It's Potty Time!

Another whole month has flown by-  we are coming up on the one year anniversary of breaking ground!
There has been a lot of progress, on a lot of different fronts, but they are a little random...

Here are a few of the highlights on Nathan and Keith's recent projects:

We did an open house when the Mother's Day runners came by the house.  15-20 people dropped by afterwards and got tours from Terese, Kristen and Keith while Nathan and Gary worked on the front porch posts...

We've had some wonderfully warm weather, and some serial rainy days... tarping up over the front porch provided shade and dry working conditions as Nathan was finishing up the floor framing...

Nathan- installing 1-1/2" styrofoam ("XPS") as planned, on the exterior of the house prior to installing the porch roof...

The first of the pre-cut, pre-painted rafters over the front porch...

And, as a side project, it really is Party (or as we like to say "potty") Time! After months of having the old house for plumbing, we had to have a port-a-poty on site... Now we actually have a working toilet in the house!  Notice the sheet rock! The first few sheets are UP!


Electrical work is still continuing on the inside-  nice to have interior work to do on hot afternoons or rainy days!  Not much for photos there, just spaghetti...

Nathan got the first 2 of about 30 planned raised beds built.  The plan was to do this next spring, but Kristen picked up some heirloom plants- rasberries, strawberries, and fruit trees from her grandparent's place in Hamilto that needed to go in this year, so...

Here they are...  The 3ft by 8ft dimension has worked well for us in the past, and now that chickens are approved for Billings residences, we'll have a "chicken tractor" that can be be lifted onto any bed for the fowl to scratch out a living....

Jocie and Terese working to unload the composted soil from Nathan's truck into wheelbarrows for transferr into the raised beds...

Everyone doing what they can to help keep the project moving along...

More to come in future posts...  Keep in touch!

Whatcha working on?

We are preparing for an open house that we will be hosting on Saturday from 10am-2pm.  The annual Montana Women's Run brings thousands of runners right by our house, so, we're taking this opportunity for some free publicity :)

With this we've talked about how it looks like 'nothing is happening' right now.  We have lots of people asking us "Whatcha working on now?"  The beginning of the project, earth moving & big diggers make for some donut, coffee and a lounge chair event.  Through the winter it looks like from the outside that NOTHING IS HAPPENING.

Well, we that go inside daily DO see what's happening! AND we are seeing all this hard work add up!

In honor of Mother's Day and this run and the fabulous weather, Nathan will be working on the front and side porch and roof lines.  It will look like 'something is happening' and we can take advantage of perfect weather and be on the outside and then move inside on days that it's really hot. (The house is already AMAZINGLY comfortable when it's hot out.  Because the air isn't moving through the house, on the hottest days we've had (80+), I was downright COLD walking in the house.  HOW COOL IS THAT?!  NO A/C in this house!)

For those that don't get to see daily progress add up and wonder what's happening...

Prepping for concrete foundation for the porch

BIG things are happening when Bloedorn makes a delivery!  AND using the Piggy Back!

 

Yep!  That's work!



All switch, outlet and data boxes are nailed in place

Welcome to the crawl space!  This is just the right height for J to help out a ton in!  She can get in and out so quick!  We can squat and not hit our heads, but moving around needs to be done very carefully.  The line in the background is connecting the house to the city water line.  Foreground pipe is not connected yet, so it looks funny...

What could this be?  Why, Yes, that IS the conduit that will connect my solar panels from the roof to the meter at the back of the house!  Contributing to the grid, we will be!



Spaghetti in the ceiling!  Keith has been busy pulling wires everywhere!  Extra lines are also being pulled in.  We have a few ideas for the future of some rooms and are placing the wires in the walls in the event we decide to do these other projects in years to come.  Much easier to do this NOW, when everything is easy to get at. 



Getting those lines to where they count!  Switch boxes!

