adventures in building a home

little changes

2011-04-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Wow--it's been almost a year since I updated the blog! I guess we've been enjoying the house more than telling everyone about it. ;)

And it has been fun. We had an open house on Memorial Day weekend, celebrating the house being finished, and lots of friends (most of whom had been a part of the building process!) celebrated with us.

At Thanksgiving, we gathered around a big table with family and friends.
And, this spring, we got to start sharing the house with Matt and my new baby, Jonah. Here he is on a visit to Julian, with his first in-the-room exposure to power tools, as his dad finishes up replacing the baseboard on the wall behind the pellet stove.
More recently, we took care of one pesky little problem: a light bulb that was stuck in its fixture, jammed in so we couldn't get it down without climbing up the 26' to the ceiling, in the middle of the big room. It took 5 people holding the ladder...
...and one brave ladder climber. But now all the lights are working, no one has to dread climbing back up. At least for now.

There are lots of little project remaining, always, but more of the formidable tasks are done. Matt even cleaned out the garage--bringing down and selling things we don't need and hauling out the trash. And, for fun, he planted a bunch of hops plants behind the garage, for future homebrew fun.

We've started renting the house out as a vacation home, on vrbo.com. You can visit the site here. It seems like our first renters have enjoyed the home almost as much as we do.

Final Milestones?

2010-05-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

As of this Thursday, the house officially has power. And, the french doors have handles.As of Friday, the heater/AC unit is working and has a thermostat controlling it all.
A simple wire and wood post fence is now built by the road, ready to host grapevines when the time is right for planting next year.
Most of a walkway has been built, connecting the landscaped stairs down the hill to the front porch.
And, on the other side of the walkway, you can see a new oak tree planted in the yard. (An apple tree, too, but it's out of view.)
The top step is now finished, with an elegant transition between wood and carpet.
Besides all this, there's now a functional ice maker, washer and dryer. And, the attic access door is painted and hung.

Matt's still anxious about taking care of more details, but we crossed a bunch off the list!

Done enough

2010-05-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we discovered that the house is done enough for the neighbors to come and admire it. Matt and I were glad to welcome some long-time neighbors in to check it out--especially Bob, who's been dealing with significant health issues and hasn't been around much. He approved of the house--and shook Matt's hand to show it. :)
We worked on the little tasks that remain--moving a few more things up, arranging things, touching up details, doing some landscaping stuff. I discovered that it's much more pleasant to do all this with an almost-finished house. 'Cause there's a fridge to cool your drinks and nice couches to take breaks on...

There are still a few big pieces remaining; the power has yet to be connected. Apparently, the right form didn't get filed after last week's inspection. The new plan is a Monday morning inspection check-off, and line installation on Thursday. Also, on Wednesday, the good folks from Jerry's Heating will come to do the last bits on our HVAC system.

Mom and Dad created some lovely quilt hangers this weekend, so we can hang quilts to decorate the big room. I made some pillows for the family room. Matt, Emily, Phil and Shan are up there today, taking care of more things. More and more little pieces will come together.

I have to say, these little details are way more fun that the early details: like rebar dimensions and footing depth. It's a joy to be in the house, and we look forward to using and sharing it even more.

Movin' on up!

2010-05-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a big and beautiful day. It seemed really special that on Mother's Day weekend, and on Nona and Grandpa's wedding anniversary we were finally able to move furniture into the house.

We started at Matt and my place, loading some stuff we had here, and moved on to Nona's, where most of the furniture and things we purchased (so many years ago!) with insurance money were stored. It was a tight fit, but with all the cars and trucks pictured here full, we were able to get everything up the hill.
(We learned a lesson, too: watch what you set under a van you're loading. We trapped our cooler under the sagging weight of the truck. Luckily, neighbor Gary loaned us his jack so we didn't have to drag it up the mountain...)

Up the hill, we started the fun process of unloading all the pieces. We fit quite a lot of stuff into that truck.
All of it made it down the steep little hill and into the house. (Okay, we might have broken one plate in the moving process, but the big pieces were all in place...)
Everything made it inside, too, even the big heavy pieces like the fridge and the wood stove.
Emily and Nona worked hard at getting the kitchen in order. Josh and Matt R. put electronics together. Matt P and I put some pictures up and I made the beds. Lea hung curtains. Shan organized the bathrooms. Mom and Dad reclaimed a storage rack from the garage. Phil and Dad took down plastic that was still hanging in high-up windows. Everyone hauled lots of things, put things in order and worked hard.
And, then, we shared a lovely evening of relaxation in our beautiful house! Nona made us an incredible Italian feast (lovingly reheated in the microwave, since we don't yet have our final power hook-up...).
I thought it was kinda fun that we had to use a card table add-on for our first meal at the dining room table. This is a house that's been built by a gracious community of extended family and friends!
After dinner, there was a game of Cranium in the living room...
...and a movie in the front room...
...and we celebrated Matt R's birthday with Nona's homemade apple goodness, ice cream and trick candles. (Mom says its all they had at the store... Really, we weren't TRYING to pick on him.)
And at the end of the day, the dishwasher did most of the dishes for us.

We're looking forward to sharing many more days in the house, and are grateful for everyone who's helped. It'll be fun to use, together!

like an archeological dig

2010-05-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

Having passed final inspection, we called to get our power connected. Only to discover that we never started the proper process for electrical connection--something we ought to have done five years ago.

All of which has meant digging--to show the planner and the inspector the power line conduit we laid long, long ago. And which meant figuring out where it was buried, so very long ago. And lots of digging.

Also, there seems to be some different of opinion about the proper side of the power pole for a conduit to come up on; I remember that we had to move it to a different side five years ago. And Matt says we've moved it twice since then. North, east, whatever. Here's hoping no one else has other opinions.

But, now, having now passed through the planner and inspector, paid the bill for our power hookup, there now remain just 2 more pieces: a final, pre-installation visit from the inspector on Tuesday, and line installing on Wednesday. Here's hoping...

Hooray!

2010-04-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Dad met with the inspector today, and we have passed our final inspection! Hooray.

Many thanks to all y'all who've helped build this house with your labor and prayers.

Grandpa would be proud.

(And there are, of course, still a few little tasks remaining...) ;)

A Site to See

2010-04-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

It was a big weekend for our house site--it went from bare dirt and a tractor to landscaped yard. Well, at least landscaped-ish yard...

Here's where we were at lunchtime on Friday--Nona kept watch from the porch (and sometimes inside the house, when the wind got too cool) as we moved the dirt around a bit, to make sure we had appropriate drainage away from the house. It was, honestly, pretty disappointing to drive up and see that some of the dirt moving we thought our hired tractor was going to take care of, undone. Dirt moving is SO not our favorite job...
There were a couple of other little jobs on our list for the weekend--I missed taking a photo of Matt's last indoor railing modifications, and of Dad's caulk around the exterior lights, but I did catch our friend, Jerry, installing his little door to the crawl space.
And what a cool gift to us it is--a super-engineered door, made from an old metal bedframe, with a handle bearing the Littlehale monogram. Cool stuff. We convinced Nona (and Mom and Dad) to pose with it by the front door. Which now has house numbers on it. Like a *real* house. Thanks for the beautiful little door, Jerry!
Our friend, Eric, showed up to help, too. Digging in, we realized that dirt moving is lots better with many shovels (and people to use the shovels. Technically, we've had lots of shovels all along, and we know shovels alone are not enough). We got things into place quicker than we'd feared.
Matt took care of some details for an irrigation system. And, you can see, we brought up a trailer with a big ol' load of mulch from the landfill.
Mom got into the action, too, shaping the front yard.
And, I started unloading that big load of mulch. It smelled wonderfully organic (in the earthy, decomposing sense). That trailer holds a lot of mulch.
As the sun set, we spread our last loads of mulch in the yard.
Now that we're over five years into this building project, we finally gave one of our wheelbarrows the name it deserves: the Evilbarrow. I painted it on the sides, lest anyone forget. That felt good. (Now that we're nearly done, I think we can offer one Evilbarrow to anyone who would want it. Not that we'd want anyone we love to be subject to this horrible, certain-to-tip-over monster...)

But not even tipping loads could stop us: here, Phil celebrates the emptying of the trailer.
Before heading in for dinner, we stopped for a quick photo of Friday's crew with the empty trailer (and one Evilbarrow).
Saturday, we set to work on the next yard project, which had dual purposes: clearing the piles of brush and branches that have been sitting around the site for years, and making them into wood chips to finish covering the yard. Our friends, Andy and Lea helped us tackle the pile behind the garage, alongside our neighbor, Bob.
Bob brought some ratchet straps, with which we tied big bunches to drag down the hill to the wood chipper. Kinda like we were human mule teams. Here, Bob and Andy show us how it's done.
Lea and I gave it our best effort, too. It was very satisfying to watch the huge piles of branches dwindle down. I can only imagine that the neighbors are relieved, as well...
At the bottom of the hill, Matt R. and Emily jumped in to the chipper-chopping work. (They didn't jump into the chipper; you know what I mean.) This time we rented an even bigger machine than the one we had last time (which was like, um, 6 years ago or something). It made (relatively) quick work of all that wood we'd had piling up.
All the wood--the burned manzanitas at the bottom of the property, pine and oak we'd had to cut down, went in to the chipper. Here, Matt feeds in a tangled, dry branch from an oak tree.
It was a lovely, sunny day. We kept the chipper running pretty consistently for hours, making a couple of trailer-loads of wood chips.
This next picture is beautiful for what you can't see: a gigantic pile of old branches. Now, we just have the big logs and dreams of freetime for creative woodworking projects.
The wood chips were to quick use, covering the rest of the bare ground. While all this was happening, Dad was hard at work (below, on the left) making a little walkway area by the garage door, using a few retaining blocks and some railroad ties.
We got kind of busy trying to finish everything up and didn't take many more pictures, but here's the final image of the weekend. We think we've now done everything on the Inspector's list, plus built a swell walkway of woodchips edged by local stone--and even planted a few native plants in the yard. Dad's planning to go meet the Inspector on Monday; hopefully, he'll agree with us that this is a beautiful, code-compliant house, ready for electricity and inhabitation.

it's not too late to help!

2010-04-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

Good news: we got the approval of the fire marshall this week. So, now, we have just 2 things remaining on the list the Inspector gave us recently. Matt will take care of the railing on Friday.

You're most welcome to help us take care of the mulch on Friday afternoon or Saturday! We have some piles of brush to put through the wood chipper, and mulch to spread over the bare ground. This is the kind of work that requires little skill, and is way more fun with friends. :)

If you're interested, just let us know. We'll bring good food and grateful spirits...

Inspecting and Correcting

2010-04-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

A bit over a week ago, Mom, Dad, Matt and Emily spent a day working on the house. Dad did some finish work inside, while the others worked outside in the yard.

Here, Matt and Emily are cleaning out the old concrete wash-out pit, and preparing the area for a set of steps down toward the house.

They decided to cut up the old, burned power pole, to use as steps, and Emly started putting them into place.

Looking good, eh? This will improve both the look and the function of the hill!
Inside, Dad attached the edges to the kitchen counter. It all is looking amazing.
And, a week ago, we did have an inspection. With a new inspector. He had a whole list of new things to take care of, as well as the news that we cannot have our power connection until our final inspection is signed off on. So, Matt spent some quality time last week crossing things off that list while he was on Spring Break. (Mom and Dad, too.) Piece by piece, we're getting closer!

