Rain

Lucy enjoying the cool sand pile.

It's been raining!  Hallelujah!  About every other day we get a significant storm that comes through and dumps rain on us for about 30 minutes.  The trees are breathing a sigh of relief.  Everything seems brighter. 

Les and Chuck took the forms off of the footers last week.  Yesterday Les and I went around our new house with some marking paint to mark off the room sizes.  Our bedroom is a very nice size.  Office, also very nice.  And after working for 3 years in a glorified hallway, I can't wait!  And an actual office chair... Oh Lord!  It's going to be great.  For now, all I can fit in my glorified hallway is one of our cheap birch dining set chairs.  No padding.  No kidding.

I've been looking at colors for the new house.  Something different, yet earthy.  Something that will blend into the surroundings.  You can't beat Mother Nature for color.




Not bad, huh?

Les and I did some target shooting yesterday.  Not bad, huh?

Concrete

The footers are done and the concrete has been poured!  Yay!

The loan is approved, the appraisal is in way, way more than I expected.  We haven't closed on the loan yet, but expect to within the next day or two. Things are moving right along and it's just so exciting.

The footers need to set for a day, then on Thursday they'll be knocking the forms off and proceeding onto the next phase.  We need toe-ups on the footers.  I'm not sure when we'll be pouring the slab, but I want our names and doggy footprints in the concrete.  We intend to stain and seal the concrete rather than cover it up with flooring.  We need the slab as thermal mass for the passive solar to be effective.  And I figure that we can always lay flooring down in the future if we decide we'd like a change.

 The building code requires us to put in heat -- even though I really don't think we will need it.  But that's the way it is.  We've decided to go with radiant heaters high up on the walls.   We will put in 220 lines for them.  And we will have the wood stove in the great room.  I honestly think that's all we'll need.  But we shall see.

 Chuck was really careful about orienting the house at true south.  The view is still spectacular, and we will have the solar heat gain in the winter.  The vents that I've designed into the house will cool it in the summer.  I just can't wait!

Les gets tomorrow off.  He's feeling the burn of building a house at his age.  But he's my hero.

Les putting bolts into the concrete

Foundation

Things are going along well.  Les, Chuck and Andy have been working most days on the footers.  The past few days they've spent moving gravel around, and fastening the forms for the footers.  The concrete time has been moved back to Monday.  Hopefully, we'll be ready by then.

Andy has been a God-send.  He's young and strong.  He's putting in full days on the house, then he goes to his normal job in the afternoons and works until late at night.  He's done all of this without too much complaining.  It's been hot.  That takes a toll on all of us.

Loan

WE GOT THE LOAN!!!  It will take a couple of weeks to close, but then we are on our way!

Les, Chuck & Andy were all working on the foundation this morning.  We hope to pour concrete for the footers by Thursday or Friday.  And I have been side-tracked while shopping for lighting. 

I have conceded that my wonderful antique doors will not work for the house.  Les really doesn't like them.  I don't know why, but my friend, John, commented that they're too narrow to pass inspection anyway.  So, I guess I'll be selling them.  Thank God for Craigslist!

Fire

This is Andy with the level.  In the background is a fire up on Fisher's Peak

Well, this last week has been eventful.  Chuck and Les put in a 3" drain pipe into the bottom of our 36" trench, then back-filled everything with gravel for drainage.  That should keep our bales nice and dry.

I got a call from the bank on Tuesday that the loan committee didn't say no, but they didn't say yes either.  No one on the loan committee had ever heard of a straw bale house.  I thought that odd since there are several in this area.  The bank president proposed that we go see one of them, which I thought was really open minded of him.  He had told me that the committee wanted to just flat out say no, but he fought for us and had them half-way to a yes.  I told him that I could do better than that, I have 2 close friends with straw bale homes.  Let's go for a ride.

So we went.  I showed him and another loan officer our place, then we drove to Mike & Marlyce's house just down the road.  They were incredibly impressed.  Then we went over to Tom & Marie's house, another gorgeous home.  They took pictures and ooh'd and ah'd.  These homes are just so neat.  They both told me that they see no problem granting us the loan, but we must wait til Tuesday.  So I'll let you know when I know.

