Long Time No Blog

Long Time No Blog....

Where has time gone? Its been over 2 years since our last Log House on the Hill update and many things have happened.

*We continue this project
*Husband Perry was struck by lightening INSIDE the house.
 (will blog on that next time)
*We have a beautiful granddaughter who turns two this month.

Time flies...as a matter of fact, a photo is worth a thousand words.
Here is where we left off on the last blog:

And this is where we stand as of  January 2020 from the same view:

We have been busy but we have come to realize...

Sweat Equity Sucks.

$$$

Don't get me wrong, we have had some help building but it's pretty much the 

Perry & Sherri show

  here in 2020.

 We had a crew who laid the  4000+ 12 inch blocks of the basement and foundation. We had a crew who poured concrete for floors and filled some basement walls for us. We had help with laying the plywood floors, drywall and some framing here and there.

But now we just want to be done.

:-)

Things I wish we had:

More money

More beer

More kids

The elevator installed

The spiral staircase installed

More beer

Did I mention more money? :-)

One thing about a self build I have discovered.

It. Is. Fluid.

I have also discovered you must be able to do math to build a staircase.

That is Perry working his math magic and doing multiple staicases

 for 3 levels of house.

I do not "do" math so therefore I do this;

I frame walls.

I operate power tools.

I stack wood. Lots of it.

I supervise...don't judge.

I nailed up wall boards.

I framed. More.

I stained walls.

I nailed plywood on the roof.

and more....so much more.

Lessons I have learned.

When you marry an engineer who is a contractor AND a Scorpio, beware.

They always have ideas, they always are creative and they can sometimes....well....they think they are always right.

Right?? 

We make a good team as long as he is always right.

:-)

Here we are putting up the tongue and groove pine ceiling on the 3rd floor.

It is a beautiful rustic room and we are both loving the views!

                     And when the fog rolls in....it is both eerie and beautiful.

                                 I promise I will blog on this house more.
                     It is a project of love, fortitude, dedication and hard work.

                                                                    AND

If I had known it would take this long to build I would of bought stock in Coors.
                                                             Lots of stock.

                                                             Just sayin'

Until next time. Stay healthy, my friends!

Sawdust in My Lip Gloss

Update #8 Sawdust In My Lip Gloss
Summer 2016 - Early December 2016

What a year it has been!

We did some traveling this year! Ireland and Scotland were toured twice this year for my ghost tour trips I do there.( Celtic Crossing Tours ) We did have a week at the beach this past summer with family and my youngest sister got engaged, so that was pretty cool. We had a great trip to Put in Bay Ohio for my middle sisters birthday, multiple ghosthunts and events in 6 states that I held and oh yeah, that horrific flood that happened June 23.

If you didn't know, West Virginia suffered a 1000 year flood event. Our new house, and the old one as well, were fine. Others around us did not do so well. Our office suffered nearly 2 feet of water in the lower garage area but our houses were fine. It was horrific driving across the state and seeing the damage there. Recovery is still going on in many areas.

These are some flood photos from the area near us and bordering our county.

             

 

            

          This was a road near us...

Yes. It was bad and we were so very lucky to not lose part of the new house.

We were lucky as we are on the side of a hill and our elevation is about 2100 ft.

Construction continued thru rain, heat and humidity.

Basement windows were cut out and went in.

Perry did most of the work knocking and cutting thru the 12 inch basement cinder block.

Sometimes we worked by the truck headlights at night.

If that ain't country!

That was my job.

 Sit in the truck with the headlights aimed at Perry. :-) 

A tough job but somebody's gotta do it, right?

Fall was here and the days were getting shorter, but oh....those sunsets!

Even from the basement window, it was beautiful. 

We had entered year #3 and all I wanted to do

was paint and buy furniture!!!!

Waterproofing the basement was a job I took on. 

DO you know how much waterproofing it takes to do a 4000 sq foot basement? 

Well, to be honest, I didn't have to do ALL of the walls but I did have to do 2-3 coats on the exterior walls and the product had to be hand brushed on.

Yes, hand brushed on. And its like this really, thick heavy mortar type stuff that gets mixed with water. UGH. It was hard work but I tried to view it as a type of cheap therapy that left my fingers numb and my neck and arms sore...but at least it was therapeutic, right? 

75 gallons later and it is DONE!

Framing continued on the 1st and 2nd floor.

SAWDUST got everywhere!

Even in my lip gloss.

I continued framing. I was noticing that I could use the

 airgun nailer with only one hand now instead of having to use two hands. 

 That came in handy because I used the other hand to pick sawdust outta my lip gloss and wipe the mascara off my sweaty sunburned face.

We did some help on a couple of days. Perry's nephew Jack and his friend 

Shane came and helped on a couple of occasions.

