Early Winter

It's been a couple of months but despite a sudden drop in the temps and what felt like an early winter in the fall, we have been keeping at it. In October, we cut the topsoil away and stacked it aside for later use in landscaping. We did this with the skid loader/digger when we dug the main square for the house foundation. In mid-November we had the first layer of stones out down for the gravel driveway.

We did this because we could--it doesn't matter how cold it is when you're laying stone! Digging the details of the foundation were becoming more difficult, because the ground was beginning to freeze. When it wasn't freezing it was raining. That does make it difficult to lay stone. Our driveway may look level, but to a guy driving 30 tons of stone in a 4-axle truck, it's not a good idea (might get stuck, believe it or not). So our advice is to make sure the subsoil is dry enough. In our case, the guy came out, apologized for not being able to lay the stone, and had to come back days later when it was drier. At least they didn't charge us 2 delivery fees! But be careful to check. I think they didn't because we're amateurs and they should have asked.

What kind of stone?

We asked around and typically there's a base layer of a few inches, called "ballast", and for this we were recommended "#3s"--most stone are 3 inches (many were as much as 5"!). Here's Julie standing on the pile at the base of the driveway. We learned that these are not stones you can move with a shovel and a rake! There was also a pile of stone near the end--because live wires prevented the driver from dumping all the stone out to the end. So this required a non-toothed skid loader to move and spread the remaining stone, an expense we did not anticipate.

Here's the "after" shot. But driving on ballast isn't that great. For that we'd need the next layer. Recommended was #2a or b "modified" which means it contains mostly stones 2" or less, all the way down to "stone dust." We'll have pics of that in the next post.

How much stone? I calculated the length of the driveway (114') multiplied it by the width (12', plus a little wider at the end), by the depth desired (3" or .25 foot), came up with a cubic footage, which I divided by 27 (number of cubic feet in a square yard), and requested that cubic yardage of stone. The quarry converted that to tonnage and the result was perfect. Nothing short or left over.

We have managed to get a little foundation work done. We dug a trench and the rough cuts of the 8 pads that will be poured (when it's warm enough to pour concrete again, >40 deg F). In this photo you can see the trench is roughed in, and the pads are all but finished (by hand, to cut them straight, square and level). Our level reference is out of frame to the right, and is a steel stake driven into the corner of the hole, with a mason's string tied to the point where the pole is at grade. Then we walk a line level out (keep the string tight) and measure down with a tape. In our region, frost depth is 36", so the pad and trench bases need to be at 36" depth from grade.

In the farthest corner, we found we'd dug too deep--and prior to this photo, that corner was a lake after those rains. Without electricity and the generator not working, we had to bail the corner by hand, over 300 gallons if we calculated correctly. Our arms were tired. Here you see what we've done after we filled the muddy hole with subsoil and placed wooden 2x4 skids so we could get the loader in and clean things out.

So between the ballast stone and the mistakes on the foundation depth, that added up to needing an extra day with earth moving equipment. It wasn't super expensive (about $300), but those things add up. We'll try to be more careful.

As you can see, there's water in the pad holes, and the general state of the pit says: "nothing more until the weather improves." That's the other thing: the weather usually won't cooperate with your plans, so be flexible.

We'll post the finished driveway next time. In the meantime, this winter we're making some changes to the final plans, which we'll talk about, and starting the "Hobbit door." (You'll see!)

Getting somewhere--Part 2

Okay, it's been a while. But it became difficult to continue the blog when the building permit for the house was held up by a problem with the original subdivision. Without getting into too much detail, we could have had the permit by late July (already getting a little late for us with school starting back in a month). So the project languished while the permit was on hold while this problem was sorted out by the township, the septic enforcement officer, and the owner of the neighboring property.

It's complicated.

The take home message is that the best laid plans can fall prey to the unforeseen (and take our word for it: no one--not the township, not the neighboring property owner--saw this coming). It wasn't even a problem with our property, percs, or septic design!

Ahh! But, we are back in business. 2 weeks ago I learned how to use a Bobcat-type digger to begin the foundation. I could feel the 10-year-old in me! Tonka trucks...only for real.

