We now have a Wii (in the camper)

As most people who know us know, we are not big gamers. We have never had a game console other than the old saga genesis. We most certainly do not want our kids to be kids who only sit on the couch and play games. However, last night we surprised the kids and went shopping to buy a Wii. After our 3rd stop, we finally found a Wal-mart that had one in stock. We didn't splurge on any of the games other than the sports game that comes with it.

Notice that when Rod was bowling.. he had to stand in the kitchen to play...

Wild Buttercups

Last year was our first spring owning the land. We just happened to come upon a huge patch of wild buttercups. Rod and I walked to them last week and they had not bloomed yet. Yesterday Tori and I decided to walk down there and check on them again. They are about 1/2 way in bloom.

$ 40 for delivery

Last weekend we bought 3 pieces of 20 foot culvert to work on a turn around where the pond is and the road to the barn. After working on it for several hours, Rod decided we need a 4th piece of culvert. We had already paid $40 for delivery on the first group that we bought. Rod asked if I would pick it up on the way to pick Tina up from school. I went to Simpson Culvert and the guy loaded it on top of the suburban for me. Tori and I decided that we could handle unloading. We unstrapped it and pushed.. Well as it came down, it took out the mirror on the suburban. I'm pretty sure the $40 delivery is less than what it is going to cost to replace the mirror. So much for being cheap.

100 % Dried in

FINALLY! All the windows are in. There have been 3 windows that were not put in yet because the manufacture had sent the wrong mulling strips. These are strips that join multiple windows together when there is more than 1 window in a hole. Yesterday the correct strips came in and the workers were here and put them all in. All doors are on and we even have doorknobs.

The electrician was here on Wednesday and did more work. They are hoping to call in the electrical inspection on Monday.

We had problems with the stovepipe. We want a wood burning stove in the basement. However, we are responsible for finding a company that will put the pipe in and insure it. So the first guy we called wanted too much money and didn't know what he was doing. It was not looking good for the stove. Yesterday morning another guy came out and seemed MUCH more knowledgeable than the person from Wednesday. This guy gave us a quote of $1,500 and that includes the material. The pipe he will use going thought the main level of the house is rated where it only needs 1" of clearance. So it is some great stuff. So looks like we are back to being able to put a stove in. It would be a shame to not have something in the house that burns wood with all the wood we have up here.

So far everything is going OK. Certainly there are days that are very, very stressful for me.

Decisions We need to make:
1. cabinets. I have been looking, getting quotes, etc. They are going to be there a long time and I want to make the right decision
2. Trim - the archways in the kitchen. Yesterday he asked me if we were going to trim them or drywall them? Who know I needed to make that decision already? I had honestly not thought of it a single time.
3. Material we are going to put under the roof that covers the decks. Bead board was what we are thinking but Rod is worried about boring bees.
5. Flooring - hardwood in great room, bedrooms; tile in kitchen and dining room; tile in bathrooms; carpet in Tori and Tina's bedrooms; staining the concrete in the rec room; tile in downstairs bathroom... at least this is what we think we want.
4. What kind of trim we want in the house

I'm sure this is not the entire list, but it is some of the decisions we are working on

Issues: Right now our only issue that we are dissatisfied about is the decks. The concrete on them has problems for 2 reasons. The first was the subcontractor was negligent. The second was the subcontractor told us we didn't need to put blankets on them, but the concrete did freeze and we have some pits because of that. Jim, the superintendent, told me yesterday that his guys were going to repair it rather than the subcontractor. So we will see how it goes. Rod has taken very specific pictures of the spots we are not happy with and we will make sure it is done right or there will have to be some type on compensation for it.

The big windows are in.

$'s

If you are a control oriented person who crunches numbers.... building a house is not for you. Believe me I know!

Chicken Run

Tina is playing softball for the first time this year. She has had one practice and her coach is crazy. How would I know that after only 1 practice? He asked Rod to be the 2nd assistant coach!!! If you don't know Rod, he is not a sports fan and I have never seen him watch sports!

Tina has a great arm but she needs practice. So Rod, Tori, and Tina were all going to go outside and let her practice hitting the ball. They get outside and start and the chickens were headed to safer ground :-)



Rod started the morning with a fire. He has cooked Maple Syrup all day long. As I sit here at 10:00 at night typing this blog entry, he is still over there at the stove doing the final cook of the 10 gallons of sap.

Nice Weekend

This weekend the weather has been great! On Friday the only work that was done on the house was the framers were back to put some boards up along the roof line that they needed before the brick can be put on. We had been told that they might start bricking it this weekend but that didn't happen.

