wall and roof panels

earth day

i completely forgot to mention that my green kit house arrived on earth day! how perfect!

good luck, sucker

...the last words spoken to me (in jest, i hope) from noah on the phone as the kit rolled away from him and toward me.

ryan asked if i got a lot of 'action shots' of the unloading... and here you go.

the truck

the kit

the inspection (nice ink)

the unloading

a man

a machine

a man, a machine and my straw walls

and i got a boatload of crap (which i am sure is only the beginning) from both of them about being the g.c.
the thermasteel panels are en route and should be here tomorrow.

and finally...

jimmy is a good man. and ryan keeps me laughing.

go go gadget green

i got an email this morning from noah saying...

Jen,
I spoke with a researcher who is looking for "green" projects around Boston for a new Discovery Channel show called Planet Green. They are interested in your house. They would highlight you and your in-progress house, with discussion of the green aspects to your home - everything, including the kitchen sink!

of course my first reaction was "if mike rowe is hosting it then i have already died and am on my way to heaven." well, it's steve thomas (aka this old house)... at least my domestic bliss won't be in jeopardy if this comes to be a reality.

the kit and stuff is coming, gulp!, on tuesday. here are some pics of part of my house sitting at their shop waiting to go on a truck to jimmy's shop.

rafters!

and, uh, stuff!

behold! the bible of noble

...sent to me to by noah, to study and learn from. a second one also arrived, so that i might spread the teachings.

like glass!

unfortunately i only had my cell phone with me, but here is my gleaming studio floor! i love it. i hope the upstairs floor looks this good!


thank you ainsley!

slab is beautiful

these pics aren't so great because it was raining and the dude was cutting the scores, but i looked closely at it and it is GORGEOUS.

stupid mailbox

i got my very first piece of mail in my new mailbox yesterday. it was a real estate tax bill.

anyway. today the slab is supposed to be poured. hooray. and i would be over there chronicling it if i didn't need to get my ass in gear and pack up more stuff to bring to storage, get my truck inspected, oil changed etc. and some painting done. i should be able to get over there at some point before dark.

so, here we are, half way through march

i am getting an application for gas service in the mail. the plumbing inspector is due at the lot on friday, so anytime after that the slab can be poured. money is pretty much non-existent. i am completely convinced it will all fall into place though (i can't think otherwise or i would have a breakdown). the scheduled date for the kit's arrival is april 15th (i also owe a good chunk of change to the fed that day).

i met the former owner of the land the other day. she was so great. i loved her.

i am also in the process of trying to move all my stuff out of my current space by the end of march. thank god for my knight in shining armor, as shannon calls him. my temporary studio (and furniture storage) is in a very nice big and bright industrial bay in eastham that i am renting from raquel and jason. and lou, thanks for the moving help so far.

below is a pic of my kitchen sink. i bought it from a good good friend, for much less than it should have been. it's giant. it's an antique soapstone double bowl farm sink. and it weighs 250 lbs. um. help?

!!!!!

let's put all this foundation business behind us

this morning i met with kevin and ira... and they were very patient with the 'unconventional' plans. we'll make it all work, i'm sure. i also spoke to junior and he is gonna throw the two ground rods in sometime this week. so the slab should be able to happen next week.

things to look forward to...

http://brengelmannoblehome.blogspot.com/
checking out their blog has me completed excited to move past all this foundation business and get this show on the road! ryan, you have to check this out because there are a lot of little tricks that they are discovering that will help down the road.

as of today

i spoke to kenny about waterproofing. everyone on cape knows about my foundation. it has a bad rep. anyway, he is checking it out. i went over this morn and shoveled dirt away from the foundation. i also noticed that the gas lines were already marked on the far side of the street where we need to go for the electric. there's a pole directly across from the small cleared drive jimmy put in for utility trenches. still need to get ahold of the water dept. to see where the water main is. but the kit is ordered and unless the foundation is condemned i suppose we are moving forward. here's the pole for posterity, and the number.

the foundation fairy

the one positive note

in a complete reversal of her former self, friday is actually starting to like contractors.

the issues

many things in the works

well. the foundation is poured. the waterproofing is ordered and going on next week. the foundation survey is ordered. as soon as that stuff happens the foundation needs to get inspected, then the electric can get ordered. the footwork is under way to get a good price on moling under the street for electric. the plumbing pipe is supposed to be dug-in next week. and the joists and framing is about to begin (as soon as i get the as-built approved). i need to find out from ryan if he needs me to get the corrugated flooring that goes over the joists and takes the cement before backfilling takes place. still haven't ordered the kit (gulp!). here's what it looks like right now.

here's a close-up of the ICF's (insulated concrete forms). they look just like styrofoam packing material. because basically that's what it is.

so actually work did continue today...

um. snow.

