Yesterday, at approximately 3:00pm, we were officially dried-in! Yah! The roof is covered in plywood and water proof membrane, all the windows are installed except for the master shower window which will be used to get sheetrock into the second floor, and all the exterior doors are in except for the screened porch (which isn’t built yet) and the front door. What a relief. Now the craziness really begins.

The plumbers and HVAC crews are busy drilling and cutting holes in our pristine walls and floors and they expect to be completed by end of next week. We meet with the electrician on Tuesday for a walkthrough and he starts work on Wednesday. I’m thinking, now, that the low-voltage wiring (which is my bailiwick) will start around the 16th, a couple weeks earlier than I anticipated. That means the foam insulation could happen on the 27th and sheetrock right after. And, between now and then, the framers still have several interior walls to complete and there’s that massive two-level deck and screened porch that needs built. Once that roof is on, look out! We might have a safe, dry, decent looking house to show for the Parade of Homes on October 10.

Other stuff that happened this week: The front yard (AKA “the tub”) was filled with compacted gravel for the driveway and subsoil/topsoil for the landscaped area. The boulders were placed on our sloped front yard. The propane tank was delivered and buried. And Steve built the bridge to the front door (less railings). Wow.

So far this week, things have really kicked into overdrive. The windows were delivered on Monday and installation started on Tuesday, the HVAC guys are cutting holes(!) in our floors, the plumbers are bringing in pipe and cutting more holes, and Jeff has started placing rocks and boulders on our front yard bank and filling in our tub with dirt, and Steve has started building our bridge. Oh, and the framers are still, yes still, working on finishing our roof. Wow! Things have shifted into overdrive.

Valerie has her bids back from three different places for the appliances and is ready to select…drumroll…Haywood Appliance to provide most of our appliances. They were the most responsive and have the best prices, except for a couple things that we’ll get at Lowes. We still have not received our cabinet quote. Valerie called about it, today, and we expected a reply but, nothing. Maybe they’re afraid to tell us?  I’ve been playing in the dirt with Jeff, moving rocks by hand to places that he can’t get to with his trackhoe and just being on-site to answer the sub’s questions about where things are planned to be located. UPS delivered eight rolls of wire (cat5, speaker, alarm, video) and I ordered two more of TV coax. I think by the time I’m done I’ll have nearly two miles of wire…

Our windows. Very nice! The dark brown color is perfect and two features we got on our casement windows were worth every extra penny: They are push out, meaning no crank. You just flip one latch and push the window out or pull it in – just like casements of 100 years ago before engineers overly complicated it with a crank. And the windows have built-in retractable screens. You just reach up and grab a wooden bar and pull down until the screen snaps in at the bottom. Unsnap it and it rolls back up. Neat.

Finally, Serena has a new best friend, Mika, the puppy that Caleb rescued from the litter that was abandoned on our street. They play for HOURS together. Although she looks like she’s killing Mika in the picture, below, they were just having fun, really, seriously.

Onto the pictures…

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Saturday was supposed to be the day we dug out under the future bridge to make it a more gradual slope and to place some gravel and landscape boulders. Steve wanted to get this done so he could build the bridge next week and Valerie and I wanted to be there to direct (more like approve) where the boulders would go. I also needed to be there to put the cable TV and phone lines in the to-be-dug trench that would be run with the water line under the boulders to the street. Well, although we showed up at 9:00 as scheduled, Jeff (excavator) didn’t get there until 11:00 and probably didn’t get the first scoop in the ground until 11:30. Our schedule went down hill (pun intended) from there when we realized that “while we’re at it” we shouldn’t just stop the copper pipe and cabling at the top of the hill, we might as well run it all the way to the water meter and cable box. Hmmm. Steve only brought 60′ of copper pipe and 40′ of conduit. I brought 40′ of conduit and few adapters. Not enough. We also decided to put a couple T’s, Y’s, and elbows in the drain pipe for the gutters and didn’t have enough of those, either. Poor Valerie had to make two trips to Lowes and one to Home Depot (via Chik-fil-A for lunch) since they were sold out of what we needed. Luckily the plumber, Tom, showed up around 1:00 as we were stretching out the roll of copper pipe along the street. His first words were, “Who’s the licensed plumber here?! I’m gonna call the shop steward!”

We ended up digging the ditch the whole way to the meter, all 119′ of it. How do I know it was 119′? Because the copper pipe comes in 60′ rolls (at $180/roll). Allowing for about 4″ into the crawlspace wall, we had less than 1′ left over at the meter. It was that close. By 5:30, the water line, two cable TV cables, and the phone cable were layed, buried, and covered. We also got 100′ of drainpipe buried; roughly half routed from the front yard to catch the gutters over the breezeway and the other half from under the front door to catch water from the rain chains. As a token of some success towards the day’s original plan, Jeff placed a single boulder under the front door. Hopefully more will follow on Monday.

Also on Saturday, as I mentioned earlier, Tom the plumber arrived and his crew started drilling holes for pipes. We spent about an hour confirming the tub/shower/sink/toilet locations (pay no attention to plans, they’re not correct) and playing Waterworks (the 1972 card game) trying to figure out how to get the pipes from the master bath down to the mechanical room. Tom used our architect’s name in a vain a couple times. We eventually figured out a solution that didn’t involve any structural changes. Hey, it all flows down hill, right? How hard could it be?

The pictures, below, are from Saturday. The first one is me admiring the ceiling of our breezeway. Nice work, Steve! The flag is flying over one of the few remaining holes in our roof. The star of beams and rafters is the peak over our bedroom—talk about difficult framing! And, the view of the back, looking up, is…a long way up. The last two are of Jeff teetering on the edge.

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We’re not dried-in yet, but we’re extremely close. They mostly just have the backside of the house to do. Thankfully, the weather has been dry this week and it’s forecast to be dry all of next week, too. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve seen the last of standing water on the living room floor.

Steve’s been putting in some hands-on time personally building the breezeway and the front porch. They’re beautiful. The framers were commenting today on how good they look. We’re at the point where we need to build the bridge leading to the front porch and before we can do that we need to get some gravel underneath and before that goes in we need to run the water, cable, and phone lines, and the drains for the gutters, and while Jeff is here with his trackhoe he might as well put in our landscape boulders and dig the propane tank hole, and… (that sentence was intentionally long so you’d get the gist of the project).

Anyway, Jeff came by this afternoon with his equipment and some boulders; not just any boulders, but nicely aged and weathered boulders from a farmer’s field about 20 minutes north of Asheville. They look great; most have moss growing on them so they are, indeed, from a field, not blasted out of the side a mountain. They’ll go on the hillside next to the bridge and in front of the office. We don’t have a landscape designer, yet, so we’re trusting Jeff to “place” them, with our direction, tomorrow morning and afternoon. Jeff’s working on Saturday because the woodpeckers (framers) will be off and out of his way. He started work, late today, digging out under the bridge and spreading gravel for the driveway. Adding 3′ of fill in the tub and bringing it up to level with the road really helped with the scale. It, thankfully, looks less like a castle.

