The area we live in is a desert. Deserts are places that are dry -- right? We are also in the midst of a horrific, multi-year drought, and drought means really dry -- right? So, what does a horrific, multi-year drought in a desert look like? Pretty much like this:
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| I did not take this photo, but it looks a lot like what we've been seeing around here lately. |
That's right. Because we are building a house, during a drought, in a desert, at a time of year that is historically warm and sunny, it has been raining -- a lot! Again! There is simply no other explanation: the amount of precipitation in this area is directly linked and inversely proportional to how much we want it to be dry.
Why, you may wonder, is rain a problem at this point? I can sum it up in one word: WOOD. Wood is the basic building material of our new home, and wood has a tendency to soak up water. It can then swell, warp, split, mold, delaminate, lift, etc.-- none of which makes for happy home builders.
We were happy enough a few days ago, when we started to see actual wall frames sprouting up on the site. At the end of the first day, the place looked like this:
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| A few walls standing, with more put together and ready to go the next day. |
It was only a few walls, but we could see what the view from the master bedroom windows was going to look like, and that was quite wonderful.
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| View from one of the master bedroom windows. |
By the end of the next day, the place looked like this:
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| Day 2...lots of walls, not much rain! |
This day was really fun, as most of the exterior walls were up with their cutouts for windows. Speaking of which, I knew I had designed the larger of the two front bedrooms to have a big window (I had envisioned this as my office and pictured myself gazing out at my horses from my desk), but now that I can see the cutout for it, I realize that it is HUGE!
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| Me sitting on the windowsill of the large front bedroom. |
You may have noticed that the floor in the above photo looks wet. That's because the picture was taken on "wall day 3", when we had far too much rain for comfort. When Michael and I arrived after the workers had left, there was a good 1/4" or more of water sloshing around on our particle-board floors.
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| This is NOT something you want to see on your OSB floors. |
Yikes! Worried that this much water and more to come could cause the chips the floor sheeting is made of to start lifting up, Michael got busy with a broom and did his best to push the water out of the house.
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| Demonstrating the broom-handling skills of an Olympic curler, Michael swept the water out of our house. |
He did a pretty good job, too, making me think that if the SCADA thing doesn't work out, he might just have a career as a professional curler.
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| In case you don't know, curling is a sport in which grown men with little brooms sweep the ice fast or slow in order to alter the speed of a tea-kettle shaped rock that another man tries to slide into a target zone. No, I am not kidding. |
Of course, winning an Olympic medal in curling would likely not make Michael as happy as seeing his new garage for the first time. Here he is, taking in its height and size, imagining all the future projects he will no doubt work on in this great space:
For now, our work in and around the garage and all the rest of the house involves trying to keep the site tidy. This means, in part, picking up and sorting through the piles of waste wood, keeping what we can use or burn as firewood, and taking the rest to the dump in our handy-dandy horse trailer. There has been surprisingly little waste wood thus far, as it seems that much of our lumber was custom ordered to specific lengths, meaning fewer cuts and fewer leftover bits.
Another constant clean-up task is picking up stray nails in and around the house. We have found them in places one would not expect them to be, including driving/parking areas where they could easily puncture a tire. They could also pose a hazard for the wild horses, like these that came through just yards away from our front door the other evening:
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| How many places in the world do you see THIS on your property? Notice their backs, wet from the rain. |
Fortunately, I don't have to bend over to pick up every single nail (which would kill my back), as we have a couple of sweeper magnets that can pick up a dozen or so at a time.
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| A sweeper magnet is a life-saver for backs, tires, and wild horses! |
We are saving ourselves a chunk of change by managing the clean up of the site ourselves, so we will continue to do this once or twice a week throughout the build.
As of this weekend, the house looks like this:
Most of the interior walls are up now, so we are able to wander through the rooms and get a real sense of what they will be like. This is a mind-boggling experience for me, as I have never designed a house before, and I spent countless hours agonizing over every detail, trying to visualize how it would look and feel walking through the spaces I was creating.
I can already see that there are a few things that probably would have been better done a little differently, but all in all, I think it is not too shabby for a first try. Jake seems to like it, at any rate -- check out how happy he looks standing in his new house!
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| Jake wagging with joy as he checks out the new digs. |
It will be almost sad when the siding goes up and you will no longer see the views through the walls themselves, only through the windows. I have also been enjoying "walking through walls" by stepping between the studs, imagining that this is what it must feel like to be a ghost. Still, I am looking forward to having real walls, not to mention a roof, doors, and everything else! When all that happens, I will no doubt be sporting a grin as big as Jake's.
More soon!