Last Friday--Good Friday--we had some fill dirt delivered, to level out the yard a bit and make appropriate slopes away from the house. Here, Matt caught the truck mid-dump, while some friends and I watched from the front porch.
But, I confess, our Good Friday trip wasn't for work: we went to enjoy the spring wildflowers in the desert. (They were beautiful.) And, we enjoyed our first *real* breakfast in the kitchen, making good use of the new griddle. We ate in the sunshine on the back deck. This is going to be a cool house to hang out in. I mean, really: just look how happy Matt is cooking there!

After looking at flowers, we did get just a small piece of work in: cutting a slab out of a log, so Matt could make the two more balusters that the inspector asked for on his railing. He's since cut them to the right dimensions in Dad's garage.

Now, we'll see what happens tomorrow when Mom and Dad meet with the Fire Inspector. Then, we have just 2 more things on our list: installing those balusters and putting mulch on the dirt where there are not yet growing plants.

We'd like to get all this done by next week. Which means that if you, Dear Reader, are looking for a way to help, and are free this Friday afternoon or Saturday, there'd be a job for you in Julian this weekend!

fixed!

2010-03-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

For years (now), we've known that we needed to make a fix on our septic system; today's it's done. :) After Roger succeeded in finding the septic line yesterday, Matt went up the hill this afternoon and repaired its connection to the tank.

Here, he tested the line by running water through it--everything worked beautifully.
Take a good look at these holes and piles--they'll be gone after tomorrow!

Also, Matt renewed our building permit yesterday (after surviving a fire drill in the county office...) All of which means we're now ready for an inspection on Friday. Here's hoping it all goes well!

details, details

2010-03-21T22:26:00.000-07:00

It's been a good couple of days of work this weekend, taking care of more details in preparation for an inspection (and for move-in!!).

Matt and I went up on Friday, and he lacquered the beautiful cabinet doors that Dad built. Isn't Matt's door-hanging-for-spraying trick clever?
And, of course, he lacquered the drawer fronts, too, as the sun set.
Saturday, Mom and Dad, Emily, Phil and Shan came up to take care of projects. Mom vacuumed. And then re-vacuumed. And, again, re-vacuumed.

Building makes a lot of dust.
Dad hung most of the cabinet doors, which is really pulling the kitchen together. :)
In the distance, you can see Phil and a piece of trim for the stairway.
Here are the kitchen cabinets after Saturday--looking good, don't you think?
Mom removed all the plastic from the appliances, and she and Shan took more plastic off the windows outside--our view is getting clearer and cleaner.
Emily and Matt did some landscaping planning, and began reshaping the hill in front to be more lovely.

I think that removing the giant pile of dirt by the road goes a long ways toward making the property look less like a construction site... :)

Shan helped Phil hang a few pieces of trim on the stairs--finishing touches that look excellent.
The fading light (and a cold) didn't stop Phil's work.

Today, Matt and I went back up the hill to retrieve the plans, as we realized we need to renew our building permit (again). This gave me a chance to hang some simple curtains in the downstairs bathroom. Now we have a door AND curtains--sophisticated.
When we arrived, we found Roger at work digging to help us fix up the septic system. But, when we couldn't find what we were looking for, our neighbor Bob decided to call on the memory of an old friend and neighbor, while Matt explored the options up close.

Happily, we've since found some paperwork evidence that should help the task. That, and it's still just exciting to have the help of a backhoe. Backhoes are WAY more fun than shovels.

some crappy work

2010-03-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Lucky for me, I was away this weekend, while Matt was digging to the (overflowing) septic tank. Here he is bailing it out a bit. Crappy, eh?
Some quite nice things happened, too, though, including one most visible through absence: check out the yard without a trailer parked in it! Thanks to neighbors Bob and Eric, who shared 4wd and expertise to make it possible to get it up the hill to the road.
Here's the trailer, which Matt towed down the hill to Nona's driveway, where it'll get a little (much-needed) TLC.

Dad helped with lots of projects--including plenty of workshop time at home during the week, getting cabinet doors, drawer fronts and trim pieces ready. Here he is straightening out a 3-way switch that was just a little mixed up.

Matt went up again on Sunday, when the weather was more pleasant, and made good use of the space freed up by moving the trailer! Here, it's home to a new painting spot, for the last interior door.

Then, he continued to clean the garage, heartened by Mom's good work the day before. He built a clever rack for lumber and containing a bit of our mess.
Looks quite organized, no? Perhaps even like the kind of garage you could park a car in!
Ah, yes. It works.
Nicely done, all!

putting things into place

2010-02-28T14:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was another wet winter day in Julian--but we kept busy and warm (for the most part) in the house.

We put the kitchen range into its place, lifting it carefully over the pretty new floors.Matt showed off some acrobatic skill getting it plugged in.
Emily climbed into its hole to try to corral the cord into place so it'd all fit nicely...
and then showed her acrobatic skill in getting out before it slid into its final place.
Nice, eh?
We put up all the final bits of window and door trim, and Mom worked hard getting them all sanded and ready for lacquer.
Emily and I put up the rest of the baseboard--now it's all in place. Even behind the laundry area and in the closets. :)
Matt started hanging the lovely new shower door downstairs--the doors in place, but the tile-cutting bit wore out before he could get the side panel installed. It's gonna look great, though!
And, again, Mom worked at conquering the muddy disaster that has become of our entryway. Now there's plastic dropcloth protecting it. And, someday, hopefully, our walkway paths will make travel from the street and the garage a little less muddy...
As Mom and Dad left, the snow began to fall. Matt and I stayed to lacquer the new wood trim, and by the time we left, there were 3" of snow in the driveway. It was coming down fast, in giant clumps!
We're happy to report that the window and door trim is all installed and lacquered, the baseboard all in, the pump that recirculates hot water all wired and functioning, stairway trim partway done, appliances installed...and we're nearly ready for an inspection. Perhaps one more weekend of clean-up and odd jobs and we'll be ready. :) Then (inspector willing) we'll be ready for a real electrical hookup. And we can turn the heater on. Ahhh...

Plus, Dad's been hard at work on cabinet doors and drawer fronts in his home workshop. Soon we'll be lookin' like (nearly) finished house.

a muddy day for details

2010-02-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the house: with gorgeous wood floors, and the tile floor we're sure glad we installed in the entryway. 'Cause look at that mud...
It was rainy all day today, and chilly in the house, but we enjoyed some time together, anyhow. The lemon meringue pie was good, too! (For evidence of this, look at the brightness of Dad's smile as he dishes himself a piece...) The kitchen's as clean as it's been, thanks to Mom's cleaning and sorting.

In the garage, Phil got to work lacquering the baseboard, while Shan put polyurethane on some oak trim pieces.
Dad took care of lots of little jobs, including detaching the range cord so it can be shortened.
Shan sanded the trim around doors downstairs, getting them ready for lacquer. We ran out today, but things are all ready for next time.

Shan and I started installing baseboard, getting creative with the strange angles in the big room's walls. It's looking pretty nice!
Here we are toward the end of the day. We'd thought we were past the point where saws belong in the house, but the rain and the mud between the house and garage convinced us that the big room makes a fine workspace for the time being. :)
Phil got some vent covers in, trimming the floor to make it work. If only we hadn't had to move the stairs (almost exactly a year ago!), this would have been less work today, too...
Matt and I also installed the upstairs bathroom vanity--another antique dresser transformed into a vanity. Now, given that it has a door and toilet paper, the upstairs bathroom is definitely the finest one to use. Thanks to Mom for cleaning it all up and getting it ready to use.
The big (unexpected) excitement, though, came from our attempts at getting Matt's truck out of the mud. It was convenient unloading the vanity from so close to the front door...but not so convenient to get the car back to the road. Here's a few fun pics of the project--toward the end, you get to meet our new neighbor, Bob, whose pulley figured prominently in the eventual solution. Thanks, Bob!

floored

2010-02-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

The big job this past weekend: finishing the wood floor.

Matt and I went up on Friday to do our last bits of sanding and prep work, put down the sanding sealer, and get the first coat of polyurethane down. If you look closely here, you can see the reflection of Matt in the left window, as he puts the finish down. :)We finished the first coats on the floor, admiring how good the oak looks with a clear coat on top!
On Saturday, Mom and Emily came up with us, to sand and add another coat of polyurethane, and to do a bunch of other jobs. Now, the electrical box is well-labeled, the wall patch in the bathroom is repainted, the hot water pump is mostly installed, and the step up to the front porch is done and stained!

See, it makes us happy...
Today, Matt and I went back for the final coat--here's Matt just before sanding the floor. We definitely got better--or else we did a better job of estimating how long things will take: the last coast took less time than we figured.

This is a new phenomenon for us.
The floor is looking great, and we look forward to it getting nice and hard before next weekend, when we'll return for more fun!

ready to finish

2010-01-31T17:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the whole project isn't quite ready to finish, but the flooring is now ready for finish. We had a few nice days of work this weekend. We confess that we had a hard time getting back in the swing of things after a lovely Christmas break (including a family trip to Hawaii...), but it actually felt pretty good to get back in the project.

Josh came with us on Saturday, helping get the stairs all ready.The floor looks pretty lovely. Just no one touch it until it's all sealed up...
While Josh and I were inside sanding and vacuuming, Matt got to work on the step up to the front porch.
And we moved the kitchen range into the t.v. room so we can finish the floor underneath. Matt and Josh had a deep conversation about electrical voltage standards in USAmerican houses. I learned that it's a good idea to wear gloves when lifting heavy appliances that have sharp metal edges. We all discovered that carpet scraps, carpet-side-down make a nice slide to scoot heavy things across precious flooring.
And finally, just because they're lovely, I thought we should show off the stairs. Matt finished installing the risers on Friday, and we got 'em all sanded and ready for finish on Saturday!
For the time being, you should know that there's a very strict "no dirty shoes in the house" policy. Actually, as far that goes, I think it's a "no one in the house at all, unless they're putting down wood sealer" policy.

Soon enough, we'll be able to entertain guests...

Christmas break?

2009-12-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

Matt and Phil have been working hard over the last couple of days, making good progress on the house! See, it wore them out:
Matt's been installing flooring on the staircase, making it all look quite lovely.
Phil's been installing doors and trim and things.
Now, nearly all the trim is in place in the house!
I'm told the Mom put the doorknobs on, though, while she was there Monday.
I think the stairs look quite gorgeous in photos, and look forward to seeing them in person.
The plan had been to sand and begin finishing the flooring this week, but the sander we rented had electrical problems--it wouldn't run for more than a few seconds without blowing a fuse--so other projects moved up the list, and sanding will have to wait.

Monday, carpet was installed upstairs and in the front t.v. room. A nice change-up from the plywood, don't you think?
Phil also got to work on constructing steps up to the front porch from the side, digging a nice footing. (And we thought we were done with digging footings... So naive...)
Here's the step he built up to the garage's side door.
Mom tacked a herculean challenge: sorting out the garage. It was kind of messy anyhow, but then because a disaster zone in recent rain and snow storms, when we just dumped stuff in as quickly as possible and shut the door. See, before:
And after.
Much better.

stepping it up

2009-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Matt's in the middle of finals, but has been tempering his study time with some building time; yesterday, he prepared flooring for the stairs. Don't they look nice, all piled up?
Of course, they'll look even nicer on the staircase!
Thanks for the hard work, Matt.

nailing down things

2009-12-13T17:34:00.000-08:00

This week, we finished installing the wood flooring; now it just needs to be sanded and finished. Oh, and installed on the stairs... So basically, we're just done with the big flooring nailgun, but that's a good step. And the good news is that it looks lovely. Matt and I went up Friday afternoon, and worked 'til midnight, nailing it all down.

