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