Building a Home

We were going to build a home using landscape timbers= a Timber Home= but decided not to.
It will be a standard frame with wood siding. I like wood. It's Country and I love the country life.
I guess the only country life that I would like to live without is hauling water. I like the convenience
of plumbing and running water. I have lived the life of hauling water up a hill in 5 gallon buckets and
I don't want to be there again.

Anyway= our home will have running water and electricity and a wood burning stove heater.
It will be a small home. Nothing big. We are getting old==not old yet= but when old gets here= we
want a small home with low living expenses. We decided to build a 20x48 with a laundry utility room addition
and a 8x16 office with its own entry door. AT the end of the 20x48 will be a 16x20 screen porch= Outdoor Living.
On front will be an 8x 48 deck===haven't decided if or when it will have a roof. I Like the Sun.

Brief history= Last year our mobile home burned down= May 26. 2 months later we bought another mobile home.
It was not home. Never felt like home. I didn't like it. Maybe it was the loss of the other one==maybe it would take a
while longer to feel at home in the new=used mobile home===maybe maybe==point is= i was not at home.
We sold the mobile home to build a house where the mobile was sitting. We chose to live in a 12 x24 shed=micro living= while we built our new home. Contractors are not building it===We are building it. But we get the advice and suggestions
from a few local building contractors.

Everything around here seems to be upside down==everything out of place= a mess here and a mess there and = It's just unorganized. I am an organized person and hubby is not so I have to walk behind him picking up his mess. Plus I have a greenhouse business to tend to so I am back and forth between cleaning= building= customers= planting= watering= etc..........
It is going to be a long spring and summer.

Let me show you where the house is going to be built===already in process.
When they were moving the mobile home out, the equipment broke down, and the mobile home sat here
for two weeks.= meanwhile , we had to disassemble most of the porch and deck roofs and upper level.
We put the upper level deck on the shed and took a pergola section of the deck that is not in the picture and moved
it to the end of the shed to make a laundry room.



This message was edited Apr 17, 2011 8:08 AM

I will miss the upper level deck. It was very nice. Loved going up there for morning coffee and watching the storms roll in.
I use to say it was there so i could look over all my stupidity. lol My tower. ==so long tower.

Finally got the area cleaned up enough to start the foundation. It is not a full foundation. It is concrete columns.
Columns every 8 ft down the outer band of the home and every 8 ft down the center but every 5 ft from side to side.
If that makes sense to ya. Every 16ft has a double concreted =mortared column with anchor bolts.
There are a few loose set columns that i have to put in today. Hubby hates working with and leveling concrete blocks.
He is bad at it and takes him forever to get it right==so that job belongs to me. I had to redo several of his columns.
While I finish the columns===Hubby has started on the floor===He's in a hurry. I want to do it all One step at a time til that step is complete===but not him.

The remaining deck has to be lowered to the right level of the house. To make it easier to build the floor frame, the deck
will not be lowered until the house floor is complete. I really dread lowering the deck. I think its going to be a hard job and I think it might fall==scary thought.
On the deck is a Table Top Garden with snow peas growing in it. It is very heavy and impossible to move while it is full of soil. I am impatiently waiting for the snow peas to produce and end its production so I can empty the soil and move the box so the deck can be lowered.

The house floor is framed with 2x10s..
I get to go shopping for a Front Door, a back door and the office door and a few windows Monday. I want the front door to be Oak=unfinished= so I can stain it the color I want. Plus =I just like doing stuff like that.

I do a lot of cooking outside. And all of our porch furniture and lawn furniture has been squeezed into this area which is most of my gardening area and the Grilling Station. Not much of a set up but= it works.

I wasn't thinking when I posted the first picture. That makes an ugly introduction photo. wish I could take it off.

We had the opposite problem. We bought an old, cheap mobile home to live in, while we built a new home. But we were comfortable and it felt like home, so we're still living in it 9 years later. Eventually, it will have a large room addition....

You didn't tell us about your stairway to nowhere :) I bet that upper deck was fantastic. Thought about doing that here, but the wind is so bad, that we would rarely be able to enjoy it.

I haven't commented much on your threads, but I love reading them.

Love your cooking area!

Not to worry about the introduction picture. We'll just be able to really appreciate your progress. Besides, I remember pictures of your place before the fire and it was beautiful! You do great work.

Ooooh, nice grilling area Cricket!! I've not gotten over my (irrational) fear of using propane yet, so I just have a charcoal grill. It is about time to start using it again too. I have a fire pit, but it needs mowing and cleaning out. Since neither of my mowers are working at the moment, I came back to peruse your thread.

It looks like a lovely start; can't wait to see what ya'll do!