On Saturday we had some gravel delivered. On one of our first invoices from the builder we were charged $830 for 2 loads of 3/4" gravel. Those loads were only 10 tons each. Granted this was over the holidays but it was still very expensive. Rod called around and found a company that would deliver 22 ton loads of 3/4" gravel for $430 - 1/2 price!!

We also did a little work on the driveway turn around near the road going to the barn and pulled some logs from the creek. But basically that was all the work we did on Saturday.

On Sunday we cleaned up the building site some more. Just sweeping up the trash in the house, etc. Here are some random pictures of the house and some of the progress that has been happening.

Here is my laundry room. As you can see they are doing the plumbing with the new PEX pipe. Rod used this to run the water to the campers and he really liked it. MUCH easier than the days of sweating pipes.




The electrician has also been working. Here is a picture of an electrical outlet in an exterior wall. They use a tool called a hot knife to cut the ICF in order to create channels for the electrical wire to run.

Mr. Mom

I have to occasionally travel for work. This week was the first time since we have been living in the campers that I had to travel. It is a running joke when Rod has to play Mr. Mom. I'm sure this time was one of the harder times. (Remember the kids and I normally go to Mom's for showers each morning) So Rod has been up every morning at 5:45 a.m., taking the kids to Mom and Dad's, coming back home to take a shower and feed all the animals, go back and pick the kids up, pick up Tina's friend, take Tina and Paige to school, drop Tori off at school and then head to work... I'm thinking next week Rod is going to appreciate me a little more next week :-) But I think he has done great.

North Side Windows

They got some of the windows and doors in today. They hauled off most of their ICF block special equipment they used to stabilize the walls while pouring the crete. The electrician also got started today.

Extreme Loggers

OK, not really extreme loggers, but 3 teenagers and Rod moving thousand pound logs... The septic tank guy needed these logs out of the way. One of the tasks that we have been working on today is cleaning up. All of this needs to be finished by Monday. Zac, his friend Mike, Tori and Rod were all working on loading these logs into a hauler and pulling them out of the way. Below are some of the pictures.

Plumbing rough in completed

The plumbers have finished the rough in. It took them about 3 days. I do not know how much his bill is yet. They used the new PEX pipe. I am OK with it. I have used it myself. It has a 100 year life expectancy and is so easy to work with. It saves money on labor and material cost.

We also did the electical walk through today. We did not even follow the plans except for the kitchen appliance locations. We just walked through each room and marked any switch, outlet and light locations as we talked them through with Jim and the electrician. We were happy with everything at the end of the process.

Windows, Plumbing and Gutter Quotes

On Monday the windows were delivered. They are just inside the house waiting to be installed. Hopefully one day this week.

Yesterday the plumber was here. He ran all the plumbing for the bathroom fixtures, kitchen sink, the sink in the mechanical room, etc. It was just two guys and they worked until late in the evening.

Gutters. Oh boy, we had a salesman come out for a gutter product. First he could not drive his car up the driveway. Tori was down with the horses and drove him up. He commented on how well she maneuvered the driveway and she said "pretty good since I have only had my permit for 3 months". I think he didn't really believe her :-) He then proceeded to spend almost 3 hours showing us why all the other products would not work. Our line item in the budget for gutters is only $1500. So you can imagine what we said when he FINALLY gave us the quote at just shy of 8:00 p.m. and it was over $10,000~! Guess Zac will continue to earn money from us cleaning gutters....

WQSV

Who knew that Ashland City had a radio station? Today as the 5th grade county 4-H speech contest winner, Tina was on the radio. She was asked questions about her family, hobbies, etc. She told everyone that she had about 30 animals and then listed the different types of animals we have. When asked if she rode her horse often she responded "it is a muddy mess right now". That got a big laugh in the room. Then she was asked to say her speech which was on horses hooves. She did an excellent job and I was very proud of her.

Under Roof

The house is now what they call "under roof". We are ready to move in.

Roof Decking

On Thursday the framers were here again. They have been making the fixes to the upstairs layout and they finally started the decking. The house looks so much different with the decking on it. I am going to love the look of the vaulted ceiling in the great room/kitchen/dining room.




Here is a picture of the side porch. Now that the roof is on, I see that I am really going to like all this deck.



The bay window required them to build a makeshift scaffold in order to climb out there to put the roof decking on.

Road Hazard? Nope!

We are in the middle of a construction site. Sometimes you just wonder "why didn't I do that"... Today I hosed off all the mud from my truck. I know, I know, it is still muddy here, but I just couldn't stand it any longer. It took $12 worth of money in the machine for it to run long enough. I left HUGE clumps of mud all around my truck. Rod and I both have admitted to parking in different spots at work to "spread" the mud around that drops off of our cars on a daily basis. When I got finished hosing all the mud off, I could not believe what I found. I long screw sticking out from my 2 week old new tires. Yes, the picture was taken after I hosed off the truck, but of course I have driven down the driveway since then so the mud is back....


and NO, we did not buy road hazzard....

