A whole bunch of pictures..

October 13th:



Chris is standing in the kitchen!




Chris is standing in the living room!

 October 14th:

Today the roof trusses started going up, here are a lot pictures of a small part of that process, from different angles.  Taking into consideration that no one has ever built a round house...it sure is moving along nicely.  It did make me very nervous watching them walk along the edge of the building so far off the ground!  I've managed to bite my tongue and only once begged them to be careful- as if they would be careless- but...you know, it makes me nervous ..
                                            So, here are the pictures...

                   The first ten pictures are of the process of lifting one truss into place.



The next truss is waiting to be lifted into place.




The first delivery, another truck load arrived not long after I took this picture.




A view from the field..that bright blue potty sure stands out, doesn't it?



By the end of the day you can see how well this crew works together, they get an amazing amount of work done..
                                     And now for the best picture of the day...

How quickly things can change..

October 13th

I haven't been able to upload pictures for quite a few days, and what's a post without pictures? So, I didn't post at all.  Magically, uploading is working again, so I've added a picture to my last post on 10/7, and will combine what would have been two posts in one, so several pictures in this post are from the last few days...
The guys who poured the garage floor came a day early, how often do you hear that in construction?  So, the floor was done on Friday the 8th.

Monday the 10th, six framers in five pick up trucks, Chris Fuller in his truck, and two delivery trucks-one a semi, arrive all at once.  A quiet morning can change so quickly!

 A few hours later the trucks are gone, the framing crew is set up and have started working!  By the end of their first day the floor was on!

By the way, that block contraption is not a chimney, that will be a support for the roof.

By lunchtime of the second day-yesterday- there's this much done, framing the garage...




By the end of the second day there's this much done....

This view is of the living area with the garage in the background, the opening in the garage will be the door where we'll enter the breezeway front entrance from the garage.  That little dark door in the blocks is the door to the crawl space.

Brave little Harley in the crawl space.

Harley and I crawled to the top of a massive dirt pile to take this picture, and Socks joined us after leaping off the edge of the house.  In this picture you can see that they are starting to lay out the rooms, Socks is standing in the master bedroom, the 1st square behind her is the M.B. closet, the next square is the utility room, then a hallway that will lead to Chris's room, on the other side of the hallway is the 2nd bathroom.  The dividing board between the utility room and the M.B. closet the wall will also be where the wall that divides the two bedrooms will be.  On the other side of the block column, where the hallway is, you can see one side of what will be one kitchen wall, the kitchen will be the same width as the utility room and the M.B. closet. and will be in a sort of "U" shape.  There will also be a hallway leading to the master bedroom on the other side of the kitchen, with some of that space as an office, a closet, a door to the outside and the space that the woodstove will be in.  That's probably hard to envision, but I'll probably have pictures of that in the next few days!

The walls to the rooms should all be built by the end of the week, and I believe that the walls of the house are arriving by semi truck right now.

In the background you can see the canopy/tarp work area I've been re-finishing furniture in.  I haven't been out today yet, it's not quite 40 degree's outside so I've been working on other things inside.  Tomorrow I go to see a kitchen cabinet builder, so I'm making sure that I have all my drawings in order.  I have two pieces left to re-finish, and yesterday afternoon my sander broke... So, I have poly'd the one piece that was sanded and will have to buy a new sander tonight after I drop the kids off at church for Youth Group.  I'm busy tomorrow, as I've already mentioned, but hope to be done with furniture re-finishing by the end of the day on Friday! Then the canopy will come down this week end, and I'll be very, very happy for that.  I still have lots of chairs to refinish, but plan to do those nxt spring here in the garage.  By then the horror of re-finishing should not be so fresh in my memory....

Phase one completed...

                                                      October 7, 2010

The sun is shining, there's a nice breeze, and it's 62 degree's.  Maybe the ground can begin to dry up after three solid days of rain!  Phase one is complete, the foundation is done..well the blocks are done... The excavator will be here today to do some more work, the contractor will be here tomorrow to insulate the blocks and lay the French drain, and on Saturday the concrete floor in the garage will be poured.  Then on Monday the framing crew will begin their job..

Nasty, nasty weather!

October 6, 2010
I don't have any new pics to post because I won't take my camera outside in the rain...which never stops....just like the Amish guys!  They have worked through this nasty weather, they are about 1/2 day behind, but I bet they finish today.

Having them here has been..umm..ahhh...what words to describe it? An experience...not bad, just different-like dealing with children, which, I believe, comes from their lack of communication..
For example:
They use my leaky garden hose as their water source to mix cement, it's very important to turn the water off when you're done using it for the day because of the leak. At the end of their first day of work, as they were loading up their things preparing to leave, I said:

Me- "you're not using the water anymore, right?" (I forgot that it's all in the wording!)
Amish guy- "Yeah, we still need it."
Me- "oh, I thought you were leaving now."
Amish guy- "yeah, we are."
Me- " so you are done with the water."
Amish guy- "We'll need it tomorrow..."
Me (trying not to sound irritated)- "But..you..are..done..with..it..for..now..correct? The hose leaks and it's important to turn it off when you are done."
Amish guy- "yeah, for today."
As we're having this conversation the rest of the Amish crew are standing there too, but no one says a word!!
I walk to the spigot to turn it off, and someone has already turned it off!!  Now, why didn't they say, "Yeah, done with water today, and have already turned it off."?  Sheesh!