Matt had also gone up for a quick visit earlier in the week, to check the fit on some flooring pieces that needed to be customized, and he installed the second toilet. Now, if there were only doors on the bathrooms... :)

We didn't get around to taking any pictures, though.

Instead, I'll share these pics from Thanksgiving weekend, taken by Shan.
The snow was so lovely through the windows.
We all stopped for a snow-watching break, upstairs.
And then, looked down for a floor-watching moment. It's gonna be cool.

flooring it

2009-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

Matt and I spent the night in Julian yesterday; this Saturday, we didn't awake to new snow.

We made good progress on the flooring. Our hope was to finish, but our desire to do things well got in the way of that. See, we installed flooring up to the point where the floor in the kitchen meets up again with the floor in the big room; the boards were about 3/16ths of an inch off from each other.
So, we decided to do it right, with the help of a router. And either router we might use, of course, was down the hill...
In the meantime, we did some little jobs--sealing the granite tile and the backsplash in the kitchen, finishing up little duct box over the microwave, sealing and caulking the upstairs shower, and hanging the first stairway handrail.

It's nice to cross these little things off the list, but also feels like every one we do reveals 2 more: the toilet needed a different wax seal, there's more patching and painting to do in the stairway and upstairs bath now, the shower spigot needs a different fitting...

Even so, it feels wonderfully closer to done than it's ever been.

I think we'll go up again next Friday after Matt's morning class, and finish laying that floor.

Many Thanks

2009-11-29T16:02:00.000-08:00

We'd hoped to finish the house in time for Thanksgiving; its incompleteness did not dissuade us from eating there! Here Mom and Nona are making final preparations for a Thanksgiving dinner among the saws and compressors... It was delicious.
We worked hard over the weekend, too. Here, Matt is laying the first strip of hardwood flooring in the big room, with help from Dad. (Mom helped, too, AND took the picture...)
So that we could work (and eat!) into the night, Matt and Dad installed more of the lightbulbs. Dad stood up high on the loft to put bulbs on the pole; Matt screwed them in.
Mom enjoyed the beautiful day, working at sanding and painting more of the interior doors.
Dad's big project for the weekend marked the end of another era in Julian: he took down the old treehouse. Seeing it come down was strangely sad--it had remained as part of Grandpa's legacy there. But, even though it wasn't built by his own hands, the new house stands as a continuing testimony to the legacy of lessons he passed along to his kids and grandkids.
We kept working on Friday and Saturday, too--Emily started installing a handrail in the stairs.
With a little help, I tiled and grouted the upstairs shower--here it is, midway.
Phil and Shan hung doorway trim upstairs, and installed baseboard in all the rooms that will be carpeted. We're now ready for carpet installation--the measurements were taken on Friday, and an appointment made for mid-December.
They were a great team--measuring and cutting, hanging and lacquering.
Our friend Lea came up on Friday evening, too--on Saturday she did a whole lot of little things, like painting this little box that Dad built to hide the vent duct. (You can see bits of our Thanksgiving table stowed away in the cabinets, too...)
Saturday, we woke to a strange sight: snow!
Enjoying the big, gloopy snowflakes through the beautiful big windows, we celebrated what a cool space the house is. Now, we just look forward to trading saws and compressors for sofas and coffeetables.
Soon!

(And, along that thought, we had a visit from the county inspector on Wednesday; his list of things to do was pretty close to ours, so we're feeling very good. We're on our way.)

before thanksgiving, after the scaffolding

2009-11-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

We've reached a milestone event: the scaffolding has come down inside the house.

Except, as we know by now, things don't just "come down." Phil, Matt and Dad took it down. Now there's space for flooring (and, eventually, furniture!). I suspect this makes the house feel a lot less like a construction zone and more like a dwelling space... I'm anxious to see it in person.
Emily lent a hand, too, preparing the bathroom wall for the sink and vanity.
Meanwhile, the scaffolding got lower and lower...
Matt and Emily set the antique dresser we turned into a vanity into place in the bathroom.
And finally the scaffolding came all the way apart. "It's the end of an era," Phil declared.
Soon, we'll have a fully-functional bathroom as a working sink joins the toilet and shower. Just in time for our Thanksgiving work there!
Besides taking pictures, Mom worked hard at cleaning up the place so we'll be ready to put flooring down.

Additionally, Matt delivered the wood flooring to the house, along with baseboard, on Wednesday and Thursday; Matt and I milled the trim for the doorways on Friday, and Saturday Matt did work on the stairway handrail and the last bits of hooking up the solar water heater.

Now, we're all ready for a big weekend of work over Thanksgiving, installing wood flooring, door trim and baseboard, and tile in the upstairs shower!

cleaning up

2009-11-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

While I was down the hill in San Diego, yesterday we crossed a threshold: the tool storage room has become a room ready for carpet. Mom did valiant work getting it ready.Shan braved the cool-looking but tricky-to-grout backsplash, Phil worked toward getting the sink all set up. Matt played with electrical stuff (and supervised, as you can see here).
As the day turned to night, Mom jumped in to help clean up grout lines. It's all looking quite lovely.
Dad and Matt worked taking care of last (hopefully!) electrical details, testing stuff and cleaning up any remaining issues. Now, we're nearly ready for inspection! (Well, as you can see those blue outlet boxes in the island still need to be wired, but that's not too tricky, and now that the grouts all done, they're ready to go...)
It's so wonderful to cross things off the list and imagine completion (or something approximate) as within reach. :) Thanks for hard work yesterday!

kitchen work

2009-11-14T18:55:00.000-08:00

Lately, we've all put some work into the kitchen--two weeks ago, Emily and I laid the carefully-cut countertop tiles while Matt, Nona and Mom worked away on other projects.

On our way home (it was Halloween), Emily got a trick: a flat tire. Here she is on the side of the freeway, after Matt and I stopped to help, with the lovely Halloween sunset.
Last weekend, Matt and I went up Friday to do the last bits of countertop tile and take care of a few things, like hanging the last big fan. Then, on Sunday, Phil and Shan came up to grout the tile, put in the island's oven and work at installing all the sink fixtures.
This week, Dad went up to meet the fire sprinkler-installers so they could do their finishing work. (Unfortunately, they missed one; it makes me feel better that professionals do this, too. I think I've installed the "last" outlet cover about 3 times already, and now we have at least 1 more.)

Today, we went back for more. And, in anticipation for whatever Thanksgiving feast we can enjoy there, we took up the deck table that had been waiting in storage. Lunch is much nicer with a table--I wonder why we didn't do this sooner?!? It was a beautiful fall day--a little cool outside, but nice in the house.
Matt helped Dad hang the beautiful upper cabinets he'd built--they all fit perfectly and look great. Hence the nice smiles here:
Emily and I tiled the backsplashes, Dad installed the microwave, and Matt worked on wiring in the garage. Things are really coming together and looking wonderful!
It looks unlikely that we'll really be able to use the kitchen this Thanksgiving, but it's gonna be a great place to work in the future. Our friends Beckie, Jake and Leah stopped by, and they had no trouble imagining tasty sweet things coming out of the oven...

practicing for halloween?

2009-10-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

So, not really meaning to work on costume possibilities for Halloween, I discovered a great way to turn your hair gray: cut lots of granite on a wet saw. Be sure the water sprays your head. Don't rinse, repeat. Mom took this pic of Matt and I at the end of the day, as we ate a feast at Nona's house.
But don't worry: besides coloring hair, we also crossed a few more things-to-do off our list today, on a beautiful fall day in the mountians. (Mom ventured into town for a quick trip to the hardware store, remembering, as she looked for a parking spot, that many people like to come to Julian in the fall. Most of them want to eat pie in town...)

Matt worked at perfecting his lacquer spraying skills, adding finish to the beautiful upper cabinets that Dad built. Now they're ready to hang.Emily and I worked on the kitchen countertops, cutting all the pieces for the island and around the sink. Even the tricky angles. (Okay, Matt helped with the tricky cutting, until we got our skills built up more...)

Here, Emily shows off the beautiful layout. It's gonna look good--if we can ever get it to fit perfectly when we lay it in the grout!
Nona supervised, cleaned and read.
Phil and Shan hung all 5 interior doors. Now it's much nicer to use the functioning bathroom. More discrete, for sure.
And here's my stunning look from earlier in the day: a trash bag bib and pink sunglasses as protective eyewear. It's important to stay dry and be safe when using a wet saw.

crossing things off the list

2009-09-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

It was a great weekend for getting things done in Julian--three days of hard work!

Friday, Matt and I met Dad in the mountains; he worked on the kitchen island and his beautiful cabinets, and Matt and I did odd jobs. I guess we worked so hard Friday that there aren't many pictures--except this one of Matt, finishing the shower tiling that night. (I figured we could use some more Matt-working-late-into-the-night shots on the blog...)
Saturday, Matt R. and Emily came up, and so did Mom, Dad and Nona. Mom got to work doing paint touch-ups, including some bits next to the loft/stair railing. We also needed to take care of some places where paint overspray got onto the wood.

Matt R and Emily worked on the ceiling fan installation stills, starting with the bedrooms. Here, Matt's touching up the paint on the homemade downrods we rigged up. (Grandpa would be proud--it was much cheaper than store bought!)
Here, they show off their fine work. And they only need minor adjustment (due to structural limitations, not installation error).
Matt and I took care of assorted tasks, including starting laying hardiboard for the kitchen counters, cutting out a notch for the stove, cleaning up some wood that needs to be lacquered and putting up outlet covers.
Dad's cabinets are beautiful, and he spent the day installing the bar counter and the cabinet back.
Here's our work crew for the day, hiding behind such a lovely kitchen island. :)
Finished with the bedrooms, Matt R and Emily turned to the ceiling fans for the big room. Which are much bigger. Nona supervised as they assembled.
Sunday, Phil joined Matt, Emily and Mom--here, he helped unload the range. It's getting serious now: there are appliances.
Emily and Matt worked at hanging the first fan in the big room, only to discover that we really need to put the light trim up first. But they look good on the scaffolding, no?
And the fans are pretty excellent against the ceiling.
Phil took on the task of hanging hardiboard in the upstairs bath.
And Mom finished putting grout in the downstairs shower.
A few more items crossed of the list!

on Nona's birthday

2009-08-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

After celebratory birthday coffee with Nona in the morning in El Cajon, Matt spent the day working on hanging tile in the shower. Here he is, tired and satisfied after the day's labors.Part of the magic happens at the tile-cutting station out front, where Matt has grown even more crafty with his cuts.
Mom and Dad and I went up later in the afternoon; Dad worked in the kitchen fitting the *new* sink cabinet and getting more things ready for cabinet installation. They look fabulous.
Mom and I hung folding doors in the laundry room closet. Or, more precisely, we hung the hardware. The doors are hiding in an upstairs closet until they can be sealed. But they're ready to go!

extended showers

2009-08-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

The tile is all lined up now, ready to go into the walls of the downstairs shower tomorrow. :)
Today, Matt added a few little touches: a corner seat,
and a shampoo/soap cubby. Elegant, no?
And, he found doors for the closet in the laundry area. More little pieces. Which, I suppose, is how you build a house. Piece by little piece.

Tomorrow, besides Matt's work on the tile, Mom, Dad and I are fixin' to haul that big sink cabinet up. That's gonna be cool.

shower the people

2009-08-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

Matt's been hard at work in Julian today, making efforts toward getting one room done: the downstairs bathroom. Look: he put up the smoke detector and the pretty trim on the recessed light.
And, he made the shower pan,
even putting up the rest of the hardiboard. Looks like a lovely place to get clean, no?
Meanwhile, back at home, Dad (with Mom on the assist) has been putting face frames on kitchen cabinets, so we can take this nice, big sink section up on Friday! (It took all the clamps in the shop...)

more bits and pieces

2009-08-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

We're making progress on the house in bits and pieces!

