Blogin' it. - My first house. 

December 21, 2005 - wednesday

Kevin finished up the siding on the north side of the house yesterday, and made yet another trip to home depot. (We really should buy stock there or something...) I imagine he will finish up completely today.

On Friday, Kevin, his father, and I make the trip home to florida to spend Christmas with Kevin's family. We will likely fly south on friday morning, and return to NC sometime next tuesday.

December 18, 2005 - Sunday

Christmas is one week from today. Do I have all of my shopping done? Of course not. What fun would Christmas be without that last minute panic?

Even though its pretty obvious that Kevin and I are not going to get moved into this house by Christmas, I am not too upset. We only broke ground on the house two months ago (well, two months and four days to be exact), so in reality, we've made excellent progress, considering its only the two of us working on it the majority of the time.

Today, in fact, we made excellent progress on finishing up the siding.


The outside of the house should be completely finished by the end of this week:


Kevin had framed the first interior wall earlier this week (something he could do by himself, unlike the siding), so today we got that wall stood up and in place:


Realistically, we'll probably be ready to move into the house in late January, or early february ( I hope!!!!)

December 17, 2005 - Sat. = Drainage problems

Well its saturday, and everything is covered in mud. The ground around the house is really dug up from construction, and we really haven't worked on getting our property to drain properly, so right now the water has no where to go. And trust me, there has been a lot of water. When the water mixes with the red clay around the house, the whole area turns into muck. Kevin's dad likens this muck to grease. Its thick, wet slippery, and will pull your boots off. Its almost impossible to work outside like this.

The mud is also very good for getting vehicles stuck. Namely, the dump trailer. I wish I had pictures to show (its pretty funny actually), but at one point we very nearly had the dump trailer, the 4x4 F250, AND the tractor all stuck at once. We spent most of this morning getting everything un-stuck, and then putting down more gravel and digging more ditches so that the water would have somewhere to go besides collecting right around the house. The only progress we actually made on the house was getting the ridgecap on the roof.

As a side note, I would like to complain about Ford being cheap. Kevin's dad has this really nice F250 4x4. It has a "four wheel drive low" setting. This truck should not get stuck in the mud. Especially at our house, the mud is not really that bad. (The mini baja has raced in far worse).The problem, is that the truck seems to have a open differential in the front/back/center. Maybe its limited slip in the back, but what gives? What good does 4x4 low do you if at least the rear doesn't have a locking diff? No good, is the answer. You can gear it as low as you want, and without a locking diff, the wheel in the back with traction just sits there while the opposite wheels spins. I know it would help if there were better tires on the thing, come on, it was barely able to get itself out of the mud yesterday, much less the trailer. (once again, the kubota came to the rescue).

December 15, 2005 - Oh the Weather Outside...

"Yee-Haw," is the best was to describe my drive into work this morning.

The freezing rain/sleet/ice/"wintry mix"/nastiness started last night. There was about an 1/8th inch of ice covering my entire car this morning, which I had to chip through to get my door open and clear my windshield. (All I want for Christmas is my two...car garage). The ice is everywhere today. Funny thing is, once I made it onto the paved road, everything was fine. I made it to work from there no problem, but there were several cars and trucks that I passed in the median and on the side of the road. What is it about bad weather that makes people drive like complete idiots?

*sigh* My guess is that it won't be warm enough to paint my house this weekend.

December 13, 2005 - tuesday...

Sorry, no pictures today.

No progress has been made on the house since saturday, because Kevin and his dad had a pretty major hydropower project to complete early this week. (Sometimes Kevin has to stop working on the house so he can, you know, do his actual job. Contrary to appearances, he does have a "real" job that he should probably go to sometimes...:) He and his dad were able to complete the project by monday evening, which is good, because it required that one of the plants be shut down for the duration of the project.

For those who aren't familiar with hydropower, its a bit different from most businesses: You make the most money when you are not working. If you are working, that means something has to be shut down so that you can work on it. Thus, one or more generators are not running and/or hooked into the grid, and you are not making any power and therefore money. On the flip side, if everything is running smoothly and the plants are online, you are making money whether you are actively working or not. This is the nature of hydropower. Shutting the plants down is an inevitability, and hopefully they will only be shut down at planned intervals. However, every effort is made to minimize the time that they are down.

Long story short, every minute that those plants are offline costs us (Kevin) money. Now that we are making money again, and Kevin can get back to working on the house:)

December 10, 2005 - Roof in a Saturday

I have many pictures to share today, because we actually made some significant progress on the house. Kevin, Dean, and I spent all day outside in the clear but chilly december weather, and got all the sheet metal put on the roof. This means we are well on our way to having the house dried in and ready for the next inspection.

