Bobcats and shovels

Well we started backfilling today, and it was a little crazy! (of course, this IS our house afterall) After several stalling episodes, and a few getting stuck fiascos we got all but one

corner of the hose backfilled. Scott and Lane ran the bobcat, and me (and sometimes payton) shoveled it out to smooth it out. I officiall hate shovels, but i LOVE the end product. It looks SO great with most of the huge dirt piles gone! (scroll down to see previous dirt piles)

Here's a shot of the house, all walls up, window cut out, and no roof. Sadness. BUT the Truss guy came out today so we should get our trusses next week.

So Kyle and Payton started building the deck while we backfilled. The got the back-side wall done...this is the only skinny section, the rest of the deck is 8 ft wide all the way around....covered....beautiful! :)

So tomorro we finish backfilling and probly frame the deck.....then our week of craziness will be done and house production will slow drastically as Scott will go back to work......and i'll go back to just posting cute pictures of Lane....:)

Sorry!!!

UGH!!! I forgot my camera today so I don't have any pics for today....sorry to my hundreds (ok 2 confessed followers) but you'll have to wait till tomorrow. BUT here's a recap what we did today. The boys finished framing the interior walls on the 2nd floor, so we're ready for trusses, but we can't get them till next thursday-ish. I worked on cleaning up all the scrap and making a huge bon fire out of them, so we can back-fill tomorrow and saturday. SOO i'll take some pics tomorrow and maybe give you all a virtual tour of our 2nd story.....

until then! See you tomorrow!!

Squaw wood

When we go camping, Scott jokes with me and tells me that I have to go get squaw wood,...or firewood....Indian women always get the wood for the fires....they would go into the woods and drag out whatever logs they could find... Well I took squaw wood to a whole new level today....and i used a chainsaw!! Yup, it was pretty fun....i was cutting down trees for our handrail. I didnt' know that i could use a chainsaw.....so i've successfully reached a new level in my mountain woman/redneck quest.......:) I should have taken a pic when they were still in the truck, it looked alittle more impressive. BUT here's my stash!!

These are logs we're going to use on the wrap-around deck.........no i did not cut these down :) Scott did

Tour

Here's a virtual tour

standing in living room/play area, looking at living room where fireplace will be (up against stairs)

other side of family room

Lane trying to climb the stairs.

looking in the front door

standing in the laundry room doorway, looking at the dining room/kitchen on left, stairs and our sweet log posts.

laundry room door on right, bathroom door in the middle and pantry on left
kitchen
my posts....they still need some love but aren't they cool!?

Another day...

Here's pics to make up for yesterday. I worked yesterday so i didn't get to take any pics. But yesterday they got the last wall up downstairs, and finished interior framing on 1st floor, and rolled the 2nd floor system. Today they got their 2nd story exterior walls up, and the stairs built, and our logs set under the beam. Here's some working shots of today. Kyle and Scott were building, me and Payton were packing wood up to the 2nd story, and other various grunt work :)

This is the hole for the stairs...it will have log handrail all the way around so you can see downstairs.

Day 2

Another productive day at the homestead. I didn't get there till noon, cuz i had to go grocery shopping, and get everyone lunch, and pick up some more nails, and since we don't live "in town" that took me ALL morning. So we got there at noon and the boys had the front and side wall up:

No, Kyle is not hitting Scott in the butt with that board, just a bad camera angle :)

Notice the nice tall ceilings...LOVE THEM! I think they are 9 ft tall. Where Kyle is standing is the mechanical room

The left of the pic is the front of the house. 2 windows and a door in the middle. The wall to the right is the living/play area. Where Scott is standing is the beginning of our pantry, then next to that on the right is a bathroom, then a laundry room that goes to the end of the house.

Here is the ginormous beam that we set today. Yes, scott, kyle and me manhandled it and got it set up on my lovely 9 foot walls :) Scott didn't know that he married She-rah. But then again, I didn't know that I married He-Man either so I guess we're even. But LOOK how cool my beam is!!! It is exposed thru the whole main floor and i LOVE IT! it will have two logs holding it up in the middle. (i worked all day stripping those logs....they get set tomorrow)

better view of the beam. Also the pantry is framed in this pic

Front of the house

More beam, and action Scott
living room/play area window. See the little 2x4 on the beam? that's how we lifted it. Pretty genious, huh.
Kitchen wall. Window on the left is where the bar is. Window on the right is over my sink.
random working shot

All in all a good day! we were excited to get the beam set so we don't have to try and recruit people tomorrow. Lane was also pretty good today, he is SUCH a trooper. He's been having fun at the building site. Tomorrow's plan is to put the last exterior wall on the first floor, and roll the second story floor system, and put in stairs (maybe)

Stay tuned! :)

(scott wants to add there's no "maybe" about it.....all that WILL get done tomorow......and more......the pressure is on!)

Let the framing begin

Our first day of framing went well. We stripped all the forms off the concrete on friday night, so Saturday morning we could get started. Scott, Kyle, and our friend Glenn worked on rolling the floor system, and I got the most important job: Cleaning the sheeting of all the nails and concrete. (we used our sheeting as forms) And i also get to de-nail all of the 2X4's to use later too. Lane supervised and worked alongside daddy. Lane is very interested in all the tools that daddy uses and wants to help. We need to start getting him some lane-sized tools so he can play along.