A week or 2 ago, Mom and Dad went up to do some clean-up work, including taking the growing trash pile in front of the house to the dump. Here's the front, all nice and trash-less. :)And here are some of the scraps that used to be there, now at the green waste recycling area of the landfill.

Matt and I went up on Friday to do some odds and ends, including taking down the masking paper that had been up from painting. Mostly, it was down, except for all the annoyingly high and awkward places... Here's the beautiful railing and ceiling, sans paper.

While taking down masking paper, Matt also removed the plastic from more of the windows, inside and out. It's not totally done yet, but the windows sure are looking pretty!
I got the exciting job of tearing drywall out of the shower area--hammering holes in walls is always a good time. But then you have to take care of the little screws, too.
Today, Matt and Dad and our friend Al went up. Dad and Al delivered the first of the finished base cabinets for the kitchen. Cool, eh? You can imagine the range between them...
And Matt worked on the shower enclosure, finishing the plumbing to move the showerhead up a bit (the prerogative of tall homebuilders, I guess), hang hardibacker, and "mud in" the shower pan base.
Bit by bit, we're on our way!

finished touches

2009-07-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

We haven't posted any updates here for a while, but not because we haven't been working...

Though we did all take a bit of time away from the project to celebrate Emily's marriage to Matt R. at the end of June, even the newlyweds have been back on the job this month, working with Dad in his garage workshop, building kitchen cabinets.
The base cabinets are coming together, thanks to Dad's good, hard work!
Matt and I have been up in Julian, too. We installed tile in the entryway/laundry room/bathroom. Since Nona says she's not coming up until there's a bathroom in the house, we figured we'd better get on it. Matt's planning to install the toilet tomorrow morning.
And, while speaking of Matt's work, I figured it was time to show off the project that took hours and days of his time earlier this summer: the loft railing, built from oak that used to live on the property. Now finished and glorious.

Matt caught me working at laying tile in the upstairs bathroom, too; I figured it'd be fun to just keep installing tile... Since we tiled more than we'd originally planned in the downstairs area, we picked up just enough tile from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to do the little upstairs area.
And, while I laid tile, Matt worked towards painting the last wall. If we hadn't run out of paint, it'd be done now, but that didn't happen. So, hopefully, tomorrow, it'll be all painted.
It was satisfying to take down masking tape and paper in the upstairs bedrooms today--things are looking good.

ready for lounging

2009-05-31T21:51:00.000-07:00

The back deck is now, officially (by my account) lounge-able. Matt and I took a load of tile and things from Nona's garage up on Friday, and there was room for some deck chairs. :)

But we didn't spent our time in Julian lounging: we finished hanging the window trim. Lovely, no?

The driveway is now done, too. Scary and steep, but done. (And just like the old days.)

Matt also worked on the railing some, and scouted for useful logs in the woodpile below the house. You can tell he means business, 'cause he's sporting those kevlar chaps...

Some friends stopped by to help, too, including Lea and her friend, Noela, who is in town to run the Rock and Roll Marathon. (What better pre-marathon activity is there than painting the underside of a deck?!?) Thanks for the help!

Memorial Day Work

2009-05-26T22:28:00.001-07:00

On Memorial Day, a good group of folks went up the hill to work on the house. It felt awfully good to me to remember Grandpa with a day of housebuilding work.

Matt's been working on turning this impossible idea I had into gorgeous reality, building a railing for upstairs out of an oak tree we had to cut down to build the house. Beautiful, no?

Here, he and Ryan put together a piece of the railing.

Little Ryan got in on the action, too, working the sander for a while. (His folks got in on the work, too, but somehow I didn't get any pics of Karen or Jeff painting under the deck...)

Dad spent most of the day in the electrical box, making all those twisted wires connect to breakers.

Everyone got to share lunch on the beautiful back deck, with Nona's supervision.

Mom spent her day staining the back porch, using brushes, rollers, a turkey baster and a little help from Dad at the end.

Josh worked on the wiring for phones and computers. The perfect job for Josh.

Lea and I worked on hanging trim around windows.

Tuckers stopped by to say hi, just in time for Jerry to lend a hand in installing the first long piece of balcony rail.

Marian offered some sanding assistance on the railing.

And, at the end of the day, dinner was delicious.

And, after dinner was dessert heaven: root beer floats and 3 homemade pies. Including Nona's famous apple pie and Karen's first rhubarb pie. Glory.

We offer a big thanks to everyone who came by!

Pour the root beer!

2009-05-19T22:15:00.001-07:00

JulianDeck
Originally uploaded by Matthew San Diego

Matt finished his last final of the semester today, and promptly headed up the mountain to Julian. There, he discovered the newly-finished deck. It's rad. You can click on the photo to get to Matt's flickr site and see even more.

And, now I can't wait to have that root beer float out there.

Anyone got plans for Memorial Day?

a new tool

2009-05-02T23:27:00.000-07:00

Humoring my desire to find a way to mill the pieces of tree we've had to cut down on the property, Matt tried a new tool today: a chainsaw mill. With all safety mechanisms in place (note the protective chaps, mask, glasses and earplugs), he made it work, and now we have something more like lumber.

Here we are hauling our score for the day. Now it's at Dad's house, waiting for further milling. Our plan is to make it into the balusters for the railing along the balcony edge. It wasn't nearly as bad as we'd imagined it might be; but then, I wasn't really doing the sawing, so maybe you should ask Matt. ;)
Meanwhile, the ceiling work inside is progressing, too--a couple more days and it should be done. A pile of lumber for the back deck is waiting by the house, too! Oh, I can almost taste that root beer float I'm gonna drink back there...

wood on top

2009-04-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

Emily went up to the house this past weekend, to take care of a small detail. And, she sent this pictures of the progress toward wood paneling on the ceiling. :)

Here's a pile of wood, read to go upstairs.

The first line of wood in the big room:
The staged wood, from the 2nd floor:
And, the beautiful ceiling in one of the bedrooms!

blank walls

2009-04-20T23:11:00.001-07:00

Check 'em out!

Matt and I made a quick trip up to the house on Sunday evening, to care for a few details. And we found great delight in the existence of the walls.

With the help of a lovely lens on Matt's camera, we fit them (mostly) into these frames. :)

The neighbors, Kurt and Bob, said they were wondering when the furniture was going to arrive. :)

Mudding!

2009-04-14T22:19:00.001-07:00

Hiking around the lake before a check on the house!

Looking Good!!! With the wallboard inspection behind us, "Let the mudding begin!"

walls are going up

2009-04-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Check it out: a front room with drywall.

So, while Matt has been frustrated at the need to work in trips to Julian the past 2 days to take care of little things, he's pretty excited at the pace of the drywall going up.

I'm looking forward to my next visit, too!

professionals are quicker than we are

2009-04-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

Check this out: insulation in a day.

Matt says the house is much quieter now.

I think it'll be delightful to experience the climate moderation it will bring.
(When I step inside from having that root beer float on the back deck. Someday soon.)

inspected and approved (finally)

2009-04-03T17:37:00.000-07:00

We had a first inspection of our electrical work and framing last week. We learned that the stairs were too narrow. Which was not really a fun thing to learn.

So, on Monday, Dad, Matt and I got to work at tearing them out, to rebuild them. You can tell by these faces that it wasn't that much fun:
The stairs have been awfully good to us, and were well-built. It was frustrating to tear them out.
But, we got quickly to work rebuilding them. They had to be flipped around to make space, as the beams constrained us in the previous layout. I think I kinda like the new design, though. Check it out, as Matt cleans up before the inspector's visit on Wednesday:
We finished framing everything about 15 minutes before the inspector drove up. He checked it out, and we passed. Which, as you can see, made our faces look much brighter!

Now, we've hired the insulation and drywall to be done, so we're eagerly anticipating a house with finished walls!

Woo-hoooooo!

details and big logs

2009-03-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

On Friday, my friend, Lea, joined Dad, Matt, Andrew and I in some housework, proving her agility with Mr. Long Arm as we marked where the rest of the lights should go in the ceiling. We taped a paintbrush to the end of the pole. And then had to figure out how one dips a 20' paint brush in the paint...

Matt's happy after a day of progress on our punch list.
And Lea looks at home on the ladder, preparing trim on the windows so that we're ready for drywall.
Matt and Andrew got the most exciting action for the day, though, as they cut a fallen branch from the big oak tree at the bottom of the property. You can see the action here:

odds and ends (some higher than others)

2009-03-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, we made progress on our punch list.

(Dad tells us it's exciting that we have a punch list: it means we're down to a number of remaining tasks that's comprehensible. Of course, every time we cross 5 off we find 2 more to add. And it's just the punch list before the framing and electrical inspections; still, it's huge.)

Everyone was working hard at various tasks--Emily and Dad on making a closet under the stairs, Shannon on hanging and wiring the kitchen lights, Matt and Phil on hanging lights in the big room. Well, at least until we decided that would be a nice job for the people we're hiring to hang drywall to do...

A big step was out test of Mr. Long Arms, the clever device Phil and Shan found for changing lightbulbs. Because the one thing worse than figuring out how to hang lights that high would be realizing that you can't put in or change lightbulbs in them without a giant scaffold.
But, with a friend on the loft to put the bulb on the extendable pole, we feel like it can work.
(Check out the Dad and Shan, watching Matt demonstrate the ability to maneuver lights up high.)

Matt also strung a mess of communications wires. We're set for phone, fax, cable, internet, stereo system, telegraph, or whatever else we might one day want. (Just when you thought wireless was the way of the future...)
Shan worked at getting things ready for a cabinet/cubby under the stairs. It's fun to be at a stage where we can imagine what might go inside. (Scrabble, anyone?)
Phil worked at making sure there are boards to nail drywall to everywhere. Even up high.
I got to venture under the house to insulate some water pipes. It was dusty under there. (But do notice Emily and Dad's swell closet behind me. And the clever way our tools are gathered together in it.)

Check out the impressive angle of the saw blade, as that closet is constructed under the stairs.

Good stuff.

the energy is getting electric

2009-02-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's been a spectacularly long time since I updated the blog, and I was feeling pressure for a clever title. I admit that I was reaching.

Thing is, I'm pretty excited about good progress that we've been making lately. I think Matt's on a kick to get this thing done. Not that we're in the final stretch...but people can hope, right?

Lately, it's been all about wiring. Here's Matt, basking in the goodness of having succeeded in pulling wires through the long underground conduit that connects the house to garage. He got it all connected into the garage box, and all is well.

Since the day of this smile, which was just over a week ago, he has been up a couple times, checking items off the "Things To Do Before We're Ready for an Electrical Inspection" list. It's getting shorter. (Well, and then occasionally longer as we think of more things...)

I think it's pretty cool to walk through the house with all these little blue boxes, full of wires. Thanks to everyone who's helped hang 'em and pull the wires to them! You can see evidence of Dad's good planning and meticulous attention in the notes on these wires.
Besides the electrical work, in the space between the last post and this one, the rough plumbing is done and inspected. Matt came home from Iraq, Emily got engaged to Matt R., more trash went down the hill, some clean-up bits of framing have gone up, and more.

Now that the house is mostly enclosed, it's more tolerable to work up there in the winter. (And, of course, "winter" weather in Julian is quite variable--remember several years ago when we poured our first concrete on a warm, sunny January day?)

