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...

view from the road

here is the masonry chimney for the woodstove in the living room. The work will also include a four foot high stone wall surround and a stone tiled hearth as well. The stone is really incredible and comes from a local quarry, it's called Searsmont Stone (after the location). This is a neat batch of sandstone he pulled out, as it is gray blue and striated delicately - and beautifully! This has been exciting work to track the progress on, and we can't wait to see the stone top out (the parts of the chimney that aren't visible (eg upstairs and in the attic) are just cinder block, not too exciting, but also invisible! The top out (the chimney you'll see out of the roof) will also be done in the searsmont stone! We think it's going to look really neat!

roof-allujah!

Here is some of the latest work: The big roof was accomplished in three days by the roofing crew, the small roof we did in two days and still have one more day of work on trim on it! I guess they move a lot faster than us! :-) They did a great job, and this weekend are finishing the trim work (fascia boards) going to put up the typar covering for us over the attic part of the house.
Other work we've gotten done recently is to frame up most of the walls for the second floor (in preparation for the electrician, who we ARE going to have do the wiring for the house after all!) work on the shed roof, frame up interior walls for the basement to prepare for the insulation and the electrician (not in that order) and laying the attic decking. The odd structures you see on the roof are even odder looking now as more have been set up. That is the framing of the staging for the masons to put the chimney up through the roof. The masonry work so far is incredibly beautiful and we are really really pleased with our decision! We asked them to put in a stone mantelpiece and it came out tremendously. More work this week will include basement stairs, and getting ready for windows and doors (two of them need a bit of extra wood along the rough opening to accomodate a slightly smaller door and window than we originally cut for). What else? We are about to start the plumbing rough ins, and will probably start that this week. We have only another wall to build for the second floor (had to leave some space available for the masons to do their work upstairs). Then all the interior walls are done! Electricity has been hooked up - as far as the panel box goes and a single 110 outlet for us to work with. CMP amazed us by arriving a full two weeks worth of business days early and actually ENERGIZED the house yesterday! Amazing! Now the electrician really can do his work, AND we can start heating up soup and hot food for lunch on our trusty little hot plate! Yahoo!

It seems like forever since we've updated, and I'll search around and see if I can't find any other exciting photos to post! Bye!

THE AUTUMN LEAVES ARE ARRIVING IN MID COAST MAINE! It's pretty breathtaking sometimes, to see the fabulous colors light up! So far we haven't driven off the road with our eyes a goggle. Or is it a google...

I'll try that again

here's the view from the front of the house. It's a little less intimidating looking to us size wise. We are still getting used to how tall the house looks. It's been a bit of a shock for two people planning to build a fairly small house. But we are really pleased with how it looks! Hard to believe we've built almost the entire thing. We are crazy.