House construction flipbook

At the very beginning of this project, we picked a photo point on the property in order to create a "flipbook" of the house construction. A newer photo needs to be added, but I finally figured out how to add the slideshow on the blog. We'll keeping updating this as things progress...

3rd Anniversary

We celebrated our 3rd anniversary by having dinner on the porch at the house. I hooked up our stove and baked pizza and brownies which we consumed with lots of wine!

Porch finished! Window trim, siding, etc...

Sara returned home from her backpack trip in Yellowstone, so we have some pictures to catch up on. Sean and Bob returned and finished the porch yesterday...it turned out better than we had hoped. The siding and trim also arrived finally so there has been lots of staining to do. Bob and Sean finished the window trim today and will start on the siding in a day or two. We are doing log slab siding, which are 1-1/4" slices of a log - so flat on the two wide sides and the natural edge on the narrow side. These are screwed to the exterior, then chinked between the slab boards.

Sara will continue on her plumbing and hopes to get it inspected next Wednesday. I'll be continuing on the insulation and helping with the siding until Monday, when I start work!

Pressure tank plumbing and well control wiring I completed about a week ago.



Finished porch and roofing.



Finished porch.



Window trim.



Stained log slab boards for siding.

Lots of progress

There's been a lot of exciting progress happening at our place. Jay brought the excavator back over and we finished the boulder retaining wall near the porch, complete with a rock stairway. It turned out surprisingly good! My friends Ben and Lincoln from Bozeman, MT, came up for the weekend with tools and mountain bikes. It seemed like we got 5 times as much done as I can alone which gave much more time for recreation. They hauled all the sheetrock into the house, and we got most of the main floor walls insulated and almost half the ceiling.

Sean and Bob will be back tomorrow. They'll first finish the porch (roofing and a couple more logs) and then hopefully begin on siding...if it ever shows up. I'll keep plugging away on the insulation and installing electrical outlets and switches.

Water!!

After the pump got placed in the well yesterday, I plumbed the pressure tank today and wired the pump control/pressure switch. Flicked the switch...and water! At least at the frost free spigot at the well. Sara's is guiding a week-long backpack trip in Yellowstone, so as soon as the plumber gets back, maybe we can take advantage of the water indoors. Sara took the camera on her trip so unfortunately no pictures.

In other news, about 120 sheets of drywall and insulation showed up today. Looks like lots of hauling for to get the sheetrock inside.

Electrical past inspection!

The inspector checked me off today on the electrical rough in which was a huge relief. Still need to get the main panel wired. Sara is close to finishing the plumbing, and insulation and drywall should be delivered this week.

Porch almost complete

The deck and porch are almost complete and looking awesome! My dad and I stained them this past weekend. All that's left is to add the roof metal and a few more log details. We are really excited with how this turned out, and it adds a ton to the house.

Deck complete!

Yesterday afternoon we celebrated the completion of the deck by enjoying many beers on it with Bob and Sean, Jay (the excavator) and his wife Cindy, and a few other neighbors. Today Bob and Sean got the tie log up on top of the posts and soon will work on extending the roof over the deck.

First functioning circuit!

Sara and I continue to plug away on the electric and plumbing. Although it's been very challenging, based on bids we received, we figure we're saving $10k or more by doing it ourselves.

I have the main floor wiring almost complete and about a third of the basement. My parents are coming into town next Tuesday, and in order to get my Dad to help out with the house, I figured I better get the heaters working. He's a bit of a freeze baby after all those winters in Florida, and I'm not sure he'd enjoy working in the house when it's only 30 degrees.

We're installing six electric wall heaters. Our backup heat was a tough decision. Ideally we would have liked to use propane, but we didn't have much luck finding heaters that were economical or easy to install...too much venting or potential health hazards with the ventless ones. The wall heaters, although a bit noisier, heat up a room much faster than baseboards since they use a fan. It was a little frightening lighting up a 30A 240V circuit as my first, but so far no fires or any problems that I can identify.

Maddy hides in the basement among construction detritus while learning a thing or two about plumbing.



Lighting for the dining area (left) and the kitchen (right).



4000 watt wall heater with thermostat for the kitchen/living room.

Deck and porch

Bob Goodman (who was the lead guy building our house) came back from Oregon to work with Sean on our deck and covered porch. These come off the south side of the house, and a few weeks ago we placed three multi-ton boulders as footers for the support posts. Cheaper than concrete!

They have the frame and joists of the deck in, and by tomorrow afternoon we should be enjoying a beer in the sun on the completed deck. After that, they will work on the covered porch, which will be a 10 foot extension of the existing roof line. We're excited to see this done as the south side of the house looks pretty chopped off.

Sean drilling footer bolder for the post anchor bolt.



View of deck from the west.



View of deck and boulder retaining wall from the east.

Plumbing and electric

Finally, after lots of preparation, planning, and purchasing, we finally got our hands dirty with the plumbing and electric. Sara's done some plumbing before but there was still lots to figure out, and Chris has been connecting wires since before he could walk but has never done any residential wiring. So far it's going well but we're just getting started.

Our water line finally got connected to the well, so hopefully we can backfill the trench soon. It will be nice to not have piles of dirt everywhere for once.

Early in the week we had a very successful trip to the big city. Our good friend Jack loaned us his truck and horse trailer, and we proceeded to raid a couple second hand building material stores, craigslist, and Home Depot. We returned home victorious with a used refrigerator, clawfoot bath tub, shower pan, kitchen sink, a few plumbing fixtures, all our light fixtures, and our plumbing and electric supplies.