Looky, Looky!!!

Bright and early Monday morning, we had rumbling machinery on site. In two days, Mon. and Wed, they have accomplished: 

Leveling the hilltop so our floors will be flat. 

Repositioning both buildings. House came forward so the builder can get his forklift in behind, and the workshop moved forward due to the drop of the hill. This will save us some $$ on the amount of cement needed for the shop footings. Then both had to be tweaked to make sure we had space to drive between them. Moving the workshop forward required another clump of trees to be removed. There was about 4 trees in a tight cluster right in front of the shop porch. This is the root ball of all the various roots intertwined. I think it looks like an alien spaghetti monster. 

Digging trenches for the footings. Under the perimeter walls, garage/interior dividing walls, and all sides of porches. We were impressed with how straight and smooth the trenches are! The excavator sure has some skills! The clay down there is SOLID. I don't expect these buildings will shift or settle much. This is the south trench of the shop. The stair-steps go down the hill to keep the requisite depth into the hill.  

This also impressed us. That's the smooth top of a rock that was sheared off by the excavator. I'm thinking it must be a pretty big rock under there, or it would have pulled free instead of getting sheared smooth. It's level with the clay bottom of the trench.

Septic mound and tanks installed. They had this done by the time I arrived after lunch. I was disappointed because I wanted to watch them put the tanks in. It doesn't look like much from this side, but from the downhill side the mound looks HUGE. One more holding tank will go beside the workshop, but not until construction is done, so the builder can drive around the building without worrying about the tank.

Fresh gravel on the rest of the driveway, except the hilltop. It's a REALLY thick layer, and will need rain to help it pack down. Right now it feels like a car would get stuck, or at least leave some ruts. There will be cement trucks driving over it tomorrow, so I guess we'll find out!

In the process of all this, they have made good use of our farm field. They have added a temporary driveway access, piled dirt taken from the trenches, used it to hold the gravel destined for the septic mound, rearranged our tree piles a few times as needed, then finally condensed it all into one big pile for easy burning. 

It's silly, but I was greatly amused by this little guy. He was zooming around the site, moving dirt as needed for all the jobs getting done. He reminded me of the Doozers in Fraggle Rock. If you've never watched that show, you should! Jim Henson at his finest. 

 We have a start date!!!!!

We will be breaking ground on Aug 16th! Trusses are scheduled to arrive Sept 18th, then Troy says about 4mo till his job is done. We will be finishing the inside ourselves. Move-in day will be sometime after the Holidays. 

Water, Water, everywhere, but not a drop for the garden!

 Top news of the day- We have our building permit!! Our GC, Troy, says we'll get started in a couple weeks. Foundation, septic, and power are top of the list. We can't start framing until the trusses arrive, which currently are not expected until late Aug/early Sept. From that point Troy says about 4 mo to completion, so looking at taking possession somewhere around the Holidays. I was hoping to be in by Christmas, but that looks doubtful. 

Now for our current project. My garden will be across the ravine from the house, and a second well does not seem to be financially viable. It's not really a possibility to run hoses that far, so another plan is needed. A good friend got ahold of 2 IBC totes for us, which will work to feed a drip system, but we need to keep them filled. The plan is to use a pump to fill them from the creek while it's running in the spring, then keep them filled with rainwater capture. A very light snowfall total last winter meant a very brief period of a fully running creek and it was down to a trickle before we even got a pump. The difference in height between the creek and the hilltop where the tanks are has made finding an affordable pump capable of doing the job a difficult task. While I won't have a garden in until next year, we do have some fruit trees planted that need water this year, so we need to have this functional. A drought so far this summer has NOT helped, requiring more frequent watering.

Step 1, a delivery system. The tanks have a 2" port, and we thought it would be fairly simple to find step-down connectors to get us to garden hose size. Boy, were we wrong! Different size ranges are designed to serve different purposes, and not to work together. No single type would do the job, and the different types do not work together. Sid cobbled together a system using sump-pump hose and working down to a faucet to attach the garden hose. Unfortunately the sump hose is relatively fragile, and we already have several leaks. As a result, if I forget to close the valve on the tank, we loose water. A lot of water. Patching it has done nothing but slow those leaks down a bit. 

