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

.

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!

Looking Back to When It All Began

Nancy here, who has been itching (just like Dave keeps scratching in this video) to submit this post!

We went to town meeting this morning. This is always a social occasion and several times we were able to respond positively and without any equivocation on our part to the question "are you in the house yet?" Funny how different a simple "yes" sounds as we've gotten so used to following it up with the qualifiers. As in "we are sleeping in the house, but everything else is still in the yurt" or my favorite, "but the kitchen isn't in yet!"

In celebration of this major milestone, we'd like to share a little clip from day one of construction. Now that we're living in the "after" here's a look back at the "before".

Although the house has been a team effort and we've had lots of help along the way from many friends and contractors, now is a good time for me to publicly recognize all of Dave's love and labor that has gone into these walls. I am very proud of all that you have accomplished Dave. With great humor, hard work, and a vision, we have a beautiful new home. Well done!

Much love,

Nancy

Topsoil

Drips from the roof clean off the newly laid stone to reveal its color

Mac came back yesterday to continue work on the grading project. With my assistance we laid out landscape fabric around the perimeter of the house and then laid a band of 3/4" stone from the foundation out 3' to catch the water coming off the roof.

Once the stone was in place Mac started placing the the topsoil and completed pretty much the back side of the house. It was threatening rain much of the day and by the very end was coming down pretty steadily. I ended the day by putting down a bunch of grass seed and hay in the completed areas.

I rained heavily overnight which most likely will delay Mac's return until things dry out a bit.

Home and Garden

Grading around the house

This is the water line coming through the basement wall running out the water supply in the garden

Nancy working with Scott to move the shed. We used 3" pvc pipe as rollers

Our new water supply in the garden, right near the compost pile

We've turned our attention to completing the site work and grading around the house--finally. For months I've been anticipating filling in all the hollowed out areas and leveling out the rough stuff and having real topsoil rather then hard clay for a lawn.

This work started off two evenings ago by moving our shed for the second time. We moved it back in the spring sometime and felt like that was a good decision, but have since decided to move it again to allow for easier parking. Our pal Scott from down the road came to our rescue with his Kubota tractor and pulled the shed to its new home between ourselves and our uphill neighbor. We need to tweak it, but its a good move.

This morning Mac -- excavator extraordinaire -- showed up to do complete the site work. The first project was digging a trench from the house to the garden so we could lay in a water line for a standpipe water supply in our garden. This went pretty smoothly and he spent the rest of the day clearing up the general area around the parking, the west wall and also took out the massive stump that was right near the yurt. Things are looking pretty slick.

Drawing brought to life

I've been waiting for this for a long time. You spend a long time working on plans and coming up with something you think is good, but your plans are only an abstraction of a complex reality. Even so, its cool to have the opportunity to "see" the view you've drawn and referred to many many times. Making this pairing is encouraging and sparks my desire to now get on to doing the trim and siding!

Mac was here again today and finished up with the grading. Things are looking very nice around here in a landscape-y way after months of rough shapelessness. We'll be taking a little break for a week and when we get back I'll pick up where I left off with the plumbing and Mac will be back to do some final touches on the grading and landscape work.

Its been an intense couple of weeks leading up to taking down the garage, so much so that I wasn't able to keep up with the blog quite as much as I like to. Here's a calendar I drew up that, despite many adjustments, proved to be a pretty close map of what happened. Task for tomorrow: fly to Florida.


It might be worth noting that as of today this blog is coming to you via a phone line that runs down the pole, through it's new conduit leading to the basement and into the house. Bit by bit the house is starting to wake from its incubative state.

The House: Unwrapped

Today we finally we got to experience the land and the house without the garage. Its amazing. The house now has space to breath and stand alone without the uncomfortable contrast offered by the garage. It allows the house to stand as a whole where you get to see the various elements as a unit, rather hints of the whole from constrained vantage point.

There is also a sense of space and view and distance around the house that I love. Things feel simpler and more elemental now. Notwithstanding that there is still the yurt, the large dumpster and the excavator, there is a sense of breathing room around the house. You can see the whole and you can see around and beyond it.

Its a bit of a surprise to look out from the inside. I'd gotten used to the visual shelter provided by the garage/breezeway building. Our challenge now is to start thinking about coming up with a landscape plan that provides a sense of privacy while still having a sense of openness on the south side of the house facing our neighbor and the road.

This was one of the most dramatic days of this whole house building process and one that we've been anticipating for a long time. It feels great to have reached it.

