter
Bring life back into focus
with
The Fenestrator

Do you see what he sees?

Windows to the wood

Windows to more wood