Relaxing day visiting with friends

 Today was just a day about enjoying our new house and sharing it with a few friends. We packed some lunch and headed up to Gull Lake Ranch.
Jackie, our realtor wanted to come by and see the place. We haven't had a chance to really spend any time with her since she helped us with the land purchase back last fall. Although she is our closest neighbour, she seems to be the one neighbour who hasn't been over to "snoop" around the new construction.

 As we turned on to Campbell Range Road, we saw Bob (the builder). He had unloaded the windows and doors up into the house, put the shingles on the roof for the roofers tomorrow, and was taking his crane and flatdeck trailer back to his yard. He gave us the good news that the house would be finished to lock-up by Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest! He was pleased with how the house was coming together and complimented us on the views from our deck. He offered that Carl (the framing supervisor) would help us mount the solar panels if they arrived before they finished the house. That IS good news!
We had taken our chain saw with us, with the intention of finding a downed log that we could cut a diagonal chunk from. We wanted to put our street numbers on the slice and mount it near the entrance to the driveway. We found a likely candidate (log) in one of the small piles of trees that had been removed to make way for the driveway, but before we could set to cutting the piece we needed, Jackie and her daughter arrived for a visit.

It was great to see her! She loved the house and was full of encouraging words for all the work we still had ahead. Jackie and her family have just gone through a 3 year build on their new house. Apparently their place is spectacular! We'll find out next week when we go for a reciprocal visit.
After they left, we moved the truck down to the wood pile and got started cleaning up the roots and branches around the log we wanted to use. This is my first real use of our chain saw, a Stihl MS 290, and it worked great - I still need some work on my technique, but the saw was wonderful. Our friends Bud and Lea Thorson and their son Carl, from Dreamscape Ranch, chose that moment to arrive for their visit. Carol took them up to show them the house while I finished with the chainsaw.
It was great to show the Thorsons our new place. They have all been great friends and supporters since we arrived in Kamloops and we wanted to share our excitement with them. A year ago, when we first looked at this property, Buddy had told us to just be patient. He said that sometime in the future he would be sitting on our deck drinking a beer and enjoying the view. Today was that day!
We spent the next hour or so munching on cheese and crackers and just enjoying being with our friends. Thanks for coming guys.
They decided that since it was getting late they should be on their way and we weren't far behind them. We packed up our stuff, jumped in the truck and headed for Knutsford.

We have a roof over our heads

 After a rainy evening up here in Knutsford, Saturday dawned a little brighter and dryer. I use the word "little" carefully, as you would have to be living here this year to notice much difference at all. However, it wasn't actually raining when we left to go into town. We dropped off our recycling, picked up Alex, did some grocery shopping, picked up a book on electrical wiring and then headed up to the new house in Barnhartvale.
The temperature was down to only 11*C by the time we arrived, but at least the driveway was dry. Joey raced back and forth in front of the car as we wound our way up to the house. We honestly don't know where she gets the energy, but she really loves to dash through the forest and then bound across the road in front of us, only to repeat it over and over again. She did finally slow down as we got close to the house - just as well as we were exhausted just watching from the comfort of the car seats.

 The house looked amazing! The roof was almost complete and the eaves were all in place. You could really see the final shape of the building now. We are so happy that we chose this design. It looks beautiful standing on the hillside, looking out across the valley spread out below.
We noticed that the remaining house materials were now on site. The windows, doors and siding were still on the trailer parked next to the crane, waiting for their turn to be unloaded and lifted into position.
We had brought lawn chairs and lunch with us, so with a couple of saw horses and a piece of plywood for a table, we sat on the deck and munched on our cheese, grapes, and trail mix. Apparently, it was lunch time for the local mosquitoes as well! They feasted on us for their meal.
Brian Foley and Louise de Marni (the original owners) stopped by for a snoop and a visit. They seemed quite impressed with the house and commented on the view from the deck. Carol showed Louise around inside the house while Brian told us about his "stent" operation earlier in the week. He was obviously doing well!
Sorry, the views of the house seem to be all the same now with minor changes each post.I guess we will have to wait for the windows and siding before it looks dramatically different again.

Pics can be expanded

This is not really a "new post" per se, but perhaps a clarification for those of you not familiar with these blogs. Any picture you see in the "posts" we put up here, can be "clicked" on to expand the image to allow you to see more detail. Try it if you haven't done it before!

Tuesday evening we had arranged to go to Barnhartvale and pick up a Kenmore clothes washer that we found on Craigslist. It was a great deal and it was something we were definitely going to need. It seemed silly to cart it all the way back home, only to have to load it and move it back up to the house in a few weeks, so we decided to put it straight into the basement at the new place. Being the summer solstice, the weather gods had finally relented and thrown us a bone. It was a beautiful 27*C day for the official first day of summer. We had a nice drive up to the house, enjoying the fruits of my Sunday labour - a driveway with fewer holes and ruts.

We were excited to see that all the plywood decking had been installed all the way around the house. It makes the place look bigger! Many of the roof rafters were also in, with the roof sheathing started over the master bedroom. It was nice to see the shape of the eaves and, of course, led to imagining how the finished house was going to look. Very exciting!

We managed to lower the washer out of the truck box without causing any damage to it or our backs. After sliding it over the basement threshold on a couple of 2x12 planks, we were able to roll it into an out-of-the-way corner and covered it with a tarp. It was kind of cool to realize that we had started to move in!

