Little House on the Hillside

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
            
    
        
    



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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