Tomorrow, Les and Chuck will be forming the footers for the house.  I'll take more pictures.  Les spent quite a bit of last week going through the trees we had to knock down.  He's got a good handle on it, and we have plenty of firewood!




The small fire in our canyon.  This fire was put out that afternoon.

Yesterday I was sitting in my chair in front of the swamp cooler I bought at a garage sale.  Les's phone rang - it sounded urgent.  He hung up and told me that one of our neighbors up on the mountain saw a fire on our property.  Lightning has been striking every afternoon.  Some days we get about 12 drops of rain.  We had one good soaker last week, but that was it.  It lasted maybe an hour.  The trees are so dry, the forest is a tinderbox ready to explode.

We ran to the car and got up the mountain as quickly as we could.  Along the way, we saw one of the volunteer firefighters sitting at the bottom of the canyon, as he didn't know which way to go.  Les told him to follow us and we sped up the canyon.  Upon getting out of the car, I ran up the white hill to the highest point of the property... the firefighter (Gabe) in close pursuit.  I was thinking to myself, "Look at that fat girl run!"  But after looking around a bit, I spotted a plume of smoke coming from further down the canyon on our neighbor's property.  Gabe called it in, "Eyes on the fire!"  Backup was called.  We kept a close eye on it while the trucks came.

Our fire department is all volunteer.  But I have nothing but great things to say about them!  Les and I went to our neighbor's house and watched with binoculars.  We saw movement down by the fire and saw through the lens that some of our neighbors were already working on the fire even before the firefighters got there.  It took a couple of hours, but they got a perimeter around it, then some water on it.  The fire chief said that they don't call the fire "out", but they're done when the fire is cold.

We looked this morning at the fire in our canyon.  No smoke.  All was quiet. The fire on Fishers Peak is still burning, but not as fiercely as before.


Fire on Fisher's Peak - still burning after 2 weeks.
 

The rain is the only thing that can help us.  There have been so many fires around here the past few weeks.  We get lightning almost every day, but only one time have we had any measurable rain.  Pray for rain!

Rocks

Looking east.

Well, this is the Rocky Mountains, after all.  There are so many rocks in the footer of our new house, it's crazy.  The job that Rafe said would probably take 10 hours has taken over twice that.  And he still has more work to do tomorrow.

He dug 3 sides of the house so far.  Still needs to dig the west side of the house.  Theoretically, that shouldn't take too long... famous last words.

Still, it's so exciting.  Today we spent time talking to the bank manager again.  He needed our trust documents and the plans for the house.  He will know by Tuesday whether or not we will get the loan... subject to an appraisal.  Hopefully, the appraisal will come in pretty good.  Then it will be time to kick some butt on this house of ours.

We met with the plumbing contractor today.  We had wanted to go with manifold plumbing, but he told us that the winters would not allow it here.  So there we go... thinking something would be one price, then it comes in substantially more.  I was prepared for this -- kind of.

A black bear skull that Les found.

They will be ready to start pouring the foundation toward late next week.  Since the loan won't be ready by then, "Thank you, Lord, for credit cards."  At least I'll get points for the concrete.  Then I can use my points to get a big gift card for Lowes.  See how this feeble brain works?  Then I can pay all of that off with the construction loan.

Les spent a good while today cutting trees into manageable pieces.  We will have firewood for years.

The girls exploring the new house.

Footers

Rafe working on the footers.

The dirt guy, Rafe, was digging the footers for the house yesterday.  Chuck, our concrete guy, and Les drew out the lines for the house yesterday afternoon.  Les called me to come up and check it out so I grabbed my keys and ran out the door.  It's exciting to get the real feel of the sizes of the rooms.  I've been living in this house - albeit in my head - for several years now.  I envisioned the living room to be a little bigger, but the rest seems to be about right.  Anything will be bigger than our cute little duplex.

I talked to the bank president again today.  He had some questions about our application.  Once I answered those, he said that he's ready to present to the loan committee next Tuesday.  That will be a big relief.  If we get that loan, then we can really start moving on the house.

This is just so exciting!

Les & Chuck having a strategy discussion in the "bedroom" of our new home.