We got the whole floor system rolled today, which was great!!

Scott and Glenn

Nailing the floor downLane dancing in the kitchen. He thought it was helarious to stomp all over the floor Almost done sheeting.....I think Lane was wanting my camera.
Watching Kyle cut a board. Lane thought the nail gun and the saw were the coolest things.

The rest of our house..... Us sitting in our living room.The finished product of the day! Monday they'll put up the first floor exterior walls. One of these days i'll put up a floor map of what the inside set up will be so this picture makes more sense.
Still smiling after a hard days work! We actually had alot of fun!
Stayed tuned this week. Scott has next week off so it will be a whirlwind framing week. Then progress will be a little slower after next saturday since he has to go back to work.

The wall

I couldn't get a very good picture to show what the wall is actually doing. So what you're looking at is from the corner of the wall. What happens is the outside of the wall bows out quite a bit, but the inside of the wall stayed straight. It really doesn't look THAT bad, and it will be covered by dirt, SO all in all it's really not a big deal, but another funny story to add to the list.

big rock

just hanging out on the big rock next to our driveway

Blow-out!

No, i'm not going to tell you a nasty story about one of Lane's diapers, although I would have PREFERRED that to the event which i'm about to describe. SO yesterday we got our inspection on our foundation forms, they passed (YAY) and our concrete people actually wanted to get out there in the afternoon instead of coming the next day (Even better!!) So everyone gets there, we start to set up, and Scott tells me: "Jim had a dream last night" Me: "oh yeah?" Scott: "yeah he dreamed that our foundation walls blew out at the bottom." Me: "yikes....that would suck...." Scott: "yeah, I think we're ok tho.....there's no way....." So this is the point where i probably don't even need to finish the story because you all know what's coming next....BUT I will.... SO they start to fill up the back corner wall, and i'm standing there watching, and I'm looking at this wall bouncing in and out while the kid is dumping concrete into the wall....and i am thinking...."hmmm that does look a little bouncy.....what if Jim was........." *POP**GUSH**GUSH**GUSH*** the bottom of the wall broke loose and concrete started pouring out the bottom all over the ground.....I was a little stunned, and was sure that was the end, and we'd have to take the whole thing down and scrape it all out and start over.....adding another week to our project.....BUT the men all scrambled and shoveled and pushed the wall mostly back into place and braced it up. And started pouring again...*WHEW* then *POP* It busted again, and pushed over the huge 2 foot around cement pillar it was braced on....YIKES! So then we were all at a loss of what to do, but the boys scrambled again and started bracing up the ENTIRE perimeter of the foundation and then we had the concrete people do laps around the place instead of filling one whole spot at a time, and that worked better. SOOO after a few hours, a lot of cuss words, some stollen 2x4's for extra bracing (thanks Frank and barb!), 1 pounded thumb, and some desperate prayers, we got the whole foundation poured and *HOPEFULLY* it lasted thru the night! I didn't take any pictures of this whole ordeal for fear that I would have had my camera smashed into a million pieces, but i'll post a pic of "the wall" after it's dried......it has an extra artistic element to it.....i'm sure that everyone that sees it will want on on their house..........we're up for hire :) just give us a call!

Footings, Foundations, and Framing OH MY

This is Step 1, footing forms...they passed so we filled them up.......

The step 2, foundation walls. They are being inspected tomorrow and poured.....THEN

We are getting our framing materials on Friday and we'll start framing Saturday!!! stayed tuned for the progress pics :)

"Gramma" Terry

This is our adopted Gramma, "Gramma Terry." Lane LOVES gramma terry, and the feeling is mutual. Today we took Gramma Terry to see our property and the start of our house, and then we went to lunch. At the age of 94, Gramma can still play and sing with the craziest of babies (aka Lane) And we love it. Lane especially loves it when she plays the piano for him, so he can dance.....he has QUITE the impressive moves when she busts out the rag-time tunes. He also loves getting rides in Gramma's wheel chair (pictured above) Gramma terry gets to go to Nevada for a few months, so we'll miss ya, Gramma!!

I love dirt!

Really the post title says it all. Lane loves dirt, everything about it! The feel, the taste, the way it adds character to his clothing, how it feels in his diaper, how it gets stuck in his finger nails.....EVERYTHING......and since we have enormous mounds of dirt at the building site, Lane has discovered boy heaven.

New Addition!

That's right....an '89 fire station suburban. WHY??? You ask? WELL let me tell you.

1. It will be our new plow truck since our home will be in a great snow belt.

2. It actually beeps when you back up!! (My fav part)

3. It seats 9 people......BRING ON THE BABIES!!

4. It's 4-wheel drive

5. It was cheap

6. AND the funniest reason....when Scott was at the property, burning a slash pile, the inspector showed up for our forms. He sees the fire, and says, "hmm, did they lift that burn ban?" Scott:" I dunno" Inspector, "hmm....well (looks at "the burb") you work for the fire dept, so who cares, right?"

HAAAhahahah....i love it. YAY FOR THE BURB!!!!