Veins, Arteries, and Cotton Candy

My apologies -- I know it has been a long time since my last post. I've been waiting for something really exciting to show you (like, say, the framing that was supposed to start two weeks ago), but alas, we have been experiencing many delays and not much excitement.

Well, I suppose I shouldn't say that. If you are into plumbing, then things were pretty exciting a couple of weeks ago when the whole house suddenly sprouted an elaborate network of red and blue tubing that reminded me of medical illustrations of veins and arteries.

Plastic tubes for hot and cold water reminded me of that eerie, see-through, "Visible Man" model I had as a kid.

I thought the plastic tubing seemed rather flimsy for such important, permanent piping, but Michael explained that this stuff is a special kind of plastic that is not only food grade (nothing nasty supposed to be able to leech out), but it also has the ability to expand and contract a tremendous amount, making it much more able to cope with the kind of temperature fluctuations we get here in the Highlands. Old fashioned metal pipes would often burst if they got frozen, but these will not.

In addition to the colorful circulatory system, the crawl space is now occupied by giant silver worms creeping their way around the house. That's what the ducting looks like to me, at any rate!

Giant silver worms.

Naturally, while the plumbers were doing their thing, they had to be supervised by one of the local authorities. This time, it was an extremely handsome lizard sporting delicate green shading on parts of his face and back, as well as a positively stunning belly of radiant peacock blue. He looked me over with the cocky assurance of the seasoned lady's man he clearly was, but that little Cassanova still managed to keep a critical eye on the workers by scooting up a stick to get a better vantage point.

"I get off at 5:00, Baby..."

While flirtatious attention from a gorgeous lizard would no doubt make any woman's day, my spirits really soared when I popped back up to the property later in the day to find that we had received a serious lumber delivery.

The skinny ones in the middle of the big stack are two-by-sixes!

And man, there is some BIG lumber up there! There are huge, fat posts and very substantial (and long!) beams (our guess is for the back porch), not to mention plenty of 2 x 6s for the main framing work.

We also had TWO inspectors up there at one point -- one from the County, and one from the bank. They both seemed to think everything looked peachy, but then we got a call telling us that the County gal's boss wanted a few little things tweaked, so Michael went up there on the weekend and got those things done, in hopes that it would prevent any hold ups. Yeah, right.

What was the hold up this time, you ask? Some guys were supposed to come put the floor down, but the County suddenly decided they would "appreciate it" if we could get the insulation done first, as that would make it easier for them to do the insulation inspection. Though they said it wasn't mandatory, we know better than to make anything the least bit difficult for the inspectors!  So, we met with Mike to see if their request could be accommodated, which ended up costing us some days and a bit of drama when the insulation guys promised they would have it all done on a certain day but didn't -- and we had the inspector coming back first thing the next morning.

Miraculously, they did manage to get it done before the inspection, having gotten there at some ungodly hour in the morning.  When they were finished, it looked as if someone had tucked a whole bunch of cotton candy between the floor joists -- but that yummy looking stuff is fiberglass, not good to touch or breath in, let alone eat! I had to wonder about the respiratory health of the laborer whom I had observed installing the insulation without the protection of either gloves or a mask.

This laborer was installing the "cotton candy" fiberglass batting with no mask and no gloves. Yikes!

Once we had the go-ahead from the inspector on the insulation, I was relieved when the carpenter guys showed up and made fast work of putting in the floor sheeting.

The floor sheeting was both exciting and diminishing.

I have to say that while I was thrilled that things were once again moving along, and it was quite something to be able to walk across the "floor" of my new house for the first time, the neat covering somehow made the whole thing seem like there was less there rather than more, as you could no longer see all the amazing stem walls, the little cutouts to get from one part of the crawl space to another -- and no more sightings of giant worms, veins and arteries, or cotton candy!

But, as we assumed the carpenters would be getting busy and building us some walls within a day or so, I was nothing but pumped.

I should have learned by now that when you are building a house, getting pumped on any given day surely means you will be deflated soon.  It is now at least a week since the floor sheeting was put down, and today was the first day the carpenters were back at all -- a skeleton crew of two who got hardly anything done all day.

These two lonely carpenters didn't manage to build us walls today.

I know that in that old story about the tortoise and the hare, it was the slow and steady shelled one who won the race -- but dang it all...I want to see some SPEED out there, guys! Maybe they can follow the example of this NASCAR-worthy hare I saw today outside my window, who certainly knew the meaning of haste when I made a tiny noise and sent him flying across the yard. No big surprise that he heard me...look at those EARS!

This is the guy we need supervising the carpenters!

I will be trying to get up there every day this week so see if we do indeed see a house starting to take shape, and if we do, you will be the first to know!