Back to work

The weather has let up some-- still snow on the ground, but temperatures (barely) above freezing. Two of the crew came and worked on the siding... pictures to follow soon.

Snow delay

We are having an early White Christmas, it seems. Snow has stalled work on the Manor for a while. Temperatures were in the teens this weekend.















Ginger in the snow... Sampson was moseying around the back yard, so he missed the photo shoot.

Front door

Our new front door arrived-- not installed yet. The pictures will be better when it is. The rest of the doors won't be delivered until Jan. 7.

The first snowfall on the new Manor... We had 2-3 inches of snow last night.

The siding project is moving along. The first floor is almost done. We have to put the posts in for the railings on the second floor before we can side the second floor.

The siding is going up now... we hope to have the first floor finished by the end of the week. Painting will have to wait until the spring when it warms up again.

Fully wrapped now

Completely wrapped now... worked out the problem with the tie-downs and now the front is wrapped too.

Windows in place

The framers returned and put all the windows in, except for two in the front by the entrance. We chose a cranberry metal cladding on the outside and VG fir on the inside.

We are still struggling with the foundation tie downs and drilling through bottom of the framing and into the concrete. Rebar is getting in the way.

Wrapped Up

The Tyvek arrived and the house is wrapped. If you look closely, you can see a window waiting to be installed.

We're covered!

This week we became the proud owners of one house with a complete roof! The roofers worked 2 1/2 days to complete the project. Shortly after they finished, all our windows (29 of them) arrived. We have them stored (safe and dry) in the now covered garage.

Framing finished

The covered areas over the front door and outside the family room are finished.
The pillars in the front will have stone bases around the concrete bottoms.
The upstairs decks now have plywood decking. We plan to cover with a waterproof membrane and place tiles as the final flooring.


Jon poured a great aggregate concrete patio outside the family room so that we have a covered area to sit outside on drizzly days.




Ken used his new band saw (another boy toy) to add detail to the wood beams at the end of each patio cover.

Roof decking completed

Now we have a solid roof over all parts of the house.

Roof trusses in place

We now have roof trusses and the interior stairs in place. No need to climb the ladder to get to the second floor!

Framing the roof

The roof trusses arrived this week and we are
moving closer to closing in the house.

The Flip Side

Above is a view of the back of the house. This part will face the water view. The upstairs walls are framed now.


This is our master bedroom. There are a door and two big windows and a deck outside the room. It is on the left as you are looking at the back of the house.

Below the master is Ken's work room --off the back of the garage.






On the right of the house is the dining room. There will be French doors and two windows looking out onto the deck.

Below the deck is Kathy's office.



In the middle is the large window in the living room which will have the window seat under it.

Under the living room is the "multipurpose" room with French doors opening out to the yard and two more windows.

Sunset view

Ken took this sunset view photo from our future living room.
There will be a window seat below this picture window.
Great reading or dreaming spot!

Front framed in

The front wall is up now. The two window on the left are in the kitchen. The cooktop will be in the middle. The large window in the middle is part of the 2 story entry. The guest bath and master bath are the windows on the right.

Second Story going up

The first floor is framed in now and they have started on the second floor. There are subfloors now... See the framer walking.

Soon after that, we had a wall.

Ken, Patsy, Maya and I climbed the ladder to see the sunset view from our future living room.

The walls are going up and up...

Framing has been moving along in the last week. We've been busy finalizing the window plans.

Putting up the 2 story entry way is a massive and delicate job. These guys are great!

Final pour of foundation

This morning the as the foundation crew was finishing their last preparations, the concrete truck arrived for the final pour of the slab for the garage/shop area.

House Blessing

The foundation crew worked hard today filling the slab area with lots and lots of sand. They lost two soil compactors in the process...

At sunset this evening, our friends Lori and Robert performed a house blessing for the existing Manor and the new Manor. Kathy's sister Patsy and niece Maya were able to join us for the moving ceremony in which we stated our intentions for the new home and our life on Lopez Island. They closed by singing the song, On Holy Ground. What a wonderful gift given to us by our dear friends. We are so blessed!

Garage support walls done...

The walls are done and the support forms removed. Now the hole has to be filled with LOTS of sand. Jon is standing in the part that needs to be filled before the final pouring of the slab for the garage.

