Slowly, slowly we move forward.
Framing is the current focus, and we got a push today from a little work party with our friends. Put the architects to work!

Barbara and Thomas came over and puzzled some tricky bits with Morgan, and then they actually started putting boards up. This after demolishing the roof of the back porch, leaving us vulnerable to rain until that chunk gets finished again.
Then John and Anthippy stopped by for even more moral and physical support.

One wall complete!

It has been a bit since I’ve posted, but we have something big happening here and it’s worth showing off. It may not seem like much, but since we had really hoped to get this done by the end of October, we are thrilled to be able to check it off the list now: BACKFILL.

I know, right? It’s a bunch of rocks. But the thing is, we’ve had a couple of cave-ins where those mud walls just couldn’t handle the wet, and it’s dangerous and laborious to clear that dirt out of there. The dirt can’t be there because we want drainage rock to fill that space, so we can rest easy that our walls will stay dry– the famous “French Drain” that every homeowner in Seattle is familiar with.

Speaking of dry walls, we had to take some remedial action on our waterproofing attempt, which failed to properly seal around the footings. This caused Morgan much consternation, as there isn’t necessarily a standard fix, and many options had to be weighed. He finally settled on a big continuous sheet of expensive thick red plastic wrapping the whole wall all the way down and around the footings.

Next the black dimple mat, another standard operating procedure for keeping your foundation walls dry.

Finally, gravel, to fill the trenches! This had to wait for the slab to be poured, as the slab lends stability to the walls. Despite the slab being ugly, a problem we have yet to decide the fix for, it IS sturdy, and the trenches are almost full! I made a little movie showing one of the five or six eventual loads coming in, posted on Facebook, if I can grab a link, I’ll get it here soon.

Morgan here. I’m beat. Big push to get to pouring that concrete floor yesterday. It happened. Considering the limitations, a crew of novices, my phone that is on the fritz, two very different batches of concrete, we did alright. Wish it could of gone smoother. By that I mean I wish the floor could of come out smoother.
We had six guys, including myself, all newbies to flatwork. Energy and sun was high, tools at the ready, rushing in the last details before the opportunity passes forever. Last minute DPD inspection happened just in time, Bevin made a ridiculous trip to Ballard for a single roll of tape to seal the vapor barrier. Buphalo gathered rental tools and new shovels. Friends arrived and began smoking entire packs of cigarettes.
Salmon Bay got here and the mix was just right; 60/40, 6 sack, max water reducer, micro fiber reinforced, 3″ slump. The pump guy was fantastic not to mention affordable, loved him. We got right to it, concrete flowed, shovels flew, it was looking just about good enough. The next truck got there late and worse yet, surprise!, the second mix came wet, real wet. What came out of the hose was soup! Looked like 6″ slump to me. This made placement real easy at least, went down easy and screed out real flat like. I got the knack for the bull float and had a blast. We all did. The seam between the two batches was tough. The first batch had set off pretty good and the soup didn’t want to transition to the first bit. I wasn’t too worried, I figured I could get out there and smooth it out as soon as I could lay some boards out there.
Got ‘er laid down and looking fine so far. Happy with a job done well we rejoiced with beer and more smokes. Jeeze so many smokes. Sun was just getting down below the trees and the soup was still so soft. Interesting enough I saw very little bleed water. Maybe because of fiber or water reducer? I don’t really know. But two hours later I could push my thumb in to my knuckle. So I wait.
Capti’ Andy, Flaster kept me company for those hours. Shooting the shit, drinking beer and waiting to get out on the mud. They wanted to leave but I wanted a hand getting the power trowel on the floor. By now I could still get my thumb in the mud past my nail, no good, too soft. I was worried about the back section so I toss a pebble back there and it fucking bounces and clatters across the floor! Shit thats bad. No chance to wait on the front half, we grab some foam panels and wrestle the trowel across the soft bit to the really hard bit in the back. Way too hard. I can barely knock down the ridges much less get any creme’ to fill the voids. I plead for continued assistance from my unfortunate pressed brethren in strife. Nothing much I could really do at this point. The hardened half was nigh unworkable. I concentrated on the areas that will be seen and most left the hidden parts alone. Big patches went left un-trowled, mountains and valleys, folks. Like lava. Trying to transition the two batches was impossible. One half had the trowel skipping, the other just swallowed the blades. I had no chance to detail in the edges or flushed features such as the floor boxes and basins. I kept the power trowel going on that bit as if doing it more would help. Not really ‘though. I got a fine hard sheen going but only on the high spots. The voids would stay that way.
My compatriots leave me to my misfortune as I push that machine around with no effect. Even three hours later the soft half is only just able to take the trowel. At least I can get that half at the right timing. It satisfying to work this part. I can get it smooth and nice, right to the transition where it’s… bad. I’m out there for a long time. I finish up the power trowel about eleven at night while worrying about bothering the neighbors. Please don’t hate me.
So tired, I want to collapse. It got real cold. Freezing out. Literally freezing. If you don’t know, thats bad for concrete. Now what? I so hoped it wouldn’t get that cold. Who knew? Umm.. the weather man I guess. I make a run to Buphalo’s place at two am to grab a big ol’ heater and try to get it warm enough. Kept spraying it with water hoping that will keep it warm. Moving water does that right? As long as it’s water it’s not frozen, right?

Today, in the light, it looks, well, even worse. I was fine with a “tooled” look to the finish. But this was looking more like a Northwest beach. I’m not sure yet whats going to be the next step about all that. I could grind it down, which is pretty, expensive and time consuming. I could use a self leveling topping that is easy and affordable but to me looks dumb. I could just do some epoxy patches in the rough bits. I’ll rest on it a week or two before I think about it again. The pain is too present have perspective yet.
Happy new year y’all.

