Week starting 20th October – The next building problem, Lisa gets all British and mobile
It was inevitable that “things” would arise to upset the smooth progress of our house build. The first holdup was the revised design of the lower floor to accommodate the steep slopes of the land. We discussed this with Mike Garrell, the architect, and agreed on a revised design a month back. But at the same time as the lower floor was sorted out, Mike spotted a hitherto unnoticed problem on the original plans with the roof design and committed to fix this at the same time as the lower floor redesign. However, the official architect’s plans are still not available, and Bill the Builder is starting to get a bit twitchy about this. We went with Bill to see a second house he is working on, which is a couple of weeks further on to see what lessons we could pick up here on things like damp roof courses and the like. We then went with Bill to a local builders showroom to examine windows and other materials – and at that stage the next bombshell dropped. Some decisions on design and materials are needed very soon, one of which is now supercritical – the beams which hold up the roof.
You might think that rafters in the roof is not a very difficult decision – strong enough would have been my only criteria normally. But in the case of our house, one of the big design features which sold us on it was the “Lodge Room” – the main sitting room of the house. This had a complex decorative beam structure – and these are not just pretty, as they are the ones holding the house together. As per picture, it has a high vault with fairly fancy features (some of which are structural). We don’t really need quite such a medieval church/hammer beam feel. But certainly we weren’t happy when we saw something in the house we visited in Suches last week that Bill believed we would like and was relatively cheap – RSJs boxed in with wooden boards and then stained and roughened up to look hand hewn, with no other details like crosspieces at the apex. We were expecting to get proper decorative trusses from a specialist manufacturer. OK, more expensive than the economy model, but it misses the point altogether. Bill is happy to go with the decorative option, especially as it doesn’t really blow the budget to smithereens. But he needs the beams several weeks earlier than the quoted delivery time! So, Lisa has been in highpower organising mode. The beam maker is holding out a crumb of hope – he says that he believes a major piece of work they had scheduled is being delayed until January, so they would be able to construct our beams in a nick of time. But we won’t know until Monday for sure, and then we will probably need to do a lightning dash to South Carolina to check everything over and pay for the work. Nobody said that this will all be plain sailing.
Another little issue with the build for us is that the house is about quarter of mile into the woods, uphill and down dale along a very roughly ”gravelled” roadway (fist-sized rocks). Not some something Lisa can walk along, and not very friendly towards our nice white cars. And we anticipate that over the next two months we will need to be on site most days to ensure that what we want does happen. We had been planning in due course to buy a rough terrain vehicle to reach the far corners of the estate, carry stuff to and from the veg patch, etc. So we have bitten the bullet and bought a hunky Polaris Ranger (see picture), complete with tipping back bed. It comes in a number of colours including pillar box red, brilliant blue and America’s favourite colourway, camouflage – we stuck with a delicate forest green. Definitely nowhere near as machismo as the second-hand machine that our concrete contractor offered to sell to us – a bright red four seater with a seriously aggressive attitude (gunracks optional), no real carrying capacity and far too much testosterone (reputedly capable of 85mph overland!).
Lisa has also been combating any potential homesickness I might feel. With the might of the Internet behind her, she found a website which specialises in supplying British essentials to expatriates pining for home comforts. She put in an order for delicacies like chocolate digestive biscuits and fruit cake as well as some exotic spices not available here. A boxfull turned up in short order – airfreighted from Bristol. The company in question does a good trade in supplying the world from Waitrose, M&S and Tesco websites (but not Sainsbury’s for some reason). We have also found that one public channel on TV rebroadcasts BBC World News at 5am every morning, so that is on repeat record for viewing later in the day. And to fill a real gap in Lisa’s life – an Internet radio which is now permanantly locked on the BBC Radio 4.
Next week
The leaves are still slowly turning colour. But will we see the final show? The weather has taken a significant shift to cold – strong frosts predicted for the next couple of days. That may stop the leaf show before it gets really started. And we have switched house systems from air conditioning to central heating, dug out fleecy jackets and bought a new blanket.
– Halloween is coming (the shops have been full of costumes and candy for a month now – what is the American obsessions with ghosts, vampires and the walking undead?) – I am not sure if there will be a lot of children out demanding trick or treat in Waggon Creek.
– And will we be off to South Carolina to check out rafters?
Come back soon to see our progress.