This week the focus has been on building rather than socialising, but that doesn’t mean we have been sitting at home by ourselves. We do have a regular visitor who comes to the bird feeders every evening – Rocky the Raccoon (why Rocky? Maybe because he rocks about alarmingly balancing on the balcony railing 20 feet off the ground reaching up to the feeder. Maybe because of this musical reference.)
When we turn the outside light on, he hops down onto the deck and squeezes between the railings to descend down the supporting wooden pillar of the deck.
Another evening event in the week was a neighbourhood meeting out on Porter Springs Road. We are all a bit unsettled that the County Commissioners have given permission for a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility to move into one of the local properties, so we met to discuss the ramifications of this. As can be imagined, we are not totally happy about this. It gave us a chance to meet some of our neighbours to be.
On the Building Site
It seems incredible that it is just over a week since the framing crew arrived to start the phase of creating our new home on the carefully constructed foundations and building slab. That preparation took three months. And now we have the framework of the lower floor, the floor structure for the main level and the framework of the main floor under way. The change in pace is incredible. It will take Milan, Lee and their helpers a time to do everything, but we anticipate that the house will be “in the dry” in about 4 weeks. That will include the roof, walls, exterior doors and windows installed and everything weather tight. Then the work on the interior starts, and the external walls will start being converted from wooden surfaces to finished building.
Our role in this is not the building itself (the pneumatically controlled nail guns terrify me) but in seeking out the component parts down the line. So this week we have been to see garage doors (a painful experience budget-wise – more research called for) and fireplaces (components for two ordered on the spot). Lisa has been busy designing the fireplaces for the components to ft into. We plan on using gas logs rather than real firewood as an emergency heating option if the electricity supply goes down (always a risk out in the country).
Come back next week and find out how the building project is progressing now. There is no rain forecast, which is probably a good thing as we have the well drilling crew arriving for a day with some very heavy machinery.