99 Days

Today is our 99th day in the campers. This weekend has been fun filled. After the snow on Friday and Saturday, the weekend has been full of playing in the snow. On Saturday morning Rod, Tori, Tina and our friend Zac all headed on horseback to the store. They walked through the pasture behind our house (not our property), through the church parking lot, through front yards and finally got to the store. I am estimating it took them about 45 minutes to get there. Tori rode her horse Kaylee and Tina rode hers Willow. Rod and Zac walked. When they were in the store the kids told Rod it was his best idea ever...

The trip back was not so good. Not sure why Kaylee got spooked, but she took off running and Tori bailed. Luckily Tori was not hurt too bad mostly only sore. Zac had to take off running to catch the horses and then they all just walked them back to the property. Also on Saturday was LOTS of snow sledding. On Sunday it started out with sledding. My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came over to sled. Everyone had so much fun. The snow was packed down good and it was slick. It was perfect conditions for the sled.




Mid day, Zac decided to head home (he had been here since Friday) and Rod had to use the Suburban to pull him up the driveway to the road.

Tina and Rod rode the horses down the trail some to make sure they didn't act up again today. Tina said they had halo's over their heads today.

Sunday night Tori and Rod had the idea to go sledding at night. He took the Toyota 1/2 way down the driveway and used the headlights for their lighting. Since the temp had dropped, it was even faster now. Lots of fun until Tina wrecked. She is not hurt too bad, but does have a cut under her eye. All in all, no one was hurt too bad and there was a lot of rough playing this weekend.

Winter Fun

Sledding - we now have the ultimate hill for sledding. It is downhill, left turn, and back up 1/2 the next hill. The walk back up is a killer....They went sledding yesterday and again today. Lots of fun.

Snow

Yesterday we got 4" of snow. This morning Tori and Tina's camper door was frozen shut. The way the wind was blowing, the deck was getting as much snow as the ground. All evening we kept sweeping it off. Here is a picture of Tina making a snow angel on the porch at the house.

Invoice # 1

Last week we received the first invoice from the builder. Turning it into the bank was a simple process. (Almost to easy). I checked over the invoice, emailed it to my loan agent, and the next day he brought me a check. So far we are still doing ok on the budget.

Lumber - lumber was actually $8,875 below budget. So as long as we don't need any additional lumber we are looking good there.

Flatwork - I hate seeing the bulldozer in the yard. This is one line item that we are over budget by about $3,000. The bulldozer was back again yesterday so invoice # 2 will have more on it. I can only imagine how bad this line item would have been if they hit major rock when digging out the basement.

Windows - They require that I pay for the windows and doors before they order them. So we asked for an advance for this amount. We have the front door, french doors going to the screened in porch, single door going out onto the deck, and french doors downstairs going out to the patio. There are 28 windows in the house. Most of the big windows (with the exception of Tina's) are multiple windows "mulled" together. The Windows are $1,600 over. ** see post below with the huge window and you will understand why we are slightly over budget **

Waterproofing - we are about 1/3 under budget on this right now, but I think they will be ordering more. There is still some exposed block that will be under the ground.

Footings - Still under budget by about $700 and I don't see where they would need to do any more so I think this is the final $'s on this line item.

County 5th grade speech winner!!!

I know there are people that read this blog that are only interested in the building process. However, this blog is about us as a family living through all of this! Last night I was very proud as Tina competed in the county 4-H speech contest. After giving a speech about horse hooves, we were thrilled to hear her named called as the 1st place winner. She competed against 11 other students. Way to go Tina!!!

Block

More blocks are going up. The porch is finished and the window bucks are in place. Now they are just finishing the blocks up. I expect they will pour the last of the concrete next week. Today Jeff said they will need 3 full concrete trucks to finish pouring the walls and deck.

Here is a picture of the porch. This is the west side of the house and wraps around to the front of the house.



The south wall of the house has lots of windows. This is a picture of the outline of the window in the great room. It is a total of 13' x 6'. The 13' includes a 48" operable window, then a 60" picture window, then another 48" operable window.
















Below is a picture of the outside of the south wall. The upstairs is the kitchen nook and the downstairs is Tori's bedroom.

more info on the deck

The picture is a little dark, but it is showing the framing around the deck. Once they hung the insul deck, they have to frame around it. Then they cut holes (see picture tomorrow of these holes) into the ICF block where the deck meets up. When the concrete is poured into the 1st story, it will run out these holes and fill up the deck. I guess it will be interesting to say the least.

Muddy Boots

Lots and lots of mud. The rain has just not let up. This weekend we did have one pretty day on Saturday. So we made good use of it and all worked together on the tack room and the goat house. Now the goats have a good place to stay out of the rain.

While Tori was at church today, Rod, Tina, and I went over to the house and swept out all of the water in the downstairs. With all this rain we had about 3 inches of water to sweep out.

The picture is my and Tina's boots after walking over to the house and then back to the campers. I truly am sick of the mud.

