Little House in the Big Woods - From the Ground Floor Up

 

 We start back in Square One.

Rising up from the basement level, stairs climb to the ground floor.

Inside Square One is a daylight basement, three concrete walls are all that remain standing in Square One after the house was burned by arsonists on Halloween of 2016. 

Building code requires framed walls to cover the concrete walls left standing after the fire. I ask that a bedroom also be roughed-in in the basement. After some difficulty in locating a framing crew for the job, the basement framing gets underway on November 2, 2021. At last! A tangible start.

A significant redesign changes what is needed to span the basement and give support for the ground floor on top of the basement walls. The architect had trusses going across the open expanse with no support. The contractor and the truss company rep agreed; as designed, that large of a span would give me a 1 1/2 inch bounce in my floor as I walked across my living room if there was not additional structural support added to where the architect had none. Solution: Add a large beam across the middle of the basement to support the trusses. Done - for a few more dollars.

Framing the living space on redesigned floor trusses

Everything is a few dollars more. 

More truck loads of lumber arrive and are stacked on site. The framers, after waiting twelve days for the floor trusses to arrive, can now add the decking for the first floor and build my house up from there. The crew is from Mexico and they prefer to work on Thanksgiving and make a few dollars more, rather than celebrate an obscure Yankee holiday tradition. I hand each member of the crew a $20 bill as a holiday bonus on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. 

I leave the next morning for Turkey and all the fixin's after they arrive on Thursday morning at my sister's place in Tumwater to feast and give thanks.

The walls go up! The dream house takes form.

 

The walls go up, defining the rooms of the house that existed only on paper and in my dreams. For years I have walked into these rooms in my mind, now I step up on a real floor, my footsteps are audible as I and walk between tangible wall studs. I'm walking out of a dream into reality - or, is it the the other way around?

Living room bay window view east toward the Back 40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dining room - A room with a view

Looking across the landscape from the front porch

Either way, there is reason to give thanks for dreams becoming reality.