Also happening, today, was my walkthrough with the HVAC guy. Oh, my poor head, trying to figure out the best (or in some cases, least of the worst) places to put the registers. We did some planning with our architect but until you actually have the house framed up and you start thinking about where you’ll put the furniture, you can’t know what works and what doesn’t. The proper place for all the supply registers is in the floor under the windows—unless you plan on putting furniture there. And, where can you possibly fit a 20″x20″ return register? HVAC man’s first choice was right under where we were going to hang the TV! Nope. And, how do we get vents into the master bedroom with its cathedral ceiling? After a long hour+ we finally settled on all the locations and he marked them with the biggest red Sharpie marker I’ve ever seen. Hopefully they’ll still be okay after I sleep on it and Valerie looks at the marks, tomorrow. At least there’s no “up skit” vent in front of the kitchen sink.

P.S. In one of the pictures, above, you’ll notice a framer’s speed square in the upper corner of the dining room. It’s stuck. It was apparently hanging there or being used and someone framed the temporary brace right over top. I tried prying it out but it wouldn’t budge. No worries, it won’t become a permanent part of the house. It’ll be freed when they remove the brace.

Valerie spent the last couple days researching and deciding on appliances and I finalized our orders for the rough-in plumbing fixtures. Pity the poor UPS (and Fed-Ex and freight drivers) who will be visiting Camp Bell over the next few months. The stuff is beginning to arrive!

The first appliance off the truck was the one that everyone, when hearing what it is, says, “Huh?” It’s an all-in-one (not a stackable) washer/dryer. It’s 24″ wide and fits under a counter. Yep, that’s right. Put your clothes in, press the button, and at the end of the cycle take them out and wear ‘em. Those fancy Europeans have been doing this for years but the technology is finally coming to America. Our unit is going in the pantry (AKA Costco Room) so we won’t be using it for clothes so much as for dish towels, shoes, and dog blankets. It’s a real space saver and it makes perfect sense…so much so that we’re questioning buying a separate ”old fashioned” washer/dryer combo for the master closet.

Also arriving this week and next are all the plumbing rough-in parts, the stuff that needs to go in the walls or the mechanical room. Shower valves, water heater, water filters, steam shower generator, tub and shower pans, and more. I even ordered and received the toilets because www.faucetdirect.com had free freight shipping on orders over $1500. Yah, we were over that. They matched the lowest price I could find so I ordered them up, too. The garage bay is filling up quickly and I think we’ll be parking the Jeep in the driveway, soon.

As I walked towards our house this evening I thought back to the ol’ college prank of wrapping some poor freshman’s entire lot of earthly possessions in tin foil. In our case, it looks like someone wrapped our entire house in plastic, and they did, only this plastic is Tyvek — and that’s a good thing. I just wish it was all over our roof. We are still a few days away from being dried in and I can’t wait. We had over an inch of rain, yesterday, and a lot of it was still standing on the floor, this afternoon. Valerie broomed as much as she could out the front door, but it’s impossible to get it all and the floors were still soaking wet when we left. Nothing we can do but hope for a few days of dry weather and a productive week of roof framing. Any day now. Any day now.

 Speaking of our front door, we now have one. Actually, we just have a front opening but we also now have a front porch and the beginnings of a roof overhead. Remember that whole locost post exercise from a week ago? I am sooooo glad we went with cedar. The posts framing the front porch and the support beam overhead have been raised and boy do they look nice…straight, smooth…and they smell good, too. Valerie swiped the cut ends to make cedar planks for grilling salmon. I think the first meal we have in our new house should be Pacific Northwest salmon from Bluewater Seafood grilled on cedar scraps from our front porch.

This week Steve, working on his own personal “little” project, framed up the breezeway floor. We can now enter our house through the future back door into the mud room. There’s a pile of cedar beams sitting on the street (protected with plastic from the rain) to frame up the breezeway roof and the bridge to the front door. Those should be happening soon.

Last Wednesday we met with our Kitchen designer from Nova Kitchen and Bath. That was a gruelling and mentally taxing couple of hours. Although Valerie has meticulously planned her kitchen down to what will go in what drawer and cupboard, it was still a lot of work to review it all and then outline our desires for the vanities, basement wetbar, and all the window seats. Wait?! How many window seats do we have? That’s a lot of cats! The scary thing is, I have absolutely no idea what $ number it’s all going to add up to. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Also this week, Valerie spent several days researching appliances and preparing a “request for quote” that she’s sending out to the local appliance stores. Forget stainless, white, or black? We are long past those choices. Should the microwave door swing left or down? Where are the controls located for the oven? Is the freezer’s ice maker on the left or right? How many cubic feet per minute does the exhaust fan move? Is the counter depth refrigerator truly counter depth (25″) or do they lie in their spec’s? Why does a small refrigerator cost twice as much as a large one. Etc. Etc. Thank goodness for the Internet. Otherwise, we’d be buying appliances like the salesman at a local store suggested to Valerie. His first question to her was, “What brand do you want?” Who cares?! I suppose that to some people, brand matters, but not to us. Features first. Consumer Reports rating, price, reliability, in the middle. Brand is last on the list. Sorry Viking, Wolf, and Sub Zero.

Finally, this set of temporary stairs was sitting next to the house “leading” to a window in the stairwell. It reminded me of an M.C. Escher drawing.

August 17 is now flag day on Town Mountain. The framing crew raised a US flag over our house, this morning. Pretty cool!

Steve and I had lots to discuss this morning. The biggie is that it’s time for me to start ordering plumbing and electrical rough-in supplies — tubs, shower valves, bath fans, steam units, washing machine pans, generator transfer switches, etc. etc. We’re running several weeks behind to be ready for the Parade of Homes in October and I think he’s wanting to make it up by having the “trades” (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and me doing the low voltage) really go go go as soon as we’re dried in. Tonight and tomorrow I’ll be burning up the Internet placing orders. Credit card limits be damned!

On Friday afternoon, Valerie and I went out to the house to see how things were progressing. It was raining and she wanted to get some precise measurements of the kitchen so we spent more time walking around the interior than we had in the past. We were standing in the living room eyeing up where the bookshelves would be, how we might put lights on top of the beams, and whether we need to buy a sectional sofa…when Valerie thought of turning everything around.

The plans for our living room are were for a single large room that’s divided about 75% for the living room and 25% for the office with a free-standing wall separating the two areas. We planned to put built-in shelves on both sides of the wall; art shelves and a TV on the living room side and bookshelves on the office side. The couch and chairs would be along the outer walls with their backs to the windows.

