March blew in with more and more construction activity:

3/4/08:

March is starting late, here we are on the 4th before I get this month's page going…

Jay and I have been busy. We finished moving plants (including digging up a spirea bush and moving a snowball bush into its place), met with our builder yesterday to finalize things, packed up books and pictures, rented a storage unit, and talked with two neighbors to secure permission for extra construction vehicles to park at their houses. Today they broke ground— let the games begin.

More to come :)


In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.— Shunryu Suzuki

3/5/08:
The weather here the last few days has been beautiful, perfect for house building. While we were gone to work today rebar and forms appeared in the dug out areas next to our house, outlining a big square right next to the house and another rectangle set over a bit away from the house.

Our house is one of 9 homes on our one lane road. A couple of weeks ago I went up the street to let folks know the building was about to begin and asked them to let us know if it caused them any difficulties. Although neighbors wave in passing, we have visited with few of them. At the end house I interrupted the dad and young preschool son outdoors working. We stepped inside the house to get some contact information for the family that owns the vacant home next to us and the boy grabbed my hand, dragging me down the hall to his bedroom to see the wonderful train he got for Christmas. It was quite nice. This evening he came riding atop his dad's shoulders so he could check out the holes and other manly activity. Pretty interesting.

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.— Anne Frank (1929-1945)

3/6/08:

They poured concrete in the foundation forms today; you can see they are filled to the brim. You can also see the equipment in our front drive and the nice porta-potty that is now the centerpiece of our front yard. We have a lot of dirt to walk through, then a huge step up to get into the house. Our old cement porch was dragged away and will be replaced with a framed one topped with something like trex.

This morning I heard President Bush speaking on the radio, talking about the importance of having a "heart big enough to love those who hope." I had to write that right down, it was such an interesting thought. It had never occurred to me before that it takes a big and generous heart to love hopeful people. What a kind, brilliant man.

As I drove home today I listened to a news story on the radio about bad prescription drugs coming in from China that perhaps have killed several people. What a surprise! In 2004 consumers were diligently warned by President Bush to not purchase drugs from Canada because they might not be safe, even though most had been made in the US to begin with. Hmmm. The next winter there was a shortage of flu vaccine due to problems with unsafe manufacturing in England. No one seemed worried about injections coming into the country from England. While consumers were being warned about buying medicines from Canada, drug companies were importing medications made in other countries— the difference was in who was saving or making money. It is interesting how policies benefiting individuals are regarded by some as socialist, while those benefiting companies owned by individuals are not. Sure would be nice if politicians would talk about their true agendas.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.— Mark Twain

3/8/08:
Saturday. It was dark when we got home last night. We could not see all the construction that had been accomplished that day. We could see, however, the blue of the insulating panels, normally in hiding under our siding, peering out at us around our entry door. We also did not realize help would be at hand early the next morning, eager to move along in this construction project.

Today they worked on putting the concrete forms in place on top of the footing concrete, so that the lower walls could be poured the beginning of next week. You can see the blue of the insulation in these two pictures, and the walls into which concrete will be poured. Clicking on either picture will take you to an interesting panorama shot Jay put together.

It gets late early out there.— Yogi Berra

3/11/08:
I was busy last night, thinking about my Aunt Joan and doing some things.

Meanwhile the work on our house continued, and Jay continued taking pictures every day to record the happenings. Monday 3/10 they finished the forms for the stem walls and then poured concrete into them.

Today, Tuesday, they came and took the forms down and cleaned up a bit. Despite their efforts, it is messy out there. You can see wood embedded into the concrete walls every few feet. Our siding will come down over the top of the concrete and the wood is to nail into. Framing starts soon…

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.— Confucius (551-479 BCE)

3/12/08:
Well, it was nice coming home today and finding that they had not only pushed dirt back into where it belongs, they had covered the drive area with a bunch of gravel… and covered the area now missing a porch with clean gravel too. Yes, nice clean gravel.