 

If you take a quick look you can just see 'In Progress', but when you visit everyday you get to see when all the outlet boxes are places and more wiring is in and your fireplace has been framed in. (Dru!  This is for you...see all that pretty light coming in?  Not blocked by a old house anymore!  This has done WONDERS for that room!)



Although this house needs no furnace, the city code requires the house to have a heat source (and apparently they don't think my fridge will be enough ;)  ahhh, how things are a-changin'!).  It's also not romantic to cuddle around the fridge OR knit around the fridge, so we'll be putting in a fireplace.  We could have put in electric baseboards, but really, the same goes for fridges and baseboards...not romantic at all!



Next Steps

Now that the house is gone, Nathan and I have both wondered where something is, with head down walking over to the old house to get it, only to find this:

and this

No House!  :)

It's funny that we spent all this time tearing it down and then walk over to get something out of it!  Old habits die hard, I guess.

Now we are on to the next step.  Wiring the house and calling for an inspection from the city.  Keith already has the lines coming into the house complete.

Nathan will be interviewed by the Billings Gazette later this week for an article on multi-generational housing.  He's also completed his work on a brochure for building a house "Like they used to...Only better".  We will be doing an open house for the public on May 12 after the Montana Women's Run.  Nathan's also made a presentation with Ed Gulick, an architect at High Plains Architecture (he did the design of Good Earth Market and Northern Plains Resource Council, both Green buildings in Billings) to a Environmental Studies class at MSU-B and is planning on also doing a presentation for Senior High School science classes. 

Now off to get flooring samples coming our way!

Demolition Complete!

The last load of demolition debris was hauled away to the dump Saturday afternoon.   Kip and Dru came up from Cody and volunteered for two and a half days for their "Spring Break",  helping Papa and Dan drive truck and dump trailers. Our dear friend Robert helped one afternoon and the next morning.  Kristen and Papa made the last couple of runs together on Saturday.  The last one was quite an adventure, getting one rear wheel stuck in the fine dirt.  After they were pulled out by another dump-goer, the last trip to the dump was complete! Thanks to all for your help!  We can't tell you how much we appreciate it!  Nathan spent the whole time on an excavator, tearing down the old house and loading the debris...

I'll sort through the videos to find some to share later.  I'll also post a picture of what it looks like now.  We've had the sewar line rotor-rootered (we had tree roots everywhere, even through the cast iron pipe, actually breaking the collar!  This was certainly what caused our plumbing problems), we've made the connection to the sewar and the fresh water.  The big hole has been filled and is safe to be around again.  Sure is nice to see the backyard!  We have a lot more sunlight for the garden than I thought we would have!

Photos below:

First load getting ready to go

Garage is gone, bathroom wall is the center doorway.  Happy to see that bathroom go, it was Nasty (notice the capitol 'N'!)

Bathtub and the 'bathroom'

Mr. Bill said it best: "What would you have done without me Snoopervising?!"  Very true!  Bill rode is bike by every couple of hours to check on our progress.

Lots to haul away...and the majority of the house is still standing...

Starting on the main house

Cute guy running the equipment :)

LUNCH! Not your ususal construction worker spread!

I was helping too!  Cutting wires so peices would release from each other.

Bathroom gone, Back entryway gone, working on the kitchen.



Kitchen gone.  This is the corner the stove used to be in.



Yes, that is cardboard and newspaper built into the house.  This was common thorughout the whole tearing down...finding cardboard as insulation.

Happy with our Team Work!

Second Day: House is going bye bye fast now...

J probably spent a couple hours in the digger with Nathan!  She LOVED it!

YEA!!!

And now more mess to clean up...

We can finally see the elevation of the backhouse!  Before now, we had only seen it in drawings!

did I mention there was lots to haul away???

Part of the trick of this was avoiding the 'crawl space' in the center of the house.  We didn't want the digger to go down!  AND we had to be careful while cleaning up.

These two bricks served as part of the 'foundation'.

Kip driving the digger!