Valerie was standing about where the TV would be when she had an epiphany. If we rotated the couch and TV walls one quarter turn and moved the art shelves to the opposite wall around the windows, we would be able to see the great views through the dining and living room windows while still being able to see the TV. We would also have better privacy from people looking in from the street and be able to see into the kitchen. I don’t know why we, or our architect, hadn’t thought of it, before, but once she said it, the better layout was obvious. She got a kiss for such an awesome idea! Luckily, the framers hadn’t built the dividing wall, yet, and although it would have been fine where it was planned, we have the chance to move it a few inches to make the office a little bigger and adjust for furniture instead of shelves along the wall. And, since we don’t locate the furnace registers until late next week, we’re good. We (actually Valerie) caught this early and we can make a simple and no-cost change that will make our future home even better! There’s no question which one of us is going to get the new primo seat on the couch. Sorry, Serena.

Thursday morning I was at the house bright and early to go to the lumber mill with Steve to look at the locust posts (see my previous entry). As I drove up Town Mountain Road I had a déjà vu moment—I was driving into a marine layer. No, wait. I wasn’t in Seattle. I was in Asheville. We don’t have marine layers, here. It was just low clouds/fog hanging over Town Mountain. The further up I drove, the denser it got. As I pulled onto Vance Gap Road and drove towards our house, it felt just like “home.”

Our stairwell construction is underway. Those are the longest (20′) straightest 2×6’s I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know they could grow trees like that. They’re definitely not locust! After looking at the recent work, though, I need to call Steve about the lower window in the stairwell. As I walked up to the house I immediately saw that it’s lower (by about 1.5″) than the window in the Costco room (that career in quality assurance and testing is a real curse). I looked at the window order sheet and, thankfully, we ordered windows the same height, it’s just framed wrong. Easy fix. Steve says that we should be roofed in by Friday, so this coming week will be a busy one, finishing the stairwell, completing the rafters over it and sheathing everything. Once that’s all done, I wonder how we’ll get to the second floor, or the lower level? We won’t be able to crawl through the living room roof. Time for some temporary stairs.

I also talked to the HVAC guy on Thursday. Options and decisions, Oh my. We’re going with two heatpumps with propane furnace backups. One is large and will handle the main level and the lower level. The other one, a small unit, will be for the master level. We will have three thermostats, one on each floor. The lower level will be zoned with automatic dampers in the duct work so we can essentially turn off the heating/cooling when its unoccupied (most of the time) and only turn it on when we have guests or it’s poker night. Because most of our floors will be hardwood, we will have a humidifier that runs in the winter to keep them from cracking and keep us more comfortable (no static electricity). And, because the house will be sealed up so tight with spray foam insulation, we will have a fresh air system that occasionally pulls in some fresh air to keep the house from getting stuffy. In two weeks the HVAC guy will come by and do a walk-through with us to decide where the vents will be located. Valerie’s main requirement is that we don’t have an “up skirt” vent in front of the kitchen counter like we had in our first house in Johnson City.

Steve and I went out to Bee Tree Lumber in Swannanoa this morning to look at their locust posts. We were very disappointed. We need a couple 14 and 12 foot 6″x6″s for the bridge leading to the front door and several 8 footers for the breezeway. They had lots of posts that long but, out of maybe 30 we looked at, we could only find 2 or 3 that were straight enough and defect-free enough to use. Some of the longest ones had at least a 4″ bend in them from end to center! Others looked like they were cut from most of the tree and had bark on the outside. Since they were rough cut and dimensionally larger than we needed we asked about planing them down to standard 6×6 size and the guy looked at us (with his one eye) like we were crazy. Apparently you don’t/can’t plane locust beams that large—they are what they are. We still may be able to use locust for the front porch and bridge decking as they had quite a bit of 2×6’s that could be milled to standard size deck boards. On the way back, Steve ordered all the posts, in cedar. Straight. True. In stock at the lumber yard. They’ll be delivered tomorrow. It’s easy not being green.

The framing crew’s been busting arse to get our house dried in. They’ve move up to the master level and spent Friday, Monday, and today building the walls and raising part of the roof. Since the roofline continues over the stairwell, they need to build that, soon, and started erecting some scaffolding to make it easier. As it is, the only way up to the master level is via ladder though the rafters of the living room and across about 10′ of open joists. I’m cool with playing monkey, but Valerie won’t be able to admire the tippy top views from our master bedroom and toilet room(!) until she has at least some temporary stairs to get there.

On Thursday I’m going to a local lumber mill to check out some 6″x6″x12′ locust posts. If they look good that’s what we’ll use for the bridge and breezeway supports. The alternatives are cedar, fir, and pressure treated southern yellow pine. Since these posts will be on at the front of the house, our architect wants us to use something “special” — and that’s not pressure treated pine. Cedar and fir would work but they would be shipped all the way from the far-away lands of  Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia. Locust is the hardest, longest lasting, wood in North America and since it’s cut and milled locally, it’s the “green” thing to do…low transportation overhead, local jobs, etc. We will have to pay for extra saw blades, though. Rumor is that the wood is so hard it “eats them up.”

Also up this week, a meeting with the heating and cooling contractor on Thursday.

I’m busy scraping stucco and paint off our chimney and Valerie’s stripping and re-painting our front door so here are a few pics, less commentary, to keep you up-to-date on the house construction. So far, so good. The big decision going on, now, is “cedar, fir, or black locust posts for the bridge and the breezeway?” Maybe we’ll get the master level finished and the stairwell started next week.

I’d like to say that while our new home is being built that we’re sitting around, enjoying lots of free time, and leafing through magazines picking out paint colors and faucets. Sadly, we’re not. Good ol’ Camp Bell is a fixer upper (we knew that) and we’re heavy into manual labor to get it ready to sell after we move out.

Valerie is working through the windows and doors, one by one. They’re in sorry shape—after 35 years, the polyurethane (or probably varnish) has deteriorated and the wood is water stained and ugly. She’s meticulously sanding and wire brushing all the sashes, sills, jambs, mullions, aprons, stools, and who knows what other window parts. She then primes the wood with Zinsser BIN Primer, a shellac and alcohol based paint that is the ONLY thing she’s found that covers the wood, and then applies a couple coats of white enamel paint. Add a few hours to carefully scrape off the paint from around each of the panes (or is it pains?) and re-hang new blinds and it’s a three-day job to “fix” a pair of windows. But, when she’s done, WOW, do they look nice. It’s a huge improvement and will definitely help sell the house. The last few days she’s needed a break from the monotony of doing-yet-another-window and has rehabbed the back door and is now working on the front door.