On Monday, their first day of work, when their driver came to pick them up at the end of the day, he backed down the driveway and right into the ditch that was dug for the blocks for the garage. He just came flying down the driveway-backwards- and plunk..right into the ditch!  The tire on the drivers side was way in there,the body of the truck was resting on the ground, and the other tire was still in the driveway.  Without getting out to survey the problem, the driver sat there, engine roaring, trying to drive out! The one tire that was still in the driveway was spinning, but then bent outwards at an odd angle.  The Amish guys all started yelling,"WHOA,WHOA!", as if it were a horse, the dogs all started barking..what chaos!  The driver was useless, he must have been in shock, the Amish however went into action much like a Nascar team would do, and built a ramp under the dangling tire in the ditch from blocks and a board and he drove out and away, something on his truck squealing really loud, and that one back tire bent outwards...
The weather is supposed to start getting better tomorrow. I hope to be able to finish the furniture refinishing projects I have going on, and get the canopy cleaned, dried, folded and put away. I'm so sick of seeing that canopy and tarps in the little bit of yard that isn't all dug up with construction! I have stripped and sanded the buffet that I posted a pic of earlier and it is so beautiful!! I can't believe that it was hidden under that red stain, the wood is so unusual. I searched the Internet and I believe it is Quilted Maple..just lovely! I have a Birds Eye Maple dresser that I just need to finish the top of and that will be used in the 2nd bathroom. Then there's the elephant in the room..the ugly china hutch that was my mother-in-laws.  IF I can strip it, and IF the wood under all that red stain, and years of kitchen grease and cigarette smoke sticky stuff, looks nice...I'll finish it and use it in the master bathroom for towels and supplies. The dining room chairs that were waiting to be finished will have to wait for a long time, I won't have time to do them before the weather gets even worse, and I won't need dining room chairs right away like I need the vanities for the bathrooms. The chairs have gone back into storage, stripped, but unfinished.
I can not express the pressure on me lately to get things wrapped up... not just the furniture, and the fact that I've done nothing in my yard or flower beds- or in the flower beds at church-to prepare for the fall and winter seasons, but also great pressure in making decisions for the house- like what kind of lighting (what a process-so much to choose from), doors, on and on...so many decisions. The really big one is the kitchen, next week I meet with a couple designers. I actually have drawn how I want my kitchen, to scale, on graph paper...  :-)  I just need to have the designers input and an estimate.  I do have a list that I carry with me at all times, my brain just can't keep everything in order anymore, I need paper!  I have to do one of my least favorite things to do..make phone calls!
So, that's what I'm doing today, watching it rain, shopping online for lights, making phone calls, and trying to stay organized!
The most exciting thing that's happened so far today is that the Port a Pot guy came and pumped out the pot in my yard..yeah!

Those Amish guys have got the moves!

                                                        October 1, 2010
               The Amish brick layers arrive and start to work..these guys work fast!

They did all this in only one day!

Chris is standing in his bedroom!

October 4, 2010

A cold and rainy day! The block layers arrived at 7:30 a.m and worked all day! They seem to be done with the house section and are working on the garage foundation now, and the roof support column still needs built. I think they will be done tomorrow, unless the rain slows them down.

Chris Fuller and I had a meeting today,they'll start framing next week. He expects to have the framing done and the roof on in the next three weeks. I have to get busy making choices on so many things..I have homework to do!

Progress!

The table I refinished looks horrible, and I've given up trying to make it look better. After researching possible reasons why, I think that I damaged the wood when I removed the old finish, there's nothing I can do now and so I'm moving on. The next re-finish job is an old buffet I bought to use for the vanity in the master bathroom. This is the before picture.. there are nicks, lots of dirt,and even some mold...

Harley lays here because he can see out this window and watch all the construction vehicles/workers go by. He barks and barks at them, but as you can see here, he fell asleep while on duty!

                       

The foundation has been the focus of the crew the last few days.

                                                 Wednesday the 27th
After all the rain water was pumped out of the hole, there was a flurry of activity..digging, gravel deliveries, more digging, and then the concrete trucks started to arrive and the footer was poured.

                       I took the next pictures from the porch of the tree house.

  The concrete guy filled the shovel of the Rock Buster with concrete...

...then the Rock Buster transported the concrete to the hole...

....and dumped it.

Chris Fuller, our general contractor is the guy on the ground, the other two guys are his crew.

The guy watching is the driver of the concrete truck, "Jr" is in the Rock Buster. 

Thursday the 30th

The moisture barrier was laid, gravel spread over it and holes dug and filled with concrete. I know that the hole in the center is where a block column will be built that will support the roof, I don't know what the other concrete filled holes are for. 

Later in the afternoon the blocks are delivered.  The block layers will be here tomorrow October 1st.

Rain, rain, go away...

Wow..how things can change in just a few hours! Yesterday I left to run some errands and returned home four hours later, there were trucks, digging machines, and men everywhere it seemed...

Nothing much is going on today....it started to rain heavily during the night and we woke up to mud everywhere, the hole for the house has a lot of water in it!

In the last few hours "Jr." (the excavator's son) showed up and dug a drainage trench from the hole, Chris F. showed up with his sidekick Bill, and they set up a sump pump to drain the water out of the hole, and a port-a- pot was delivered ( I wondered where all these guys were going to go potty!).  Chris F. is sick, he has the plague that's been going around, so he went home to go to bed.  I told him I'd keep an eye on the water drainage and un-plug the pump when it was drained out.  I had the plague too, I know how he feels...

I hope tomorrow will be a better day...