Lately, it's been snowy--last weekend, the snow from the night before melted during the day, only to be replaced in the late afternoon by big, thick, gloopy, stuck-together snowflakes. As we were leaving, the snow was beginning to make things look serene.

The only catch to the serenity was the new condition of Matt's windshield wipers. Well, wiper. Only the driver's side wiper stopped working. I, in the passenger seat, could see clearly.

Remarkable how good Matt's humor remained, in spite of the challenge, no?

We're thankful for a safe drive home, and looking forward to more trips up the hill. You can pray for warm weather tomorrow--which might just lure Mom and Dad up for a bit of work on President's Day! :)

how'd it get to be fall?

2008-10-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

This summer has been a slow one for progress on our project, but, as you can see, Dad's notebook is open...

He and I made a trip up the mountain today, to bring another load of trash down and to meet with someone who's going to help us with the plumbing rough-in.

Here's my view of the pile of wood we left in the green-recycling area of the landfill. We only barely made it in before closing time--the shut the gate behind us. I'm thinking this pile of wood (including the last of the plywood forms from concrete work!!) looks awfully good in the mirror. As we pull away.
I had some extra time today, waiting for the plumbing help, and played with my new camera and some of the little bits around the house. I think shims look pretty cool.
One of the happiest moments of the day, though, was when the black water tank in our trailer emptied into the septic tank. We had a bit of a clog. Now, there's hope for the trailer--that it can once again be a refuge and not a trauma...
We went up the hill last week, too--for clean-up and weed clearing. My parents were in town, so they joined in on the fun.
It's not every tourist who gets a trip to the county landfill on his visit. (The moms and I went to the Julian Apple Festival instead.)
Here's our little work crew for the day, on our front porch. Which happens to be a pretty nice place to sit, even on a hot day.
Doesn't the house and garage look good?
Here's my view from inside. I got into the corner to catch as much of it as possible. I'm thinking it could be fun to try to track the progress from there. :)

building in, hauling out

2008-05-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

On Memorial Day, we made another trek up the hill, after a bit of a break. It's hard for me to describe just how good it feels to drive up to something that looks like a house. It's so much nicer than holes. Or concrete block foundations. Or even a frame of a house.

Since I was up last, Dad went up a bunch of times with the HVAC people. Now there are more ducts. And a giant contraption down in the crawl space.

Here's Emily and Dad, admiring some ductwork.

Emily and I built some little walls to hide the duct that goes up to the second floor. We'd been hopeful that we could skip this little step, and somehow fit the duct into the wall. We underestimated the size of these things--they're big ol' ducts. But now they're encased in little walls.
We followed it upstairs, too, adding a little wall into the closet. Someday in the future, we'll have to figure out the walls above the closet and over to the bathroom.
While Emily and I were making walls, Mom and Dad did some heroic cleanup work, hauling a pickup load's worth of old wood down to fuel a neighbor's fireplace in El Cajon. The scariest moment was when they *finally* got to the bottom of the pile of stuff on the garage side, and wondered what creatures might be lurking under that last board. Happily, nothing of significance was there.
We hauled it away from the side.
Just look how clean this area is now--I think it's been 3 years since it looked anything like this! :) The Julian neighbors seemed happy about these efforts, and even volunteered to help with our weeds.

Plus, in honor of Grandpa, we set up a little low-impact watering system for the apple trees we planted just before Matt left. Buckets, with little holes in the bottom. Hopefully, these will help us keep the trees happy without using too much water (or requiring too many trips up the hill!).
What do you think of our new, orange-buckety landscape?
I found a new favorite wildflower growing.
And, just wanted to share, again, the glory of the garage, in all the glory of its near-complete exterior.
We built that!

in living color

2008-04-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

Check it out: the house is painted! It looks beautiful--the siding and stonework are all done, and (except for the door) the paint is, too.

It looks lovely, and complete. Like this house is a very real possibility.

Thanks to everyone who's helped us get to this point. It feels really good. Maybe today is a good time to remember where we were just a year ago. Or more.
The back was is particularly stunning--it looks great in the afternoon sun.
Roger and Larry, who have been working on the house, are definitely the stand-around-and-look-at-it-all-while-having-a-beer-and-talking kind of guys, so they seemed fine with our stop by for a look-around.
I think the little rectangles for vents are particularly nice bits of the stonework. See:
We watered the little apple trees, too; they have more signs of growth.
Some of Nona's old daffodils were blooming on the west edge of the property. The looked good in the sun.
And, though we still have a ways to go with our yucky, full septic tank, we heard some movement when we tried emptying it today. Not all that we might have hopeful for, but it was something. We added more enzymes, and will hope for even more next time! (Note to those with trailers: empty your tank regularly. A full, stopped-up waste tank is really, really gross.)
We also stopped by Jerry's, who has had our HVAC system for 3 years now, waiting to install. They were glad to see us. ;) And, plan to start work installing the system next week!
The weirdest thing we saw, though, was this remote control weed trimmer, which we passed on the way to Jerry's. It turns out there really are professional applications of skills gained playing with RC cars...
Of course, there's still lots of work to do (like, um, plumbing, and electrical work, and interior walls and ceiling and flooring, for example), but I'm very happy tonight, basking in what's already been done. :)

it looks like a real house!

2008-03-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't been up to see the house in person for a bit now, but the pictures are sure looking great... The siding is all up, the awning over the garage doors is finished, and the rock siding is looking good. Check it out!

Next week: the painting begins.

outward progress

2008-03-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

It's looking good up in Julian, as the folks we hired to put up siding are hard at work. And, the guy who's putting the rocks around the bottom level of the house has started making a pile to work from. Here's our current pile of Julian schist, waiting to be adhered to the house.

The front is mostly done, and looks great--and the lower parts of side #1 are done, too. I think it makes the house look a whole lot bigger. We (Mom and Dad, Phil, Matt and I) stopped by the house after a hike, on our last whole day together before Matt's deployment. It was good to see how the house is moving along.
Here's Mom, surveying the action (well, really, the discussion going on amongst the guys).
Matt ordered some apple trees to plant on the property; they came in last week, and so we thought a swell last project before deployment would be planting them. We look forward to seeing how tall they are when he's back! (Though, I should add, it's totally okay if he gets sent home before they've had much chance to grow.) I wonder how long it will be before we get to taste the apples: Gala, Fuji, Delicious, William's Pride and Cripps Pink (which, Wikipedia tells me, is also known as Pink Lady, should you want to avoid apples that sound oddly like gang colors).
With all the little trees planted, we took a bit of time inside, to enjoy how good things look. Thanks to everyone who's been helping--it looks really wonderful.
Now, it can be time for more of the plumbing fun Dad started, and wiring, too...

unexpected snow

2008-02-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

Unexpected snow came to the mountains this Thursday--and left more ice and snow on the road than any of us remembers.

Matt, Dad and I drove up Friday. Here's Lake Cuyamaca in the snow.

The lake is growing from this winter's rain and snow--it looks good.

By the end of the day, the roads were getting crowded with SoCal folks out for a little snow adventure. This family was loading up a truck full.
The snow went all the way down toward the desert--you can see it on the flat part of Banner Grade (to the left). The view was clear--all the way to the Salton Sea (on the right in the distance).
I don't think we've show a picture of the front door, but here's one: of Dad shoveling the front porch.
We needed to put some siding boards out by the street, so they can be exchanged for others. Matt and Dad built a little platform for them, away from the snow.
And, increasingly, away from the mud. The snow was melting quick--it was warm in the sunshine!
I, however, avoided such difficult work. Instead, I built a snow-builder, hoping this addition to our crew might get some work done on our behalf.

a long while and a long ladder

2008-02-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

It's perhaps only marginally fair that my first post after a long break would feature pictures of Emily and me...we haven't been the ones working up there the most.

BUT, the last time we were up there, we went up tall, tall ladders. And just wanted you to see.

We were working on making sure the nailing was good on all the plywood sheathing on the house, before our shear wall inspection. Which, happily, we've since passed.

We're also more confidently sure that hiring someone else to put the housewrap and siding on is a fabulous idea. ;)
Since that day, Dad has been working lots, on the plumbing and more--making sure all the holes that need to poke through the house get poked through before we put siding on. (Vents and such.)

It's exciting to see the house all closed in and window-ed up. Isn't the kitchen window lovely?

windows on the world

2008-01-10T22:43:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I can cross off one of the items on my list of "Things We Need to do That Scare Me":

the big windows are installed on the back wall of the house.

We took advantage of some extra help today, and lifted them into place. ("We" is used with some privilege. I just took pictures and tried to remain calm. When I went to the Julian hardware store to buy more staples today, the total came to $6.66. The saleswoman assured me that this was only a problem for people who are superstitious. She said that even after I told her that the staples were part of an effort to hang really big, heavy windows up high on a house.)

Don't they look glorious?

For context, I thought I'd throw in this shot of the effort to carry the kitchen garden window from the garage--it both marks the labors of carrying all those windows from the garage, and shows off the roofing and the landscaping... The dirt is still in place, even after 6-8 inches of rain over the weekend. This is a very good thing. I threw the rest of the wildflower seed we had down on our new dirt, hoping it will continue to hold in place for a good long while!
Here's the window-hanging team, putting window #5 into place.
Now the big, heavy french doors...but that's for another day. ;)

41 degrees and lots of breeze

2007-12-30T16:58:00.000-08:00

Unlike Molly, who tells great stories of winters in Nebraska, I never thought I would willingly go out in, let alone work in, 41 degree weather! So much for nevers... here I am with Bob filling in around the footings of the house...progress.

And while we are working in front, Molly and Shannon are building block walls!

After hand hauling all the roofing up to the garage last November, Emily and Matthew are gratefully watching the conveyor belt delivery of our house roofing materials. Matt and our Christmas angels, Aaron and Russell, offload it.

This is Aaron, our first Christmas angel....

And this is Russell, our second Christmas angel.

Emily and Matthew install our first window!!! Oh how they wish they were inside a completely windowed house looking out! Brrrr. With the test window done, the front picture window is next.

See how clean our working trailer looks? See the pan warming on the cook top? Nona came up to save us from ourselves in this trailer; working on the house is all we can do. Cooking warm, yummy meals and keeping our trailer clean is appreciated! Here, Nona is taking refuge from the icy day in the warmth of the trailer.

So our family project is daily looking more like a house. Keep us in your thoughts as we push hard this month to get this house "wrapped."

not exactly a white christmas

2007-12-29T22:05:00.000-08:00

This Christmas, we didn't have a white Christmas. In fact, we played with a whole lot of brown and red dirt!

While we continue to make good progress on both the roof (which is now being shingled) and the wall sheathing and windows (several of which are now installed!), the big project for the last couple of days has been playing in the dirt.

Mom worked hard cleaning up the scrap heap in the front yard. Now, in two loads to the wood recycling area of the landfill, it's gone. We have a front yard again! And, we cleverly buried some broken pieces of concrete and chunks of mortar at the edge of the front deck.

We finally got to filling in the trenches next to the house foundation. We're hoping we might be able to use ladders and scaffolding to help install windows and put up siding, so it won't work to have trenches anymore!

While Mom supervised from the driveway, Matt and Dad cut away the little wooden dam that had held dirt from the edge of the house (a legacy from our footing-building days).
Phil and Travis worked hard on the back deck--assembling scaffolding and then putting sheathing up on the wall, so we can get closer to installing those big, big windows.
We started moving dirt to fill in trenches. Matt used the compactor. It was heavy.
We shoveled a whole lot of dirt. One wheelbarrow at a time.
I didn't get any pictures today--it looks a whole lot better! We made some retaining walls, and moved a bunch more dirt. It's nice to walk around the house now...