I’ve been working in the basement and garage. Camp Bell is a two-story house but the main living area is on the second floor. When you pull into the garage (under the living room and kitchen) you enter the house through an unfinished basement. You walk down a long dark hallway, turn, open a door, and go up stairs to the family room. Until recently, that basement hallway had a single light bulb and a single light switch on one end, the sheetrock was in terible condition (the basement had been flooded at some point), there was zero insulation in the walls, the floor was bare concrete, the door at the bottom of the stairs opened into the hall and would shear off the light bulb unless it was a mini, and on and on and on. Oh, and you had to have the exterior light turned on for the garage door openers to operate. A potential buyer would walk in there and instantly have a negative impression. My job is to fix it. I just gutted all the moldy sheetrock, cleaned up the electrical, and hung 12 sheets of new sheetrock. I’m also framing up a space for a potential/future bathroom/laundry. I am going to pay someone to tape/mud/finish the sheetrock. Ron don’t do that.

Also going on…the stucco is peeling off our chimney and I’ve hired a stucco guy to refinish it. I’m also getting someone to come out and rebuild the top of the chimney which is totally deteriorated and is the reason that water is seeping in and causing the stucco to come off.

Other stuff to do…scrub the vinyl siding (it’s supposed to be white but is more like a light gray from dirt), paint the garage doors and railings, paint under the front balcony, cut down a dieing cherry three in the front yard, plant a few shrubs, completely redo the master bath, paint the kitchen and give it a new vinyl floor, and probably a few more things I forgot. End of October is a good goal. I’m gonna go cry now with Valerie.

Wow. We didn’t make it out to the lot house yesterday and lookie what they did! They essentially finished the garage, raised the roof over the living room and office and started work on the master level. Pretty dang nice!

Last Friday, when they had the garage roof just partially complete, I was having a bit of a angst over the amount of wall space above the one garage door. It just seemed too large. It looked okay on the front elevation drawing but in real-life looked like the roof pitch was wrong or someone mis-measured or something. However, now that it’s framed up and the roof is complete, it looks okay. Eventually, there will be a fake window above the door and the peak will be shakes over board-and-batten siding, below. That will help break it up and add interest. I joked with the architect that we could put a big Texas Star over the door. Not funny. After it’s all done, if we think it needs it, we could have a local art welder make some sort of “artsie twiggy thing” to put overhead…or maybe a big letter P…

The amazing progress was in the living room. It has rafters! Now it really looks like a room and you can definately get a sense of the space. Yep, that’s 14′ from floor to peak. There’s still a wall to be built that separates the living room from the office that will have an entertainment center (shelves, TV, etc) on the living side and book shelves on the office side. In the picture, below, the wall will go directly under the collar-tie that’s second in from the end. What’s a collar tie? That’s the beam that runs from one side of the roof (left in the picture) to the other side (right) and ties the two walls together. Without them, the walls would bow out and the roof would collapse in on itself. Typically, collar ties sit directly on the walls, but mechanically they can be up to 1/3 of the way towards the peak. We elected to move them to the 1/3rd position and, now that we see them, really like that look. Caleb explained that it was a bit of a challenge to frame them that way, especially since they didn’t fall right on the rafters and he had to build supports for them, but agreed that they look pretty nice—and they will look really nice once the finish carpenter boxes them in and stains them cherry!

P.S. Caleb says that the puppies are doing fine. His, Mika, the one with the broken leg, is a real sweatie.

P.S.S. Blue Water Seafood just opened up their Asheville store about a mile from our future home, right next to City Bakery! We stopped in for a late late lunch and to check out their fresh fish. Mmmm Mmmm. It’s like a mini-Pike Place Market. You’d think we planned it. We’ll be eating lots of seafood in our new home.

This past week the framers made great progress on the garage, raising the roof and nearly drying it in—which is a good thing because it’s rained nearly every day. Welcome to the south and those afternoon thunderstorms. Unfortunately, because of the rain, they did have to cut a few work days short. One afternoon we had a wicked lightning storm, I’d say the worst I’ve ever experienced. FLASH-BOOM-POW! I was in the basement and Valerie was upstairs. She called me up because it was so amazing. We watched it for a good 20 minutes from our front porch. WOW! Incredible. They did not need to be working in that.

On Friday they started putting up the rafters over the Living Room. That task was delayed a day because Steve had to personally fix a rather large boo-boo. Someone misread the plans and built the Living Room ceiling to 9′ when it was supposed to be 10′. He could have fixed it by simply building a 1′ wall on top of the existing wall but that’s the cheap way out and not structurally sound. So, he cut out the top plate, ripped out all the 2×6 studs between the windows, and put in longer ones. He wasn’t in a good mood on Thursday so I stayed clear.

We did go out a couple times and manned the broom in an attempt to sweep out the standing water but it was a losing battle because it rained again the next day. The water did reveal some low spots that I need to talk to Steve about…next week.

The rest of the crew was busy putting up OSB on the exterior walls and covering it with Tyvek. Next week maybe we’ll see the master suite get built.

There are two alternate titles to this post: 1)I’m Glad We Didn’t Get There First and 2)Asheville is a Small Town.

On Wednesday evening, Valerie and I went out to the lot to see what happened that day on the house. While we were there we talked to Cindy and Dave, our future neighbors, who were out walking their dogs. Cindy told us that when the framers showed up for work that morning they found a box at our street’s gate with five abandoned puppies. Someone had dumped them. They were only a few weeks old, malnourished, scared, and one had a very injured back leg.  She said that the crew cared for them during the day and that Caleb, the head framer, took them home.

Two minutes after Cindy and Dave left, I got a call from Shelle, our real estate agent. She’s all happy and bubbly and says that she was just at the vet (our vet, too, Animal Hospital of North Asheville) to pick up her cat and that she met someone we know—Caleb. He was there, with all five puppies, getting them checked out and treated. Shelle is a real animal person and was so excited about the puppies, sad and angry that someone just dumped them, but happy that Caleb took it upon himself to get them cared for. What’s really weird is that all of this, our learning of the puppies through Cindy, Caleb taking the puppies to our vet, and Shelle happening to be there at the same time, all happened within just a few minutes. We don’t know that many people, yet. This is a small town!

The good news is that the puppies appear to be okay. They are about 5-6 weeks old, were neglected, and need some TLC. The injured puppy has a broken back leg and the vet set it and put it in a cast. The cast will come off in two weeks and soon after the puppy, a girl, should be okay. Caleb has adopted her and named her Mika, sort of a shorted version of Makita. Yah! Jimmy, one of the other framers, has adopted one of the boys, the feisty one. He doesn’t have a name yet. Caleb has made arrangements to give the other three puppies to Brother Wolf Animal Rescue after he fosters them for a couple weeks and gets them back to health. And, what’s really cool is that our vet is donating their services for free! This is something that they just do. Very nice.

