living room drywall

starting the drywall. Next piece is a real test for us as it contains the first electrical outlet for this wall. It's good to start with something to look forward to! Ughhh.... Saturday we are cheating as we are going to install the toilet and sink instead so we can hook the water up right away. Plus it delays the inevitable and lets us put off those drywall cuts a little longer.

the first fire!

Wow! Our first fire! And just in time for the cold weather which is coming our way! We tested the fireplaces today (we've got a small closet full of the scrap lumber from the building project...very little waste, and aside from the plywood scraps - it can be burnt to keep us warm now!) and they work wonderfully well. It's so NICE to be near some wood heat again, it's got a warmth that can't be beat!

What else? The well is DRILLED! Good water pressure and not TOO far down, only 225 feet. The pipes get connected on Tuesday and then it will be time to set up the toilet and sink. :-) Tuesday the electricians come back to hook up the water heater, the 220 for the stove, and a couple of outlets for us to have lights with. We started doing some drywall work today, aside from the stove testing. Looks like we'll be moving into the house on Thanksgiving day! Considering we moved in here on Easter, it seems appropriate that we should move out on a holiday too. And what could we be more thankful for as far as the building process goes than actually moving in. Hard to believe! We really can't believe it!

Goodnight!

space age insulation

Well, the day we have waited for has arrived...no not that one, we still haven't moved in, but day one of the spray foam insulation was today! It's CRAZY! the product is called icynene, and we are so glad that we got it. It was a big investment for the beginning, but the overall value is incredible, it keeps houses WARM! the pictures we took are a bit on the blurry side as the spraying had just ended and with the windows covered it was sort of dim, but you can see how thoroughly filled the bays are, the house looks smaller inside to us with something inside the wall cavities besides wire and emptiness! The warmth is already apparent, and we will have some impressive solar gain on the passive solar side of the house (which I generally don't photograph as it shows three stories and makes it looks like a massive house!!). This is exciting news for us...it's been fascinating to watch. The sprayers come in a suit to protect their eyes, clothes and hair, etc. and use a spray gun to spray the foam in, it comes out of the sprayer as a liquid, but begins to expand at the rate of 100x in 8 seconds, and it's really funny to watch. Tomorrow I'll get a video of it, and when shawn has time, if anyone is really curious about it, please let us know and if the video turns out, we'll mail it to you on cd format!

Tomorrow the basement and main floor get sprayed, today they did the attic and the second floor.

The well is going in tomorrow, but so far, the drilling process has been such a comedy (???!!!) of errors, that I'll say no more about it. I'll just say that the trucks are huge, and have been on site since thursday now, and the drilling has not yet begun. Today it was because the water line froze up due to lack of antifreeze (don't ask me how you could forget that in a climate like Maine), and by the time it thawed , they realized that the diesel batteries for the truck were depressed by the cold weather and wouldn't start. So, they are charging tonight. If there's a well tomorrow, I'll post a hallulujah blog entry. :-)

Move in date, assuming the well is ever drilled, is planned for the day before Thanksgiving, and if that doesn't give us something to be incredibly thankful for...well, you get the picture!

Cold weather is upon us...snow showers later in the week, and evening temps have been in the twenties...we've been splitting wood like crazy, which is great fun (no, seriously!) and a nice break from construction. The electric and plumbing were inspected and approved by the local code enforcer. We've got about three cords split and stacked already and probably another cord or so to go, estimates say we'll probably only use two cords MAX with the super insulation in. We are really impressed with this stuff. Can't wait to try it out...this will be the first time we've ever lived in a well insulated house...wow, can't wait!

Ok, good night to all. Hope you are warm and happy out there, wherever you are reading from!

chimney and hearth...the woodstove arrives tomorrow! More pics then...

mudroom side, here you can see the windows we put in, plus all the roofing!

rear of the house...

GARLIC!

our first belfast garden bed!!! This feels like the right work to be doing, it won't be so bad to not be raising walls anymore, after all! :-)

close up of the chimney top out! We love it!!!

closed in!

wow! it's november 1st and we are closed in, roughly!!! All the windows are in, we finished up the six in the basement this morning, hung the front door, and even built some temporary stairs into the house so we can finally stop hoisting ourselves in or climbing ladders in. Tomorrow afternoon the woodstoves are to be delivered. The metal roofers were here in a flurry of amazing productivity yesterday. We have an easy roof to roof (we designed it that way since we thought we'd be doing it ourselves!) but these nine guys swooped in out of the morning mist, and worked seven hours straight and left in a flurry, leaving little trace but a few cigarette butts (which I went around and found, since i can't stand them and don't want them on the land!).

It's pretty hard to believe that we built nearly the whole thing! The windows were quite easy for us (the highest ones were done by the same people from Roy's crew who put our attic trusses on for us) after the first ones. We did the high side above the mudroom shed roof, and all the lower floors (with the exception of the french doors in the rear of the house).

We've also started cutting and splitting wood (feels great!) and we got some garlic planted, we'll see how it does, the soil isn't too hot and I didn't do much amending beyond some kelp meal and compost brought up from the garden here in cushing). just as we were finishing up some stacking of wood, some rain started. What a delight, for the first time since we started building, to hear!! No worries about it pooling in the living room or getting under the roof guard! I think it's been three months since I've really enjoyed the sound of rain, so it's nice to be able to relax about that rather large part of the natural scheme of things. You can't do much to change what the sky gives you for the day, so it's best to be closed in!

The insulation is scheduled for later next week, or around the 19th or so, and then we can be renters no longer! YAHOOOOOOOO!

I'll post a few more pics...