Update March 2011

Its been a cold winter, but we are starting to see signs of spring.  We had a white Christmas.  This is Randy washing dishes the day after Christmas.  Are we having fun yet??

During the last three months, we have finished our electrical and plumbing rough-in.  A friend who lives about 6 miles from us, Kevin Schmidt, has been doing most of the wiring and plumbing.  Here is Kevin, hard at work and some of his electrical handiwork.

 

Also, we installed our nice new tub/shower a couple of weeks ago, seen below looking through the wall separating the kitchen from the bathroom.

In February, Randy installed the Provent roof baffles that allow air to flow from the eaves to the roof ridge.  They prevent the roof insulation from blocking the air path.

During January, Kevin installed screen on the north porch and trimmed out around the windows with eastern red cedar from a local sawmill.  It looks so nice, we are using cedar for all of our outside trimwork.

On the exterior of the house, we hired Tim Lawson, a builder from Hohenwald to build a deck and balcony on the east side of the house.  It came out so nice that we asked him to build one on the west side as well!  The deck is supported by cedar posts cut from our property.  The second picture shows the stairs.  Tim and his helper Darrell are a joy to work with.

The balcony above the deck will be waterproof so that the deck below will be out of the rain.  Here is Randy on the balcony after the first coat of Sealoflex deck compound has been applied.

Of course, the blog entry would not be complete without a picture of the cutest member of the family.  Rodney lives outside now.  His cage was removed from the house about a month ago because he prefers to live outside with his buddies.  However he visits every day for a snack.

Update

I can't believe it has been three months since I last posted.  After the dry-in, we have been working steadily on the house and property, mostly by ourselves, but occasionally with help.  These are the highlights, month by month.

September:  We plastered the part of the concrete block wall that was going to have back fill up against it, and painted the plastered wall with two coats of Drylok.  French drains were put in at the base of the foundation and covered with gravel and landscape cloth.

We also built the frame of the north porch.  It has four 6"x6" treated posts supporting 2"x12" poplar beams that in turn support the floor joists. 

October:  Two exciting things happened at the beginning of October; first, we moved from our rental house in Linden to the basement of our new house, and second, we rescued a little squirrel that our neighbor's dog tried to carry off.

 

This is Rodney (the rodent) in his first box at about 6 weeks old (as we found him).  He mostly took puppy formula milk from a dropper, but also ate some grapes, cracked hickory nuts and chewed on pinecones.

Also during October we started putting up the 4'x10' sheets of Certainteed fibercement board siding.  They weighed about 100 pounds each and most were put up by just Randy and me.  This is a picture of where we were on Halloween.  It shows the scaffolding for putting up the fibercement board, the french drains covered with landscape cloth and the plastered and painted basement wall.

November:  Rodney was weaned in early November and had graduated to a new cage that allowed him to climb out into the house via an 8' pine branch.  He was getting braver and eventually we let him outdoors.  Now he is outside most of the time, playing with other squirrels in the woods, but he occasionally comes home to fill up on nuts that we crack for him, cucumber, cauliflower and acorns.

Also, this month we had the fill put in around the basement, and had the yard "sculpted" so that water coming down the hill on the south side would be channeled away from the house.  This is our friend Ernest working the earth moving equipment, and the final back yard.

This next picture shows the house as it is now, and the following two are pictures of our cozy home in the basement.

The house is dried in!

Yesterday the builders finished putting on the Galvalume roof, which finished the drying-in phase.  The following pictures show where we are now.  This view is looking NW.  Notice the upstairs windows (south wall) are shaded by the roof overhang.  The downstairs windows and door will be shaded by the greenhouse roof.  In the winter, the sun will illuminate the upstairs windows.

This is a view from the driveway.  Notice the butterfly fluttering by.

This is a view from the livingroom looking up to the loft.  The bathroom is at the bottom right and the corner of the kitchen is at the bottom left.

Below is looking into the kitchen from the livingroom.  The kitchen is about 20 ft by 9.5 ft.  At the left is a half wall to the diningroom.  The doorway in the foreground will be left open and the woodstove will be right in front of the wall to the right.

Below is looking from the livingroom toward the diningroom and the stairs to the loft.

This is the loft.  At the far end will be the bedroom and the study will be at the top of the stairs.

This is looking downstairs from about halfway down the stairs.  The livingroom is at the lower right.

This is the bathroom as viewed from the livingroom.  The bathroom is about 7 ft by 10 ft.