Now, I know the question you’re about to ask…and the answer is, no. Maybe someday, but not now. But, Serena was very good with Mika and her brother when they all met on Thursday. Cindy told us that our street is, unfortunately, a magnet for abandoned pets. This wasn’t the first time, and probably won’t be the last.  Shame on the people who did this, but it’s turning out very well!

Valerie has a little garden here at Camp Bell and we’re celebrating something that we haven’t been able to appreciate in many many years — homegrown tomatoes! If you’re checking in from the Pacific Northwest, those are the red things in the pictures, below. Mmmm Mmmm Good!

This past week the framers finished up a few of the main level interior walls and built the master suite floor—joists, beams, and plywood. Walking around on the main level in the foyer, dining, and kitchen, you really get the feeling that it’s all becoming a house. It’s exactly as we imagined it, and I think, with the awesome views from seemingly everywhere, actually better!

On Thursday evening, Dad and I got the ladder out and climbed up to the master level. I’m not afraid of heights but I have to admit…my knees were weak when I peered down to take some pictures. Yikes, we’re in nosebleed territory!

The lumber for the garage was delivered on Friday and Steve says that by the end of next week it will be completed and dried-in, courtesy of a second framing crew! There are two other things need to get done next week. We need to nail down (pun intended) our decking material. We’ve decided on a heat-treated poplar product called Cambia. Unfortunately, it’s not distributed in North Carolina. The closest lumber yard that carries it is 450 miles away in Manasses, VA. Our lumber supplier has been trying to work out a way to get it delivered and, so far, has not had any luck. If we don’t make progress next week I’m going to rent a U-HaulPenske truck and drive up to Manasses with my credit card.

The other thing I need to resolve is getting a cable/Internet hookup. I will sleep better at night if we have a couple security cameras during (and after) construction. There are too many teenagers walking the street and partying at the I-240 cut after dark. We’ve recently found a shot glass in our house and beer cans and bottles thrown out the back windows so we know they’re coming inside. The cable company normally won’t install service to a house under-construction but I met with the engineering coordinator last week and think we may have worked out a compromise. Fingers crossed. If we can make this happen then I can order and install an internet camera system and look-in (and call the police if necessary) from Camp Bell.

On Monday, Mom and Dad drove down from PA for a visit. It’s a long 10-hour drive but they made it just fine with a couple stops for snacks and gas. It’s been over a year since Dad was here. He helped me unload the first trailer load of our stuff last May. When he last saw Camp Bell, all the interior walls were pink. Mom’s never seen it (she’s just heard us tell all the horror stories) and both were impressed with what we’ve accomplished. Several times they said “this is a cute house”. I hope that’s what the potential buyers say next spring!

Although my Dad had intentions of helping us work this week, we needed a break from all of it and decided to just play tourists.

Tuesday evening we did another Chef’s Challenge dinner between Curras Nuevo Cuisine and Cucina 24. I have to admit, I was a bit stressed over this. Valerie and I are pretty adventurous as to what we eat. Mom and Dad, not so much. I imagined them staring at their plates, looking up at me, looking back down at their plates and shaking their heads. Luckily, the secret ingredient was corn and the chefs stuck to pretty normal fare. We had duck, two different ways, and, although Mom and Dad’s only knowledge of duck was that they had “heard it was greasy,” what we had was far from that and was VERY good. Dad passed on the scallops and the white pancetta but Mom ate everything, cleaned her plates actually, and they both said the food was very good. I was impressed. They’re branching out! Oh, and Curras won. Yah!

Wednesday we did the Biltmore — all of it, except for the winery; all the floors of the house, carriage house, arboretum, conservatory, Antler Village, farm, etc. Whew, I was tired after all that, so I’m sure they were, too.

Thursday we took them to 12 Bones for lunch. Friday we did Bele Chere. Intermixed in all that were several trips to the new house to check on the progress. On Saturday morning, they heading back to PA. They arrived safely and will have lots of stories to tell their friends about our new stompin’ grounds and future home.

I think we pretty much kept the local concrete plant in business for the month of May and they were probably wondering what happened to us. Luckily, for them, on Friday we had our garage floor poured. We’re talking a drop in the bucket compared to what was needed for our foundation, but, I’m starting to believe that you can never have too much concrete.

Tom and crew were there bright and early on Friday morning. By the time we arrived at 9:00am they already had much of the concrete in place and were beginning to smooth it out. It seems that most of these guys now have their own pump trucks and they make quick work of getting the concrete to where it’s needed. No shovels, no wheelbarrows, just point and shoot. Funny thing, the manufacturer of their pump is Putzmeister. I can image a bunch of marketing types sitting around a conference table, or more likely a pub table, thinking up that name.

Another cool tool they used was a 6′ long trowel that’s attached to a weedwacker engine—an after market modification, I assume. The engine doesn’t really do anything but vibrate the long blade, but by using it they can settle the concrete and remove any bubbles while they smooth it out. Ingenious. Tim the Tool Man Taylor would be proud.

We had two things done that make for a better concrete job. At the entrance of each bay the concrete is “cut-in” about ¾” deep, 10″ long, and 9′ wide. It’s basically a recess that’s slightly lower than the concrete around it. The garage door will close into this recess and it prevents any blowing rain from running into the garage. The garage floor is already sloped, but this is an added measure of insurance. We also had the concrete immediately sealed. This will help it cure since it will dry more slowly and it will keep any construction dirt and dust from getting embedded into it. And, future oil drips shouldn’t penetrate and should just wipe up. The downside is that it can never have an epoxy coating put on (since it won’t stick) but I don’t think that will be necessary after seeing the beautiful finish these guys did. We’ll be calling them back to do our driveway!

On the framing front, most of the interior main-level walls are done! The only one left is the Living/Office dividing wall. Next week I expect the garage to be built, maybe some work on the deck, and plywood to go on the exterior walls. I’m not sure if this will be a 4-day work-week or not. Fri/Sat/Sun is Asheville’s mega-downtown-street-arts-crafts-music-food-party, Bele Chere. Mom and Dad are coming to visit and we’ll be there.

Get out the mallets! We have a steelpan! Okay, maybe not a musical steelpan (AKA steel drum) but I’m sure if you hit it hard enough you could play a one-note reggae tune. What we do have is the steel pan for under our garage floor. On Monday and Tuesday they framed the garage floor and today they put down the steel pan, complete with rebar. It looks like they’re ready to tie all the rebar together and perhaps, pour the concrete floor on Friday.

