Home Stretch (For the plaster at least...)

Playing a little bit of catch up with the posting, as there hasn't been a whole lot of visible differences on the site in a while. The crew has been hard at work finishing up the plastering, which has proved to be one of the more grueling projects on the house so far.

Dixie brought the sprayer in for the last time, finishing the coats on the upper east and north walls and the upper south side which includes the bathroom dormer. The walls really look fantastic. We ran into an issue on the lower section of the west wall, which unfortunately has set us back and will have to be re-done. The sand in the mix for the final coat of the earth plaster was too fine, causing the layers to crack. Too bad, cause man it looked nice and smooth before it dried! The crew will remove the last layer and reapply a rougher mix. We're hoping to have all the walls complete in the next week or two.

Other exciting projects have been completed recently. We now have electricity run in the house and we've installed a few lights in the kitchen. One of my favorite recent advancements has been the installation of the staircase to the second floor (pictures coming soon) It's amazing how it changed the look of the space.

Piper has been working hard planing down the redwood planks from the old silo to get ready to install as the second story flooring, the next project on the list after the plastering is complete.

Finished Stucco

The east walls are mostly finished and boy do they look fantastic! The interior needs another coat upstairs and the exterior between the windows need done by hand. The south walls are also looking great, we can really get a sense of what the rooms will look like. The picture shows the south wall of the living room. We also are a few days away from getting power at the site! Moving right along!

movin dirt

We got our excavator Rusty out again this week to start moving around dirt, working on drainage and digging out trenches for running the electric. With the help of his backhoe, we were able to move the existing electric pole from the west side of the house to the east side of the driveway. Unfortunately with no auger, Piper dug the 5-1/2 foot post hole by hand. My back hurt just watching him. It was pretty cool watching Rusty chain the pole to his bucket and drop it into place.

It was also very exciting to get the front yard leveled out again. The gears in my brain are turning like mad imagining the garden we'll start on next spring. The concrete pillars for the wrap around front porch were dug and poured this week and Piper and I will start framing tomorrow.

We pulled the pine logs off the back hill from the tree we dropped in April and hauled them down to our local sawyer, who will mill them into some wide planks for use in making benches and other random projects.

Rusty will be back again tomorrow and in a few weeks to dig out a root cellar into the hill which will house our homebrew, wines, and canned food. We'll use the clay mined from the dig to add into the plaster mix that will cover the walls of the house.

prepped for footer and power!

Piper and I met with AEP this morning about where the power lines will come in. After going through many options, we agreed on setting a pole on the far side of the driveway, which will avoid having the unsightly meter attached to the house.

The trench is dug and we're ready for the footer to be poured. Piper is off to buy the plumbing supplies and we'll soon be underway!