A few more pics

 I did get up and worked on levelling the driveway portion on our property (I will still have to spend some time working on the Crown Land portion another day). I ran into Brian Foley (the previous owner) who was up checking out the progress on the house. We chatted for a while and I met his son (Brian, also) who offered to do some fencing for us. After refusing his offer of a beer, we parted ways and I carried on my grading work. I did take a break and took some more pics of and from the house.

 This one above, is taken from the top of the scaffold the guys are using to work on the framing up by the ridge beam. It shows the views to the northwest side of the house.
The image on the right is looking down at the deck from the scaffold. The ground is more than 25 ft. below me! The deck here extends 10 ft. from the house. Those posts are solid 6"x6" fir and support laminated 4"x12"pressure treated beams. The deck joists are 2"x12" pressure treated fir. The decking will be 3/4" plywood and will be covered with a waterproof coating, and hopefully, glass railings to allow us to enjoy unimpeded views.

 This shot is taken again, from the scaffold, looking down at the main stairway. Below it, you can see the opening for the stairway to the  basement. Our wood stove will be situated in the "crook" of the stairs, almost the exact centre of the house.

Another shot of the stairs, this time from the living room space. You can see the enormous beams and the beautiful post that supports them. I don't know if you can see the detail, but where the post is temporarily supported by braces, the contractor has wrapped the post with towels and built a box around that to which the supports are attached. All this so as not to mar the varnish finish on the post. Although not framed in yet, the master bedroom will have only a 3 ft. wall on the east end, leaving the rest open to the views from the front windows. It will also allow heat from the fireplace to circulate more easily to the loft area.

The ridge beam is in

Saturday was supposed to be a dull day so we decided to move our little tractor up to the site so we could work on improving the driveway surface before the hot sun of summer baked it hard like concrete (like it's ever going to be hot and sunny here ever again!). It took about 3 hours to drive the tractor on the back roads all the way from our current home in Knutsford to the new place in Barnhartvale. We did have one little stretch of Hwy 5A to do - about 5 km of very steep, downhill, winding curves to get us down to Campbell Creek Road. It was an interesting but uneventful trip with everyone I passed, smiling and waving like we were best friends!

As I drove up the last few hundred metres of our driveway, I could see the house in the distance. The big ridge beams were in! And most of the deck framing was complete. The place looked really cool!
I am going up again today (Sunday) to work on the driveway so may have some more pictures after that.

Framing moving along quickly

After seeing the progress last weekend, we thought that we had better start getting up to the new place more often. Things are starting to move quickly now.
As you can tell from the pictures, it was NOT a very nice day. We had received quite a deluge on Tuesday night before we went to bed and as per the norm this year, everything was soggy in the morning.


[an aside: since moving to Kamloops, everyone keeps telling us how the weather is "so strange" and "not normal". Well lately we've come to accept that everyone must be lying to us! The weather this year has been anything but conducive to building up high in the hills!]


Anyway, we put the little Suzuki into all wheel drive and slogged up Robbins Range Road and then through the Crown Land and finally, up Sinclair Road to the building site. The view as we crested the final hill was very exciting. The front of the house had the "prow shaped" framing up and the second floor was up and sheathed. Wow, it looked amazing! Talking to the framing supervisor, Carl, we found out that they he was expecting to be finished by the end of next week! OMG, we'd better get busy and get the solar stuff out here so they can put it on the roof for us. Lots for us to do now...

What a difference a week makes

After being so excited to see our basement last weekend, you have no idea what it was like to motor up the driveway and see a house there this weekend! Well, okay, not an entire house, but walls, the main floor, window and door openings, sheathing and building wrap - Wow!
Carol bolted out of her seat before the car had even stopped moving and raced to the "steps" to go and look inside. The steps were actually just a 2x10 with a few scrap pieces of lumber nailed to it.
Nonetheless, it let us get into our "house". We had walls, doorways, window openings and hallways. We could really get a sense of the space now and it is going to be wonderful! It's funny how the apparent space seems to expand and contract as the house moves through the stages of construction. Carol had noticed the same phenomenon when building her cottage in Ontario

. We were impressed by the size of the windows in the bedroom and the laundry room. The basement is awesome, too. There will be no posts down there other than the framing for the utility room and stairs. It gives us a large, open room the full length of the house, over 40 feet.  big windows at the front allow tons of light into the big, open space - just like we had envisioned. The floor has been prepped ready for concrete and the plumbing drain rough ins are all done. Outside, most of the forms for the piers that will support the deck are in place. We suspect that they will pour the floor and piers on Monday.
I have to say that I was very excited today. It looks awesome!

Basement Update

The weather has finally given us a break. Today was forecast to be 29*C with sunny skies, and that weather should continue for at least a few more days. Finally! Bob came to see us on Friday and reported that we had passed another inspection - this time for waterproofing of the basement walls and approval of the drain tile around the foundation. He added that he had then backfilled around the basement. So, now, finally,we are ready to start framing the house! Roll on summer.
Since the weather was warm and dry we decided to take the car up to see the progress. While we had to be careful with the large diameter rocks on the Crown Land portion of the driveway, we easily made it all the way to the house. In fact, the driveway was in excellent shape. It is hard to imagine that only two days ago, even 4x4 pickups were having problems navigating the slick mud on this same road. It just goes to show what a few days of good weather can do. Joey, of course, took off in search of the nearest open body of water, finding the shallow pond up by the fairway on the 1st hole (that's another story, I'll tell you about later). She trotted back down to the basement, absolutely dripping wet - she loves playing in the water!

We took a few photos, drank in the views for a while, and then set out for home. It is wonderful to finally see some progress at our site.