build a house

Framing – something that the Amish accomplish in a single day with nothing more than primitive hand tools and sheer manpower, but for some reason takes me weeks and weeks.

At least now it sorta looks like a house. Roof goes on this week (given there is no snow), windows go on this weekend and doors beginning of next week.

It stopped raining for 10 consecutive minutes and we poured the foundation. I did a little “My House In the Middle of My Street” dance on top of it just to seal the deal.

Foundation – The cement-y stuff the rest of your house sticks out of eventually.

Good to have this plumbing stuff if you enjoy ammenities such as a working indoor toliet and hot water in your home. Plumbers are roughing it in today and tomorrow.

Yesterday the concrete and foundation dudes arrived and put down the footing for my house.

Footing – a boundry marker for the foundation of your house, and it provides the structure with the stability to keep it from blowing away like Dorothy.

Mowing the grass on a patch of property that doesn’t even have a structure on it yet seems like an exercise in futility, but it needs to be done to keep the peace with the neighbors. Of course it was a jungle, so it was either take a machete and spend the next week hacking my way through the jungle of growth, or learn to operate this machine called a brush hog (brushhog? brush-hog? unsure of the proper spelling)and get it done in an hour and a half.

I went with the brush hog.

List of skills to add to the resume: Brush hog operation. Limited to 1st gear only. No reversing ability.

can locate me now that I have an official address for the property. Which will come in handy when I have a heart-attack and die when I finally come to terms with how much this whole endevour is going to cost me.

I have now officially strung barbed wire – or “bobwaaare” as they call it in these parts – and I have the scars to prove it! I didn’t even cry! Yeeee-haaaaa!

We’ve also had the bulldozer dude come in and level things off. Now for the septic and utilities…

Stringing barbed wire is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I’m probably going to need a tetanus.

I found out pretty quick. This weekend my dad and I dug out the ditch and installed the tinhorn to allow access to the property. Tomorrow the guy with the backhoe will come back and cover it.

We also mowed so I could see what I was getting myself in to and decide on the placement of the house.

The current resident of the pasture, a large red bull that I have named Murray, has been extremely curious about all the coming and going. He’s already trampled the surveyor’s markers, which solidly expresses what he thinks about my intrusion into his territory. We went back in the Jeep to drive some more substantial posts, but couldn’t get out of the vehicle because Murray followed us and stood outside the Jeep rubbing up against it and doing some serious deep mooing that made the fillings in my teeth vibrate.

Rocking back and forth inside the Jeep, I felt like one of those people who go on safari in Africa and they get trapped in their Land Rover by a rhino. Only now there’s bull snot smeared all over my auto. Which I guess is a step up from rhino snot.

I have no idea how we’re going to build the required new fence with Murray looming over us.

I’m thinking I should register for HGTVs dream house in Sonoma, CA. It would be considerably easier to just win a home.

I bought a set of plans from Tumbleweed Homes (tumbleweedhouses.com) They specialize in tiny homes. The plans I have are for their largest home, the B-53, and it’s only 837 sq. ft. It’s beautiful!

I alternate between being extremely excited and totally terrified.