Porch and Berries... and Larry's home!

Larry made it home.  He drove his Dad's 1981 Ford towing a trailer from Tucson to Mansfield in only 4 days!  Had minimal trouble, hit some heavy rains in Memphis, but other than that it was a good drive.  Without a radio or me to listen to, it was kind of a quiet drive.  Well, if you disregard the rattling from the front differential which had to be removed.  Oh well, only needed that part if he had to 4-wheel it, which was unlikely on the freeway system other than perhaps Oklahoma...LOL

I'm glad he's back and he's pleased with the progress the contractor made while he was gone.  We now have the floor of the porch done and we're waiting on the trusses to do the roof.  Here are a few pics...

Porch under construction.  It's going to be very sturdy, they

did a lot of framing for it.  It is 8' deep and 42' wide!!

The porch is the length of the house portion.  The open 

part is the side of the garage.

Found lots of berry bushes on the property.  Talking to the

neighbors, they are not edible for us but the wildlife love them.

These are only about 1/2" diameter and a very pretty red.

They are called "choke cherries".

These are some sort of raspberry looking fruit, but also

they are not good for people, very sour.  But the deer,

bear and all other critters love them.  Bear!?!  that's

what they said.  I guess there are a few black bears

around, gotta watch out for them!

As you can see, there are LOTS of these bushes and they

are all big bushes!

Finishing up the floor of the porch!

It doesn't look that big in this picture, but standing on it, it seems

huge!  It's going to look great with the pillars and a

couple of rocking chairs, maybe a swing chair.

Ready for the pillars and chairs!!!  We chose our colors for the

roof and the siding and trim today.  Too much fun!!!  More

pictures of progress to come.

More walls! Inside Ones

Well, things are progressing right along.  We have inside walls now.

This first picture is getting the "mote" filled in around the house.  It's a lot easier to get in and out of the structure now.

Just a few day ago, I woke to visitors in the front yard.  It's not a great picture, but it's two deer just roaming around.  Of course, when I took the first picture the flash went off and they both raised their heads staring in my direction.  About a week ago our dog Jake went outside to take care of business and I hear him barking.  I look outisde and he is running as fast as he can barking at the two deer which were just loping away, not running all that hard, but enough to stay ahead of Jake.  It was quite funny.  Didn't get a picture of that... sorry.

This picture was taken from the end of our driveway toward the house.

This is taken from the front door looking at the fireplace 

and the left side of the great-room.

This is the center view of the great-room and the 

kitchen area. 

This is the third picture of the great-room looking 

at the guest room and hallway.  If you put this and the previous two picture

together side-by-side they are the view from the front door.

This is taken from the front room toward the master bedroom.  The rooms

are a LOT bigger than I thought they would be.  It's amazing how it looks bigger

with walls than it did without any walls.  I was afraid it was going to be 

too small, although don't get me wrong... I don't want to be doing a lot

of cleaning.  LOL

So, now we are waiting for the trusses so that they can put the roof on and then it won't matter if it rains.

We Got Walls!

Yes, it's true.  I came out of the trailer yesterday and saw our first wall.  And the first wall was the back wall of my craft room! It has a large picture window that will look out over our back yard and the forested area where the two creeks meet.  I was so excited.  Our daughter and I then left to drive to Elmira to pick up the twins returning from their summer trip to Tucson.  Then when we returned, we had a lot more walls.  True progress is really showing up now on a daily basis.

Our first wall!  The back wall of my craft room.  Disregard the black dot in the trees, no it's not a UFO, it's a spot on my camera lens that shows up in lots of my pictures.  Can't seem to get rid of it.

The twins arrive!  Their other grandmother flew back with them.  They were tired, but happy to be home! 

Yes, very tired.  They've only been gone 4 weeks, but it seems like they have grown like weeds! 

This is the opening for the French Doors from the Master Bedroom.

An overview of the house.  Front door and two Bay Windows 

in the front of the house.  

Concrete poured and Sub-Flooring started

I'm seeing WOOD!!!  Starting to look like something.  The concrete was poured on Thursday... here's a few pictures.

Getting ready to pour some more concrete...

Pouring the last of the concrete... 