Step 2, fill the tanks. To get us started, a post on the local FB page in search of a company that will deliver water got us instead a neighbor willing to fill them for us. I was surprised at how quickly the first fill got used up. Between a drought requiring daily watering and a left-open valve, we were empty again in a couple weeks. We didn't want to take advantage of his kindness and did not contact him again, but after a month he contacted me to see if we needed more. Yes!

Step 3, a way to collect rainwater. We have discussed multiple options, and ultimately we want a garden shed with an oversized roof with gutters. Wood prices mean Sid is very hesitant to invest in a permanent structure yet. Plan of (my) desperation was a tarp slung from the trees above the tanks, with an outlet above the hole on the top of the tank. I used a couple rain gutter/downspout connectors to create a funnel that would hang down into the hole. I climbed a ladder (NOT a fan of ladders and heights!) to sling the top end of the tarp from the branches, and used a couple cane poles left from an earlier project to create anchor points for the low end above the tanks. Sid also climbed up to get it higher in the branches than I could reach. I put a large rock on top of the funnel to hopefully keep it in place if it got breezy. 

Then it got windy. A flapping tarp can generate a significant amount of throwing power! I found the rock about 6ft away the next day, and the make-shift funnel was also shaken loose. No rain yet, but obviously this isn't going to work in a storm! 

Brainstorming led to the idea of a giant funnel that is secured in place and will catch water even if the tarp is blowing around a little. Below is what I came up with. Think a "toilet bowl" like on an amusement park water slide. PVC pipe frame, which I made using supposedly "international standard size" measurements that I found online. Our tanks are smaller, so a bit of make-do was necessary when I put it in place. (What happened to "standard"?) The funnel portion is made from a single sheet of flexible plastic paneling that is intended to go on walls. A  half-sheet square, with a cut from one corner to the center, and a hole the same size as the one on top of the tank. I should have made the hole slightly smaller so it would not have to be aligned as precisely. The edges of the cut were pulled in to overlap and glued with Gorilla Glue. A few pair of drilled holes and zip ties reinforced the seam. The funnel was placed on top of the frame, more holes drilled and zip ties inserted to hold it in place, and the protruding corners were cut off. The stuff cuts with a pair of Fiskars scissors, so it's easy to do. Then the frame was positioned on top of the tank and anchored in place. It was intended to fit inside the tank frame and on top of the tank itself (per those "standard" measurements) but was too big in one direction. It would be more secure, and the funnel would go down inside the hole, if the PVC frame fit inside the tank frame. 

I checked it during a break in a (blessedly!) rainy day, and while everything appeared to function, and it stayed in place, the tarp had too much slack in it. The water had collected in a saggy spot outside the frame. Attempting to make it flow into the funnel put most of it over the side instead. I rigged up a support under the sag, made some adjustments to the tarp, and headed home. Went back out today, after more rain, and found the same situation but to a much less dramatic extent. But in the end, the water level in the tank was 1/4" higher! It WILL work! Sid arrived after work, and between us we pulled and adjusted the tarp to remove (hopefully) all the slack from the tarp. No more rain due for another week, so we'll have to wait for final results. At the very least we have a functional prototype to build on. Sid had an idea to consider one of those cheap car port kits to use the frame as a support for the tarp, so we will keep our eyes out for a good deal on one of those. 

Edited 2 days later: 

I found a car port kit on FB Market place for a good price and we picked it up this morning. It took both of us several hours to set it up and get the tarp hung properly to get a good flow from top to bottom, but I think we finally succeeded. Next tweak needed is to lower the front edge of the catch basin as that is the one spot that water got caught on the way down. 

Edit: July 28

Well, our improved collection system lasted only one storm. We hadn't been able to stretch the tarp smoothly enough to eliminate pooling and the weight of the collected water brought it down. Last weekend it got another makeover.

New tarp- a heavier-duty one.
New plan- Two drains, one into each tank instead of just one. A dividing pole to separate the tarp into two separate catchment areas. There is now NO where for water to pool and weight it down. 