Clicking on the picture of the carpentry pencil stub and/or the tag from our lumber will take you to a panorama photo from this evening. You can see the lumber piled in our drive area in the panorama picture. The lumber came from Oso Lumber in Arlington. The workers installed the boards along the top of the foundation and put in many of the glu-lam beams that will hold up the floor of the addition living room. The framing will continue tomorrow. More later, ciao.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
— from "Hold Fast to Dreams" by Langston Hughes

3/14/08:
It has been an exhausting week. My Aunt Joan's funeral was today, in Battle Creek, Michigan. I talked with my mom at least once every day this week, and she was kind enough to pick up some things I had printed at a shop near her home and take them to the family. Tonight she called to let me know the pastor gave a lovely talk at the funeral service, the best one she could remember. Her sister and brother are both gone now. It is a long week for many people I know.

Jay took the pictures seen here last night. They got the rest of the support beams in place and the subfloor put in. As you can see, the new living room will be 3 or 4 steps up from the current house. Yesterday they also got the wood set up to start the garage walls. Lots done, lots more to do. Looking forward to the weekend.

The older you get the more you realize that kindness is synonymous with happiness.— Lionel Barrymore

3/17/08:
The building continues.

We did get a load of things to our storage unit Saturday, but between rain, darkness and Jay being pretty darned sick with yet another version of this winter's virus, we did not catch a photo of building progress achieved Friday, when one wall had gone up.

Today they got much done on the walls, after cutting off the edge of our old roof so that they could tie into it smoothly. Click on this picture to see a panorama shot.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.— Oscar Wilde

3/18/08:
Tuesday. A lot more of the bones of our addition and garage were put up today. It was overcast this morning as I headed to work, but the sun was out nicely by noon, turning it into a lovely day that made it easier for the men working on our house.

As you can see, today they put up the roof trusses on both the addition and the garage. If you click on either picture here you will go to a panorama shot put together by Jay which shows how much has been done and gives you an idea of where we are going.

No wonder you're late. Why, this watch is exactly two days slow.
— Mad Hatter, Alice In Wonderland

3/19/08:
The roof is on! Click on either picture here, the construction discard pile or the stump of a tree limb, to see what our house looked like today as we came home.

It sounds like the builder will get the metal roofing on next. Everything is shaping up well. We are still struggling with the gas company to get a connection to the house because they insist our house faces west and keep wanting to set it up to install the meter on the old side of the house, not on the new side where our gas stove fireplace will go. Apparently it is rocket science for them. More later, ciao.

We Japanese enjoy the small pleasures, not extravagance. I believe a man should have a simple lifestyle– even if he can afford more.— Massaru Ibuka

3/21/08:
What a long month! Poor Jay has been sick again with viral crap. He did make it in to work the last three days though. I have been lucky enough to feel tired but not actually come down with the bug.

Today they poured the concrete floor of the garage, 5 inches thick. If you click on the picture of the garage or the picture of today's worker's tools you will go to a large shot put together by Jay. We did not get pictures yesterday because we were too darned pooped when we got home. They did not do a lot yesterday, but did put up some waterproof wood on the front of the house at the top of the concrete stem wall, attached to those imbedded pieces of wood I pointed out on the 11th. Our siding will attach to it, so the siding will come down that far. The project is shaping up so now you can really see what we are up to. More to come!

The visible world is the invisible organization of energy.— Physicist Heinz Pagels

3/23/08:
It occurred to me that I have not included any pictures of the building activity from the inside of the house. We have moved lots of furntiture, books and pictures out to storage and so we have more space already!

When finished our living room will become our dining room and the addition will be our living room. Our current dining area window will become a doorway into the living room, which will be 3 or 4 steps up from the rest of the house. Click on the picture of Jay helping me photograph the window to see a page of pictures.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the law of the universe will be simpler.— H.D. Thoreau

3/24/08:
From the outside it didn't look much like anything was done on the house today, besides the completed waterproof wood around the top of the concrete stem wall.

Turns out they pulled stuff off much of the side of the house that used to be outside and now will be inside. They also disconnected and pulled out the tall outside faucet that used to be there and plumbed in a regular outdoor faucet on the back of the addition. The picture to the left is again out our dining window, showing a pile including our old faucet– a close up at the right. More to come, but first click on either of today's pictures just for fun.

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.— Herman Melville

3/26/08:
Nothing happened at the house yesterday as far as construction goes. Today they got much of the metal roof on– can you tell? The picture to the left links to a wider/bigger version.

