Our House

Saturday we had a lovely visit from my brother and his wife.  ‘Twas great.  While Vala and I worked on a website to show off their award winning Mastiffs, Dan and Wadly unloaded all the lovely stuff Dan brought me.  I have plastic 25 gallon barrels, lots of different sized plastic and poly pipe, fittings and other lovely stuff.  Dan also brought a stainless shaft for my papercrete mixer that matches the shaft size on the gearbox.  He’s going to make a sleeve to connect the shaft to the gearbox.  That gets me one step closer!

Yesterday Wadly and I got the awning over the garden window and glass door to the deck covered with polycarbonate.  Progress!  The flashing’s on and most of the gutter.  I have a two foot section of gutter left to install as well as a down spout and some magic with billboard vinyl to handle end runoff.  The way it is now will greatly improve things, but it does need the final touches to finish it up.

I’m not expecting much more progress for a while.  Terry’s old boss called and wants Wadly to work part time.  <sigh>

Wadly and his brother got the east end of the living room leveled and properly blocked.  Next I’ve got to get the 4×6 that runs under the living room just beyond the new blocking set on permanent supports . . . then the next one and the next one and then . . . tada! the other end of the living room.  All this is supposed to happen before winter but I’m not holding my breath.  Now that Wadly’s working six days out of seven not much will get done.  It’s either money or progress, never both.

The goal is to have the south wall of the new bedroom constructed and the sun porch and rocket mass heater in before winter.  At the rate we’re going I don’t see that happening, but we may surprise us.  Ya never can tell.

If you look back through the posts from last fall you’ll see I mentioned using Shark Bite pex fittings in my replumbing of the laundry room.  I am such a huge fan of these fittings.  They are more expensive than standard pex fittings, but they require no extra tools and the fittings can reused innumerable times.

The laundry room move changed the length of the hot and cold water runs to the Airstream, shortening them by about 5′.  I didn’t have to buy a thing.  I cut the lines using a hammer and sharp butcher knife against a wood block (produces a clean end necessary for a good seal), undid the Shark Bite fittings and slid them on the newly cut ends.  Rerouting and reconnecting the lines was a few-minutes-zero-cost job.

In this one plumbing change, the fittings paid for themselves.  I’ll be able to use these fittings again when I’m done with the current application.  I see this as money well spent.

Terry (neighbor) manning the shovel

With the debacle of the shop move fresh in our minds, Wadly, Terry and I moved the laundry room out of the way of our new building project.  This building was light enough to sling with straps, something the shop wasn’t.   Terry swung it around and placed it on blocks at the back of the Airstream, accessible but out of the way for the new construction.  After a day of rest I reinstalled the metal roofing we removed prior to the move adding new tar paper underneath.

I’ve got the stakes in the ground to run my leveling string for the new foundation.  Wadly’s got brother Tom’s cement mixer.  I’ve got my floor plan and my building plan and everything but the concrete and rebar which I won’t pick up until we’re ready to pour the grade beam!  It’s time to get out the shovels and get to work . . . weather permitting.