Happy Boxing Day

On solstice, I was walking in the woods close to our house listening to the hoot owls, and in the middle of nowhere, lying in the leaves was this angel. I felt sorry for her, with her bad Farrah Fawcett 70’s hairdo, so I had to pick her up and bring her home. The dove in her hands came off on the way, which I hope isn’t a bad omen. I was going to give her away, but Jackie thinks we are supposed to keep her.

We are enjoying St. Augustine for a few days. Deirdre's enjoying the 80 degree weather, and Jackie can't believe she's turning on air conditioning the day after Christmas.

Here's how we left the house. Hope it's different when we get back.

(Not Quite) Home for the Holidays

People try to warn you about things, but who really listens. For example, building a house will cost more and take longer than you think. A lot. Here’s the formula: imagine more money than you would ever want to be in debt for, add about 1/3 of what would give you a major anxiety attack in the middle of the night, and figure in a major recession/global financial catastrophe. That’s what it costs. And to figure out how long it will take: multiply by two the number of months that you think you could live out of a suitcase without tearing your hair out, and it will be longer than that by several weeks.
So we carry on, putting together our little Ikea projects and observing the amazing (not in a good way) mud that the grader tells us is only in our area of the county, and he knows mud. On the positive side, the electrical is in, the plumbing’s almost done, the basement ceiling was insulated, and the boiler could possibly, maybe, if there is a Christmas miracle, be installed early next week. We don’t hold our breath anymore.What’s great is the wood stove, which we have seasoned over the past few days (the temperatures have gone from 60’s to 30’s, so just in time). We sat in front of it Sunday and dreamed of living here and having our wonderful friends come visit us!

Ikea - nobody gets hurt

Jackie and I spent yesterday afternoon putting together these dandy dining room chairs. We're getting good at Ikea furniture - and we have plenty more to do to get our kitchen stuff together. Once you get the hang of it, it goes fast and easy, and is relatively painless...unlike some of our other projects!

Drywall

...or gypsum or wallboard, but not Sheetrock (a trademark name), as I was reminded by my friend Debbie who works for Lafarge and has been trying to train us for years, but I slipped. Anyway, the walls are covered and Jackie likes this design the joint compound makes. We may be looking at it for a while. Really. No money for paint... And appliances from Sears arrived. Very exciting day.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving on the other side of the Mason Dixon line. Live and virtual family present (I'm happy with slightly pixelated versions of people I love if they can't be there - thank you Skype), lots of gratitude despite some hardships.

On long road trips, I like to collect odd place names. When we lived in St. Augustine, I wondered how it was for people who had to give their address as "Glimpse of Glory Rd." or "Mosquito Control Rd." Last week we discovered Pigs Ear Rd., Cheater Lake, and Upper and Lower Shut-In Rd. Many years ago we loved Powhite Highway, but we don't drive that way anymore.

Snow Day

There was a dusting of snow today - and school was cancelled here. It's all relative. (Higher elevations do get big amounts, and it's not safe for the school buses.) And no sheetrock today, since workers got snowed in.

We're very happy with the stained glass windows we put beside the front door. They travelled from St. Augustine to Boston, back to FL and now here...

When we get back from our Thanksgiving travels, we should be almost ready for final inspections. Crawling to the finish line!

Seems like a good sign...

...but forget about the pot of gold - it's spent!

Concrete Karma

Seems like fate, after working on the Big Dig (3.8 million cubic yards of concrete), that we'll be living on this slab. It's good to use with radiant floor heat and works well as thermal mass for the passive solar heat. The floor will be sealed next week. Stay tuned for stucco and sheet rock...

A series of tubes...

...not to be confused with the Ted Stevens series of tubes. Radiant floor heat has been around for centuries in different forms. It's very comfortable, efficient and clean. Concrete will be poured on this pex tubing. Our hot water boiler will heat water that will go through these tubes and warm the slab. Deco will be ecstatic, but we're really not doing this just for her!