Our builder came over this evening and we talked about different things we had to make decisions about, such as stair height and what to do with the flooring in the area to be framed out for the laundry. Things will be speeding up once again as they break through and connect with the current house. Things will get messy. Despite having taken two truckloads to storage last Saturday it was determined we need to move a couple more pieces of furniture out. Basically, we will be camping for the next few weeks.

All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.— Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

3/27/08:
Lord, we are in for it now. Today the construction came into our living area, and we discovered we need to move yet more things to our storage unit– it is hard to believe since our house was so small to begin with, how could we possibly have more yet to move out?

Today they cut out some of our laminate floor in the living room area, tore out ceiling and floor trim, and put in 2X4s to start framing out the area that will become our front coat closet (which will have space on the side for our water heater), and the laundry closet.

The top picture is the view coming in from our front door looking toward the kitchen, the middle picture is from the front door looking straight back, and the bottom picture is from the table area looking out toward the front entry. It is probably hard to figure out, but all these pictures link to one of the floor where you can see the outline of things to come.

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.— John Sladek

3/29/08:
What in the world? We had snow/rain mix on and off this week, what kind of spring is this? As you know construction has been messy this week. On Thursday we discovered we needed to move still more out of the living area, which we did today. We also had to go to Lowe's Thursday evening to pick up fuses because the ones going to our heat had blown. Today we bought some more because the construction crew's saws and such seem to tax our little system. Friday the electrician was out and set up the new service box on the side of the garage and wired much of that building. Currently our electrical line drops to the house on the far side of the original part, now it will come in above the garage. You can see in the picture to the left the outside of the electrical box and where the electric line will come in up above the roof.

The windows for the new part are not here yet, so they boarded up the window openings to help keep things warm since it has been so cold. Thursday evening I took two plants and a stand across the street for Mrs. Becker to babysit for me and she asked why we weren't putting windows on the front of the addition. She's probably not the only neighbor wondering about the boards over the window openings. The framers worked inside the addition yesterday, building the stairway and the half wall separating the stairway from the living area. Our house was built with the crawlspace access directly under the back door, which is weird. Jay built our back porch/deck on supports and not attached to the building itself. Normally we would have to crawl under the back porch to get to the crawlspace, which luckily we did not often need to do. Friday the builder used some of those guys he keeps around to lift and move over the porch so access to the crawlspace could be more easily gained for working on plumbing down there– that is what the other picture is of. Clicking on either of today's pictures will take you to a picture of the front of our house, with the boarded up window and the garage.

A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.— Benjamin Disraeli
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.— Matthew 23:14

3/30/08:
Yesterday we went to the stove store and bought the gas stove we will have in the new living room for both heat and ambiance, a Lopi Sturbridge. They will be installing it after the bamboo flooring gets put in. We also went to three stores to look at light fixtures– geez, what a pain trying to pick! We did pick up a light for the new dining area, but will have to go again to decide on the rest.

The new windows have not arrived yet and the center ridge of the roofing is not yet in, and it is cold outside. Because of these things they have delayed a little bit pulling out our old window to create the new doorway. We decided: why let a window stand in our way? We went through the window, and up the new stairs to see what we could see.

You can see Jay in the addition in front of the old dining area window. It is hard to tell a lot from the picture to the left because the back window is boarded up, but you can see the high windows that are on the side of the addition, which would look out onto the garage if they were lower. If you click on these pictures you can see a bigger one looking from inside the addition toward the original house, and you can see into the attic of our current house. Interesting.

It snowed a little bit last night, only a frosting remained on the top of the fence when we got up. The cherry trees are blossoming and the daffodils are blooming, yet the snow…

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently.— Lewis Carroll

3/31/08:
The last day of a long and busy month. Today I picked up a bathroom fan/light during my lunch break, then we met at the bank after work so we could pay for some of this stuff. While Jay and I were busy doing these things people came to our house and finished off the roof, putting on the top ridge and some finishing pieces.

They also did finally tear out the window and wall between our current house and the addition, covering the hole with wood and plastic for the evening when they finished for the day. They also completed framing for the new walls in the living room which divide off a new coat closet and laundry area. Click on either picture to see framing stuff. Ciao!

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.— James Russell Lowell