Smugglers Cove Whidbey Island

Not long after the roof went on, the house was wrapped in Tyvek.  I have no clue what that is.  The smiley face is the best!  It reflects how we feel about the crew and their work thus far!  Thanks guys!

So, there we were at habitat for Humanity.  Much of our current furniture comes from that delightful store.  We saw these cabinets and grabbed them.  They will go in the laundry room and the garage.  Great price.  Great cabinets!And just when we said we couldn’t fit another thing into the rental garage – we saw this table and 4 chairs.  We snagged it for out “new” dining room table.  The chairs are on wheels, so they will scoot across the concrete flooring with ease!

  The roof is on…this photo is from early June.  Things start to move quickly.

Look at that house!  The crew, the fabulous crew has been rocking our world.  As of now, we have the lower SIPS walls up and they are doing much of the interior framing.  The roof is scheduled to be added to the puzzle pieces on Wednesday.  That will be a show, for sure.  We need that sun to shine more!  The SIPS walls need to be totally dry prior to wall board going up.  C’mon sunshine!

…and so it begins.  No, wait, it began a long time ago, but today the walls are going up.  It is really difficult to stand around and watch these wonderful men work!  They are rocking the walls!

Yesterday was the Penn Cove Water Festival.  Teams raced in canoes from one end of Penn Cove to the other.  It was very cool.  The canoes were gorgeous.

Before the races, we took the dogs to Smugglers.  They ran and we picked up trash.  It’s about all we can do to help the crew at this point!  I hadn’t been to the site in over a week.  Quite a bit had changed.  Drain pipes in, bits of pink foam on outer edges doing something, concrete curing to a color we anxiously await; pipes sticking up where the edge of the deck will be, earth moved here and there; and everything waits for the SIPS panels to arrive Monday.  Monday at 8.  That’s when the puzzle begins.

I love puzzles.  I lose myself in jigsaw puzzles.  Our new home is going to be the most amazing jigsaw puzzle of our lifetime!   I want to be there, but my better half will have to take photos for me to view later.  He’s thinking about setting up a tri-pod to time-lapse the entire thing.  Hmmm.

Back to today.  I have begun to forge a couple of trails through the woods.  Small trails.  I am just tossing sticks and logs and detritus out of the way.  I want gentle paths to follow, without harming anything.  I have been working a lot lately and it dawned on me that one of the reasons I am working is that it takes my mind of this totally fabulous adventure ahead of us.  I almost can’t stand it.  I want to lose myself in those woods.  I think a small tent and a backpack are in order.  I may be lost for days on end.  It’s 11 acres – huge and tiny at the same time.  Our new world.  Our new adventure.

The best is yet to be.

Here are the shop diagrams for our house’s SIP panels which are scheduled to arrive on Monday, May 20th. It should be very interesting to watch the jigsaw puzzle get put together over the next 2 weeks; a total of 10 roof panels, and 48 wall panels.

Wall #3 is the South side, wall #6 is the East side.

The slabs for the house and for the garage are down and curing.

We are waiting for the SIP’s to arrive next week on May 20th, and a week later  the outer walls and roof should be up and assembled.  Can’t wait…

Diane and I got a ride on a very small 2 1/2 seat airplane last week, here is what the building site looks like from about 1200 feet up:

Things are moving really fast for a change. We have gone from a flat mud pit, to being ready to pour the slab either tomorrow or on Monday. We finally have power – it took almost exactly one year from the initial request to PSE, a cost overrun of 50% due to PSE not having a clue where their primary power lines were; to actually having a meter and a plug at the home site.  The Barron heat guys just finished a wonderful job of installing 1400′ of geo-thermal heat exchange pipe into the three 150′ long by 6′ deep trenches,

and the about same amount of heating pipes on the main floor R20 insulation.

That’s a total of over a 1/2 mile of pipe installed in just 2 days, and half in very exacting geometric designs.  It is wonderful to see actual progress – and how fast things are moving!

Electricity?  What electricity?  That was yesterday.  Oh no wait, today.  Oh no, tomorrow?  Who knows?

However, we choose a color to add to the concrete floor mix.  Pebble.  It is not beige or brownish. It has a hint of grey.  We hope we have chosen well, since the entire home will radiate from that color.  I hate beige.  It is boring.

I also detest neighborhoods.  I want to look out my window and see the woods, not the neighbors.  I cannot begin to describe how much I hate the sound of lawnmowers.  Let’s all choose a day and time to mow.  And the ultimate stupidity was the invention of a leaf-blower.  Seriously?  Get me out of here.