So we're down about 22-35 inches--29 is target, and so now we're shaving here, filling in there to achieve a 29" depth overall. The trenches for the poured footer & pads can then down down to frost depth at 36". This was fun, but we would again have people who attempt this consider avoiding a full basement. Just getting this far has really caused us to appreciate keeping it simple.

One silver lining: we have found that the "get ready" used up more of our cash than we expected...well, admittedly we'd spent so much effort estimating the BIG costs--the SIPs, the window estimates, framing costs--that we kinda neglected the pre-building costs, like the permit itself (nearly $2000, yikes!) equipment rental, foundation materials, driveway stone, etc. So now we're feeling like having a winter to replete our cash will actually help a great deal.

Take home message #2: the little stuff adds up fast. Take your time.

Next: a driveway!  

Getting somewhere!

Our new shed. Hey, it's a building.

Next?
The foundation...

Building Permit

Just an update. We have approval of our plans and the permit will be issued with our septic permit, which pends an inspection of the site. We're pleased with how well the plans went over. We were asked to make some minor changes, mostly increasing amperage to downstairs outlets. Little stuff. It was enough to get the permit issued to build a little site hut to keep tools dry! We hope the full permit will be issued as soon as next week.

The Trouble With Subcontractors...

This has been interesting. So we have the SIP (structural insulated panel) builders over on Friday. Really nice folks--gave us a lot of free advice, so we like these people so far. They seem interested in our project. But someone to dig the simple square hole? That's been a chore. Someone (who perhaps ought to know) suggested that some contractors don't like working with amateur builders. Hmm...

Well, we got a call the other day. Expensive! Perhaps we can do better!

I have considered doing it myself. I figure for the money I'd spend spending a day or so learning how to work a back hoe perhaps we would save much more. So we have a few days to see how that equation works out. After all, learning is good. No doubt disasters can occur! But I say: no balls, no glory!

Anyway, the meeting was anxiety-provoking. Suggested changes, long timelines...winter seems close. It's stressing me (Eric) out, not so much Julie.

Here's a shot from 2 nights ago when we were staking off the buildings. Taken from future front yard. I call it "Peace...before the cluster#u@&..."

Peace to all of you.
E&J

Getting ready (and ready...and ready...)

I had this romantic image of just dropping off a set of floor plans at the township office with my $300 fee and happily picking up trowel and square and getting started. By now I thought we'd be well onto finishing the 1st floor platform over the crawl space. Instead we've spent the month refining our drawings, employing an engineer to help us with certain structural concerns, and getting bids on everything from windows, to excavation of the shallow hole I thought we'd have filled with house by now. We've dropped copies of the plans to several lumber yards for designs/estimates on roofing trusses, and we had a septic engineer out to stake our sand mound. (I could go on.)

Sheesh! And this is a relatively simple house, not like the multi-bathroom McMansions referred to earlier.

Julie and I have some similar reasons for this project, like wanting to save money. We are. It is costing more than we expected in some areas, though. The engineering, the building permit (estimated we'll be charged about $1300), and other permits...I can see why people are generally angry and why movements like the Tea Party sprung up. The particulars of today's political viewpoints aside, I am more interested in what drives political moods, and in this project we are experiencing a "bureaucracy of common sense": the township, codes enforcement, good building practices...these are all things that will protect me from myself and perhaps prevent the public eyesore if a house constructed by amateurs were to collapse.

Once upon a time in America a family could go westward with shovel, saw and hammer build a house. Of course some of those houses collapsed too, I'd bet. All of our ancestors couldn't have been talented carpenters and masons. There is no more "west"--there are too many of us. And too many of us leads to all sorts of complicated regulation, social and economic structures, and bother. I suppose there are a few places in the world where we can go forth and just build, but those places are far away from everything else we love here, so I guess we will go through "the process". The house will be better for it, but I can understand why it leaves a bad taste.

We're still having fun, but I'll sure be glad when we have "legal permission" to stick a shovel in the ground.

"Scaping" the Land

One of the things we shared was how much our landscaping skills have been challenged since we started. Our acre is in alfalfa hay, and was cut periodically by a neighboring farmer. Many people in our area have lawns, but we just couldn't see ourselves living on  what would amount to a golf fairway. Trees provide shade and windbreaks, as well as homes for songbirds. Letting grasses grow, cultivating wildflowers, and planting hedgerows also provide similar benefits, as well as create a diverse ecology that resists disease spread.