The large funnel and frame got cut down into two smaller ones. The holes for drainage from the tarp were reinforced with duct tape for durability. Sid came up with a way to anchor the tarps to the tanks to mostly eliminate blowing and flapping in the wind, and to keep the holes lined up over the funnels. 

So far it has survived two "storms", which consisted mostly of wind. They sure didn't drop enough rain to add any measurable water to the tanks, but the tarp didn't blow apart. 

Bonus: Sid realized that for the winter we can just put the car port cover over the whole thing, which will keep snow from collecting and also provide a small amount of covered storage. 

Update Aug 8th.

Finally a rainy week to evaluate our system. We put a rain gauge nearby to track amounts. In the last few days we have recieved 1" total of rain, and got about 5" in the tanks. Going by surface area, 1" of rain should give us about 7" in each tank. Our first half-inch only gave us 1", the next half-inch gave us about 4". I don't know why the difference; my best guess is wind direction and the trees nearby affected it. In the pic below, the top edge of the pink tape was the water level last week, pre-rain. 

We Have an Address!

Several things happened in quick succession this week. Last Thursday I had an appointment with the plumbing supplier to pick all the faucets, sinks, etc. That went smoothly. They had most of the choices I wanted, leaving the  master shower and the vanity tops to be priced out both by them, and by me from other resources. Unfortunately what we want is not within the scope of "standard" so we need a special order shower pan which is PRICEY, or we need to make another choice that will sacrifice what we wanted in favor of what is affordable.

On the same day, the Builder came by to pick up the check for the lumber. Lumber prices have skyrocketed the last year in a nice little covid-induced bubble, and the new presidential policies have ensured future inflation across the board, leaving us to determine the most likely better of two evils for build now or build later. We chose now. As Sid put it, we'd really like to be living out there while we are still able to do the work for finishing and upkeep. That check was the biggest one I have ever written, and my hand was literally shaking as I did so. I'm sure there will be bigger ones to come. 

While the builder was here, he mentioned that he had filed for the permit!! YIPPEE! He got tired of waiting for the architect to finish the blueprints, and apparently the engineering report we also needed was completed, and he was able to file using just the plans we already have. However, the expected 2-week wait is now a 1-month wait due to staff losses in the permitting office.

This last Sunday, Sid and I hung out at Bosky for the afternoon. I got more buckthorn pulled, and Sid took care of a couple other jobs, but mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed the beauty and shade! Here's a before-and-after of the spot I was pulling buckthorn from. SO. MUCH. BUCKTHORN.

Two weeks ago our roof trusses were ordered. There is a 3-month backlog on those, meaning we won't have a roof until mid-August, regardless of how smoothly everything else goes. Last night I got a text from Troy stating that he has just recieved a message from the truss company that they will no longer be taking any more orders for this season, so we got in under the wire! 

I went out to Bosky yesterday to give my sister an updated tour and discovered our driveway gravel piled in the middle of the driveway. It wasn't what I expected. It's small gravel with lots of sand. I expected more, bigger, rock, not sand. I did look up the grade of gravel and it's the Class 5 we were told, I was just mistaken about what that is. Zipped back out there this morning and it's all spread nicely from the road to the half-way point. The upper half will be completed after the footings are dug as they will harvest more clay in the process and get the whole site graded at once. 

We have been told that our street address will be assigned as part of the permitting process, and last night I discovered that our property on the county map now has an address! Now we can move ahead with a couple other details that require an address, and it feels more official. 

Lumberyard Visit

 After a few weeks lull, we had some progress today. We met with the builder and lumberyard rep and made some decisions so everything can be accurately priced and ordered. We chose our siding, roof, windows, doors, trim, stairs and railings, doorknobs and probably a few more things. 

Siding and roof have both been downgraded from our preferred metal to vinyl and asphalt. HUGE price difference. Siding will be "autumn red" which is very close to brown, but it will be a vertical board and batten look, which is one of the reasons I wanted metal siding. Roof shingle is "black walnut" which is very dark black with some brown that matches the siding. 

