Bring On The Heat

The custom masonry wood stove that we ordered is finally ready for installation. Stan Homola of Woodland WA the master craftsman arrived with his grandson, Jaydon to begin setting up the core unit.

Some of the bricks and stones are brought in.

Jaydon mixing mortar









Stan showing Ben our local mason a few tricks on the trade. Ben will build the chimney and skin the fire with natural rocks at the end of the process.



Beginning of brick work. These bricks can withstand very high heat.




Stan after 40 years in the trade shows no signs of slowing down and completed his part of the installation in two days. We are delighted with the quality of his work



Somebody whispered that the unit will weigh approximately 6,000lbs once completed. We hope the house won't fall down....at least we will be nice and toasty.



The finished unit. From left, Ben, Jaydon and Stan.

True Grit Friends

In spite of missed tee times and excuses not to join his golf buddies for their weekly round of 18 holes, Kirk's friends are still willing to come back for more punishment and help with projects that need more than one pair of hands. In July they showed up to help lay some of the tongue and groove flooring on the second floor. Everything worked out beautifully until Sarah showed up the next day and decided that it had to be changed. I don't think we will ask the guys to come back and redo their handy work, but look for before and after pictures at a later date in the blog.
Sarah was not popular and she had to work hard to win her argument. She remains The Princess

Al in foreground, Gary in the back getting stuck in. As a team they made great timing.

Between the beams. Pat, Gary and Al.

Captain says "I'd rather be playing golf!"

Kirk and Al concentrating hard on the nailing pattern.

Gary doing what he does best, playing with wood. He is a master in his field and we have him booked for several specialty jobs down the road.

....and the prize for "Best Legs on a Ladder" goes to...........

In spite of clear signage on the easement we share with our neighbours and their three kids, some do not drive as slowly as they should, so we decided to put in some speed bumps to remedy the problem. It worked!

Sarah applying paint on either side of the bump for good visibility.

It was time to dump some of the dirt back around the house and build up the footing. This picture shows Kirk right before he hit that big post with the tractor and split it perfectly in two.......OOOPS

This post actually, but he forbid
any photographs of the boo-boo and meanwhile we put up a temporary support and then Sarah took the truck to Home Depot to pick up a replacement post which we installed in the same location. By the grace of God, the house did not fall down nor did the roof collapse. We can laugh about it now, but at the time it was just a tad stressful!

Dumping dirt and leveling the ground.

Sarah pressure washing the fascia boards before painting. We hope the paint will match the exterior color of the windows that were ordered a few weeks ago.

Beaming

This series of photos shows life back in the interior. All of the beams shown will be exposed in the dining room and living room. These babies are very heavy so Kirk was very appreciative of Wayne's muscle and expertise. The beam hangers are made of welded 1/4" steel plate and fasteneres of stainless steel

View from kitchen looking through dining room windows.

Below shows a straight shot from living room through to the mud room.

View from the top.

We started staining these Douglas Fir beams a few months ago. They will require touch up down the road as construction is a dirty job. No need to point out the fingerprint smudges, just another fixer down the road.

Surfing anyone?

Got Roof.

We finally decided with some reservations that Copper was our color choice for the roof. A three inch square metal color swatch looks quite different to a span of hundreds of sq ft., so we called Taylor Metal Products in Salem, the manufacturer of the material for a list of other Copper roofs in our area. Turned out the only one was a commercial building in Philomath, thus we went to view Dairy Queen. We are the first residence to have a metal copper colored roof in the area.....but we love it!



Finished product.


Comparison of house and garage/shop.


View from East side







The sun finally arrived and roofers had to suffer a few hot days. Photo quality not very good because of the glare.

Got Gopher?

The gophers have taken our pasture by storm and we decided that it was high time to call in the professionals. I suggested to our neighbours Simon 10, Mateo 8 and their Dad, Hector, aged, that they undertook the project for a per head bounty. They agreed and the Rodriquez brothers became "You Got' Em, We Git 'Em" gopher trapping experts. With daily due diligence in setting, checking and cleaning traps the brothers now hugely successful are threatening to go public with their company and join Nasdaq. Their start-up investment included more traps, tunnel probes and smooth juicy peanut butter to bait gophers has paid dividends and they are confident that their Summer goal to trap 1,000 gophers can be attained. The turkey vultures, buzzards and crows are very happy too. Meanwhile we have increased our home loan to pay for their services. Got Gophers? "You Got 'Em, We Git 'Em" are the best company this side of the Mississippi.

Mateo and Simon Rodriquez display one days bounty

Aaghh.........


Time to do some clean-up which included getting rid of some of the huge piles of treasures (a.k.a. crap!). Ads on Freecycle.com brought in a few guys with pick-ups who off loaded some wood in an effort to reduce the size of our burn pile which is so large we were concerned that the size of the blaze would burn the house down. Left over Faswall blocks were returned to Shelterworks in Philomath and we made sure that Tim now bigger and looking more like military material everyday earned his keep.

Final Roof Preparation

Simon and Mateo picked up hundreds of nails and pieces of metal that needed to be disposed off. They boosted their Summer Fund

Transformation. In just over one week we went from walls and bucks to
a structure that finally resembles a house.

Trusses are all in place and sheathing finished to support the roof. This view shows the posts at the front of the house. Eventually we will have a deck too.

Many of the trees had growth spurts this Spring with all of the rain and warm weather. Mowing was constant whenever the sun came out. May was so soggy.

Kirk framing the master bedroom and installing the walk-in closet.

Kirk comes out of the closet!