6 weeks and counting

It has now been 6 weeks, a lot has happened in the past 2 days but there is still so much more to do. It's starting to look like a house now. This is the master bedroom. brown/tan/blue combo looks really nice. The beige is the sitting room part of the bedroom. It is also the color of my craft room because I couldn't decide on another color.

The bathroom floor is tiled, and 1/2 of the roll in shower. Still need grout and waiting for the colored glass tile that goes in next. The painter and tiler will need to figure out who gets in there next. Good thing there's lots of room in there!

The sunroom is coming along nicely too. This is taken from the bedroom window today (looking out the window from the brown wall) If it doesn't rain it might be up by end of the week. Will still need flooring and wiring but one thing at a time!

Naturally, there have been more delays, isn't there always? Painters were almost a week late but they were right at it yesterday and painted half the rooms. The bathroom will be tiled next week and of course there are so many other things. Namely PSHN. Why is everyone always waiting for them I wonder? Despite our contacting them awhile ago, it seems that at the last minute they want the poles replaced by the phone co. . . So that's the update for now.

Our beautiful home!

This week things are looking more and more like a home. The "seams" were covered with sheetrock, and sanding will begin on Monday and hopefully painting will occur this week, with flooring the following week. It was quite a stressful week for me to pick colors (I did not want white walls!) and choose a floor that will hold up to my wheels. The carpenters finished the siding and the porch roof(s). The unfinished part on the left is waiting for the garage to be built. The appliances arrived but won't be installed till after the floors are done.

Great news is we sold the mobile home so that won't hold things up. Bad news this week is we lost the 80 acres behind us, we had bid at auction and the previous owner had a year to redeem it and he showed up at the very last minute with the money.

Doug is loving the new furnace. It's about a foot and a half square and will provide heat and hot water on demand. Love these new products! The entire house is energy star, it is very well insulated so we're hoping the heating costs won't be out of sight!

I love heading over everyday after the contractors leave and seeing what has been completed.

The kitchen is so big. I just love the cabinets - I chose mostly drawers for below and cupboards above. The center island is 4" lower then the main countertops and will be my worksurface. Lots of room for my wheels underneath too.

The hugh crane got here 7am and against Dougs, advice drove to the front of the lot and buried the front wheels. Luckily Larry left the keys in the dozer and there was someone on site who knew how to drive it and pulled the crane out.
There was one hugh trailer used just to transport the counter weights for the crane. that alone took an hour to transfer. (I have a pic but this blog stuff stinks and I'm tired of trying to load them.)

Here they're swinging the 2nd half of the house onto the foundation, all 16'x 60' of house! The crane operator said one half weighed 25,000 lbs!

We couldn't believe how they manipulate the boxes onto the foundation, just push it right in place, well maybe not that simple but it was slick!

Here's the cross section of the kitchen. Isn't it beautiful?! Our daughter Karen designed the house and we couldn't be more happy. The morning sun will stream in through the french doors. That is a hugh island in the center sized just for me. (the posts in the center will be removed)

After 10 long hours of work - between the crane operator, trailer drivers, escorts, contractors, QC guys, marketing guy taking a video and a host of others who stopped by, we had a yard full. They had a hard working crew there, never even took a lunch break. So end of the first day it was all assembled and then covered with tarps. (how lucky we were to have beautiful weather after the past 6 weeks of rain!)

I just couldn't believe we finally will have a home that I can move around in without bumping into everything.

Here we are the end of day 2. What a difference!! The roof is almost complete. I still haven't been inside though. Although they can build a ramp, there are all kinds of materials on the floor inside. Tomorrow for sure! This is the backside, I have to say, this is my first time viewing the back, I didn't know Doug had taken this picture. It's beautiful and brought a tear to my eye.

12 It's finally here!

There were, I think, 7 roof sections. You can see 3 of them here. They said it took 9 trailers to move the house onto the lot here. We tied up traffic pretty good this morning, right during rush hour. Well as much as we have rush hour in Claremont!

Here is the bedroom swinging over the house to be set in the back left corner. It's amazing how the crane operator can navigate that to the inch - all by computer.

Cellar Foundation

Ok, I fianally remembered to take a picture but I can't get it all in the pic. there is more on the right and an ell off the front left. The hole on the right is for the elevator. Enough of that, now I got the real thing next!

10. Tree trimming

You, know the cellar hole is finally complete and again I can't find a picture of it so I'll have to back track into the cellar stuff. In the mean time, on Tues we went to Boston for a Dr's appt. so Larry said he'd cut the big pine next to the house while we were gone. I did not want to be there when he did it, although in hindsight since there were no problems, I wish I had seen it go down. This was one huge pine and it was only feet away from the house. The branches formed an umbrella all the way over the deck and ramp protecting us from rain and snow. Of course it did drop a ton of pine needles too. I just hope the birds find a new place to lite. The 2 trees to the left of it went down too as well as some dead birches behind.

Good news, he didn't even have to flatten the transplanted blueberry bushes. Doug picked some berries this weekend and I made the best muffins I've ever had. The secret ingredient is sour cream. Ask me for the recipe.

Weds it poured most of the day. Spent more time pumping out the cellar hole and trying to keep dry then anything else.