Notice the contractor's location.

He's hanging down into the last area to smooth out the concrete.

Now they bring in the piece of equipment to finalize the leveling of the concrete.

Leveling it all out.  Boy, that piece of equipment will shake

your arms off!  Glad it was them, not us...

So, on Friday, after a beautiful day of sunshine yesterday and no rain through the night, the concrete is ready to walk on and the work with wood begins!!

The beginning... of the sub-floor

The short guy on the right is actually standing on the floor of the crawl-space.  It's going to be finished at about a 4 1/2 foot tall space. Plenty of room to take care of anything that may need work on.

 Framing in the sides of the floor.  The also added extra foundation boards

at the master bathroom area because there will be a lot of tile there, the

floor and all of the shower floor and walls.  It'll be stronger, so 

hopefully no creaking of the floor and shifting of the tiles.

Final step to the sub-floor is the ply-wood.  This part will be done on Monday and then once it all passes inspection, the walls will begin... whooo hooo!!!

Debbie uses the ride lawn mower, and progress on house

Well, it took me two days, but I mowed most of the grass.  It was getting pretty tall and I knew that I couldn't just let it grow waiting for Larry to return.  I did a bit much yesterday, about 2/3's of the 4 1/2 acres.  I quit because I was getting pretty tired, so I showered and promptly fell asleep on the couch.  When I woke up, OMG!!! My arms felt like spaghetti and my shoulders were extremely sore.  So off to another hot shower and felt pretty good by this morning.

So, feeling fairly normal I thought I should finish since I had so much less to do than the day before.  I actually got 'er done!!  I'm pretty proud of myself for such a minor thing, but it feels good.

Here's a pic of my work, it's not golf course ready, but it does look a lot better than it did two days ago.

So, we have progress on the house!  They put up the barrier wall covering for the crawl space, placed boards on the block and finished prepping the garage area for concrete.  The concrete guy can't be here until Thursday, so they get one day off (Wednesday) then they will have the concrete poured Thursday and start working with the wood on Friday to start creating the frame for the house!!!

More gravel!

Work work work!  It's a good thing!

Placing gravel inside for the floor of the crawl space and some gravel to cover pipes.

Ready for concrete guy!!!

I'm so excited, it's finally changing on a daily basis, not weekly or more.  Hopefully we will see a facsimile of a house very soon.

Getting the fun stuff started

So, since we are at the property now, we needed someplace to be able to sit outside, so we got a picnic table.

We put up a cover over it (not pictured).  

We also got a few more trees to strategically place around the property.  Our daughter and son-in-law came over and Ben was nice enough to move the trees around the property to where we want to plant them.  Larry is in Arizona right now enjoying the heat (yeah right), so Ben is helping out while he is gone.

Visible progress!

OK, we are starting to see phases be completed, finally.  We have had so much rain that the block-work has taken a LOT more time than planned.  Here are a few pic of it's progress...

Larry is the one on the far left of the group of five.  I know it looks like they are just standing there talking, but they're making executive decisions.... :-)

Larry jumped in to help with his new tractor.  He does a great job with it, maybe a new line of work for him if he gets bored around here... yeah right!!

One of the block layers tripped.  He is just fine, but a bit embarrassed cause I caught it on film.  The other guy was laughing, thought it looked like the Three Stooges.

Now that the block-work is done, they put a layer of sealant of some sort on the outside.  This will help prevent the water from seeping in and creating that strong musty smell.  Although it's just a crawlspace, not a basement, it still needs to stay as dry as practical.

The sealant on the outside is all done.  Next step is to pour a "slurry" of some sort on the floor of the crawl-space and cement for the garage floor.  I know it looks kinda small, but they keep reassuring me that once it is built it will seem much larger.  OK, I believe them, never seen this type of project before.

The pipe around the base has holes and it is meant to collect water through those holes and then it all goes out a pipe underground down the hill into the forested area.

The pipe gets covered by small rocks then dirt will fill in all the rest of the area.  The house will be built on top of this, so this will all be underground when it's done.  We have a lot of "fixing" of the landscape when the house is done.  It all used to be grass until they started digging and piling dirt around.