~H

I am really impressed with your setup and life style. We also live that way and I know the work involved. (And the dream)!

I love my grilling station., I did have 3 charcoal grills and one gas grill... I finally had to say bye to one of the charcoal grills. Its bottom rusted out but I kept the grates in hopes of making a fire pit one day. They might come in handy==never know. I have all the brick to make the pit pretty----I just have too many other things going on right now.
On hot days I cook outside or in a pressure cooker inside. On cold days I cook inside. A 12 x 24 shed is small but I have a full kitchen. I will take pictures tomorrow.

msrobin= I had forgotten all about posting my other home and all the work we did. Now that you mention it==i recall posting about it. The room additions all the way down the back side with a master bath, a laundry, a bedroom addition the sun room and the greenhouse addition and the deck with upper deck and the pergola sitting area and and and it was rubber ducky yellow trimmed in white with white lattice on everything.========so freaking sad.. I know its hard putting up with others emotions but cant help but say I just don't know if I will ever be at home again but I can try.

Cyberageous= what does your life style consist of? What are you living in?

Me and hubby got most of the floor framing done. I finished up with the columns while he cut the wood then I helped haul it to where it had to go and held it in place while he nailed with a nail gun. Leveling concrete blocks on hard clay soil is not an easy job......but satisfying when you finish it.....soooooo glad that is over!!!!!!!!!!!!
I haven't been shopping yet===been too busy working.

I cooked = hickory smoked = a turkey on the grill yesterday and the wind was so bad that I had to turn the grill around to keep the wind from blowing my fire out. Then I was in the line of fire and smoke. : /

It was good good good.

WOW! Looking good!

we have a problem.
The high winds caused some problems=====the main problems is= It blew that 48 ft deck over 9 inches on one end and it now sits over the future floor. We knew we had to lower the deck 12 inches or so already===but now we have to move it over too. I cannot picture this. I have no idea how it will be done. And hubby doesn't either.
And it's just me and him. Don't know how much it would cost to hire help!?! We don't have all the money to finish the house. We build it as we make the money.

I am sorry to hear that... there is more wind coming your way. It has been blowing incredibly hard today. What weird weather!

Is there any way you can tie on to the deck and slide it sideways by pulling it with a vehicle?

Long, strong levers?

Someone suggested a few things

We do have a tractor with a bucket===but it would be slightly difficult getting it in there to lift and gently and slowly move one end of the deck. Since the deck is in 8 foot sections and each section has only one 2x6 that separates the 8 ft sections==we are worried that if we use the tractor, some section of the deck could fold. We will have to play around with the tractor to see what position we can get it in there and see how much extra support we can give the frame of the deck so it doesn't fold.

The other option is to lay cap blocks next to the cap blocks that the deck 4x4s were sitting on===use a jack and put it on an angle in the direction that we want the deck to go in and use a another 4x4 to get the height we need and gently jack the deck over===slowly ONLY 9 inches or 10

I like the jack option.

The winds destroyed my table umbrella. I have no shade trees. I had to put together a shady resting area. We already had a canopy frame (9x20 ish) and already had a 60% shade cloth. Put it in where the future porch will be.
Helped hubby lay the sub- flooring. Got over half of it done. Will finish the other half today.

no glare

Looking good!

I know it must be a personal preference with many opinions= but I like looking at the osb board. There are hundreds of small pieces of wood with their own wood grain in different directions. Call me crazy but I really want to sand and polyurethane the OSB board and call it my Mosaic Wood Floors. : ) :D :)

Cricket, lots of people do just that... go for it!

There are a few things I need to find out. First= the OSB board has a wax coating on one side which is the side facing up so the floors repel water while you build the rest of your house. The other side is rough and bare.
I need to find out if sanding it will remove most of the wax, and will the wax cake up on the sand paper, and after it is sanded and some wax remain in some crevises, will the polyurethane or Varathane floor vinish bond to that wax??????????


Meanwhile==the floor is complete. Storms due in today and tomorrow. Would like to rent a floor sander after it dries and sand the floor real good before we start the walls.

Maybe you need to have a wax-finished floor instead?

All right... looking for you to check in Cricket. When you are roughing it like you are, we can't help but worry when bad storms sweep through. Hoping all is well there...

Checking the weather damage in your area:

Since Cricket has not posted in awhile on this thread - could someone who has the number - make the call - and let everyone know the results? please.

Dyson, she's not in the address exchange, and I don't know anyone who knows her.

Darius - glad you were spared (though without internet for awhile) DW has lots of family in NC and they are all Ok, waiting for the old phone to charge up so I can access Shoes number, My family in Gloucester, Va were also spared (sister, etc) it was close though. If anyone needs anything we will do the best we can.

