Sunday, June 29, 2008

Just so you don't get bored....

Here is a picture of a house that was built from the plan we started with (and then revised and changed MANY times!). But the outside has remained much the same, so this gives you a good idea of what our house will look like, although our garage doors are on the front, so you would see them in this picture. As well, we have extended the porch around the back and added a deck.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Progress...or lack thereof...

Well, we're on a rain delay. The house is surrounded by loads of fill while they wait to finish the backfill and pour the floors, and the building supplies delivery and start of construction has been postponed until.....who knows.... *sigh*

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Rain

It's Thursday and still no good forecast. Right now it shows rain right through until next Wednesday. But regardless, the lumber is coming Monday morning and construction starting....I guess they can pour the floor through the framing but what a PITA ....darn weather....

Monday, June 23, 2008

Waiting on the weather

The inspection is done, and the basement floors are covered in plastic awaiting cement. Unfortunatly they are also awaiting the sun. While the walls can be poured with some rain in the forecast the floors are a bit more touchy. Apparently showers are OK, but rain would be bad. And these days we seem to be getting a lot of it...not constant, but here and there every day.

Rain, Rain, Go Away.....

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The basement plumbing is done...

...and waiting for inspection the first of the week. As soon as we get the green light they'll pour the basement and garage floors. Monday of next week the carpentry starts.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

It's beginning to look a lot like....

(no, not Christmas! Thank goodness!) A basement!! The forms are off and they have started backfilling in order to put in the posts for the porch...they will wait a few days to tamp it all down though. The plumber comes tomorrow to put in the basement plumbing so they can pour the basement floor. They'll pour the garage floor and the cement supports for the porch at the same time.

We also signed the mortgage papers on Monday and found out that one of the requirements was a site survey that showed the position of the house on the lot, and could cost around $1200. YIKES Our lawyer suggested we ask if we could buy title insurance instead, which is only about $200....and the bank agreed...whoohoo! $1000 we can use somewhere else. We also called for insurance on the house. Especially after our trespassers--Keith's light, Cherry Skoal and Pro-Line...hmmmmmm....wonder who that might be...lol.

Andi loves looking around and playing with the rocks...dumping them down the tubes for the porch in this case! She knows where her room will be, and even looks at pictures of the foundation and points and says "Andi's room".









Monday, June 16, 2008

It's pouring...

....cement and rain this week...gaah...

The walls were poured today, and are now curing. So far no rain, but the forecast for the rest of the week is cool, rainy and just yucky. But I guess in the world of concrete it's not a big deal. Or so they tell me.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Father's Day. Flooring and the Red Sox

You might wonder the connection between the three....but really it's not that big of a stretch. See, we wanted wide plank floors for the house, like the ones you would have seen 200 years ago, and still can in really old homes. We saw some last summer at Acadian Historical Village! We found a company in New Hampshire, Carlisle Wide Plank Floors, who makes the most beautiful wide plank floor. What we have discovered is that they also have the best customer service, bar none, of anyone we have ever dealt with. So we have paid the deposit, and we're going to go pick up our floors on August 14th. (You'll hear and see more about this later and I've added a link on the side!)

Now, Carlisle also just happens to be two hours from Boston. Home of Fenway and the Red Sox, not that Gary likes the Sox, but since we're there (almost) we thought we might as well take in the game. And (totally by coincidence of course) ;) the Red Sox are at home. So our trip for the floors will also feature a side jaunt to Boston.

Which brings me to Father's Day...we told Gary to find the tickets he wanted, and a hotel, and that would be his Father's Day gift. So, Happy Father's Day. Go Sox. Can't wait to see the floors.....

Friday, June 13, 2008

Walls. Well, almost.

The forms for the basement walls are just about done. A few more tweaks on Monday morning and then they'll pour the concrete. It takes about a week after they're poured before they can do anything like backfill, so this will be another week of hurry-up-and-wait. But at least we know what we're waiting for and when it *might* be done! Charlie, our carpenter, is coming on Sunday to start making plans to get started on the construction phase. :)

A view towards the garage...












Looking towards the Great Room/kids bedrooms...












The front. It's an open walk-out basement. :)

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

It doesn't look that exciting, but really, it is!!!