Catch up day for Construction Crew

The foundation crew got behind on another job due to the delay last week waiting for the inspector, so today was a quiet day-- no activity

Third pour

We got the go ahead this morning and the concrete truck arrived at about 10:30 to begin the third pour for the support walls of the garage area. Now the base needs to be filled in before the final pouring of the slab.

waiting for inspector

We were ready for the next pour, but we waited all day for the inspector to come, but he didn't show.

Next steps

The support walls came down and now the preparations began for the next phase--preparing the area for slab under the garage.

Walls are poured

Early on Monday, Aug. 4, the inspector arrived and it was a "go" for the first pouring of the concrete into the walls of the main part of the house and the support boxes.

"Christening" of foundation

After the footings were poured, the foundation crew constructed 3 foot walls for the crawlspace under the main part of the house.

Jon worked all day Friday and Saturday on the "boxes" for interior wall support. Now we are ready for the inspector.

In the evening, Patsy and Shel came over and we "christened" the home with celebratory champagne and comradery.

Checking out the equipment...

Ginger is checking it out...

Ready for the next inspection

Everything is in place to pour the concrete for the foundation walls. There are three 1/2" horizontal rebars tied to the verticals that were cast into the footings - one about halfway up the wall and two near the top. Rectangular molded plastic pieces are held in place between the boards; these form the ventilation holes for the crawl space and have wire mesh molded into them to keep out critters. There is an opening that you can see near the far corner that will allow access into the crawl space from outside. There are also provisions for bringing the water line in and the sewer out. In the picture you can see some rebar sticking out of the side of the panels; this will tie in the foundation walls for the garage and shop area that will be added later.

The county inspector will have to inspect the work before the concrete is poured.

Preparing for the foundation walls

Today the crew started preparing for the foundation walls. These are normally 2 feet high, but the ground had a significant slope to it - so when we found the solid ground at the lowest point, it was more than 2 feet below the highest ground level - so we had to go with 3 feet high walls. An additional factor was that the floor joists are to be hung from the mud sills so that they hang below the tops of the foundation walls, reducing the available height in the crawlspace. In the picture you can see the first row of boards used to mold the concrete walls are in place; these are the 2 feet high boards that are used for standard walls. Another set of 1 foot high boards will be placed on top of these. The boards are held in place by steel clips that are fastened to the footings - you can see some of these clips have also been used to hold the tops of the boards; these are temporary and will be replaced by special clips that clamp the boards firmly and also help to fasten the top row of boards when they are in position.

The regular inspector is in our prayers.

A side note here on the regular building inspector for the island. I just found out today that he is very ill - in hospital apparently with a serious illness. We hold him and his family in our prayers.

The first concrete goes in.

The inspector came back again today and it became obvious that he was not going to be flexible on anything. He insisted on having the rebar verticals tied to the laterals that were in place in the footings; this is not how they normally do it - they just put the pieces in place after the concrete is poured, while the mix is still wet - that way, they are not in the way of the pour. But - it didn't say we could do it that way on the drawings, so the inspector gave us two options - do it the way he wanted (and take pictures before the concrete went in), or get a waiver from the Engineer to do it the normal way. We didn't have time to contact the Engineer, so we had to do it his way. Both the builder and the contractor said they have never had to do this before.

So - here is the formwork & rebar - as the inspector wanted:



And here is the start of the concrete pour:



This was a four-man job - Jon controlled the flow of concrete along with the truck driver, Brent tamped the concrete down, and Larry followed up last, smoothing the surface.



And here's what it looked like at the end of the day:

A minor setback...

Today (Monday) gave us a little setback - the county building inspector came early - 7:15 a.m. - before I was out of bed and before the contractor was here. He just wrote a rejection slip and left. All we could do was to finish off the little bit of work left to set the rebar in position and request another inspection for tomorrow.

As one of the points of rejection was that we didn't have the job site documents posted and I didn't want to let the inspector use that excuse again, I disappeared into the shed for the evening and built this cabinet to keep the documents outside, but protected from the weather:

The formwork for the foundation footings go in...

At the end of the third day, the formwork for the footings of the main part of the house were in place and the rebar is being put in. This stage will be complete on Monday - we will then have to wait for the county to perform the first inspection.

A "Hole" lot bigger...

After the second day, we had a much bigger hole in the ground:



And we are not done yet - in this next picture, the two stakes on the left mark the remaining corners of the building. The area that is not excavated yet is the garage/shop area which will be a slab and will not be dug as deep - the hole that is dug so far is for a crawl space.