a lot of freaking snow. like a foot of freaking snow. heavy, wet, sticky snow. (which is beautiful to look at, but kills transmissions on plow trucks and makes a nasty burning transmission-y smell, and if you couple that with the smell of pickles... well, let's just say it's a very questionable combination)

the upside to the snow was that i got to ride shotgun with the plowmaster. this was very cool for many reasons. i love nasty weather, i love riding around in nasty weather, i love trucks, i love trucks that kick ass in nasty weather, i love getting ideas for paintings while riding around in trucks that kick ass in nasty weather. i don't love pickles. so kudos for jimmy for not kicking me to the curb until almost 2am. because i know i am a pain in the ass but he is just starting to find this out. (revised plow lessons i learned last night. 1. things break 2. you can sing the plow song you made up for 7 hours straight 3. keep the plow driver awake without touching him)

i do very much hope i still get to ride shotgun the next time it snows.

oh, so basically there will be no work on the foundation, and for how long, i don't know.

they started the foundation...

waterproofing quandry

i am on the fence about my foundation waterproofing. i don't know whether to go the way of a spray on waterproof or a peel and stick rubber membrane. it seems to me there are pros and cons on either end of this. cost being one of them. i have about a week to decide what to do. if anyone has any opinions on this... please let me know. i do have tons of info on both products, just no real world experience with them. thank you jimmy for asking around for me on that. and thank you for going back and pulling the dirt away and not punching anyone in the head, namely me.

in the meantime... they are delivering the forms this morning and should be cranking on assembling a foundation this afternoon. the window bucks need to be set into the forms before the concrete is poured, that's how i will get those cool windows going down to the studio level. ryan busted those out this week. thank you ryan. at some point i am supposed to meet sanchez or junior or someone at the site to talk shop on the electric service and what kind of damage i am looking at for going underground.

damn

a punch in the head

ok, so there will be earth moving this afternoon. and hopefully there will be no foundation dudes present at the time.

the very tiny cave in

i was hoping to save jimmy from a trip to the lot by taking these pics...

now some gratuitous dog pics...

oof

so i just got a call from bo the foundation dude and he needs jimmy to go back and pull more dirt away from the foundation on the driveway side because of a small cave-in that could become a bigger one... eesh. also found out the foundation is even more money with waterproofing stuff. eeeeesh. jen not happy. jimmy really not happy. i am going to run over there and see what's up right now. then i am going to go to dinner and eat copious amounts of raw fish and seaweed and drink myself into a sake stupor.

footings

after i was told that jimmy did the most perfect job on digging the cellar hole (no, i had no doubts that he would have) by one of the foundation dudes named bo, they put the footings in.

uh... wow

ok. here is what happened over the course of about 2 hours, or how long it took me to go see a movie that was supposed to be about vampires, but i instead spent the whole time worried that the dog would die and then when she did, i cried my eyes out.

january

of course i did catch some shit about this slope, it's ever increasing angle, and how i will pay dearly if the machinery slides down it.

all permit-ed up

finally in late december... i have a building permit. i don't have any money to start the kit yet, but hey, why worry over the little details.

in late november...

i finally walked the lot with the guy who was going to excavate it. he wanted to calm me down because on the phone i sounded a little anxious about everything. i mean, wouldn't you be? what the hell did i get myself into here.

about the kit, the lot, and the patron of the arts

ok. where to start. my friends lou and fred and i went out for some drinks before a movie. i decide we should all brain storm about ways to come up with money to buy this land i fell in love with. some ideas involved bank robbery, internet porn, the macarthur genius grant and i think pole dancing came up. fred finally stepped in with 'well i could buy it and you could have a mortgage with me'. silence. surely he must be kidding. we go to the movie and don't speak of it again. the next day lou calls and says 'i think fred was serious'. followed by 'i didn't want to say it at the time, but, you SHOULD'.

the rest of the summer was filled with things like perc tests. a super fantastic real estate agent named amy who was seemingly sent straight from above to help me. lawyers (hi tom). a crazy builder guy who got canned. the putting together of the 'dream team' with the help of jason my septic engineer. and finally meeting ryan (oh my god you are so young) over at the lot to talk logistics. oh, and where i am going to come up with the materials for the type of house i want, and not have to resort to any of the things mentioned in the first paragraph to pay for it.

i suppose i could go on and on about all the reasons i chose a noble home kit. but, since they have already gone to the trouble of doing it on their website... you can just read what they wrote. http://www.noble-home.net/ i found out about them on treehugger.com (i know, i know)

i had originally thought i was the first guinea pig to order one, turns out i am the second. and lucky for me, the first ones started a blog of their own about the process. they are a few weeks ahead of me. http://brengelmannoblehome.blogspot.com/

i think it was april

i did a search of available land under a certain price and came upon this lot.
when i walked out into the open meadow at the bottom of the hill, it was like angels started to sing.

ok. so i had to look past the super steep slope, the weird rock garden that looked like a ufo landing pad, the boat parked there and the fact i had no money.

but still... birds were singing and the air smelled like pine, i was only 3/4 of a mile to the bay, and dammit my dog would sure love this place.