May got hot

Summer is here with its bugs and hot weather already. We were making fires in the woodstove two weeks ago and last night had a fan in the window.

The kids are adjusting quite well. As I write today they are clawing at sand on the Beach in Big Bay, with a creative energy I can't hope to match today. I'm fighting some kind of bug which has been making its way through the family. Seamus has had it worst, with coughing fits at night. But it's moving right on by, getting better everyday.



















It has been a delight to work in warm weather. The house has the smell of fresh cut lumber seasoned with a touch of toxic glue and mold which brings back fond memories of Summer visits to camps of friends.


This month I picked up where I left off last Fall on hanging a door in our bedroom. It's an old door with a big window which we cut down to function more like a window. It took about a week to get that right.










We've decided against staining the cedar shingle siding. It's a kind of thing you don't have to do.
We have the building process pared down to what's necessary for us to move in: finishing the walls and ceiling of just the kitchen, dining room and one bedroom. The outhouse is working just fine. And floors? Not a prority. It's not that our current apartment is terrible, but it is not our home. We find ourselves going over to our 'big house' even on days when we're not working on it.

Coming soon- water supply and siding!

If you build it... ?

We're back from a two-week-long break from house building. We took a trip down to Lower Michigan last weekend to visit friends and family, and celebrate birthdays, and play some music and dance. Erica took a class in Indian classical dancing. I played a couple shows with my dear drummer friend John Churchville and just last Saturday night, back in Marquette, Erica and I got to sit in on a concert with a big fun band.

Here's a slice of the cake my cousin Rachel made for Erica's birthday.


Aya Jane had the idea to tour waterfalls to celebrate her birthday. She got us out to some wonderful places.



The time away has been great for focusing our vision. When we are working on the house every week for months it gets kind of boring and we wonder why we're going through this. But in my quest for clarity during this break my message was continuous:

You have to build this house.

What comes next I don't know. I guess I don't need to know.

So yesterday I went back to the plumbing, rerouting a pipe in this tree so it doesn't go across the window. And running vents up to the roof, including cutting a hole in the roof. How often do you get to cut a hole in a roof big enough to peek out? It was fun for me anyway.

Meet Mr. Stack

I think I have written before on this blog that the progress of housebuilding compares to watching kids grow. Your friend's kids (and house) seem to grow faster than you can keep up with, while your own develop at a varying pace which seems to oscillate between extremes of molasses-slow and then "holy wah, look at 'em go." This plumbing phase has been pretty close to the molasses edge. Maybe molasses in July. It has been a fun puzzle, just a little more time-consuming than anticipated.

Anyway the drain pipes are almost all cut and in place. My wish is that someone more experienced will come look at them before they get welded together. I think this guy with the Dodgers hat on is what they call a soil stack: where all the drains come together. There will be a vent pipe coming out the top of his head and continuing through the roof.


These pipes are to the drains in the second bathroom.











We're out of town this weekend in Ann Arbor visiting friends and relatives and playing a little music. It's always nice to go south in April and experience Spring a few weeks ahead of the UP. It's tulips and lilacs already down here. We're having a nourishing time and an excellent break from the routine. Lord knows it will be nice to be back to it again, but I don't know that yet. I got a few more days.

I think I finally have the wastewater drain system figured out. It was a lot more puzzling than I thought. There are a lot of rules to follow: pipe size, type of fitting, vents can't run horizontal until they're higher than the flood level of the highest fixture they serve, and on and on. But they're all for a reason and I'm glad I'm not just winging it and having tons of problems down the road.

The second bathroom is just about roughed-in now, and that was the hard one. Lots of drilling big holes in framing. In fact I burned out the gears in my neighbor's right angle drill, and have to go shopping for a replacement tomorrow (so I can borrow it some more). It was a cheap one, and maybe I should have known not to push it so hard, but hey.



Here is a sketch of what pipes are going where.


We have a general plan of what to do before we move in that puts us moving in at the end of the year, maybe before the snow.

Here's an abbreviation of that plan:
April-Rough Plumbing
May-Rough Electrical
June-Insulation and siding
July, August, September-Drywall and paint
October-firewood, chimney and stove
November-bathroom floor and some kitchen finishing.


Spring came early this year, but as usual it's an in-between time when you don't know what to expect. A wet snow caught these daffodils by surprise. People around here are gradually giving up on another heavy snow storm.

Electric Days

My friend's father who is an electrician is coming up this weekend and she volunteered him to come assist us with the electrical rough-in. It's a barter deal: I'm playing music at her wedding this August.
So we've been in electricity high-gear, studying codes and planning where we want switches, fixtures, etc.
As much as it can be an oppressively humongous project, building this house is so good for me when it teaches me how the parts of a house work. I can remember being a very young man and being disgusted by the idea of a stud-wall house. It seemed so deceptive to stuff everything into the empty walls and then cover it up with trim. Now I see the logic in it. I've been so corrupted I can even understand why someone might use (gulp, wince) vinyl siding.
So no building pictures today. But I'll post a couple photos which show how early spring looks here. The warm weather has been a few weeks ahead of schedule for a month now.
This hill is what we call Horsepoop Mountain. It's a 20 minute hike uphill from where we're staying now.


These are some baby irises that popped up last week. One of the friends we're staying with keeps a magnificent flower garden out our bathroom window. These are the first.


This link will take you to a page which really helped me understand the wiring rough-in.



Here are the electrical drawings. It feels a lot like I just turned in a research paper.









































This last photo shows the electrical plan as revised after the rough-in, just before insulating. You can click on it if you want to read the details.

The arch is framed- whew!

This is the end of the dance room where the arch meets the gable end. It's also the end of interior framing. It's always a relief to get to the end of anything, even if it is the first part of the above-ground building process!





Next to happen is the plumbing. I took my drawing of the drain and vent system to the inspector the other day and he answered my questions and told me the plan was up to code. There was a moment when another inspector stopped his cubicle to ask a quick question, at which time the plumbing inspector took the clipboard my drawing was on and held it up near his chest so the other inspector couldn't see. I think these guys are being generous to guys like me for helping do things well while not holding us to the letter of the code, carrying that burden of doubt on their own shoulders.




Tomorrow I plan to line up where the pipe is going to go and drill some holes. I must say I'm a little nervous.

If I don't get clear about it I have a couple plumber friends to run to. There's always trim and siding to work on.

Coming Along

We're enjoying an unusually warm winter these days. I'm sure there will be another storm or two, but it really feels like Spring tonight with soft rain falling. It's not even supposed to get below freezing for the next week. I'm happy to announce that the arched ceiling is framed in after weeks of work. Next job is to tie it to the outer wall with framing materials and to do that we first had to pull the wall back to plumb. It had bowed out over the past year and so I chained it to the other wall and squeezed them together with a come-along.

Why is it that chains and come-alongs get me excited? Maybe it just makes me feel like mighty-man to use my own body and some gears to do something superhuman. Bicycles are like this, too.

This warm weather is bound to make our road a mess. So this weekend might be a good one to go visit my friend who's putting tinted plaster on his drywall. It's an alternative to the standard mud-and-then-paint system that sounds appealing. If I can work with him for a day or so maybe I'll get it. Anyway my most faithful laborer is busy getting ready for a certain St. Patrick's Day party.
Slainte!