A significant cost savings came from downgrading our doors from 8' to a standard 6'8". The taller doors was a choice made by our architect because it would be proportionately appropriate with the 9ft ceilings. The builder and lumberyard rep both dismissed this issue with "The architects always push that- THEY aren't the ones paying the bill." This also means the windows will be shorter. Did decide to keep the taller windows in the living room though. Another window that changed was the round window on the back of the house, which will now be square. Not too worried about how the back of the house looks, and, like the metal roofing, the cost difference was orders of magnitude smaller. Did keep the round one on the front though.

Our doors will all be a country style with plank-look insets. We went with knotty alder, stained not painted. Trim will be painted, and stairs with stained treads and painted risers. Stair railing downstairs will be simple square posts and spindles, but loft railing upstairs will be a simple half-wall for now, with plans to upgrade to railings later. 

The kitchen and baths were not discussed today. The kitchen will be purchased from Menards. They have a line of cabinets that is modular- doors can be switched out for drawers, and vice versa, after installation, if needs change. Or fronts could be changed for a change of style. I've chosen a Shaker style in a soft brown. I've had the layout for the kitchen planned for months, but I need to sit down with a rep at Menards to get the order written up and find out how to time it with the rest of the build. 

The master bath will also be done through Menards. For the shower we're going with a solid-surface product similar to Corian counters, with a plate-glass door. The cabinets in both bathrooms will be made-over dressers (MUCH cheaper considering the length of them) and the tub upstairs will be 6' long, so an adult can soak in it (or a grandchild can go swimming.)  

If you have a Pinterest account, I have a board here showing close approximations of our choices. Most of the pictures I found would not let me copy to paste, but they would let me "pin" them.  https://www.pinterest.com/wendyww/build-a-house/choices-made/

First Steps

 We've seen some progress this month! It's exciting to see things get started. 

First up was the driveway. The land came to us with a 2-wheel track through the woods. It was perfectly situated to reach the building site, but was a steep downhill into the valley, and an equivalent uphill to the future house. Not something that is desirable in winter with snow and ice. 

Two weeks ago the excavator came out to build up the driveway. Job one was to remove all the topsoil, which is not stable when wet and therefore does not provide a solid base.

Step two was removal of the topsoil from the hill in our small section of farm field in order to access the clay underneath

Then the clay was pushed through a gap in the tree line to the driveway, where a bobcat pushed it into place on the driveway. 

One layer at a time, the clay was put in place, then packed down by the roller. There were several layers built up, but I didn't watch closely enough to keep track of how many layers it took. 

Not quite finished driveway, from the middle to the road:

And from the middle up toward the house: 

It still awaits gravel, which will come as soon as the spring road restrictions are removed, and the top portion near the house and garage will get finished off after construction. 

This is the side view. That huge expanse of black dirt is the new hillside tapered down from the new height. A few trees got partially buried around the bottom. We might dig out around the most-buried one in hopes that we don't lose it to root suffocation. 

Today we had the first step toward actual house construction. The surveyors were onsite to stake out the corners of the house and shop, which is required before submitting our permit application. 

This is a shot of the home site, taken from the top of the mountain of topsoil that is currently piled on the west end of the "house". They put stakes at the actual corners of each building, and also further out from the ends to make the string lines that later will make the front and back lines of the house when they excavate. The tall black stakes that are visible are the ones Sid and I had placed to approximate the house position. We weren't too far off in our estimate. :)  The first black stake and the second wood stake are at the house corner. The second black stake is at the front door. At the far end of the house, and going out to the right, are the stakes for the shop.

We also had the surveyors add some additional stakes along the north property line. Originally only the property corners were staked, and that line goes over a hill and through the woods. It was impossible to see both corner stakes at the same time, and therefore impossible to know where the line was in the trees. Now we can tell exactly which trees are ours, or not, before we start cutting out buckthorn, or making other changes. 

Now we are awaiting the final plans from the architect. He and the contractor need to confer on some of the details before those are drawn up. Then we can submit our permit application!! 

Bosky Glen

 Bosky Glen is the name we have chosen for our new home. "Bosky"is Middle English for shaded or covered in brush. Glen is Old Irish/Gaelic for a small valley. So Bosky Glen is a small shady valley. A very appropriate name for our place. I changed the name of the blog to reflect this, as the blog name I started with was purely due to all the other similar names having been taken.