I have never been so excited to see a piece of flat ground and some pieces of wood...aka the beginning of our foundation. It was thrilling to see the outline of the house and begin to visualize a bit more clearly. The cement trucks poured the footings today!
The bad news is we have to cut more trees. And even worse, poor Gary spent hours terracing around them with rocks so that we could hopefully save them. But there is just no way...they can't get the cement truck in to pour the walls without cutting them down. It makes me sad to cut such beautiful trees, but I guess we can't live in them, so they have to go. So tonight Gary and his friend Brodie are at the lot, cutting trees and moving rocks so we can keep going on the foundation.





From the ground up....

Keating's started hauling fill and working with Savard's to get things ready for the basement. After a few back and forth conversations we finally got everything ready to start. There were days when this was so frustrating, as we just wanted things to happen...we were ready, we had the permits, and we wanted to go-go-go. But the good thing is we have guys who want to do it right, not just do it fast.



Finally....some progress...

The last couple of months have seen us get all the permits, finish clearing the trees (or so we thought!), finalize the financing and hire our contractors. We put up a silt fence, Gary and Reg cut trees and burned brush, cleared up all sorts of interesting stuff (including old fox/mink pens), and got ready for the actual building process...we just had to wait for the roads to open so they could haul fill....it was our first indication that there would be a lot of hurry-up-and-wait...



A hole...in the snow....

In order to keep going with the permit process we needed to do a septic test for the Health permit. In March. In a winter when we had more snow than anyone can remember. Fortunately Bernie (our septic installer) and Tony (the Health inspector) were amenable to digging a hole in the snow. And because we had so much snow, so early, there was no frost in the ground. So in March we did our septic test....this is what they were facing....

Permits, permits, permits...

I am not sure why they are called permits, because really they tell you more about what you are NOT permitted to do. And you need them from everyone...Transportation, Health, Environment, the Building Commission....this one post could become a novel, so lets just say that we started in February and got our final permit the middle of May....whew.... Oh, and if you need permits, call the people who are capable of giving you one and go and meet them. For the most part they are very helpful and will walk you through the process....

Can't see the forest for the trees??!

So, last summer Gary and his dad started trying to thin the jungle that had grown up over the almost 20 years since my Dad had last done anything on the lot. Sometimes it was impossible even to walk through the brush and any "walk" to the river was an obstacle course of trees, brush, rocks, barbed wire and remnants of both the old homestead/barn and the building belonging to the logging companies in the days when the booms in the river below us caught the logs from the lumbering woods. The old stone "fence" you see here is actually the foundation of an old building. Unfortunately it sat smack-dab in the middle of the house site, and had to be dismantled, but with lots of grunt labour and some help from Keating's machinery we have saved most of the stones....






In the beginning...

While I hope building our dream house is not an epic of biblical proportions, when I look at the job ahead of us, and talk to other people who have built homes, I think it will quite likely be a very long and often frustrating process (we have found that out already) but, I am sure, worth it in the end.

So, I guess we need to backtrack a bit--Gary wants to ensure that all his hard work last summer and this spring is recorded for posterity. And there is the whole "how did we get here" story to tell.

It all started when my mom and I were talking one night about the property that my dad had owned for years...she was hopeful that someday in the future Gary and I might build there, even though she knew that she would not live to see it. She understood that, for me, this was not just a piece of property--it is a place where I picked blackberries with my Papa (her dad), it rests on the Millstream, where I fished for trout as a child, and it is not far from my uncle's home where my Gram and Papa lived and where I spent many idyllic hours and days growing up. I wanted to be able to pass some of that childhood memory and experience on to my own two children....so when my dad got home that night I asked him what he was planning for the lot...and it was soon ours, a place to build our dream home.

My mom died before she could see it happen, but I think she would be very happy to see her grandbabies grow up just a stone's throw from where she herself grew up.

We put our mobile home up for sale, and began planning...my uncle offered to do our plans for us, and we found some we liked for him to start working from. In September of '07 the mobile home sold, and we packed up and moved in with my dad (who I am sure had not forseen THAT when he offered us the property, haha). By Christmas we had a final plan--it is actually dated Dec 25th, 2007--thanks for the nice Christmas gift Uncle Bob! Spring was spent gathering estimates, talking to our lender, and applying for permits.....