Hey everyone======I am alive.

Thanks for worrying about me. We had the least of damage here. It's all minor. Though that Cordova town = downtown= was wiped out. It is about 20 miles from here.
Other towns around us had a lot of damage. Over 204 dead across the state. Not sure what the current numbers are.
We were only out of power for a few days and no phone service for a few days. All is well in my neck of the woods.
The main city close by= 10miles away, Jasper===still without power in most places and still running on generators.
Bless those who have lost family and friends and homes.
meanwhile==we continue to build.

Most of the walls are up. Just a few more to go, then finish the top plate on the walls, Then hopefully start on the roof this weekend.

The tornadoes came so close.
We had some tornado funnels that came over head but moved on to the next county and touched down in a big city.
The local weather news had a weather cam located in that big city====Cullman Alabama===and as we watched on TV= it passed us and touched down in Cullman= the weather station showed on tv as it touched down===live= and destroyed parts of that city. It was horrifying to watch and to know what it was doing.

The biggest damage we had was the shade canopy that we just put up was twisted like a pretzel. We took it down and replaced it with some greenhouse hoops and put the shade cloth over that.

WOw! you guys have been making progress.
So glad to hear all is well and you have suffered no more setbacks!

Thanks for letting us know all is well with you and prayers for those that are dealing with the aftermath.

To list the damages in our state would take some doings. but to list one that we came to====On a main highway 78, the tornado that landed in Cordova and moved across the county, picked up a few mobile homes and they landed on the main highway and had traffic blocked for a long ways. We traveled that road trying to find gas cause my truck was on empty and no power anywhere. Had to turn around and drive back home on empty. Made it home fine===We were dumb actually. We thought the storms were done= and over with when we left. Had no idea the city had no power. On our way home, My mom calls and said ==you better get out of there cause there is another tornado funnel coming your way. I had to tell her that I was not home but on my way home. Had a few family members in an uproar cause I was headed straight for it. Had to pull over and wait for it to pass over before we could continue home. Meanwhile my grandfather was there with no phone service and my mom was so worried but there wasn't much I could do at that point. The stormed passed with no damages. We were just plum dumb. It was the last storm to pass over.

Glad to hear you are okay!

Great going on the progress. When you get done there, you wanna come help us? lol

MsRobin, I didn't know you were building a home too. Do you have a blog or thread ?

I have been so unsettled. Brain all over the place. It's crunch time. I really really like the Gambrel Roofs. By the time you build a Gambrel Roof , You almost have a second story floor. My grandfather has talked me out of building a 2 story twice all by using his negative comments and he doesn't like 2 story and this and that. He knows a lot of carpentry work but he is 80 years old now and I don't think he ever built a two story house in his life so when we start talking about the construction of a two story house, he starts acting and talking negative and weird stuff and making comments that we don't know what we are doing===not like we are stupid or anything===but kinda like we are stupid. LOL. He kinda acts like this====since he doesn't know exactly how to do it==he acts nervous as if he is the one building it. Got any grandparents like that????????? That's when i change my mind on two story gambrel roof. I just don't want to hear his negative weird comments and crap. But I can't live peacefully if I pass up the opportunity to have a gambrel roof. And if its going to be a gambrel roof,,,,,, it will be two story.
No turning back now. We ordered the wood for the floor on the second story. Talked to a building contractor and he said our foundation will support a two story house. The second story floor joist will be 2x10 every 12 inches. Me and my husband are comfortable with the plans and comfortable with the knowledge of building it. Grandfather is not.
Anyway= I have not told grandfather that we are building a two story. He lives 15 feet away in a mobile home. It is going to be hard hiding the news after he sees 2x10 joist going up instead of regular roof rafters.
Can you see how thrilled I could be but dreadfull at the same time. Ug.

Hey Cricket... you can tell gramps that it's just his eyesight failing!

ROFL

I will try that. Just to see the response.

Cricket, we gave up on building a house years ago. We had plans to build when we bought our place 10 years ago, but with DH traveling for work for months at a time, we gave up on that idea. We were pretty comfortable with our small mobile home, so just decided to build an addition. Now if we can just get time and money to find us at the same time...

DH did build his 16' x 24' shed a few years ago and he's planning on building a 2 or 3 room "cabin" on the back side of it.

The gambrel roof will look pretty cool. You could just laugh it off with GF and tell him you finally made a decision and you're sticking to it. You have to remember that as we get older, we get pretty set in our ways. GF isn't any different.

Or you could tell him that since he never could explain why 2 stories was a stupid idea, you'd find out for him.