PHASE FOUR Weeks 20 & 21 - Interior Work

Weeks of October 13th & 20th -

***Last week & weekend Norman and I FINALLY finished applying our log preservative and pesticide treatment and our subs finished the interior log siding in the great room. ***This week our subs are working on insulation, trim for the windows, and caulking of the exterior logs so that staining can begin next week. We are also putting some good flooring in our attic (not OSB board) and insulating the attic rafters as well as the floor as we will probably want to finish it at off at some point. We have 570 s/f of attic space, so there is room for plenty of storage plus a small room (maybe an exercise room).

***We met with our landscaping consultant who has taken soil samples and come up with a beginning plan for us. This guy is pretty cool, by the way, with "decades" of experience in plant biology. He is a naturalist who also into wholistic healing and big on organic farming. Want to bet that he also subscribes to Mother Earth Magazine (as do we)? He has tested our soil, which is about as hard as concrete right now and contains various toxins, and will grown almost nothing until we rework it. We are to have it turned 4-6 inches, mixing it with granulated gypsum. Gypsum, we have learned, will encapsulate all of our toxins and provide several needed nutrients for our soil such as calcium and carbon. Next we are to plan oat seeds and Austrian winter peas over the whole site and to cover all with straw. Once the oats and peas are about 1" tall, we spread a fertilizer called Greensand over it with one of those handheld spreaders.

*****Charles Thomas, who did all of our excavation, is going to give us a price to do all of this, along with completing the ditch for our underground electric , closing it up, and setting up our electric meter about 60 feet from the house. (If we put the meter on the house it will be an eyesore we can't disguise, so a friend suggested we move it a few feet away from the house. This will also be much nicer for the meter reader, as he won't have to get as close to our barking doggies.) In addition to owning and using heavy machinery, Charles owns a local nursery and was filled with good ideas on inexpensive landscaping. He also helped us decide where to locate our final parking area/driveway, suggesting that we add another turnaround. It will be on the left side of the house as you drive up then a walkway (probably of flagstone) will lead from the driveway to the house. Since we will end up with two attached turnarounds on our driveway, I guess we should rename our home CRAZY EIGHT BLUFF DRIVE!?

***We have also hired back our "mountain man," Ronnie, to haul off our most recent huge pile of construction debris, to chop up and haul off various and assorted branches and wood debris, to help us with the staining next week, and to put plastic (moisture vapor) under the house. Ronnie don't read or write and I had to pay him soon as he filled his truck with the first load so he would have enough gas to haul our stuff off. We hear his wife takes his pay as soon as he gets home every day and they go out to eat with it.

***We are putting up temporary doors this week so we can get the house secured. One of our subs has some old ones he is letting us use. The front and mud room doors we will have are being framed and won't be ready for at least three more weeks.*** We have contracted with an alarm company that will do the preliminary wiring in the next few days before the interior is completely finished. ***DECISION ABOUT DOOR KNOBS HAVE FINALLY BEEN MADE (That was agonizing, thanks Mother, Dad & Marti, for your advice - we have gone with oil rubbed bronze exterior knobs & handsets, and antique nickel interior knobs, which should complement our brushed nicked bathroom & kitchen fixtures.

****As I write it is a rainy Friday. We have to get our T & G cathedral ceiling sealed so that's our weekend project. We WILL, however, be taking at least a few hours off for the UT game, watching it at the home of our friends Bethany & Tim. Go VOLS!

PHASE THREE: Weeks 17, 18, & 19 - Rough In

Weeks of Sept. 22, 29 & October 6 - (Click on the photos and you can see more detail. We are very happy with the way our roof, siding, and fireplace have turned out.) I can't believe I have let three weeks go by without updating this blog! Things have been very intense, with lots of final decisions agonized over and made (such as electrical fixtures, lighting and appliances). Would you believe I spent two days and went to 3-4 places looking for bathroom fans, then ended up back at the first place to buy them? We THOUGHT we were prepared, but the pace has become so fast that our heads are spinning (call me Linda Blair!). OK, here are the highlights:

****Our electrical, plumbing, and HVAC has been "roughed in," our shingles & final roofing is done, our fireplace has been completed, and some of the interior log siding has been put up. Our fixed windows are also in (except for one apparently measured wrong), but I don't have a picture showing them yet). At times we had as many as 10 subs, including their employees, on the site! Luckily they all know each other and are on good terms, so they didn't seem too perturbed when they had to step over and around each other**** Our fireplace guys are a change, as our original subs were several weeks behind. The good news is that they completed the fireplace and stone veneer in less than three weeks and saved us well over $4,000 in the process! We did have some communication problems as none of them speak English (all hispanics), but we were able to communicate through their boss (the owner of A1 Building Supply, Carl Mount, a great guy!)****We passed our county framing and rough-in inspection, albeit with a few comments about some of the plumbing (nothing that didn't meet code, but our inspector wants above and beyond code at times).***After getting one estimate for over $700 to haul away our four piles of construction debris, we hooked up with a local mountain guy who did it for about $300. Poor Ronnie can't read or write, but he worked hard for us and did a good job. He also does lots of miscellaneous chores others don't seem interested in at the rate of (get this) $12 (cash) an hour! We are going to use him to help us stain our home, a chore we have decided to do ourselves to save money and because we are convinced we will do a better job than anyone else (OK, except for that bid of well over $9,000 that we couldn't afford!). ****We still spend every weekend policing the joint (cleaning up, for those of you younger than mud). Last weekend we began to prepare to apply our Shell Guard (combo pest and wood rot treatment containing borax). Norman took off work today and will take off tomorrow because it is taking us longer than expected. Hopefully, by this weekend we will be ready to begin staining our logs.

SUB OBSERVATIONS: Overall, we have been pleased with our subcontractors. However, we have unfortunately learned to believe the home building books when they say you really can't completely trust anyone and must be there to closely supervise. Here's today's example: We have a crew who is doing most of post-rough-in work such as insulation, drywall, ceiling and floor installation, etc. We really like these guys, but have been disappointed in the quality of some of their work. Today, for example, they began to install some batts installation. I noticed that while about 70% of it was done correctly, some of it was cut wrong and literally crammed-in, made-to-fit. I knew how it was supposed to be installed because I had read about it over and over again. I had to confront them and it upset me (a lot more than it did them, I think). I simply told them that I needed for them to redo it, that insulation really can't be compressed and needs to be cut to fit. The just looked at me and nodded. (Later when I checked, they had redone it, but some of it was still a bit tight. It wasn't something I couldn't live with,. so I let it go.) ON THE UPSIDE OF THIS, later that day we received a pleasant surprise from these same guys. We had had some concrete delivered for a small concrete pad for our prow steps. There was some concrete left over, so our subs and the concrete delivery guy decided to pour concrete into the holes we had dug over the weekend for our new gate. (We had posts sitting in the holes). They not only poured the cornet, they leveled the posts, saving us some time and effort. I don't know if our guys felt guilty and/or embarrassed over the insulation criticism or were just being nice (and they ARE NICE GUYS), but this just goes to show that to err is human and ... to then throw in a nice surprise for the boss makes it a whole lot better! (S)

P.P.S. We have fleas! Our neighbor's dog, a daily visitor actually named Peehead, has left his mark!