Roof Joists

The framers got another break in the weather and have the roof joists on. Now we can get a feel for how the covered porches will be. They are not doing trusses, so I will have a lot of storage upstairs. We also plan to use sprayed in foam insulation. It gets sprayed directly underneath the roof decking and joists. This creates an air tight seal in the attic and allows temperature controlled storage. It costs about $1500 more than blown in insulation but should be worth it over time.

Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day. After going to my Granny's this morning, the kids have been to a birthday party, Bible tic-tac-toe practice, Tina is at a sleepover and Tori has a friend spending the night. I got Rod a card that made fun of the ladder incident - very appropriate.

Tori and Michaela decided to make some pasteries. It has been a tedious job, and at 9:20 p.m. we are still waiting to taste the finished product......

What's that smell?

4:30 a.m. and Sugar is barking. Rod is annoyed and gets up to tell her to be quiet. Then I hear a squeal and feel the camper shake. About this time Rod comes back to bed and thinks Sugar has just knocked over a propane tank on her foot or something. So then I have to get up to check to make sure Sugar is ok. I get the flashlight out and go outside on the deck and shine it on her. She has a funny look on her face and her snout is all crinkled up. She is making a horrible noise with her mouth as well. As I shine the flashlight down to see what Sugar has under her paw, Rod pipes up and says "I smell it" and we both say a skunk! The skunk didn't make it.

Fast forward 4 hours and I hear the kids up and about. Zac and Hayley had spent the night. Tori and Zac were up feeding the dogs and pigs. When I came out they were both complaining that the camper was FREEZING. So we just couldn't believe that they had run out of propane and thought maybe they had blown a fuse. Rod goes over to look at the problem and we realize that they have been without power since the scuffle of the dog and skunk. Apparently when Sugar had went in for the kill, she killed the power to the camper as well by pulling the plug.

After fixing the power, Rod then had the pleasurable job of taking the skunk into the woods on the end of a long stick. I guess our camper smells the worst because it happened right outside. I am the only one in the family that was willing to pet Sugar any today since I have no ability to smell. I am often asked if I can smell a skunk and I can surely say that I cannot since one sprayed only about 10 feet from me last night.

Grumpy

Grumpy is the only way to describe my mood today. I'm not sure if it is the building process, the campers, work, the kids home from school, or what but everyone and everything is annoying me.

Yesterday the framers cornered me to ask me many, many question about the framing upstairs. Basically what happened is the home plans that we bought were only designed for the lower story to be ICF. We want both stories ICF so the builder was going to take that into account by expanding the downstairs walls by 5". However, it didn't happen. So our upstairs walls are all 5 1/2" thicker than what the plans call for. This is causing me problems because now the rooms are smaller than the plans. On bedrooms it really isn't that big of a deal, but the bathrooms have now become a headache. So I emailed the builder to express how upset I was. (for those that know me, I really was not too mean in the email). We had snow today, so there wasn't any work to be done today anyway. They decided not to have the framers come back until we work out where the walls are all going to be.

The proposed solutions so far:
Extra bathroom upstairs - was supposed to be a 3/4 bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower. We are going to lose the shower and make it smaller so that the spare bedroom will have a big enough closet and I won't have to lose the pantry. We will also no longer have access to this bathroom from the bedroom, just from the hallway.

Master Bathroom - there was a 6" wall between the master bedroom and bathroom, they are going to tear that back down (yes it is already been built on Sunday, moved over 6" on Monday, and now on Wednesday will be torn down and rebuilt!) and make it a 4" wall. Then they are going to take a 4 foot section and move that part of the wall 8" into the master bedroom so that there will still be room for a separate tub and shower.

Kitchen - there were 2 walls that the plans call for 8" walls. This was for thermal mass in the house which we will not need as much of because we are doing ICF on that story. Shrinking these walls down to 4" regular walls recovers almost all of the space that we were missing.

My builder has really apologized for the mistake and is trying very hard to help me be ok with the changes. However, this added stress must have been the straw on the camel's back....

More snow

We got more snow last night. This is not the cool sledding snow, but the heavy, fluffy snow. Here are a few pictures:

Snow in the house as the upstairs is being framed



Chickens having to eat in the snow



Dolly trying to eat quick before the chickens figure out she is eating also



This is one of my favorite shot. It is a path leading down to the back part of the property. I love this view in every season. In the spring you can see the buttercups, in the summer you see lots of green, in the fall are the pretty leaves and here is the view in the winter.