This is what we started with early this saturday morning:


I like this picture of Kevin, even though he refused to smile for me (he doesn't seem to like roofing very much). In any case, I think he is handsome, and the lighting in the picture is neat:


Since there were only three of us today, we had to think of a new way to lift the sheet metal up to the roof. Once again, the tractor came to the rescue:

Kevin rigged up a pallet to lift all of the roofing at once. The forks on the kubota were able to reach just high enough so that Kevin and his dad could reach the next sheet while still on the roof. All I had to to was start the tractor and lift the forks back up every now and then, as they would sink down a few inches over time. This happened less and less as more sheets were put on the roof, and the tractor had to hold less and less weight.

And, since the tractor mostly put me out of a job, I was largely useless, and spent most of the day taking pictures:) (Actually, I served well as a the go-fer on the ground, handing up tools and supplies to people on the roof, cutting a few boards to length, etc. so they wouldn't have to waste time climbing up and down the ladder). Here is Kevin's dad showing how much fun roofing is:

After lifting the next sheet of roofing from the tractor, Kevin would position the sheet in place, while his dad put in one or two screws to fasten it down. Then Kevin's dad would start st the bottom and walk up the roof, pre-drilling the holes for the screws. Kevin would follow him up, screwing down the roof as he went. Since the two of them worked so hard all day, I took them out to chinese buffet for dinner:)

Around mid-afternoon they finished the back side of the house:


It became apparent that the two of them could finish the job today, so they moved the kubota and continued on the front side of the house. Originally, none of us thought the job could get finished in just one day:


At the end of this very satisfying saturday, Kevin and I feel good about finally having a roof to work under:

December 8, 2005 - Thursday

Poor Kevin has been stuck working on the house all day by himself while I am at work. He's been finishing up the stringers so that this weekend we can finish putting up the sheet metal. (Putting up the sheet metal requires more than one person. In fact, four was a good number. Its so easy to buckle or kink the sheet, and when that happens, its a very expensive mistake).

While I am glad the Kevin is making progress, I feel bad that he has to be out there all day on the roof by himself. Let me remind some of my more southern readers that it is getting cold up here. They are calling for more freezing rain tonight and tomorrow. There is no snow just yet, but I expect it will snow here in the next few weeks. It will make such a difference when we get this house dried in already. I think progress will speed up tremendously once we can get inside and can work where its warm and dry. *sigh*

No more pictures just yet. Hopefully I'll get some new pictures of a completed roof to share this weekend. I can't wait for this house to be done, its going to be wonderful.

December 4, 2005 - Trusses!

Hooray! The trusses finally arrived. Kevin, his father, and his brother Tyler were able to put them up on friday. Yesterday, everyone got in on the act, including me and our friend John (he is the guy who owned the land before us). (Kevin and I really appreciate the help, not only is roofing hard work, but unlike some jobs, it requires many hands.)

Below is a picture of Kevin and his dad up on the roof fastening down the sheet metal, with Tyler holding it in place. I mostly spent the day cutting the stringers to length, which are those 2x4's in the picture that go across the trusses:


We worked until mid afternoon. I spent most of my time on the skill saw cutting the 2x4s to 8 ft lengths and handing them up to people on the roof (yeah, I'm not lying, they let me use power tools:), while the Edwards' took turns climbing around on the roof and nailing things into place. We were forced to quit when the weather turned bad and started making it dangerous to be on the roof. (Its beginning to feel a lot like....well..winter around here) We can't work on the house today either:(

*Note unrelated to the house: some of you mentioned to me over thanksgiving that you were having trouble getting to this website. Keep in mind it is a free site, so bandwidth is limited. However, I have another theory that might be a contributing factor: the url to this site does not contain a" www". The address is simply http://amytracker.blogeasy.com
let me know if that was the problem:)*

December 2, 2005 - My Office Space

So I must be doing ok at work so far. Today was moving day, and I got my very own desk and cube:) No more following poor John around like a lost puppy trying to learn how to do his job. I am on my own now:) (Sort of):

November 30, 2005

I forgot to mention the latest news on the house: the truss company lost our order, and that is why the trusses haven't arrived yet. I am not really surprised, although its pretty frusterating when you pay for a service you don't receive as promised. We had to pay them to make the order in the first place, and that check has been deposited for weeks.

Hmph. I am not impressed. They promised the trusses would arrive by friday this week. We shall see.