Thursday we were gone again and Larry started

digging out the massive stump. He really knows how to run that excavator!!

You can see how he teased the roots away from the cable with our electric lines. That's my herb garden to the left that is still intact too.

9. July 31

July 28 - they got the forms up for the front entry and porch. The part in front is the entry and the half in behind will be a covered porch

July 31, here we are with the walls all done and about 7 loads of fill brought in yesterday to backfill. Notice the grade of the fill to the front of the porch area. We will have a walkway from the driveway that will go to the front level of the porch - no need for a ramp this way.

Can you barely see the "puddle" in the cellar hole? That is the spot where the elevator will go. It still needs to be squared off.

We should be getting the house in a couple weeks! "I can't wait!" has become my mantra because I've said it so many times.

8.

Concrete was poured today, I couldn't believe how quickly it all happened, they were done before I even was out of bed! (I think it was July 10 or thereabouts - I lost a batch of pics from then so don't remember the exact dates) Two days later the forms were off and here's our foundation. The portion in the foreground was actually done at a later date. That will be just a crawl space, not full basement. This 12' x 24' section is part of our 16'x 16' bedroom.

After it's done, they spray something like tar on the cement to waterproof the walls. You can see the guy in his overalls and mask spraying in the next pic.

Larry started to backfill but first he put in a new water line to the well. When the new house is here, the water will be disconnected from this house and connected to the new one.

So that's about all that's happened in the past 3 weeks. Of course the most exciting part was finalizing our plans and actually ordering the house. We are still in line to receive it in August, of course that could be 5 more weeks too! Hope not. In the meantime I'm enjoying gardening in the window boxes on my ramp. Theres another box you can't see full of salad fixin's that I can pick right from my chair.

7. Fourth of July - Before & After

Where May was sunny and we were needing rain, June is cloudy and stormy every day. Definitely slowing things up a little. The outside walls were mostly installed today - Thursday. Tomorrow is the 4th so no work on Friday. It's a long way around this foundation.

Monday bright and early Hastings Concrete were here 6:30am to finish the job. With the heat coming on they wanted to get done as early as possible. Doug took this picture from the excavator so he could get it all from above. (shhhh, don't tell Larry) Tuesday they will pour the walls. Wouldn't you know it's going to be HOT! I'm so glad I don't have to do it, but glad that someone is willing to.

We took off on Sunday for our first trip to the beach since our 2007 anniversary in January. Weather was much better this day. It was about 82 and breezy - perfect beach weather and I forgot to wear a bathing suit! It was really foggy on shore but we didn't care, the better to smell the salt air. We had our favorite Pier Fries with vinegar and catsup, fried clams and later had a lob-sta roll on the way home. We went to the Portland pier to get fresh haddock, Oh best of all, Doug took me to the Christmas Tree Shop!! All in all a really wonderful day. This was also our longest drive so far - 3 hours. Soon we'll be traveling further and further.

6. Progress

Friday June 20

The plan was to get the footings built today and poured tomorrow. Naturally it had to rain on our parade so they couldn't finish. Monday, time for the big pour and pour it did. So once again we had to cancel the work.

Finally on Tuesday, we were able to get the cement truck here. After all that rain, it did get stuck once but Larry was right there with his excavator to pull it right out.
It felt like we were really making progress. We were gone for the day to visit Janet and friends at her campground so missed all the action but when we got home we saw our footings complete. . . .





well except for one small section where they ran out of cement. Yes I know this is a huge house. . .




Weds, June 25
So the next step, for anyone else like me who has never built a house, is to fill in around the footings with small stone or sand. We're using stone. First he laid down a drain that will soak up all the excess water now and in the future (see it in the top right of pic) and the stone is poured on top.

OK , we know it's big when we have a hugh dump truck in our cellar hole. It takes a LOT of rock to fill this floor.

Luckily for us our feline building inspector approves of all the work that's been done.

This is actually a "before" picture. When we dug up all my perennials we had no where to put them so Doug rototilled the side lawn and made a beautiful garden that I enjoy every day. Figured you'd like to see something besides construction stuff.

5. June 11

Tuesday June 17, 2008


Well I know I'm way behind so will try to catch up. I can't believe how busy we are every day trying to get everything in our lives organized. The cellar hole is complete but I deleted those pics from my camera, figures. However this is the day before taken from my hall window. Everyone asks if we are building a swimming pool It may look like it's only a couple feet deep but see the spade in the back of the hole, (looks like a stick) that is 5'. (June 11th)







Here's another view the ramp in the center is for the excavator to get in there. Figure that hole is as wide as our current house is long. See the addition way in back covered in blue tarp. (June 12th)





This has nothing to do with the new home but thought you might like to share my new independence. Today I made my first solo run. I just went to the library so it was a quick trip - didn't want to make Doug stress over me being gone too long. No problems and if felt GREAT! (Sat, June 14)





Today the wood shed was torn down. You can see where it was by the stone path. We're going to save all the stones, spent many years collecting them, and hopefully can use them in the landscaping later on. (Sat. June 14)



So that brings you up to date. Now we are waiting for the building permit and the plans to be finalized. Still working with the kitchen gal for a final redraw. It's really getting close now and I'm getting very anxious for a new home.