We're amateurs at this, and in talking to people, we learned a lot about native plants, plants that have been subject to diseases, and those that are invasive. And on the latter point: after 18 years of trimming yew and privet hedge, we've had enough. So we made the decision to "wildscape"--let the land return to its natural state. Well, more or less.

But we can't just let it go. So my wife's sister and brother-in-law kindly gave us a "landwarming" gift of a consultation with Ann Bodling, whose specialty is helping people to guide their land back to a more natural state. She told us about native plants, about plant species such as silver maple, that are invasive, and those like kousa dogwood, which are currently subject to disease. Lawn? Well, we'll have a patch. Lawn is nice, but as a feature, not a focus. The county conservation district had a plant sale, and we got over 35 trees for less than $30.

Now some of those seedlings are struggling, but that's what happens in nature. We'll add a few select larger saplings shortly. Pines & spruces to the north and northwest as wind screen. Poplar in the future hedgerows for some southwest shade in the summer. Silky dogwoods in the front yard for their pretty blooms, and some screening from the lane, as well as shade. The hedgerows will include berry bushes, and draw birds, as well as afford us some additional privacy. To the southeast, wildflowers and grasses opening toward the view.

We like the rolling, grassy-hedgey-forested look of The Shire in The Lord of the Rings, and we're on our way to restoring some of that to what was once an open field.

The Space You're In

I had said in the previous post that we were told how to start planning, especially how much space and how we'd use it. As we've been thinking about this, we started to really pay attention to how we use the space we're in now. This is critical, as a lot of people think about what they don't like, and what they'll do to change that. In our view, this is what led to the profusion of "McMansions" that have grown up in our area (and now sit ownerless in this economy).

We wanted a bit more space. Our existing house has 2000 sq. ft. of useable space, including the semi-finished basement, which we use for laundry, workshop and storage. The new place is only about 2200 minus the garage (we currently park on the street). We noticed that we use the dining table a lot, especially for working on stuff. We also like that our work rooms, Julie's studio and my home office, are conveniently separated by a floor level and several yards of intervening structure. Julie likes it quiet. I like to play music while I work. So one example is this: much of the first floor would be an open plan (entertaining) with the dining area open but central (for our frequent debriefings, meals, and work piles). Julie's studio is large enough for two pianos and all of her piles of projects, and separated from the main area. My office is on the opposite side of the house on the second floor--separation is good for a relationship!

I shifted from the software to full-size drafting vellum (a kind of thick tracing paper) and made pencil drawings with tools you can buy at an office store. (I could have sent the program files to a professional copy place, but they might not be able to open it.) Now I had architectural drafting in high school, so I had an idea of what was needed. Mary complemented my pencil drawings and dubbed the design "efficient" and the drawings are understandable by any professional. If you don't have that experience, try an extension course at your local vo-tech school or community college. With the vellum, I am now able to tape a fresh piece onto the board over my pencil drawing and "ink in" for the final drawings that will be submitted to the lumber supplier for roof trusses, the building codes inspector for the permit, the window people for their estimates, etc.

Anyone you talk to, outside of the well driller, will want plans. The nice thing about the hand-drafting I found is that--in the "pencil stage"--it's super-easy to make small changes, and we made our most recent change just a few days ago when Julie said she liked the little alcove over the bed in our current home. But we're done now, and will be distributing plans this week to all those folks listed above (and some I didn't list).

Buy some White-out. You can make changes to the ink drawings as needed, but make sure they're small changes. Get the pencil version as close to perfect as you can. (And make copies of the ink version! Keep the originals safely off-site.)

You might think "efficient" sounds cold and bland. Efficent design makes the most use of materials, and keeps the tech expertise that will be demanded of us owner-builders to a minimum. We can suggest Sarah Susanka's Not So Big House books for ideas. I like her ideas, but you'll see the homes are showpieces, often with lots of expensive details. But the great thing about her books is that they'll give you ideas about little things like drop-ceilings, maintaining a theme, and how to make the most of details, etc. If you want to tackle this (or even just a renovation/addition), we recommend her books, as well as surfing for home ideas in other places like magazines and websites. Like our theme throughout: make the design yours but learn from other experts as well.
 
