Green Means Go

We received our first approval from the building inspector (much to Matty's relief), which means we can now start building our piers. No more laid back sunny days in the Home Depot parking lot. Now its back to hauling cement...


Who knew I had masonry skills?

Home Depot Parking Lot

Have you ever tried to look at a little piece of paper and visualize what it will look like once it is as big as a house? Needless to say, I do not have this skill. We have made countless drawings of the addition, the whole house, the elevations, etc. I even built a scale model to try to figure out what it will look like when we are done (really, I'm not kidding). So, when we could figure no other way - we packed up the truck and headed toward the acres of asphalt that surround our town. We ended up at the Home Depot where I was able to convince the manager to let us use a section of the parking lot to draw our house out to scale with sidewalk chalk!

Matt, standing on our new deck!

Big Holes, Big Rocks

Over the past month we have been doing all the leg work needed to begin construction. We have been working with a retired engineer who has been helping to design the "bridge" that is to be the foundation of our addition. The existing house is built on steel I beams supported by a series of piers, very much like a bridge over the creek. Luckily, our engineer has built more than a few mountain bridges - just none that doubled as houses.


This weekend marked the official beginning of construction. We signed off on our financing and acquired our building permit Friday. We began, true to form, by celebrating with our friends (and architectural advisor) John and Amy over dinner followed by some live music at our new favorite spot, The Back Room at the Flat Rock Wine Shoppe. Saturday, John and Amy came over and we embarked upon the tedious process of laying out the lines for the addition. I had no idea basic geometry could prove to be so difficult. But, we finished, and we even managed to begin digging our footers!



Sunday brought more digging (a lot more digging) and our first obstacle. Three feet down into one of our footers we unearthed a big boulder that needed to be moved. Because of the location of the footer, there was no way of bringing any type of equipment down to pull it out. Thus, it became apparent that somehow Matt and I would have to move the boulder by ourselves. Not only did we have to move it, but somehow we had to lift it three feet out of the hole! Most of Sunday morning was spent with Matt and I wallowing around in the mud with pry bars trying to hoist this thing up. We made a little headway by prying it up and wedging smaller rocks underneath it little by little in an attempt to raise the boulder. Finally our friend (Mark) Stierwalt came over, and in a feat of Incredible Hulk-like strength, Matt and Stierwalt were able to move the boulder out of the hole. In fact, it took them just under five minutes. So much for the three hours of huffing and puffing I had put into it earlier.

SUCCESS!

We're Off and Running!

The Great Creek House Renovation Adventure has officially commenced!! We have embarked upon a mission to turn our most perfect 800 sq. foot house into an even more perfect, although slightly bigger house. It started at Christmas, when Matt gave Laura a "starter set" of tools and a promise to be very patient. It continued with many dark winter nights contemplating sketches and peering into Laura's foam board house models. Exactly how complicated could we make this project?!



The Creek House, April 2005

. . .
The Creek. . . Running under our house!


Well today, the first big step occurred as the tree crew came and cleared the way for the addition. The addition is going to be constructed off the back of the house, so the views seen here won't change too drastically. The trees that were removed all came from behind the house. We thought we were going to have to remove the big hemlock growing out of our deck, because it is infested with the woolly adelgid, but our tree guy thinks he can save it!

Wow that's a big crane, imagine bringing that thing down the driveway.

Matt tried to talk the tree guy into letting him go up on the crane, he wanted to be like Mel!

The top and middle of a Hemlock being lowered onto our driveway.

They were being flown right over our house...