All Buttoned Up

Johnny has been a busy little bee in the past few weeks, and I-- the trusty lackey-- assisted in a project or two. Major tasks completed:

House Wrap: I helped him install it and it is NOT as easy as wrapping a present. No matter what we did it seemed to drip and drop and we kept ending up with wrinkles. Thank goodness it lives under the siding.

Windows! Beautiful new Marvin windows. Marvin is a fantastic family-run company in Minnesota that not only makes a superb quality product, but does so with a no-layoff, no-healthcare-cuts policy even during difficult economic times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/business/economy/housing-slump-forces-cuts-at-a-small-town-company.html). We respect a company that puts people before profits... and I'm in love with my windows!

A beautiful view from our workshop

Window and Doors installed

Garage Door: Due to budget constraints we couldn't go with the contemporary-look glass panel door I was hoping for, so we opted for a clean-looking flat panel. I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered obscure glass -- all the other glass is clear, clear, clear so I'm not actually going to be able to keep the paparazzi out. Foiled again!

ROOF!  I hefted approximately sixty 16-foot roof panels over my head up to John on the roof (though they are not heavy we had gusty wind so they were occasionally a bit unwieldy -- there was a time or two when I was spinning like a horizontal windmill!). In five short hours we were fully topped off. John spent the next couple of days doing all the detail work, and now we think it looks quite grand. It's a metal roof that is supposed to last something like 50 years so we should be able to make it through our golden years without attempting a similar project.

This guy dropped by to help for a day. I hope he was praying for us!!!!

Praying Mantis

Lone Oak No More!

Thanks to the incredible generosity of our friends Windsor and Sal, the Lone Oak now has a baby brother. May we introduce Sycamore Sam! Sal tended to Sam for many years in their San Francisco yard, but he just grew too big for the pot and they kindly thought of us when it came time for adoption.

He is going to be a big boy -- he could be well over 80 feet tall -- and with such a wide eventually root spread even on our 2+ acres it took a bit of time to find the best location for him (the septic mound kept getting in the way of several of our initial choices since you can't have roots any where near it). He found his forever home in the southwest quadrant, and will shade what we hope will someday be our guesthouse. We'll be able to see him from the main rooms of both the little house and the not-so-big house when they are built as well.

Right now it looks like he's living in maximum security -- his roots are surrounded by a gopher cage,  his trunk wrapped by a wire fence to protect him from the deer, and four strong poles with stretchy chords to keep him upright in the wind --  but in a year or two he should be standing all on his own. Long live Sam!

Fun with Time Lapse!

Our friend DoubleA not only spent his free time volunteering for the Truss Team, he also created this super time lapse video of the event. You can see their hours of sweat and toil in less than 60 seconds. Way cool. Thank you AA!

Truss Raising Party

If you invite enough friends, in four short hours you can have the framing for your roof!

The Faster You Run the Behinder You Get

The foreman has been harassing me about how long it's been between posts, and he is correct. Waaaay too long. I apologize. So here is what we've been up to for the past three weeks. Hold on to your hats... it's going to be a long ride!

Since John is doing the vast majority of the work himself without any assistance, he's invented his patented "Don't-Fall-Off-the-Slab Slab"

 And his patented "Too-Far Bar"

You can see that he had to make some adjustments to the Too-Far-Bar...
this early prototype wouldn't let him go far enough!

 You can see them in action in this video of the raising of the first wall!



After a few short days, he had all the walls framed. Pretty!

The crane arrived with the roof trusses. The crane operator, Mario, was a true artist... just a little tap here and there and voila... it all fell into place.


We then preyed on the goodness of some of our easy-going friends who had said "if you ever need anything" and "invited" them to a Truss Raising Party! Stay tuned for the fun, including a time lapse showing the progress of the trusses.

Fun with Pickup Sticks

Our first delivery of framing lumber arrived yesterday. Dumping the wood off of the truck reminded me a bit of a horse trying to shrug away a fly... just twitch a bit, then twitch some more. I somehow thought it would be a more high-tech operation, but I guess all the bits and pieces withstood the impact of the drop so why change the tried and true.


Johnny spent today prepping - building headers and laying out the puzzle. He developed a patented technique that he told me all about, but is too shy to re-state it for a video. I think if you heard it you would agree with me that it's pretty snazzy.

 And tomorrow we pound the golden stake!!!!!

Home Sweet Home... Now with Trailer Flavoring!

After a four-day marathon we have managed to (mostly) squeeze ourselves into our 300 square-foot travel trailer and have spent the last two night on our land! A gorgeous pink sundown christened our fist night and the crickets lulled us to sleep. New address: 123 Heaven.

Actually, we'll send our new contact info out shortly via email. Ping us if you don't get it in the next few days.

Big kudos to our friend Dan Riha who spent his day off helping us with all the heavy and awkward stuff (note to everyone else: don't ever say "I'm happy to help..." because Dan's aching muscles indicate that we WILL take you up on it... ;)

Being on the cutting edge of the Tiny House movement is going to be a challenge, especially since I work from home and we have an 80 pound dog. We're still dragging stuff out of our Santa Rosa apartment, and the trailer looks like the Clampetts have moved in with our detritus flowing out of the trailer and into the yard. Time will tell if the neighbors who have been so kind to us are still feeling friendly after they get an eyeful of our treasures.

Johnny's second building project... our sturdy new deck. The first project was a "supervisor shack" for Andy. I guess we know who rates around here.