Going, going, gone halfway

Going

going

gone

Today Mac showed up and went to work with his excavator. He dug a trench to run the power and phone to the house and then set to work taking down the breezeway section of the garage. As someone once said about woodworking "Its the set-up that takes time, not the cut" seems to apply to this project. We've been working steadily for the last couple of weeks to be ready to bring the building down and then today it happened and took all of about half an hour to bring the structure down.

Tomorrow Mac comes back to complete the building demolition.

Down in a hole

Glad I don't have to do this too often

At work about to install the new power pole. The new pedestal is just past the man on the left

The PVC conduit running from the pedestal down through the trench to the pole

Still concentrating on preparations to take down the garage, I've spent the last two days digging a ten foot long trench that is three feet deep between our electric meter pedestal and the newly installed telephone pole. It was going fine until I hit the cementazoic layer--consisting mostly of super dense rock and clay that really was cement like. At one point I was considering giving up, but just about then started to break through to the next strata down and realized I'd be able to work through it.

Today I laid in the pipes for the new power service coming from the pole and got a start on the piping for the phone line as well. Felton has been coming up periodically to check on the progress and keep an eye on my work.

All this will allow us to remove the electrical panel and meter from the garage in anticipation of next week's work.

In the meantime Nancy has spent her evenings moving the firewood to its new location away from the garage and I'm slowly working through all the tools, bike parts, and random shoe-making machinery in the garage.

It'll all come together, but we've got a lot to do!

Going at it

Today Joe and I started actual work on the house, specifically the root cellar walls which complete the structure of the basement. After months of rainy cool weather we are finally being graced with muggy humid weather in the upper 80's. Its a beast, but it feels great, like summer. We took a much needed swim in the Mad River at lunch and then again when we were done in the early evening.

Any new project takes a little while to get into a groove, and given that, we were able to get set up and rolling pretty well. By the end of the day we had both of the root cellar walls in place. Tomorrow we'll tidy up the walls and build the roof over the root cellar, which will allow for us to move onto the sill and work on the first floor deck. Completing the root cellar will also prepare us for the earthwork and grading which will happen next week.

Moving along...

Today the footing was poured. Its just amazing to see a drawing turned into reality. It's like, "Hey, I drew that!" and then the next thing you know, a hardworking crew of concrete guys comes along and makes it real. It seemed so distant in the design process and now here it is being laid out and poured as a matter of fact.

For example, I labored over whether we should include a radon vent in the house. The conventional wisdom around here says unless you are over bedrock you shouldn't have a problem. On the other hand, a good friend who had a house in Barre said they had their place tested and found very high levels of radon. I decided that we should go ahead and install the vent pipe in the event we ever find we need it. Today, when the crew was setting up the forms I ran down to town, grabbed some pvc pipe and laid it in place. The cost was negligible, the effort to place minimal, and now its there. It was hardly worth thinking about in the end and I'm glad we did it. I guess I'm just dwelling on the transition from concept to reality and how that transition happens.

Back to the process: The footing was poured today, and tomorrow, if weather allows, the forms go up for the walls. Every step is exciting, but I think seeing the wall forms going up is notable for its dramatic thrust into three dimensions - up from the 2D of the footings.

Finally!

Today we broke ground. Or should I say, a giant earth mover broke tons of ground. At around seven this morning Nancy and I were sipping our coffee and tea respectively and starting to think that it wouldn't be happening today... it was raining, damp, and calm and just didn't feel like anything active was going to happen. Then, at maybe 7:04, two white trucks show up and within minutes, the digger was coming down the drive way. After a short consultation about depth and site markers the project was suddenly made manifest by the powerful combination of hydraulics, steel, and human attention.

I asked Anna and Nancy today if they could imagine anyone being as fascinated with watching them do their work as it is to watch a skillful backhoe operator going at it. I swear, Dave, the operator could pick up a plate of fine china with his machine if he wanted. He could also crush a car. He reminded me of a limber skier as he turned, retracted, lifted, dumped, pulled, pushed and piled the earth.

Digging went smoothly and I was greatly relieved to see how much fill we were accumulating throughout the day. One of the harder elements for me to envision throughout the design process has been how the landscape will pan out. A good part of that is dependent on how much fill we have to work with. It looks now that we'll be in good shape to structure the landscape without any abrupt or sever drops. Phew.

I had called DigSafe last week in preparation for this work. They came and located the main power line coming to the existing garage with spray paint on the ground. Dave was aware of the location and was working away when suddenly the power went off. It turns out there was a loop of wire outside the marks on the ground and he hit it. Except for some lost time, there was no serious damage. Green Mountain Power came and got us back in shape in good time.

By the end of the day we were left with a massive, gaping hole in the yard. Its just so impressive to see what a powerful machine can do and also to see the empty space where the house will go. It is so exciting.