It’s so nice to see a metal pan with rebar in it, one that slopes 2″ from back to front so that rain water and melting snow dripping on the floor from the cars will run towards the doors. Our Seattle garage was just concrete poured directly onto plywood that didn’t slope. It was cracked and settled in the center. Every winter, without fail, we would have water dripping onto the ceiling tiles of the shop, below, sagging and staining them. I replaced several tiles before we sold the house. I wonder if the new owners discovered the problem…if not, they eventually will. A wise man once said, “When you pay for quality, you only cry once.”

The main level of the house is really taking shape. The kitchen window wall is framed up and WHAT A VIEW Valerie will have from her prep counter! The front door wall and several interior walls are up, too. I was out there, tonight, with my copy of the plans and a measuring tape playing Mr. Quality Assurance. It’s a bad habit, but they’re doing a great job and I can’t complain. I’ve gone from “What have I done?” to “I think Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.”

"Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

---Bob Marley

I always thought that Bigfoot/Sasquatch was a Pacific Northwest creature living deep in the Cascade Mountain forests. His lore is so well known out there that Seattle’s pro basketball team has a Bigfoot mascot named Squatch. However, just when we thought it was safe to go into the North Carolina forests, we hear about a recent sighting of the big hairy guy just 53 miles from Asheville. After reading the news article and listening to the radio interview with the man who saw him, I think there are multiple reasons not to venture too far outside the city limits…I think I hear banjo music…

Bigfoot has apparently gone blond and lives in North Carolina. At least according
to Cleveland County resident Tim Peeler, who told local authorities of his encounter
with the 10-foot tall creature, reports the Charlotte Observer.

Peeler thought he was calling coyotes, but instead got surprised and frightened by
what, or who, came a-calling. "Instead of them, him," Peeler, who lives in a rural
area near South Mountains State Park, told NBC affiliate WCNC NewsChannel 36.
"This thing was 10-foot tall. He had beautiful hair," said Peeler, adding that it
looked like the creature had six fingers on each hand.

"I come out here and rough-talked him and run him off," continued Peeler. But then
the creature returned. Luckily the encounter ended safely when Peeler got a bit more aggressive.
"I said, 'Get away from here! Get! Get!' and he went right back up that path again."

Sgt. Mark Self of the Cleveland County sheriff's office responded to the suspicious person call placed
by Peeler. "It scared me," said Self. "This is just totally blowing my mind that they even brought it
back up," adding that the Sasquatch legend has been in the county since the 1970s.

"It doesn't bother me now -- I don't think there's anything to it," Self said. Still, the sheriff's
office plans to continue its routine patrols of the area. "If we see something, we’ll try to capture
it and take it into custody," he added.

So campers and hikers visiting the state park, one of North Carolina’s least-developed recreational sites,
be forewarned -- you might want to plan on carrying a big stick, and leaving the coyote caller at home.

-- Kelly Burgess, LA Times

Below is a radio interview with Tim Peeler, the guy who saw Bigfoot, by Seattle radio personality, Dori Monson. I have no idea how Dori kept from laughing.

Serena LOVES to swim, especially doing the “dock dog” thing, jumping into the water to retrieve sticks. She’s part cattle dog and they aren’t known for swimming but the other part of her must be Lab becuse she’s quite the jumper, er, belly flopper. Here are two videos of her, this morning, playing in the Swannanoa River at Azalea Park in Asheville. There were two little girls swimming in the same pool and they had a great time with Serena. Listen carefully at the very end of the second video after I say “Good Girl.” Serena made sure I got cooled off.

It’s been a wall building frenzy at 380 Vance Gap Forest. Despite the heat and humidity (90’s are unusual for Asheville, so they tell us) the framers continue to build our house higher and higher. So far this week they’ve framed up the shop (under the garage) and a few of the exterior walls on the main levels. We can now look out our future living, office, and dining room windows! Wow, nice views! They also started on the deck, framing up the joists that will form the breezeway between the lower level and the shop. There’s still some interior wall work to be done on the lower level, but it’s really taking shape and becomming a house.

We’ve been busy looking at color choices for our rock, board-and-batten, wall shakes, stucco, and concrete paint. I think we’ve got it figured out—until this afternoon when we look at more samples. At least Steve, our builder, likes the colors, so they can’t be too bad.

And…we had our first visitors this week! Valerie’s sister Linda, Steve, Sarah, and Sarah’s friend, Allison, are on a two-week south-east grand tour. They started out in Indiana, did some sight seeing in KY, stopped for a couple days in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, then dropped by beautiful Camp Bell on Sunday. We went to see the Asheville fireworks from Cindy and Dave’s lawn (they live above where we’re building and have a drop-dead view of the city and the fireworks). Valerie went with Linda, Steve, Sarah, and Allison to tour the Biltmore on Monday. On Tuesday the die-hard travelers left for Charlotte to go to Wallyworld Carowinds and a water park and from thre are headed to Myrtle Beach for a few more days. They might stop by again on their way back. If the timing’s right, we’re going to Ribfest on Sunday. Whew. It makes me tired just writing about it!

Another good week of progress. The main level’s floor is 95% done. They just have some plywood around the edges to cut off. The lower level still needs the bathrooms framed in and furring strips attached to the concrete stairwell walls, but that’s minor work. Oh, and they also need to tear out a small wall. They got over zealous with the 2×4’s and nailer and built a wall where the bunk room’s door should be. Maybe they think it’s a safe room? By the end of day on Friday, the end of week three of framing, we had our first floor dance hall!

The framers have had to work around some not-so-perfect concrete walls. All things considered, I can’t complain and I’m pleasantly surprised that they’re as close to plan as they are. My worst fears of them being totally in the wrong place or being way out of plumb weren’t realized. The worst error is in the back (thankfully) where a couple feet of concrete tips in about 2″. The framers set the sill plate where it should be—which puts part of it hanging out over thin air. Between the stucco guy eventually building out the wall and the decking covering it up, no one will ever know. Several places in the front are out of line or plumb a 1/2″ here, 3/4″ there. But, all of those places will eventually be covered with stone and can easily be hidden with a little more or less mortar behind the rocks. No problémo.

Speaking of stone…we’ll need to pull the trigger soon on our choice. We’ve decided on the Eldorado Stone brand, probably a mountain ledge stone. There are multiple color choices and we’ve spent several hours staring at them in the showrooms. On Wednesday, we’ll pick up some samples to take out to the lot and look at “in the wild” along with our siding, trim, and roof color choices. Big decision, and once it’s made, there’s no going back. It’s not like paint.