In Buddhism, we're asked to be mindful, be present, and appreciate what we have. We wanted to keep the good in what we have now and add to it the things we want and need. Next time, we'll say a little bit about landscaping with that theme in mind.

Land Management

Or "How to Tame an Acre of Hay"
So this is Spring, and this is how things have grown since the first photo in our previous entry. Over the winter we spent most of our time planning what our house would be. This has taken many, many hours. I (Eric) started with a program called Instant Architect which which has been fancied up a bit since I bought it a couple of years ago. Pretty easy to use (hope it stayed that way), but this only gave us 8-1/2 x 11" sketches. We employed a consulting architect, Mary Caufield, who advised us to start by thinking about floor space and what we wanted in a house.

Having lived in the north side of a townhouse in the city for 18 years, light and a sense of bringing the outside in were foremost. The view in the picture above is how we're orienting the long axis of the house, so the living room and Julie's music studio face this direction. The "front" of the house--the side facing the lane--actually has the kitchen and a laundry/storage room with connection to the garage. One of the things to think about is how will you use the house. We have found that when we entertain, people tend to gather in the kitchen anyway. In addition, it's recommended that the colder side of the house, northwest through northeast, have the heat-generating stuff, like the stove, and that glass area be minimized to make good use of the local environment and climate. So this works for us. The "glassy sides" will face southeast through southwest.

So we marked off this orientation with stakes in March, and that allowed us to make further changes to the plan. This photo was taken in April, and as you can see, the little seedling center-shot beyond the wild mustard, is almost overtaken by the hay growing around it. The stakes were swallowed up, and so we wondered what to do.

Fortunately, a local farmer wanted the hay for his cows, so we pulled the stakes, marked the seedlings with flags, and we're back in business, but it was May until the hay was worth mowing and the weather stayed dry enough for the cutting and gathering. Even then, owing to our enthusiastic (and apparently premature) planting of numerous white pines and Norway spruce to someday screen the northwest winds in winter, we had to rope off some areas which didn't get cut. Tried a swingblade. Hard work on tough 4' grass! Then a gas powered string-type weed whacker. Slow going and not done yet. Now a neighbor with a bush hog is going to come in and finish the job in the tight areas. But we have been learning: plan for what's going to happen in nature while you're drawing plans.

We'll either have to pay people to mow, or somehow borrow or buy a tractor, as the hay is already coming back. All this is necessary because it is impossible to do anything in the thick grass. So it will add a bit to our costs. Everything is so much smaller and more manageable in the city!

Next: The Plans

The Great Experiment...

We are building a house. This is us:

Still young enough to be vital but old enough that the prospect of another 30-year mortgage led us to return to an idea we'd had for a long time. We'd build one.

But that turns out to be really expensive too.

Then we read an article by Jasmine Saville and their "hobbit house". Lovely, really. And we started to wonder if we could. Of course neither of us has the sort of experience to work wood like that, but we both had a bit of housing handicraft in our pasts, so I started costing out the materials and the sweat equity and it seemed to promise something.

This blog? It's because we tell people this, and they are like, "Are you going to build it yourselves?" We began to realize that we really do live in a different age. We are all very specialized, and we started to realize that this specialization makes a thing like building shelter--a basic human impulse--seem remote, impossible to many people, especially people in higher social classes, but really, most everyone!

We started looking for property in earnest 6 months ago. We have been "looking" for years but now we were serious. In early Winter 2009 we purchased this in the Susquehanna Valley. Price was an issue, and we passed up a bunch of stuff and then this came our way:

Anyway, we'll be posting updates to this project because we realized that other people were really interested in how two college professors were going to build a modern house, with all the fixin's. The Hobbit House would be great, but we'll settle for more familiar architecture. We'll share details as we go along, and I hope to provide some tips (and warnings about mistakes!) as well.

But we also hope to open a discussion on the politics of our relationship with the Earth, craft, and sense of place. We'll also share things about the people who help us. First advice: take help. And it is a good idea to think the process through, figure out what you can't do, and spend a few bucks to get that expertise. We're learning it's a balancing act to pay for what you must and do all the rest you can.