10 Year Check-In

Charlie excavating on either side of the bulkhead

We have a semi-vauge sense of when we "built the house" or "finished the house" because parts of the process lingered on for a good while--I'm thinking the exterior painting which feels like the last significant project to happen. Anyhow, it's been more or less 10 years since the house was under way and that's a nice excuse to check in.

I still think of the house as new, but in fact its gone through that first blush of newness and there are a few bumps and scratches here and there, nothing really big, but the usual wear that comes with use. 

One actual problem that's been on the list to deal with for a while is the retaining walls on either side of the bulkhead in the rear of the house. Joe and I built these early in the building process and I'm not sure what plan or experience we were working from, but within a few years of being built, the walls started to curl in towards the bulkhead. Whatever retaining system we schemed up really didn't work and it's been kind of an ugly mess for the last bunch of years. The prospect of excavating the old walls and deadmen was daunting enough that I kept putting it off until this summer when we finally bit the bullet. 

We hired our neighbor Charlie to come over and take care of a list of small excavation projects that we'd been wanting to do for a while. 

-Some settling had occurred in the back of the house along the foundation and water was pooling against it 

-The flow of rainwater on our property directed water straight into our garden, so we had some major swaleing done to redirect the water around the garden. When the original site work was done we still had the yurt right next to the garden, so it wasn't possible to do any work in this area 

-Our driveway was in need of a refresh

-We wanted to relocate our sugar shack/garden shed. 

This Spring has been unusually dry and the timing lined up for the work to happen, so we hustled to get ready before Charlie arrived, moving perimter drainage stone, pulling away the old retaining walls, getting the shed clear for moving, etc...

The first two layers of structure. I built, filled, packed and then repeated until the walls were completed

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Charlie dug out the old walls and I was surprised at how little there was supposedly holding the walls in place against the frost. I then spent the next week or so building a super-robust double wall retaining structure out of PT lumber. It was a lot of heavy work but I'm confident it'll do it's job well for a long time to come. 

Nearly done

In the photo above you can see how the earth has been carved out to the left and in front of the garden. Water used to enter at the corner and now flows in the valley made by the swale.

Along with regrading the earth against the back of the house we took the opportunity to clean and reinstall the french drain system. Dirt and debris tend to settle in the stone over time and a little maintenance goes a long way. The whole back of the house drains well and looks sharp and functions well now. Its very satisfying to see the water in a rain storm go AROUND the garden, rather than through it, and it's been great to have some extra fill to level out spots around the property. 

This is where we had pooling against the foundation. We pulled off all the crushed stone, filled, packed and graded the soil to flow away from the house and then rebuilt and reinstalled the perimeter stone drainage. Its so much better now!

Before the snow...

The back (north) side of the house. The bulkhead is lower right

Our new door

Retaining walls with partial gravel fill--more to come

We spent a couple of days last week building the retaining walls on either side of the basement hatchway. Its been on the to-do list for a long time, but it hasn't been pressing, so it was only now that we got to it. With the retaining walls in place, we can level and fill the ground adjacent on either side, which provides level ground for staging to install the windows on the back side of the house.

We also installed the entry door off the porch. As soon as it was in, I took it out of the frame and down to the basement for painting and finishing. Its a beautiful douglas fir door and we're quite pleased with it. Nance suggested that we paint the exterior a shade of green we'd considered for the exterior of the house and so that's what we are going with. Its a cool color. Stay posted for the unveiling.

Onwards...

We've been wrapping up some odds and ends as we pause for Thanksgiving.

I cut the rest of the star pattern in the porch roof, which we then covered with (painted) tar paper. The effect is definitely diminished, which I'm kinda bummed about, but I'm glad they are there nonetheless. I wish I could think of some way to have them shine without having a translucent roofing material. Any ideas?

We cut holes for three vent pipes that pass through the roof as well as the stovepipe for the wood stove. The stovepipe will stand higher then it is shown in the photo when we add another segment from below and push it up and out a few more feet. We also taped up a couple of leaks revealed by a recent rain and added some more ice and water shield in the roof valleys for a bit of added security against future leaks.

To my satisfaction we engaged in a bit of materials management. Back a couple of months ago I ordered the wrong kind of rigid insulation for the basement. Its been sitting down there waiting to be returned for a long time, so we finally hauled it all out and had the lumber yard take it back, along with various other materials that we don't need. We moved the remaining 6x6's that will be needed for retaining walls on either side of the basement hatchway to near where we'll need them. That has opened up some space around the house that starts to let us feel the building as an entity on its own.

Today I spent the whole day cleaning up, organizing lumber stacks, gathering tools, clearing clutter, stacking rocks, separating and storing burnable lumber, sweeping, etc.... It felt really good to take care of all this stuff. It puts a little order and polish to our hard work.

Nancy's parents are coming for a post-Thanksgiving visit and I'm excited to show them our work. Before they get here I want to cut out a hole to get to the second floor from inside. As it is now its a little high climbing from the outside. From the inside it'll be an easy climb.

The weather continues to be generous to us, for which I am grateful

The Week in Review

With good weather continuing, Joe and I completed building and sheathing the second floor deck of the main part of the house. We haven't built the floor over the kitchen yet because we decided to build it a bit differently then originally conceived which requires delivery of a bunch of rough sawn lumber. So, we're building up to the point that we can until that delivery happens and then we'll build the rest of the second floor.

In the mean time, we spent time laying out the gable end walls on the deck full size with chalk lines. In other words, we drew the gable walls on the floor as a means of determining our stud lengths where they meet the roof rafters.

We then cut all our wall parts for both walls, north and south. We can't complete these walls until the rough sawn lumber order shows up, so we moved onto other projects.

To keep busy we installed an important structural steel post in the basement, finished building the stairs down the hatch to the basement, and installed the Bilco bulkhead hatch that goes over the stairs. With these complete we started on the porch, located off the kitchen end of the house. We dug, set, and poured the concrete piers and then installed the ledger that will carry the joists.

It was a productive week and we are well positioned to put up the roof efficiently once the rest of our materials are on hand.