Matt and I are off on a little vacation tomorrow; we look forward to what will happen while we're away. And, hopefully, to getting the rest of the windows in and the house wrapped before it gets any wetter and wintrier (and, possibly, even "white") up there!

a roof overhead

2007-12-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

A roof! A roof!

With Matt and Emily's semesters ending, and Phil's holiday break beginning, folks have been working hard on the house this week. And, I get to report that there's now a roof!

You'll have to ask Matt about how he very quickly descended from this edge of the second floor landing. I wasn't there. He promises it wasn't nearly SO bad, or as bad as it might have been. He says he'll blog about it soon.

In the meantime, he's driving down from a Sunday half-day of work where he helped put up the last fascia boards on the side of the house, and this is a quick update to say that lots is happeneing. Now, we're reading for they county inspector to look at our roof sheathing tomorrow!

(A Christmas Eve inspection.)

Merry Christmas.

a little closer to a roof...

2007-12-14T20:13:00.000-08:00

With the hard news of an upcoming redeployment to Iraq for Matt, we've launched into getting that roof on with a vengeance...

We hired some help from a local contractor for the past few days, as well as from a neighbor who happened by, and we're pretty much ready for a roof now, after today. All the rafters--even the tricky ones over the back end of the house--are ready. The plywood for the roof is on the second floor, and things are lookin' good.

Dad and I put some of the thick plywood we'd used for concrete forms on the back deck rafters, as a temporary deck. It's swell out there. And now it's much easier to reach the back of the house!
Josh came up today, too, and did a bunch of good things, including finally bolting some of the walls together. He's good with a router, as it turns out.

We enjoyed some soup with meatballs from Matt's deer today--it's good to share warm things on this chilly days! Thankfully, the sun warmed us, and the wind was still.

So, thanks to Dad and Emily and Josh, plus Aaron and Kyle and Ted. We'll go up again next on Wednesday, after Matt's finals are over!!

more thanksgiving work

2007-11-25T22:37:00.000-08:00

Some folks went up for more work this Saturday--and we're a few steps closer to a house!

We didn't get a good pic of the beautiful new stairs on Friday, so I thought I'd start with that celebration. Thanks for your good work, Dad!

Andrew and Jay worked hard all day, installing the rest of the deck joists for the outside edge sections, and carrying all the wood for the joists into the house. I'm grateful for anyone who'll do heavy lifting and carrying down that hill...and I'm especially grateful for Jay and Andrew!
Here's the front of the house at the end of Saturday--Matt finished the sheathing on the front. Doesn't it look splendid?!

Now, when the deck is built, we can finish the plywood sheathing on the back of the house, and it'll be all covered. (Of course, there is still the roof...but that's for another day. ;) )

giving thanks for good work

2007-11-24T07:40:00.001-08:00

In our new Thanksgiving tradition, we spent part of this holiday weekend working off our turkey with some housebuilding, and we're thankful that we got to do it with so many good friends!

Phil worked with Brandon and his friend, Tony, on the plywood on the front wall, using our new scaffolding. (I lurked around them, too.)

Shan prepped a wood column for the center of the back wall, and drilled a whole bunch of holes to attach the board that'll hold the deck joist hangers to the edge of the house.
Jay and Dave worked on the back deck, drilling into concrete, hanging brackets, and more.
Mom and Dad came up for the first half of the day. Dad finished the stairs, and Mom cut blocking for the front wall and plywood for the stairs.
Here's Dave with those brackets on the back deck.
Karen, Ryan and Karen's mom, Linda, brought up a tasty lunch. Ryan put his hammer to work, removing nails from some boards upstairs.
He and Karen used the new stairs to check out the house progress!
Marian and Wayne laid the first joists for the deck. They are good and strong and well-placed (of course!).
Sometimes, it takes a whole team to get this in place.
The folks in front did a wonderful job of adding lots of plywood (and layers of scaffolding!) by the end of the day. Just look how tall Tony is...

one step at a time...

2007-11-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

This week, our biggest progress has come in something like steps...

Matt and I found a set of scaffolding that meet all our hopes on Craigslist this week, and he picked it up on Thursday and took it to the mountains. Happily, it came with its own trailer, which also carried some long boards we needed on up the hill.

Now, we'll be able to climb higher and work in safety.

PLUS, as an added bonus, Dad and Matt put the first set of steps up on the staircase in the house. Now, you can climb REAL STAIRS all the way to...the landing and turn.
Since we're not working on the house this weekend, I got to do something I haven't done in a long while: visit Julian as a tourist. Some friends came down to visit. Besides checking out Julian, we had a picnic under the big oak tree, and explored the house. Oliver rather liked the stairs to nowhere, and is pictured demonstrating his status as king of the plywood pile.

You can see the trailer of scaffolding just over Colleen's shoulders, too!

friends and veterans

2007-11-12T22:58:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Dad, Matt, Don and Josh worked on things--they didn't take pictures, so there's no evidence to share here (incriminating or otherwise).

This Saturday, some friends came to help with our project--Marian and Wayne, Amanda from Boston (er, Cambridge), and Jay. They helped make progress in hanging plywood, building stairs and hanging rafters.

Here's Jay (in the back) getting a rafter ready to hang, while Marian and Amanda cut some plywood sheathing for the back wall.

Wayne helped Dad make progress on the stairs to the second floor, too.
Jay helped in many ways (as usual).
Marian and Amanda built experience with the nail gun. The plywood is in place.
Today (Monday) is Veterans' Day, and we celebrated with more work. Matt is our resident veteran, and that's what he said to do. Mom and Phil and Shan came to play (er, work), too.

Phil enjoyed the rock-climbing-like aspects of construction today. We tried to persuade him that the nail gun in his hand clearly distinguishes this work from rock climbing in its usual sense; his acrobatic artistry would not be constrained. Happily, he and Shan finished the sheathing on the east wall--now both east and west are complete!
Mom got into lots of action today--holding ropes, cutting blocking, gluing flooring on the stairs' landing.
It's been exciting to watch some of the last, oddly angled rafters go into place--and to see how good everyone's getting at the rafter-raising work. They make it look so easy... (though that height, on that thin little ladder, never really looks "easy" to me!)
Now, only two pairs of rafters, plus the back fascia, remain to hang. Then, we'll be ready to figure out how to get all that plywood up onto the roof!

more walls, more rafters, more deck

2007-11-04T16:49:00.001-08:00

We had two lovely days of work on the house this weekend--on Friday, Dad, Don and Matt went up. Look how happy Don looks. I think that's because he knows he's gonna help put almost all the rest of the rafters up. And he gets to wear the new safety harness, so he's less likely to fall while doing it...

Saturday, Phil, Josh, Jay, Mom and I came up, too, to join Matt and Dad. We worked in a bunch of places. Starting the interior work of building the stairs and the wall behind them, putting up the last little wall that goes between the steel column and the edge of the back, and putting the vertical supports for the back deck up.

Josh didn't get to wear the safety harness for this step, but he did get by with a little help from a friend. Thanks, Phil...
Then, Matt got to try out his plan for getting the plywood sheathing on the house, up high: rock climbing gear. It's like climbing a mountain, holding a nail gun.
Josh got into the swing of things (pun intended) and helped secure more plywood into place. You can see it in still, or in video...

Jay and I shared the glamorous job of holding the plywood in place, from inside the house.

But lest it look like I spent the day holding ropes, I thought I'd include an action shot of ME: nailing blocking into the front wall. My *favorite* job. (Remember, cousin Sarah?)We'll be working again next weekend--Friday and Saturday. Let us know if you can help!

back up the hill

2007-10-28T13:52:00.001-07:00

It has been a wild week here in San Diego--fires across the county (and all through SoCal) have been raging. On Monday, news accounts threatened that this year's fires could be "worse than the Cedar Fire." The air was thick with ash, and evacuation noticed displaced half a million people as the Santa Ana winds moved flames quickly through the region. Again, the fires threatened Julian. But, for one more time this year, the fires were only a threat and not a reality in Julian.

On Saturday, the evacuation order was lifted, and we went back up the hill to work on the house so more.

The day was beautiful--the view out the back windows is glorious this fall. We did some little bits: bolting the beams to the steel columns, adding a few rafters, adding more brackets to the side walls to catch more rafters, and adding plywood sheathing to the east wall.
The best part of the day, though, was on the ride home--we spotted a glorious rainbow out over the desert. We pulled over to look, and the scenic viewpoint just south of the house. The rainbow stretched all the way across the sky.
As we stood looking, little drops of rain started falling on us. As if to say that God's promise is still with us--we will not be completely destroyed. Both for folks whose homes were spared and for those who suffered loss this year, I take the rainbow as a reminder to claim hope.
---
The work will continue next weekend--anyone up for some building?

it looks a house!

2007-10-20T22:13:00.001-07:00

Here's the progress as of Saturday evening. There are still a bunch of rafters to install. And plywood sheathing on the house and roof, but the shape looks like a house. :)

On Friday, a wonderful crew of folks came up to help work with the crane to put the walls Dad's been building in place. (And a few beams, too.)

Thanks to Josh, Andrew, Don and Jay for their help. With Dad, Matt and I, and a patient crane operator named John, it was a wonderful crew.
You can see a little video of the action here. We edited out the *long* pauses to make things fit right.

Everyone worked hard on tall ladders to make everything fit together.
Our last "lift" of the day was the ridge beam that will hold the roof in place. With Don guiding the crane, it fit neatly into the frame of the house. All is well.

Today (Saturday), Matt and I, Phil and Shan, Dad and Jay worked on setting some of the rafters in place. That ridge beam is really high. We made Matt climb the ladder. (And tie a rope around his waist and to the beam!)
With a little ingenuity and teamwork, we devised a workable method for hoisting the rafters up all that height. Hooray for ropes.

It was a day of good teamwork. Nearly half of the rafters are up, the walls are all plumb, and the frame should be secure. Dad heard a forecast of "hurricane strength" Santa Ana winds, so we put a few extra nails in...We worked 'til dark (and, well, a little past.) Enough to get the worklights up to help illuminate the nailing-in of the last rafters to go up.

crane day, revised

2007-10-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

Just in case you've been waiting with bated breath...

The crane is coming TOMORROW!!!! (That's Friday. The 19th.)

We're gonna have a work party up there to make it all happen. You can come play, if you want. Or, you can come Saturday. We'll work then, too. ;)

(And, in case you're a word nerd, I looked up "bated breath," 'cause I didn't want to misuse it. I'd have spelled it "baited breath," which doesn't really make so much sense to me. Turns out, it's "bated." Like "abated." Like you've stopped breathing until the moment when you'd know when the crane was coming... Not like you've hung a crane out there like "bait" to draw the folks up the hill to Julian.)

beaming

2007-10-05T15:35:00.001-07:00

Today, the Dixieline truck delivered the ridge beam for the house. It's really long. And large.

Lest the story of our day seem stressful, I thought I'd start with this picture of triumph: Matt and Dad standing with their successfully off-loaded beam, in a location that will not block the crane we hope will arrive to set it in place.
We arrived just after the delivery truck. The whole reason for our early departure was so that wouldn't happen. (But I'm just not good at mornings...) Luckily, the big, long beam was still on the truck. There were negotiations about where and how to drop it. Proposal one was to aim it downhill, out the way of the street. The wise delivery man nixed that plan. "There's no way I'm gonna let that thing go down hill!" he said.
A second plan seemed better: lay it next to the old, burned electrical pole, out of the way of the crane's perch and out of the street. I continue to be impressed with Dixieline truck maneuverings. Today was no disappointment...
even if the final solution was to just heave the beam off the side of the truck. Here it is mid-fall. Dad's watching carefully, though I'm not really sure what he could have done if it had all gone wrong. ;)
Here's more careful supervision of Matt's activities, as Matt trims the ends of some other beams to the right angle and length. With a chainsaw. We're thinking that if this Mechanical Engineering thing doesn't work out, chainsaw sculptures of little bears could be a real possibility. Such precision.
And, speaking of precision, I thought we should show off Dad's impressive pile of carefully-built walls. They're stacked in the house, waiting for the crane.
Don't they look great?!?!