The other big decision is what the deck will be. Maintenance is a big thing with me (I want to enjoy this house, not work on it all the time) so I don’t want standard pressure treated southern yellow pine deck boards. They look good the first year you put them down, but, unless you are religions about cleaning, staining, and sealing them every year, they will warp, crack, split, and quickly look nasty. We’ll have 1500sf of deck and it would be a huge ongoing effort to keep it looking good. Composites (Trex, etc) reduce the maintenance needs but none of them have met our standards for look and feel. The brands that are plastic mixed with wood fibers look fake and scratch easily. The brands that are 100% plastic look like, well, plastic. Ipe (pronounced Eepay), a Brazilian hardwood, is really nice, but it’s very $$ and has that whole chopping-down-the-rain-forest issue around it. I’m looking at a new product called Cambia that’s a heat-treated poplar. It has a nice brown amber color that resembles a tropical hardwood and, per the literature, has all the benefits of a composite but is a real local wood grown in sustainable, managed, forests. It’s not sold in North Carolina, yet, but is sold in Virginia. I’m working with the company, there, to get a sample. If we like it, I may be making a U-Haul run in a couple weeks.

Here are some pictures of the week’s progress…

They’re making steady progress on the lower level. They still have some framing to do around the bathrooms and the stairwell but I think they ran out of 2×4’s and 2×6’s. Until more get delivered, they set the large beams that support the main level and began sheathing the exterior walls. They’ve also started notching out deck support posts and attaching the brackets to the concrete footings. Lots going on at once.

Last week we ordered the windows. This week’s task is figuring out the exterior doors. I’m ashamed to say that we’ll have eight of them. Yikes. Front, Garage, Shop, Screened Porch, Mud Room, Unfinished Room, Lower Deck, and Upper Deck. I can foresee lots of bedtime pillow talk, “Honey, did you lock X,Y,Z doors when you came in this afternoon?” Maybe we should invest in remotely lockable doors so we can press one button… Anyway, the big door question is metal, fiberglass, or fir? Metal and fiberglass are better insulated. Metal’s inexpensive but it dents. Fiberglass is more $$ and can be painted or stained but it doesn’t come in the style we want. Fir does come in the style we want but is a poor insulator and will require more frequent painting than fiberglass. I’m all about low maintenance on this house so it’s a tough call. We need to talk to Steve and visit Home Depot and Lowes to look at samples before we decide.

And, you know that dangerous building/remodeling phrase, “While you’re at it…“? Well, we gave Steve the go-ahead to frame up the unfinished room in the lower level. It’s sort of an orphan pass-through room that leads from the family room to the lower deck and to the shop. It’s 10′x13′ and is listed as unfinished on the plans. There’s no closet (so it can’t be considered a bedroom) and no windows, but there is a door to the outside. So, while we’re at it…we decided to put glass in the exterior door and to stud-out the walls. I imagine we’ll later decide to sheetrock the walls and continue the wood floor into it…while we’re at it. It’ll make the perfect bunk room for overflow guests/kids. For tax assessment reasons we’d rather not call it a bedroom, but when we eventually sell the place (in 40 years or so) we can easily add a closet and make it legit. We don’t want to repeat a painful mistake…

Greenwashing is the practice of describing a product as environmentally friendly when, in reality, it’s “green-ness” is highly debatable. Compact florescent bulbs are one example. Yes, they use much less electricity than incandescent bulbs, but they are made with mercury and must be properly recycled and almost require a hazmat cleanup if broken.  Bamboo flooring is another example. Bamboo is a renewable grass that grows quickly vs. local oak and maple trees, but because of its popularity, some Chinese companies are clear-cutting forests to plant it, using child labor to harvest it, and then shipping it via huge container ships thousands of miles across the ocean. Green? Maybe, maybe not, it depends on your definition of green.

Enter solar hot water heating. Way back in 1977, I entered a science fair in Pittsburgh with a model solar house. It was a crude little thing that pumped water up to the roof, dripped it down over black corrugated metal, returned it to a large tank surrounded by rock in the basement, and, if I remember the resulting heat gain, would eventually coddle the home’s occupants. It proved a point, though, that you could indeed get lots of energy from the sun for heating hot water. I won a couple awards, too.

Solar technology has come a long way since then, but it still works on the same basic concept. During the design phase of our house we left open the possibility of adding a solar hot water system to provide our hot water. In North Carolina, with a good southern exposure, solar can easily provide 100% of your hot water needs, even in the winter. The cost for such a system? Our architect has a saying, “How much can you afford to save?” What he means is, how much money are you prepared to spend now to save money in the future? A typical hot water heater, installed, is about $300. The average annual cost to heat water for a two person household is $400. A solar system that would provide 100% of our hot water would cost…$6,500 before tax credits and $3,400 after tax credits. Is it worth it to spend $3,400 now to save $400/year for the next 20 years (the expected life of the system)? Payback would be in 9 years. After that, hot water would be free, essentially saving $400/year. Not bad. If you assume that the cost of energy will continue to rise and/or you believe global warming is real and caused by pumping CO2 into the air then going solar looks even better. I’m not ready to commit, just yet, but it does appear to have potential.

Now, to the greenwashing. When I talked to the solar salesman he said that he would also quote a system that had an extra solar panel, an extra tank, and a “booster coil” that would go in the cold-air return duct of our furnace. In the winter, once our water heater was at the right temp, the excess hot water from the solar panel would be pumped into this “booster coil” to preheat the air and, ultimately, reduce our home heating bill. The theory is, don’t throw away the excess heat; dump it into your house. The cost for these add-ons: $4,000 before tax credits and $2,000 after.

If you’ve read the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking you know all about how we make snap judgments. Our brains can work through thousands of criteria and make a decision without us realizing it. Sometimes you just know the answer without knowing how you know the answer. I was dubious that this booster coil thing was the real-deal. It just sounded hokie. So, I asked him, politely, to PROVE IT, send me the calculations that will show how many BTUs this thing would actually put into our house. I figured, hey, you’re selling it, you must know if it works.

A couple days later he emails me a page of calculations and a long disclaimer saying that they had to make lots of assumptions about our hot water usage, daily temperatures, furnace efficiency, etc. Fine, I would think that these should all be pretty well established numbers, but, whatever. So, what was the final answer? Each year the booster coil would save us 421kWh of electricity. Wow! Four hundred twenty one thousand watt hours! That’s a lot of electricity, right? Ah, no, not so much. In North Carolina (and most of the US) the average cost per kilowatt hour is 10 cents. So, the average net savings would be a whopping $42/year. A $2000 investment to save $42/year!? Payback would take over 40 years! To put it in perspective, I ran these numbers: If you replaced just 5  75-watt incandescent bulbs with 23-watt CFLs at 5 hours/day you would reduce your annual energy use by 475kWh. For $20 in bulbs you would save slightly more energy than you would by spending $2000 for this booster coil. And, I’d be willing to bet that there is way more energy spent and carbon emissions produced in its raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, and installation than will ever be saved by its use.