It’s winter solstice, the shortest day/longest night of the year. We took pains to consider this time of year when we were planning our house remodel, as we have the blessing of full southern exposure for our home, something we intend to take full advantage of. Passive solar design principles measure the angle of the sun at summer and winter solstice for your latitude with the idea of allowing the sun to reach into the house and touch a heat-sink (in our case, the slab of concrete that is our floor) to help warm it up when warming is needed. In the summer, there is an awning (in our case, an overhanging balcony that runs the length of the house) that blocks the sun from touching the floor at all when heat is unwelcome. As you can see, at winter solstice, the sun reaches all the way to the back wall of our new construction. There will be a bit more front wall to block some of that so the sun will be coming through six panels of sliding glass door instead of just streaming through open space, but still– it will get pretty far! Fun to see it in action.

Along with solstice, of course, the holidays. We only have room for a tiny little tree this year, but look how cute it is!

I’m skipping the hard-copy end of year card this year, just one of many small things I’ve let go of to make life a little more manageable as we live in this transitional state. Let this blog entry suffice, and maybe we’ll be more traditional next year.

If you have been following this blog at all, you know what we have been up to in the home realm. That is pretty much what Morgan has been doing. He sold his share of the Applied Ecology business to one of his parters, stopped taking other people’s projects on in April, and has been dedicating his time to building us a nice new home ever since.

In September, I moved my bodywork practice for the first time in 21 years. The prospect was unwelcome, but the actual move went well and I am enjoying my new space in the SODO district of Seattle. My practice has not suffered significantly, but there is more breathing room in my schedule these days, so if you are needing bodywork you don’t need to wait two months to come and see me. I kind of like that.

Huck has been taking film making classes at the Northwest Film Forum in addition to his regular Kung-Fu schedule. He achieved double-digit status in August (10 years! OMG!) and is in the 5th and final elementary grade, at Orca K8. He plays the trombone in the band at school, loves to read, and hates homework. He seems to be rolling with the big house changes pretty well, though he can’t understand what was wrong with our house to begin with.

Here’s a family pic from my sister Ella’s wedding at Deception Pass State Park in August:

This year has been a huge step forward for us. We are glad to have moved from the realm of planning into the realm of doing. Despite the disturbance and the awkwardness and all the rest, it feels really good to be moving forward, however slowly. We feel really lucky to have the opportunity to do this, and are enjoying the encouragement and support from you all while we do.

We wish you and yours the very best this holiday season and into the bright new year!

The number one question we get about our remodel is: When will it be done?

The short answer is we don’t know. How can that be? Well… we started planning this project in 2009. We hoped to be long done by now, but circumstances (and insane neighbors with easement issues) forced the plan to change at least twice, so that the design process itself took four years.

We are doing this project on a shoestring budget. We don’t have a lot of money, we have a Morgan– a skilled worker with an uncanny knack for picking up new skills as they are needed. Working on a project of this size with an essentially one-man crew means that it takes a whole lot longer. I got home from work a couple of weeks ago and he was moving gravel with the excavator: scooping up a bucket, dumping it into a wheelbarrow, getting out of the excavator, moving the wheelbarrow to distribute the gravel, and climbing back into the excavator. It’s not the most efficient way to get the job done.

We have probably another six months before Morgan has to start working for other people to make money again. We hope and pray that at that time a good portion of the main stuff will be done, but it’s really hard to know. There have been delays (permitting, waiting for our excavator or materials to show up) that have put us probably 2 months behind our dream schedule, and things often take twice as long as we hope they will. If we basically double the time that we hoped it would take, we will probably be done in the late spring of 2016.

“Done” is quite a concept as well– I think of this as the beginning to so many projects. We finally jacked the house up! Now we can fix the plumbing, the electrical, finish the landscaping! So, when you say, “When will it be done?” I think you are asking me when we can throw our housewarming party. I don’t know, but I do know it’s going to be fun.

We emerged from another cold snap today, into the comparatively balmy mid-40’s, which makes the house feel exponentially warmer. Hats and vests can come off when we walk in the door instead of a few hours after heat has been turned on.

Stacks of supplies for the next projects on the docket are accumulating– insulation, pex tubing, other things I don’t recognize– and we have spread two truckloads of gravel over the cloth that covered the dirt.
Morgan spread some special herbs that Suzanne Ragan Lentz mixed for us (abundance, protection, love, and all the rest of that good stuff you want in the foundation of your home) before laying down the cloth. We need another load of gravel before electrical work can commence. Here are a couple of photos of the progress:

I got a flushing toilet for my birthday this year, which is probably the very best present I have ever gotten. It’s not a new toilet in a new bathroom, just our old setup temporarily hooked back up to new pipes. Morgan thinks we can probably do this until one of the new toilets is installed, which will make this winter a whole lot more pleasant.

We did a little winterizing this weekend, throwing straw down over the mountain of mud that will be under our shop extension deck and putting the canopy back over our outdoor laundry setup.

We need a load of wood chips to cover some of the other mud we end up walking on a bunch, and maybe a bit more gravel in certain spots.

This week Buphalo and Morgan are going to make some tarp roofs to deal with this action:

We did have a dirt wall collapse on one side of the house. We were afraid this would happen, and it’s a real inconvenience but luckily no real damage was done.

Plumbing drains continue to be built, and hopefully will be completed and inspected this week, clearing the way for electrical work to begin.

Meanwhile, I will be using my sweet sweet toilet inside the house, and feeling like a queen.