Maple Syrup- In Production

Today I put 4 gallons of sugar water from the trees into my 20 quart pot and began cooking it down at 2PM. It takes a long time to evaporate 3 1/2 gallons of water out of the sap. While it was cooking I practiced softball with Tina, checked on the framers with Brandy (they worked on Sunday), cleaned out ALL the tools in 4Runner, straightened up the wooden shed, did a little fencing, rolled hay in for the horses, Helped Tina with some horse training on Willow, cleaned Tina's new boots, and saw 4 deer walk by.
At 7 PM I brought the remaining sap in to do the final cook down on the gas range. It did not take long from there. I am very pleased with how it tastes. We will have some blueberry pancakes one night this week and see how it tastes after cooling down. I only got about 16 oz from 4 gallons of sap. That was expected. I have another 8 gallons of sap already collected.

Framers

Early this morning we heard the dogs barking. It is Sunday and we were surprised to see the framers show up. They worked most of the day on the framing the upstairs. I would guess they are more than 1/2 way done. They have finished my bedroom, bathroom, laundry room, spare bedroom, and the other bathroom. One glitch that happened is we have a window in the wrong place. This prevented the coat closet in the foyer from being in the correct place. No big deal, we just flipped it to the other side of the foyer and it will be fine.

Saturday

I don't really have any new pictures of the house today, so I took a picture of all the mud I have been talking about.

Today was the first time the workers showed up on a Saturday. The took down all the supports that are put in place to hold the walls while the concrete is poured and drys. I am still hopeful the weather will hold out so that the framers can come on Monday. We are very anxious to get this thing under room.

Today Rod, Tori, and Zac are working on clearing the briar bushes from the side of the driveway. Hard work. Tina and Hayley are riding the horses, and I am in charge of all the meals.

Concrete Drying, yea right!

Not much is happening over at the house. The concrete is supposed to be drying. That is hard to do since the rain started yesterday at about 2:00 p.m. and is still raining. This has increased my muddy mess.

The next step is for them to take down the supports and then the framers will be here. I hoped it was going to happen today, but I think it will be next week. I really wish I would have kept up with the number of days it has rained since they started working on the house.

1st floor pour

Lots of snow, lots of mud and still 1 kid home from school because of the roads... But that has not stopped the workers. Today they are ready to pour the main level of the house. All the decking and porches are attached to the house and they will pour those as well as the support columns at the same time. Here are some pictures of the rebar that they have on the deck and columns. I will post pictures of the pour later tonight.

These holes are how the concrete will flow down the walls and out to the decking/porches.


There is 2 pieces of rebar between each row of decking


And now looking down one of the columns.

Bad news, bad news, bad news

It is 10:00 p.m. and I am sitting on the bed working when I hear "Bad News, Bad News, Bad News" coming from the bathroom. We have had a slow water leak today. I thought it was probably a leak from where all the snow was melting from the roof and we had some leaking in. Rather than coming to bed, he just had to see if he could figure out where the water was coming from.... and about a minute or so later... I hear the bad news. It was actually coming from the back of the toilet (fresh water) and when he felt the fitting, it popped off and water was everywhere! Here were the steps involved in turning off the water:

1. look around for clothes (he was in his boxers)
2. Grab a jacket (it is cold outside) - the first one - his bright orange hunter jacket
3. pickup the lantern and screw gun. (remember the water is spewing out this entire time.)
4. put on boots because of the mud
5. Unscrew the underpinning that he put up under the camper
6. Turn off the water.

He was a funny site and I will spare everyone the picture of him in his underwear, bright orange jacket and boots.

Of course in typical Rod fashion, rather than leaving the water off for the night and dealing with it tomorrow, he worked on it and fixed it before he went to bed.

Maple Syrup

There was an article in the local paper last winter about a guy making his own maple syrup a few miles up the road. We could see him and his syrup collection devices (blue bags) when driving by and I tucked it away in the back of my mind. Last week I determined I indeed had some sugar maples on the land. Well... thanks to a little stoking from "Mr. Vector" at work, I came home and tapped several trees over the weekend. I stopped in Ace Hardware and picked up 50' of 1/4" tubing on Friday. I drilled (3) 1/4" holes about 5 feet high in each large tree and stuck the tube in each hole about an inch. I then hung a milk jug on the trunk about 3 feet high with 3 holes drilled in the cap and put then ends of the tubes inside.

The best time to collect sugar water from the trees is after a freeze. The trees really pump the sap after they warm up from the freezing weather. I did not know what to expect. I tapped 2 trees on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. The temperature got up to about 40 today so I had to go see when I got home from work on Monday. The jugs were full! I was expecting there to only be a cup or 2 at best. That was 1 1/2 gallons in 24 hours. I tapped another 20" tree, added with another jug and emptied the full ones. I will try making syrup when I get about 8-10 gallons of the sugar water.

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!!!