Bucking Windows

Master and Commander a.k.a. Chief Window Bucker!

The army paid a visit for a thorough inspection of the work so far. They felt a little tweaking was necessary. From left to right, Lieutenant Tompson, Staff Sergeant Timson and Corporal Summer

Different stages of the pour, showing the integrity of walls and rebar spacing.

The third concrete pour. Jim runs this show with precision. Kirk had to ensure that concrete fell all the way down to the top of the previous pour. He said it was hard work and needed lots of muscle to push cement into all of the vacuums inside the blocks.

View through to the dining room. We changed the original design of the
window layout, from one large slider to three casement windows.

Kirk making final adjustments to corners in preparation for the next concrete pour

Floored!

The crew so far, Wayne, ex pro football player, Jim, ex state champion wrestler and Kirk master golfer. Big hands, big feet, big gentlemen!.

Tim in his bedroom.

This view shows the sub floor and continuation of blocks

Framing around the fire place. Thank heavens for brawn and muscle, these joists were heavy, not to mention the wear and tear on backs and knees with all of the bending and moving underneath the joists in what is now the crawl space

Inside the stem wall, we positioned pony walls for the floor joists to sit on. Here is the long view of the first floor (Eng. ground floor )

Raising Walls

Rain or shine, the show must go on.

Per the engineering plans, re-bar had to positioned every 2 ft on most parts of the house and every 1 ft on the front of the house where we have more windows.

Miscellaneous pipes had to be added. Here is some of the plumbing.

Stem wall, bracing for pony walls and vent bucks.

Interior view shows preparation for the masonry wood stove. It's a big one and thus needs to have a separate footing.

Off the Ground

A great week. With Jim's help we went from this.......

......... to this.

Kirk laying the first blocks. We chose Faswall blocks to build our house with. They are made in Philomath, the town next to Corvallis, so in addition to being made from recycled green wood pallets we could also pick them up from the plant. We like the idea that they are made locally by a small independent company and do not have to be shipped thousand of miles





Concrete bumper truck pouring cement to secure the footings

Breaking Ground .........finally

Jim taking pains to make sure everything is level and well formed

Time to fill in holes, lay gravel and prepare the footing. I love it when we have good help!


View of septic system underneath the rainbow.


First job was digging trenches to home all of the conduit for electrical and plumbing. Of course it was wet, cold and difficult to work with, not to mention heavy. Kirk as usual put his back into it without complaint. Finally the sun came out and a little extra help.

Death of a Beauty

Sadly this beautiful Walnut tree had to be removed, we are on a flood plain and thus chose to build on the highest elevation of the field. Somewhat ironic, since we have planted 2,000 new trees on the property in three years. It was heartbreaking to remove the only old growth tree on the site.

Kirk with chain saw making headway.

The Trunk.
One very heavy trunk, which will be our front door.
Removing the stump proved too much for the tractor even after we had loosened all of the surrounding soil, so we too were stumped.
By chance and a huge stroke of luck an old friend of Kirk's showed up the next day with his old Forest Service pick-up. He offered his services and we put the vehicle through it's paces. Several dozen pick-up pulls later and a couple of broken cables, the walnut tree was out. Thank-you Rick Cope and happy retirement!

Guy Fawkes?!