Worked with Peter on another house to earn some money to support my building habit. Got some experience sheetrocking and spackling. Tomorrow, I build! Maybe. :-)
February 20th
I had been having trouble putting my window trim together because it kept splitting. I finally figured out that I could nail one piece up at a time directly to the house, instead of trying to nail all the pieces together like a picture frame first. Boy, that makes it easier! I trimmed all the windows and the door on the ground floor. I have to typar the second story before I can trim the loft window. I'm a little leery of Peter's stapler. The last time I used it it broke, and he had to get a new one. Do I dare use it again? :)
February 17th
Moved the sink and stove to nail down the floor underneath them. When I put the floor down, I only nailed the edges of the plywood, so I could move on to other things. Jeez the stove is heavy! It's got 6 burners, a oven, a broiler, and two pull-out rectangle things I can't figure out what you use them for. Ultra-broiling maybe? Bread rising?
February 24th
Peter and I tore down some old scaffolding on the outside of the house and built some new stuff inside. Also, traced the outline of the shelf needed outside to hold up the stovepipe, and then put a section through the wall.
My window is coming soon! Near the start of next month I'll hopefully be able to put in the window and close off that last gable end. What I really need now is a wodstove....
February 25th
Tore down an old dock and started to build a new one on the local pond. It's actually not bad building a dock through the ice, because you have something to stand on. The bad thing is it's just as much of a pain to dig dirt holes as it is to chip through ice. We wound up using the chainsaw instead :)
March 17th
Gosh, I hardly have time to work on my own house anymore! Instead, I've been working in town on a renovation of a huge victorian style house. The perks are great though - I actually have money now!
I stripped down a window I got at the house we're renovating and framed up an opening for it at the unfinished gable end. Then a prospective field hippie came by...after he left, mom and I went grocery shopping. That was it for the day.
When I get the time, I'm going to build a couple small windows to put on either side of the big one.
March 31st
It's all closed in! Woohoo! No more breezes! :-) The temporary scafolding Peter helped me put up for that last gable end wall is pretty cool. I like standing on it an looking across to my sleeping loft.
April 4th
My house is becoming famous! Today I co-taught a workshop on framing up a shed for the Women Can Do Conference. A website with some pictures on that is HERE.
For the first half of the day I sat beside my display on my house and answered questions. During registration the girls (over 325) had a sheet of paper with questions. If they got 5 right in a row, (like bingo) they won a prize. One of the questions was about me - "Find Heather Martin and ask her why she is an exceptional person" I love that question. :-) And I'm not even the one who wrote it!
April 5th
Today I coerced Peter into helping me move a bohemoth woodstove from a neighbors' house to mine. It's a Vermont Castings Defiant stove. It happens to be the biggest and heaviest they make :-)
Getting it up into my house wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. We used rollers and slick wood boards to surf it over the snow, and a lot of muscle to get it up over my chest-high doorway.
I'll become an indentured servant for a little while later this month to pay for the stove via garden work. Good deal! :-) The people I got it from are really nice.
April 5th, again
Mom called from a conference she's at in Ontario, Canada.The conference is about individual development acounts for poor people. The IDA program is how I managed to save all the money ($4,500) to build my house.
When mom got up to speak about her experience (She saved with them to improve the house) she mentioned me, and how I'm building my own house. The word is spreading! Tomorrow, another speaker is going to mention me as a good example of what an IDA can do for folks. Can you imagine people touting ME as a good example? :-) I think hell just froze over...
April 21st
Uhhh...did something. I'll write it in when I remember :-)
April 23rd
My little house looks fine, nothing seems to have cracked or moved after the earthquake. Phew!
It's been so sunny and nice lately that a few days ago I ordered my siding, with some stain, paintbrushes, and nails to be delivered. It snowed 6 inches last night. Ick!
The stain that I'm using costs $180 for 5 gallons! It officially set me over my original $4,500 deposit to the lumber company. Good thing I'm almost done.
Today the siding got delivered, Peter worked on my stovepipe shelf support, and I did some wiring. Pretty slow day. I can't wait to start staining! I really enjoy it.
April 24
Today I put siding a few courses up past the windows on one of my 24 foot walls. The siding is so pretty and smooth. I can't wait to start staining!
The lumber place dropped off my 5 gallons of stain, but I still need to buy brushes.
Oooh, ooh! I found my hammer today! It's been lost since February (?) I had been using moms hammer, but was almost ready to buy another. I really like the feel of mine - it's bigger and heavier.
May 12
Put up some siding on the 14 foot wall before going out for mother's day brunch. It rained and snowed the rest of the day. Ick!
May 19
Used the chainsaw for the very first time today! Cut down a little tree and shortened two stumps. Started to clean out all the rock piles underneath and near my house, to build an herb spiral with them out front.
On the 17th, we had a Goddard College Permaculture class come by. All the students were impressed with my house. It made me feel good. :-)
May 27th
I got some new toys! I bought my dream saw ... a 12 inch blade, double mitre, sliding chop saw from DeWalt. And it was on sale! It only cost six hundred dollars. :-)
I also went garage saleing with mom yesterday. I bought a bread machine, cappuchino maker (With steamer and milk frother), a pinapple shaped cutting board, lots of different and cool shaped glass bottles, a wooden bread box, wooden potato and onion box, wooden spice rack, a really fancy outdoor light for near my door, a waffle maker, and a couple of army ranger handbooks. I thought about buying the slate flooring, but didn't have enough money....
Played with my new saw and put up a few courses of siding, but I've mostly been working in the garden all weekend.
June 16 2002
Sometime during the past week I mixed and poured a cement pad for my imminent stair building project.
I also bought a brand spankin' new stove. It turns out my last one had a crack up the back that would have cost more than $500 to fix. I figured I was better off getting a new stove. :-)
My new stove is a Quadra-Fire 2100 Millenium model. I picked it because it had a high efficiency, and it was a simpler design than a lot of the other stoves. Less things to break and replace.