Mr. Solar Salesman and I had a long talk. He’s a very passionate environmentalist. I’m a skeptic. After an hour of discussion we basically agreed to disagree. He did concede that the booster coil might not make sense for us (I can’t figure how it makes sense for anyone) but he feels that we should all be doing whatever we can to save the planet – replace the bulbs and get the booster coil. I think you need to look at the big picture and consider the feasibility and practicality as well as the costs, especially the ROI. Valerie put it more succinctly: “If someone came to you and said they had a small black box that would sit in your back yard and would power, for free, five light bulbs for twenty years, you’d probably be intrigued. If they told you that it costs $4000 ($2000 after tax credits) you’d tell them they were crazy.”

Solar hot water probably meets my bar. A solar booster coil for whole-house heating—that’s Greenwashing!

More great progress this week! The lower-level (we’re not calling it a basement) walls started going up on Monday. These “woodpeckers”, as our excavator affectionately calls the framers, sure don’t waste any time. Although we didn’t go out to look, today, it’s possible that by this afternoon they completed framing the entire lower level. Everything looks good—it matches the plan, the layout works great, and the views from the guest bedrooms and the poker table will be fantastic.

The lumber for the lower deck was delivered on Tuesday. WOW! Six of the posts, the main support posts across the back, are 8″x8″x20′. The others are 8″x8″x12′. Steve and Caleb (the head framer) were discussing how to get them around back and set vertically on the concrete posts. I think I’ll be paying for a crane for a day as I really don’t know if it’s possible, let alone safe, to do it just with muscle. We’ll find out in the morning.

We finalized our window plan on Wednesday. Whew, what a mentally taxing job. Casement, slider, left swing, right swing, fixed, double hung, retractable or standard screen, pine or fir, green or bronze, white or bronze or brushed nickel, egress size, safety glass, etc, etc. Round and round she goes. We spent two hours at the lumber rep’s office and then I spent several hours last night reviewing every last detail. There’s a 6-8 week lead-time and windows are expensive. If you screw up the order, you’re screwed. You eat it and/or wait for a replacment. I found several mistakes that would have been bad news. Steve caught a couple too. We gave the order one last look this morning and Steve placed the order this afternoon. Sometime in mid-August, hopefully about the time the woodpeckers finish framing, the big truck will arrive from Lincoln Windows and we’ll get “dried in.”

P.S. Here’s a difference between a mass-market house and a custom house done with an architect and builder. Note in the second picture down on the left that the large window opening isn’t just a big hole. There are two vertical 2×6’s splitting the hole into three. Most builders would put a single large window in there. We, instead, are putting in three individual windows. Why? Even though there’s a large header across the top, in years, it will sag. And, even if it doesn’t, the frame around a such a large window will. Case in point is the windows we had in Woodinville. The dining and living room windows, each about 6′ wide, would barely open and there was a visible dip across the top of each one. The way we’re doing it, with three windows instead of one, essentially adding two supports in the center of the span, will keep the frames straight and true and the windows working long after we’ve move into a retirement home. You pay a little more, but, you get what you pay for.

It’s amazing what umpteen dozen loads of gravel and dirt will do. This thing looks like it might actually work! You can now walk down a gentle slope (which will eventually be under a bridge to the front door) and get onto the basement floor. It’s complete except for trimming off around the edges. Standing there, it all looks pretty normal. Even the concrete wall (the back of the future stairwell and unfinished fourth bedroom) looks reasonable. And, the crawlspace, now that it has been back filled, isn’t crazy high inside; it’s definitely no worse than the crawlspace in our Woodinville house. Of course, on the outside of the back wall it’s still at least 12′ to the ground. Serena doesn’t seem to care, she just stands on the very edge and surveys her new domain—SQUIRREL! Next week, the basement walls go up and possibly the lower deck!

After we left, yesterday, it stormed. All that dirt we had delivered…well, it was a bit muddy at the job site, today. Steve said it rained 1.5″ at his house. Luckily, the dirt was really dry and the rain soaked in rather than run off so only the road and the top couple inches of the dirt piles were mucky. We spent about three hours on-site loading Steve’s dump trailer with everything we carried up the hill. Next week, if the thieves don’t get it first, I’ll load the pickup with the several hundred pounds of metal debris and take it in for recycling. Beer money!

But, the news of the day is that the beams and trusses started going up on our lower level! Yah! We have a floor! We’re using engineered products rather than plain-old dimensional 2×10’s and 2×12’s. They’re perfectly straight and super strong. I have this pet peeve about floors that vibrate when you walk across them—shaking dishes and rattling grandfather clock chimes. I told our architect that I wanted to be able to play basketball on our floor, and this is what he spec’d. I think they’ll do nicely.

A good day, a good week, of progress. Maybe the plywood floor (actually another engineered product called Advantec) will be installed by Friday and we’ll be able to walk on it. Valerie leaves for Indiana Friday morning so here’s hoping…

I don’t plan on working on our house like this everyday. My deal with myself and Valerie was that we spent a lot of time prepping and selling our Woodinville house and that we would put sweat labor into fixing up Camp Bell, but we were not going to be laborers on our new house—other than keeping the site clean, maybe finishing the shop, and me doing the low-voltage wiring. We’re going to pay professionals on this one. Yesterday, today, and a few hours tomorrow will be an anomaly. Promise! We simply don’t have time with all that we need to do on Camp Bell and soon, with all the decisions, selections, and purchases that we’ll need to make for Vance Gap. I got the impression that Steve was in a jam with everything sort of starting at once and could use some cheap labor (us) to catch up. Although it was crazy hard work for both of us, it was fun to be there with all the action and see our future home progress—finally.

Today was much the same as yesterday. Eleven loads of dirt were brought in and spread out around the house to fill the holes and grade it away from the foundation. The framers were busy installing the sill plates around the foundation and they’ve cracked open the floor trusses. The weather was identical, 88° and humid, and thunderstorms were rolling by, but not over us, all afternoon. We spent about six hours on site, carrying garbage up the hill, breaking up concrete, shoveling and raking dirt, skipping lunch, and were exhausted again at quittin’ time. We made a huge dent in cleanup and should be able to finish in the morning.

P.S. In the spirit of over-sharing, which is what a blog is all about, right…I had a little personal problem at the end of the day. I was soaked with sweat through and through, including my shorts and underware (sorry, gross, I know). At some point in the afternoon I began to chafe. I sucked it up and kept working. That was a big no-no. When we left, I actually had to leave, there was no choice in the matter. I was walking like a cowboy who had been on a horse all day. I had a nice wide stance because my inner thighs were rubbed raw. If it didn’t hurt so bad it would have been funny. But, a couple beers later and some liberal use of zinc oxide cream and it was tolerable. I didn’t sleep well but it was much improved in the morning.