The next phase will be installing the Certainteed fiber cement board siding and building the porch on the north side.  The siding is comprised of 4 ft by 10 ft panels that weigh about 100 lb. each!  We will take a couple of weeks breather before starting the next phase.  Meanwhile, we will be caulking and sealing and taping the walls, and waterproofing the concrete block walls of the basement.  After the basement walls are waterproofed and french drains installed, we will have dirt backfilled up to a bit above ground level.  Stay tuned . . .

Topping off

We have been in the midst of a major heat wave, which has really been unabated since the end of May.  The days have been in the high 90's to the low 100's almost every day and the nighttime lows are in the mid 70's.  It has been very difficult working outdoors in these conditions.  However, the framing is continuing and the rafters are going up!  This picture shows the first rafters being put in place and the next one shows two of the framing crew; Joe and Carlos, with Randy on the right.  In between Carlos and Randy you can see one of the 6 x 6 poplar posts and some of the 2 x 12 poplar girts we are using for the framing.  Tulip poplar is plentiful in this area and these timbers are rough sawn from a local sawmill.

The picture above is taken from the living room looking toward the kitchen.  The landing for the stairs to the loft is above and to the left of Carlos.  Below is shown a view of the rafters from the living room.  The final picture shows where we are as of August 14.

Framing up the house

Our builders finally started framing the house on August 2.  In this picture, the subfloor is complete, and half of the north wall is going up.  The north wall is 15 feet high and has a double door and two windows in it.

Here, the complete north wall is up and is being leveled and braced.

And, as of August 6, part of the south and west walls up.  The last picture is our view of the creek, looking north from the "living room".

Our New House

We have spent the last 2 months designing our new house on the hill, negotiating with builders and ordering supplies.  The basement is now finished (except for waterproofing) and the framing is supposed to start Monday!

This is looking down the hill at the basement (looking north).  Our power pole is in the middle and the creek is the white line just beyond the first trees.  The next picture is a closeup of the back of the basement wall.  The little "wingwall" sticking out is a support to help hold the wall against the weight of the backfill.  The wall has rebar every other block and every cell is filled with concrete.

The next picture shows the floorplan.  There will be a 10 ft by 32 ft screened porch on the north side and a 8 ft by 32 ft sunroom on the south side.  There will be a balcony off of the study in the loft and a carport on the west side.  The sunroom will be used as a greenhouse in the winter.

The next picture shows the east elevation and the following one is the loft plan.

The Flood of 2010

This is my first post in several months.  We were hit by the floods that ravaged the Nashville area on May 2.  The church we were renovating was caved in, our Honda car was totaled and the little "guest cabin" we were living in was washed away.  There was a river of water that covered Hurricane Creek Road three feet deep.  The church had been in that location for almost 100 years and water had never been inside it before.  They say this was a 500 year flood. 

We waded through knee-deep water early in the morning on Sunday May 2 with our two cats and the clothes on our backs.  The creek overflowed its banks about 6:00 am and by 6:30 it was lapping at our door.  We drove our truck to higher ground and watched as our possessions floated away.  We stayed over night in the truck cab, then spent the next four nights in a tent because we could not cross the creek in the truck.  The tent had been in the storage room near the church, which was flooded but did not float away.  Our refrigerator, which had been just outside the church, floated down the creek about 1/4 mile and we were able to salvage some food from it.

The first picture shows the front of the church and the Honda (after spending two days digging it out by hand).  Next is the back of the church.  The cabin floated down the creek and landed about 1/8 mi down, on the opposite side and then fell over a few days later.  The last picture shows a typical view of piled up debris down the creek.  The box is one of our dressers from the cabin.

This has been difficult to write about and I have been putting it off.  We got a new computer about two weeks ago and just got back connected to the internet on Wed.  We are renting a house in Linden, about 10 miles from the property, and hope to move back by September.  Actually, we are much better off than some of our neighbors, who had 1 foot of water in much more expensive homes.  We applied to FEMA and were very pleased with how they responded.  So, life goes on.

We are now building a small house up the hill from the creek.  It is 20 ft by 32 ft, about the same dimensions as the church, except it will have a full basement and a 1/2 loft.

This is a view of the new house site from about where the cabin had been.  The floodwaters got about halfway up this hill towards the house site.  The excavators are digging the footers for the foundation.

This is the concrete being poured for the slab and the concrete block wall for the basement going up.  This is where we are today.  Stay tuned!