It was a busy and productive week. The crew installed all the windows, and Jackie and I unloaded the Pod over the weekend. We ask the perennial questions, why so much stuff and why do we keep lugging it around with us?

We really love these Avonni windows - they are aluminum clad outside and wood on the inside. They are manufactured locally and go really well with our metal roof. Glazing is one of the key elements of passive solar heating.

Not sure we mentioned one of the best sources of information about this type of construction - The Passive Solar House by Dan Chiras.

One of these photos shows the glass block that will be over the countertops in the kitchen (reduces the need for daytime lighting - Jackie's good idea!). Chris the Plumber and Jeramy, our project manager, are in this picture.

Halfbacks

People who move from the north to Florida (which they discover is as hot as hell, surprise!), and then halfway back to North Carolina are halfbacks. It's not technically halfway, but there's foliage and snow, so it's very un-Florida like.

We are officially here, but can't move in to our house until the last few details are finished - windows, doors, floors, sheetrock, boiler... Many updates to follow this week!

A little spooky...

...but there's some progress. We were thinking of going up next week, but we're waiting to hear about the gas shortages in Georgia and the Carolinas.

From the holler...

Our clever and talented neighbor, Caroline, combined two local cabins she salvaged - one from 1850, the other 1815 - and built this one which we see from our back deck.
This is what our house looked like when we left Monday. You can see the cut outs for the gable roof for the deck. The small critter in the bedroom is Deco!
Estimated moving date: October 31st.

There's an inside now...

And a beautiful deck! It's been fun to see all the work that's getting done day to day. Wish we could stay longer...

Raising the Roof

It's been exciting to see this part of the project! We're in the process of deciding details now - where to put all the switches, what faucets to use, where will the hammock go (some details less important, obviously) - so it feels like we're really getting closer to maybe trick or treating here. Or at least having Thanksgiving dinner with Jackie's mom.

Intermission/Fay

We know it's been a month, but there were some delays (nothing bad)! We're on our way to visit next week, so we'll see the crane install the roof panels.

We survived Fay intact and dry, and our new door and windows didn't leak, so we were patting ourselves on the back until we got into the car and discovered a large swamp on the floor in the back seat. Oops!

One of the photos is from the kitchen of our friend and soon to be neighbor Beatriz.

Meanwhile, Back at the Beach

While Jackie and I have been waiting for our house in North Carolina to be built, we've been busy with improvements on our cottage in Saint Augustine, Florida. It's a charming little rental by the beach.

We rebuilt decks, installed new windows, put up new fences, and generally tore stuff up and put it back together - better! Quotes from our working together - Jackie: It'll be easy. I saw it on This Old House. Deirdre: #!@& I'm never doing this again!!

Seems like projects never end, but the results are great.

Deco Digs the Decks/Cutest Baby Ever

We stopped back in Weaverville after our visit up north. It was great to see everyone, especially new family member Ted, also known as Cutest Baby Ever. He's only a few months old, but he's promised to come and spend time with us in North Carolina, helping us with the gardens when we're too old and creaky to weed (maybe next year!).

In the photo above where Deco is inspecting her future home the house in the background belongs to our friend and neighbor Beatriz. She and her sister are fantastic glass artists. Check out their work!

p.s. If anyone can help me place the photos on the page where I want them, I'd be grateful!

Also, I forgot to give photo credits - Jackie, of course (except for the one of Ted)!

Sneak Preview/We Love SEED

When we began our search for architects and builders in the Asheville area, we interviewed a lot of professionals who had some "green" expertise. The most knowledgeable and experienced person we found was Kevin Ward from Southeast Ecological Design. (Be careful if you go to this site - you will probably end up needing to move here and have him build your house!) He is very familiar with green building materials and methods, and he is a designer whose aesthetic sense is close to ours (or to Jackie's, more importantly!). He is also a skilled landscape architect and stone mason. He has been very patient with us during this process, (we ask a lot of questions!) and we feel fortunate to have his company building our home.

The pictures above are renderings of the house from the north and the west sides.