Now, we just need to arrange for the crane. October 20 is our target date. Anyone want to come for the fun?

bigger columns (or, six boards closer to a back wall)

2007-09-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

The weather was lovely in Julian yesterday--sunny, but not miserably hot. And, the house looked lovely. Now that the front wall is all up, it looks pretty darn impressive...Out biggest accomplishment (or, at least the thing that most needed a second pair of hands) was getting boards attached to the columns in the back wall. Even though they're not as tall as the back will will eventually be, those columns are darn call. Getting boards measured and set on the bolts that come out of the columns took a bit of coordination. We made Matt climb the ladder.

It was fun to see all the work Dad's done, stacked up on the house's floor--we're getting closer to ready for the big day when we can hire a crane to life all those tall walls into place.

Don't you think that wood sets off the red of the columns nicely? (And the front wall looks lovely in the distance...)
The excitement of the afternoon was when a swarm of bees came through the house. Matt decided that he didn't really want to be on a 28' ladder when they were swarming all around him. Eventually, they settled on the tree just south and west of the house. We would have preferred they'd settled further away, but were thankful they didn't choose the house itself. It was pretty incredible to watch a huge swarm turn into a little ball of bees on the oak tree branch.

[And, of course, the presence of bees in this year when they seem to be dying elsewhere, was heartening, and invited us to turn to discussion of the possibility of planting a few fruit trees on the property. We're thinking apple and nectarine. Any thoughts?]

Here's Dad and Matt as they investigate the bee ball in the oak tree. Like father, like son, eh?
And, finally, here's Matt up on his ladder again, cutting off the ends of the column's bolts. See how happy he is, working on the house? (He also seemed happy when a herd of 13 turkeys walked through the property, very near where he set up his target for archery practice. He's looking forward to turkey hunting season...especially if they voluntarily come within arrow range.)
Can't wait to host a big turkey dinner for everyone who's helped us, complete with Nona's apple pie from fruit from the tree we have yet to plant...

three cheers for dad

2007-08-22T22:18:00.001-07:00

While the rest of us have been heading back to work (or to Army responsibilities), Dad has been hard at work on the house. Steadily working away (sometimes with Mom's help in the days before school started), he's finished the second floor walls and nearly finished the first of the big, tall, 2-story wall sections. And he started the back wall. Cool stuff.

So, in his honor, I thought we should post a few pics I took when I stopped by the house today. (I was just passing through on a church errand...)

Here's Dad where I found him, packing up for the day.
Here he is as he shows me the first 2x6s that will become the back wall, all bolted onto the steel beams.

Thanks, Dad!

lifting, hauling, hammering, hanging!

2007-08-07T23:02:00.001-07:00

All in a day's work...

LIFTING
"I think we can, I know we can...WE CAN"
HAULING

There is a whole lot of hauling going on! What would we do without good, good friends. Molly is trying to keep everyone in step, "Left, right, left, right, swing wide, forward march..."

HAMMERING

SARAH'S SEVEN SWINGS
It's in!!! Your first adventure with building a house!

HANGING
It's really all about measuring for the miles of blocking

And so it goes up at the Julian Adventure in Building a Home.

the view from the second floor

2007-08-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

Here's where we were when we started work last Saturday; Matt and Dad had gotten many of the joist hung for the second floor. But, that *large* pile of lumber was still looming in the distance...

After much lumber pile unstacking and hauling, we got some of the plywood that'll be the second floor up there. Matt R hauled a whole lot, but still looks happy, eh? (The view's not bad from the second floor, either!)
In mid-afternoon, we took a break for some salsa and chips on the second floor. Our first meal upstairs, I suppose...
Emily and Jen were gluing and nailing the plywood, so it's good to see them enjoying the floor, too. :)
We also put some of the sheathing on the front of the house. (If you look closely, you can see the second story floor, too!)

Since this picture, Matt, Phil and Dad finished the floor (yesterday), and are up again today working on the second story walls. It'll be fun to see them!

wall-raising work

2007-07-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

We hope you enjoy this little film, made from a bunch of photos Matt took between Wednesday and the end of Friday, in chronological order. (Sort of a flip-book for this millenium?)

Big things happened this week, including the construction of all the bits of the first floor that are under a second floor, and the lifting of some darn big beams that will support the second floor.

Thanks for all the good work, everyone!

(Our Aunt Ann and Cousin Sarah got to help, too, though you have to look really closely to catch them in the video... SO, I added a still shot to make it easier.) ;)

sweet, sweet milestones

2007-07-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

With hawks soaring under sunny skies, and thunder clouds rolling through, we finished that big, floor and raised the first wall! As Shannon would say, "Whoo Hoo!" Thanks to Andrew for gooood friendship! Dad, Phil, and Matt even enjoyed the first dinner IN Sweet Home Cuyamaca (just trying out names...)!

a big week

2007-07-25T10:22:00.001-07:00

I'm writing from San Diego, as walls are goin' up in the house.

This week, Matt and Phil and staying up in Julian to get some serious work done. Mom and Dad are going up there, too. The rest of us are stuck at work... (on those pesky jobs that pay the bills).

Last night, Matt said they'd finished the floor, and were building the first wall--the lower half of the north end of the west wall.

Who knows what's done by now!

Anyhow, just in case anyone's checking in on our work this week, I thought I'd give the tip-off that things are happening.

And, of course, if you're looking for something good to do with a day, you'd be most welcome. I'm headed up on Friday. Wanna come? ;)

some floor to stand on

2007-07-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

It was beautiful in Julian today--warm, but with clouds passing by through the day, and a nice breeze to keep us cooler.

Dad and Matt worked to get the last joists and rim board in place, on the pointy end of the house.
We put Mom to work, too--it's not every day she gets to use the power tools and break a sweat...

She bolted the beams that will support the second floor into place.

And, she laid all the adhesive that will keep the floor from squeeking. We nailed nearly half the floor sheathing into place.
Doesn't it look swell? There's enough floor to dance now...

Now that the floor's partly down, I have a new suggestion for the name of the house: Treehouse II. It feels like you're in the treetops when you're at the house level! (And, of course, it sits next to Treehouse I, where small Parker children learned some of the building skills that they're using now...)

Other name suggestions, from way back, include:
Little Haven (which sounds a bit like Littlehale, and carries the hopes that one day we can go up to the mountains for a bit of haven-like relaxation...)
Sweet Home Cuyamacas (for obvious reasons)
Starwood in Julian (a tribute to John Denver)
and, last, but not least...
The House that Jack Didn't Build (Lots of Others Did)

Votes, anyone?

rejoice: joists!

2007-06-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Matt, Phil, Dad and I did some ground work, so that today we could build a floor. Today, the joists are all in place (for which we rejoice...)!

Here's where things were when we started today. You'll notice the presence of some good people who made the day better: thanks for your help, Josh, Vanessa, Brandon and Stephanie (even if you're not in THIS picture...)!!With the sill plates and anchor bolts all in their places, we carried the big, beautiful beams that'll support the floor into place. It took a whole lot of us. And, we're grateful for Nona's neighbor, Gary, who built the *spectacular* hangers that hold them.
Vanessa got good at drilling. Dad helped make sure things were in the right places.

Matt told us what to do. Or, tried to. When you're losing your voice, it's hard. Here he is as he pauses for a moment of reflection (or strategy? exhaustion?).And, finally, here are things as they lined up toward the end of the day. Aren't they lovely?!?!

Work Party!!!!

2007-06-25T23:01:00.001-07:00

Wanna come join us this Saturday, for a work party as we starting building the floor?!?

If you say you'll come, we'll be sure to have good things for you to eat and drink.

It'll be a good time.

lining up in columns?

2007-05-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

Today was big, tall, exciting progress: the steel columns that will support the back wall of the house (with all its windows) were installed.Matt, Dad, Phil and his friend Jeff went up to make it all work, but the steel man and the crane operator were the big heroes of today... They lifted the beams into place, and made 'em work. That's someone who knows what he's doing on the top of a steel column on top of this steel column:
Don't they look marvelous in place?

(Phil's included for scale.)
Thanks for making it happen, guys!

solid as a rock

2007-04-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

What a sight: after yesterday's concrete pumping fun, today, there's a solid (12" wide, 6' tall, 32' long) wall at the back of the house foundation.

We went up today to remove the wood forms, and to see if we succeeded. And things look beautiful. ;)Matt had fun removing the custom-made bolt-holding cavity protectors. I think they give the back wall the nice effect of a crenolated tower--our own little castle. Dad thinks they'd make a nice turkey blind, now that it's hunting season.
Here's Matt in triumph after removing the most stubborn wood.
Just look at how well the concrete filled in--even under these forms!
Now: who's up for some wood-working?!?

one more visit from some cool equipment

2007-04-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

This may not look so special to you, but we're pretty awfully darn happy about these strange fixtures in our house pad: they are the *last* big concrete forms of the project. (Technically, there will be some small bits of concrete to add later, but nothing requiring big trucks to arrive...)

Over the weekend, with some quality family time working, we finished installing the forms for the inside-the-house pillars, the massive back wall, the little piece of the wall that holds lots of conduits and pipes, and the big, tall deck pillars. Today, Mom met the new inspector who signed off on our work, and the concrete and pumper are scheduled for Thursday.

Hooray!!!!

If we put the siding up on St. Patrick's Day, should we paint the garage green?

2007-03-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Look: more happy people working on the house! LAST weekend (like, a whole week ago...) we had our grand, St. Patrick's Day work party, and put siding on much of the garage.
Josh also worked hard (with some help from other good folks) at building the frame for what will be an awning over the garage doors.
Thanks to Dave, Regan, Christian, Andrew, Josh, Don, Jay, Maureen, Karen and Ryan for all your help!! It was good to build with you.

The next fun will be this coming weekend. Anyone game?!?

march madness?

2007-03-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

It's time for another work day party! And, wouldn't St. Patrick's Day be a splendid day to try your luck at a lovely building project?!?

Let us know if you can join us--we'll be working on Saturday, and we'd be grateful for your help. Our fun tasks include putting siding on the garage and finishing the forms for the house's foundation. (I like the way "finishing" looks in blog-print.)

It seems a bit surreal, given today's temperature in San Diego, to imagine that there was snow on the ground in Julian just 2 weekends ago. But, then, I had trouble imagining there'd be snow that day; I lost a bet with Matt about snow cover. He said there'd be at least one square foot of intact snow. He picked this as his favorite square foot to show me.We accepted a fabulous load of materials--lumber for the house floor, plywood for the rest of the foundation forms, and more.
But, our biggest excitement was when Matt shot this nail into his hand. The clinic gave him an impressive-looking bandage. Happily, the damage was very minor. You can see the relief on his face... (My disappointment, of course, was that he pulled the nail out long before his x-rays, so we have no cool pics of the nail-in-hand to upload.) Nail guns are serious business.
We worked at preparing everything for the final big concrete pour, including another clean-out of the *evil* deck support post holes. I hope to never climb into them again, and like to believe that's not an unrealistic hope. :)

Emily and Phil had fun (as you can see) building frames to hold the tubes that will become support pillars for the house foundation. And, Dad, Phil and Jay put the big pieces of the big concrete form in place. Now, it won't be long 'til we're ready to pour concrete and fill up these holes!

formative moments

2007-02-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

Just look at everything that happened on our project over the weekend!