Decking and the mud

After days and days of rain, we now have tons and tons of MUD. As I am sitting in my office at work today, my cell phone rings. It is on of the guys that is working on the exterior of our house. He has his truck stuck in the mud. I have to take an early lunch and come home to pull him out of the mud. Our old Toyota 4-runner just pulled his full size 4 wheel drive Ford out of the mud :-)

So, while here I looked to see what they were doing today... putting up the deck. I guess I didn't realize that was the next step. So here are the pictures.

Floor joists and decking

In spite of the weather the crew got all the floor joists and decking put in over the last 2 days. Better to have it installed and getting wet than sitting in the yard getting rained on. I am very happy with the job the framing crew is doing. Everything looks very beefy. There are several places along the load bearing walls downstairs that have 6-8 2x4s nailed together. The sun will shine tomorrow (I hope).

Insul-Deck

http://www.insul-deck.org/product.htm

We will have about 570 sq ft of deck around the house. We are going to use a (guess what) concrete decking solution for this. The company is called Insul-Deck. They invented this in the late 70s as a fast, light weight masonry flooring solution. It came pre-cut to our plans. It fits together in a tongue-n-groove fashion with rebar reinforcement. They pour the concrete on top of the decking. The channels allow you to run plumbing and electrical through the floor if you used it inside the house. We are going to try one of the DIY acid concrete stains for the finish.

This also means there will not be any water coming through the deck. That will be nice for the back patio that will be covered by the deck. We still have to design some handrails we like.

Framing

I have not posted an update in several days. On a personal note, I turned a year older since the last post. Getting ever closer to that 40 mark - but at least Rod will hit it before me :-)

On Thursday 1/14 the lumber was delivered. Someone told me that they heard that lumber is at a 7 year low right now. That is a big deal to us. The builder informed me on Friday that our lumber came in at 6K below the estimated price on our building quote. We are thrilled about that.


Today the framers showed up. They framed the entire downstairs. Tina and I walked over to check it out. She has her room all planned out.

Slab Poured

The first photo shows the insulation/water proofing they laid beneath the slab. It was about 19 degrees when the concrete pumper truck got here this morning. It warmed up to about 40. It took longer than expected for the concrete to dry and the guys doing the finishing were here until 9PM. They said they put 1% calcium in the crete. If they put more it would dry faster but have more chance of scaling. Less calcium meant a better finish, but it takes longer to cure.

Water Proofing

ICF houses need waterproofing membrane below grade too. This is a plastic feeling membrane with round raised bubbles that cause an air gap between it and the insulated walls. This allows any condensation to run down and out the bottom or to air dry. I requested they put the same thing beneath the slab. It should give me a bit of insulation value beneath the slab.

Plumbing in the slab

The plumber has the drains for the septic system and my sink/floor drain in the mechanical room ready to go beneath the slab.

No ER visit..

Well this weekend we did not have an ER visit, but we did draw blood. Both Tori and Tina help Rod a good bit. This weekend they were building a new pig house. Tori was helping by stapling the plastic over the top. After over 30 staples she had set the stapler down. When she picked it back up and started stapling again, she was using her left hand to apply pressure to make sure that the staples went all the way into the hardy board. Somehow, she managed to hold the stapler upside down. So all that pressure she applied was unfortunately what made the staple go into her hand..... It is very swollen today and very sore... But did NOT require an ER visit, so Rod still holds the record.

Frozen Water

At our house the temperature has not been above freezing since the 1st of the year. Ontop of our hill, we have had many nights in the single digits for lows. Today was a day for lots of frozen water. The first being the pond. Tina has been wanting to play on it for days and finally today Rod was home and able to take her out on it. He thinks the ice is about 6 inches thick. They took the sled out on it and had a great time.

We have been very diligent to make sure that we leave the water running in the campers. However, tonight we went out to dinner and didn't leave the water running. Basically we didn't realize tonight was going to get as cold as it is. Luckily we were not gone for too long and Rod was able to take a panel off the bottom of the camper, put a space heater out there, and in about 15 minutes we had the water running again.

Cold Weather

Everyone says that winter is not the time to build. This week is proving that winter in Tennessee brings cold weather. We are having a big cold snap. Today is the 5th day of the new year and we have yet to get above freezing.

So what has been happening on the house... Today we went to meet with the builder to make sure we were all on the same page with the changes to the floor plan. While we were doing that, they were out here spreading two loads of gravel inside the house. They also put down the moisture barrier. Next will be the pouring of the slab. Next week is supposed to be warmer and that is what we are shooting for. If the weather does not warm up, he said they had means to warm up the ground in order to pour the slab. Also the plumber should be out tomorrow or Thursday to put in the main water line that will come from the well and the septic line.

Windows

With ICF houses, there is not any room for error on the window sizes. Once concrete is poured they are what they are. The builders require us to "verify" and sign off on all the window and door openings. So many decisions to make... So New Years Day and our task for tonight is deciding everything about the windows tonight. We are going to try to make decisions of what style (casement, double hung, etc), what hardware, what exterior color, what interior color, sizes of some of the optional windows, etc.