After Matt got it ready in a late-night work session Friday night, it was time for grout.
Saturday morning, with help from Emily, Mom and Dad, Nona, and Andrew (and, of course, Matt) the grout arrived and filled the holes.
Under coercion, Nona played along with everyone else in leaving handprints in the extra grout.
Doesn't everyone look happy to be one step closer to being done with the foundation?!?
Matt and Andrew worked all day, laying the first, critical pieces of the forms for the concrete in our back wall.

I stopped by in the afternoon, with some friends, and we helped a little, too... (Ryan is accumulating new construction skills. And would have had use for his Christmas monkey wrench if he'd thought to bring it.)

Sunday, the concrete forms began to look impressive. After worship (which, conveniently for Matt, was at our church retreat in Julian this weekend), we kept working, and, with Jay's help, built all of the inside wall and part of the outside!

We're glad for cleverly-designed snap ties, which make form building easier, stronger, and less wasteful.

I got to try my hand at construction, too, making these little boxes (er, precision construction jigs) to keep the concrete out of the place where we need the steel columns to tie into the big bolts.
Mostly, we're relieved that a task that had seemed really daunting looks like it's going to be doable (and, even, with minimal pain!)

Thanks to all our friends who are making this work more fun. :)

ready to fill the gaps

2007-02-13T23:13:00.000-08:00

Why are Emily and Matt smiling? Because they know these swell anchor-bolt holders are just what the house foundation needs. Our inspector thought so, too, so now we're ready to pour grout into all the holes in our concrete blocks this weekend!

enough playing with blocks...

2007-02-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, we made our first work trip weekend of the year. And, much to our relief, laid the last concrete blocks we need to lay.

The house foundation isn't DONE, but the blocks we're gonna use are all in place.

Here's Matt with wheelbarrow, as we got ready to lay the last course of blocks. (The finished deal is above.) The anchor bolts are all dangling in place, and, if the inspector agrees with us, it'll be ready for grout to be poured into the blocks this coming weekend!

first snow

2006-12-18T16:31:00.000-08:00

Today I went to see snow on our new garage! It was a perfect winter day in Julian. It even snowed on my nose!!!!

a garage!

2006-11-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving weekend, we had an extra celebration: a toast to the garage, which is mostly done! Now, we get to take a break 'til after we all go to Hawaii in January. :)

Everyone, including some good friends, worked hard this weekend, putting shingles on the roof, finishing the fascia, installing windows and doors, and moving the contents of the storage container into the new garage. (A real garage!)

Karen and Ryan the Builder brought tasty lunch to give us energy. :)

Jay added shingles, moved windows, put down tar paper, and did just about everything!

Emily and Dad wired the garage, so it's all 'lectrified, and everything...

Here's the garage, as night sets in on Julian.

My most fun of the weekend, though, was a just-before-closing visit to Home Depot on Friday; we left the boys in the wood shop and took ourselves to get the 1/2 ton of shingles we'd need to finish. Shan had to resort to climbing up shelving to get attention, and it took 3 people to push the cart when it was laden with all those shingles, but we made it. :)

thanksgivings' progress

2006-11-20T23:25:00.000-08:00

House building is slow going when you're doing it yourself. So, I thought it might be fun to measure our progress in bigger intervals. How 'bout in "Thanksgivings"?

Here's Thanksgiving 2004--back before we had a building permit, when we were still just dreaming about design options. We went up the hill to dig access to the septic tank, as I recall, and had our Thanksgiving leftovers as a picnic. You can see, as we eat from the road, that the spot where the garage is now was totally empty...

These 2 pics are from Thanksgiving 2005--when we were anxious about being ready for concrete, and were moving dirt around. The garage pad was just potential back then. (Well, potential and a lot of rebar.)

Ryan looked smaller, too.

I'm looking forward to adding this year's vision!

on passing muster

2006-11-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

Matt met with our building inspector today, and we got official sign-off on our garage walls. And have just a few things to fix up on the roof. Now, we can begin to see windows and doors in our future... Hooray!!!

Which leads us to our next invitation:
Anyone wanna come work on Thanksgiving weekend?

We'll be up in Julian on Friday and Saturday. :)

up on the rooftop, again

2006-11-12T22:46:00.000-08:00

Matt, Mom, Dad and I went up again this weekend, and finished (!) the sheathing on the rooftop. So, we're (hopefully) ready for inspection when we get a chance. We also worked at putting more of the fascia up. Again, I realize that I'm not of value for my sheer strength.

I'm glad Dad was there to lift those boards with Matt!

On the way home, I was noticing all the very nice-looking houses that have MUCH smaller fascia boards. ;)

filling in the holes in the roof

2006-10-30T20:46:00.000-08:00

The fall colors in Julian are getting even more beautiful. I can't wait 'til we can perch inside and gaze out at this view...

We did a bit more work this past weekend, but realized how necessary it is to have enough wood when you're trying to cover a whole roof...we ended up short, by 3 sheets of plywood. Except for a few gaps on the other side, we're nearly done with the sheathing, though, and we made some good progress on the fascia along the edge. Though it may not be readily apparent, it was quite an accomplishment for us to get those boards up. I discovered (yet again) that my gift to contribute to this project is NOT brute strength. Wood can be darn heavy, and roofs are, well, high in the air.

So thank God for ladders and the holding power of just one nail. I'm glad Emily's quick with that nail gun!

In other news, and for good chuckles when look back one day, I thought I'd include just a small reminder of how much less-than-ideal the trailer fridge is. When it works, it works WELL. This time, it made lots of things explode, and even left us a small frozen rock of Coca-cola. Good times.

workin' this weekend--Oct 14

2006-10-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

We're going to be back at work on the garage this Saturday. We'd welcome any help! :)

See you there?

taking a look back.

2006-09-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

I was recently looking at the blog and realized that those who have not been through the whole building experience as the Parker-Littlehale-Vetter-DeLong's have, may not fully realize how far the process has come. So, I quickly began looking for pictures to give people an idea of what our property looked like at the very beginnings of our house building journeys. I quickly found that I really don't have that many! But the ones I have will do. I hope these few pictures either remind you of where we've come from (if you're in on the building), or simply bring you more viewing pleasure.

February, 2005

Before there was concrete, there was dirt. But before we could dig in the dirt, we had to get it ready. Matt cut down this once beautiful tree, while Phil and Dad brought it down safely. The stump now serves as one of our many break areas, and hopefully will one day be a nice garden seat.

After the trees were cut down, we had to feed them into the jaws of death. It was a long, long, day.

March 2005

Matt, Dad, and I went up to survey the property, and put in the barter boards to mark the corners of the house. They were later taken down and replaced, and those were later taken down and replaced...

November, 2005

The very beginnings of the garage. We and these holes got to know each other pretty well over the months, but I can't say we're sad to see them gone.

The only picture I can find that gives a glimpse at the house, pre-cement and brick.

All in all, not too shabby, eh?

YOU can come build with us!

2006-09-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

Hey!

This Saturday (the 16th) is the next day we're planning to go work on the house (er, garage...).

Wanna come?

matt's b-day building, this year

2006-09-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

We worked this weekend, on Saturday and Monday; the roof is coming together, and all the rafters are up! Here's the view from Saturday:

We were grateful for some clouds that covered us for a while in the afternoon--they were stunning through the rafters. And we loved them up 'til they brough the lightning around. Then it didn't seem like a very good time to be on the roof, holding hammers...

Emily trimmed boards for between the rafters. We gave them all names, so we could match them up with the spots they fit into later. Others mocked our names. We thought they were fun--much more fun to say: "Did you get Marilyn to fit?" than to say: "Is #12 in?". Fun wins, I say. (Besides, I'm writing the blog, so my version will become standard...)

Here's evidence that I actually, at least for a moment, did some work, and didn't just take pictures. Aren't those rafters lovely?!?

Here's the view from below the garage, as the last rafters were going in.

On Monday, we started putting the plywood sheathing on top of the rafters. It took us a few tries, but we got better and getting the plywood to the rooftop safely...

We sang "Happy Birthday" to Matt at lunchtime, but the party wasn't, well, too outrageous. I just thought it was pretty swell that he was here with us this year!

Though none of us claims roof-climbing as our vocation, Shannon got pretty good at climbing.

The first layer of plywood goes on...

As our workday drew to a close, Emily and I took a moment to wave down to those on land, enjoying our new, more-solid perch on the rooftop.

With the plywood almost done, and the front-side ladder in place, we put up the first of the fascia boards. Stunning, eh?

raisin' the roof... day two!

2006-08-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

I just left Julian and thought everyone might like to see how the garage is taking shape on day two. I didn't have a camera, but used my nifty cell phone to do the trick =)

raisin' the roof

2006-08-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today, we worked on the garage roof--with the help of our neighbors and a crane.

Emily helped make necessary measurements for vertical posts.

Matt climbed up to put the beam in place.

Dad supervised as the beams went up.

I sat in the shade. And in the sun. And in the window. It was my day off on the site...

Emily was in charge of hooking the beams to the crane.

Lunch was tasty (as always).

Ryan helped trim the beam that wasn't quite right.

The funny shape of the garage roof came together, as the beams came up.

We celebated Nona's upcoming birthday with some cake she baked. Happy 81st, Nona!

pics from the garage raising

2006-07-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

I thought you might like to see some images from our work on Friday and Saturday--everyone worked really hard (braving some formidable heat...) and we got a lot done!

garage raised!

2006-07-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your help! On Friday...

and on Saturday we worked hard, raised the fourth wall on the garage, and covered most of it in the plywood sheeting it needs!

like a barn-raising

2006-07-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

We invite you to join us on Friday and Saturday, July 21 & 22, for a garage-raising!

Come any time--I think we'll work something like 9:30 to 6 both days. You can come either or both. You can even sleep there--there's plenty of space on that garage slab and there's a bathroom in the trailer.

Let me know you're coming (email me or post a comment) and I'll make sure you know how to get there, and that there's plenty of food and refreshment.

We would be very grateful for your help, and would love to have a house built partly with your labor & love!

a slab! really!

2006-07-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, July 6, Matt, Phil & Dad met with some fabulous concrete pumpers and finishers to *finally* pour the garage slab.

And, not meaning to insult the strength of the above-mentioned family members, we were very grateful for the presence of the finishers! Turns out, I've learned this year, concrete's really heavy, and screeding isn't really as much fun as the sound of its name might suggest...

But, doesn't the slab look glorious!?!

After their triumph, Dad quickly got to work cutting down tall weeds in the back.

Matt and Phil spent the rest of the weekend laying more blocks on the house foundation.

The walls continue to grow, as does the smoothness of their block-laying technique.

(And I even got in on a very little bit of the work, Sunday afternoon...)

growing stones and flowers

2006-06-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

Many of the seeds we planted after Grandpa's funeral have grown into flowers--this sunflower is keeping watch over the garage. Matt says that since we took this shot, it's grown a bunch more blossoms! There are lots of poppies, plus mountain lupine and much more.

We poured the second batch of garage concrete, forming stem walls. We had a minor crisis in the back wall (that ol' hole we love to hate), but our fabulous concrete pumpers helped us keep it from become major.

Since this, Matt and Dad have reconstructed the forms we need, and we're ready for the next pour...