I was still framing and some days, I had some help.

I made sure to help Perry as much as I could when he worked the equipment like the Bobcat. Here I am supervising from my gator seat as he dug.

While I was off leading ghosthunts and haunted history tours,

 Perry was home doing this.

                                   

On many of my trips out of state, I would pick up 40-50 

2x4x8's as they were cheaper than what we could pay locally in West Virginia.

 It's amazing what the ghost mobile could hold!

 Perry's truck delivered a few loads as well.

The framing was looking great!

During mid October we somehow acquired a redbone coonhound.

 Perry and my dad found him at the new house one afternoon.

 He was skin and bones and just plain scared. He decided to "keep" us and has put on weight and some character. How can a dog chew on so many things?

Hank MacGregor has adjusted to us and even comes to the job site with us on nice days.

Friends and family swing by to see the progress on occasion.

Hopefully they bring beer or pizza. :-)

We worked on framing the center of the core of the house on the first floor.

Then we had to cover that in plywood. At night....of course.

 My arms got a great workout, that's for sure!

We built the framing for the Great Room and measured for windows and headers. There will be no logs in that room as it is mostly windows and doors.

Perry acting goofy in the Great Room. 

Steps to the 2nd floor went in as well.

I'm not sure how much lumber we have put up so far all I can say 

is it feels like a fortress in there at times.

We did a lot of work at night using big 500 watt lights. This was the Great Room.

Engineer Husband Perry decided we need more workers one evening, so he cloned himself which is clearly evident in this photo. (haha)

December had arrived and we were worried about the weather. 

Log delivery would be coming on December 2nd 2016!

Stay tuned....

Perry & Sherri

Update #7 We've been framed! Spring & Summer 2016

Update # 7 Whew!!!   Spring & Summer 2016

Its been awhile since I last updated our "Little Log House on the Hill" blog.
 Way too long! We have made progress, dare I say? 

We broke ground 3 years ago and to refresh your memory, here is what it looked like at that time when Perry was excavating.

We went from a mammoth hole in the earth to a nice solid 12 inch block basement and foundation. Over 4,000 blocks were laid on our little piece of heaven. (some days were more like Hell)

Some of the  blocks and walls were filled with concrete.

(Just a 'little' reinforcement here and there)

After that, we had to put up some floor joists and make a ceiling for the basement

That's me in the media/theater room. No roof at that time.

Framing began inside the walk out basement.

I learned quickly...how to frame and swing a nail gun around. LOL

We have not had much help with framing construction. 

It's pretty much been the Perry and Sherri show up on our little hill this year.

We did finish putting up a ceiling for the walkout basement apartment and we also framed the rooms over . The basement includes:

2 bedrooms
2 bathrooms
living room
kitchen
laundry room
water storage area
root cellar
wine cellar
theater room

My little root cellar will have a partial gravel floor for the cold storage 

of certain veggies. Guess I will need to start canning,too. 

We also put in basements windows. None got broken.

We dug and installed the line for the septic tank as well

1st story framing began above the walk out basement this summer.

Some days it was 100 degrees on that hot black roofing paper we had laid down to protect the 90 some sheets of plywood we laid down.I used over 15,000 staples in a hand held staple gun. Yep. I had some blisters.

Husband Perry and nephew Jack cutting wood for framing and 

sweating off a few pounds.

We continued framing....

and framing

and framing....

and framing at night as well.

We even framed in the rain.

Perry worked all day at the family store and then most nights until 10pm.....sometimes later.

We lost weight....and our tempers occasionally. 

Perry is a perfectionist. 

We are married.

That's all I need to say.

And oh yeah...we needed some stairs.

Stairway to Heaven?

Perry built the staircases. I'm not very good at math, so I let him handle that part. LOL   Right??

I am just excited for the elevator to go in. Who needs stairs?

While building the steps, I felt as if sometimes I was observing a

 Cirque de Soliel of Appalachian-style acrobatic construction moves.

 Perry was pretty flexible as he hung off boards and climbed up scaffolding. I told him I was glad we had life insurance and I would be sure the 

payments were made on time.

 (we have automatic withdrawal for payments now)

We began building the headers for above the doors and windows. 

Those were lifted into place with the two of us using a scaffold, a ladder, some cuss words and muscle. 

 Sometimes, I will not lie, a beer or two was needed.

It will be worth it.

The view from the Great Room looking westward will be 

beautiful as the sun sets.

Our framing the first floor?

It was pretty much finished late summer 2016.

Now its was time to put the ceiling on the first floor and work on 

framing the 2nd story....

without killing each other, having a stroke in the hot sun or falling off the scaffolding.

We started flooring and framing the 2nd story of our little log house in late summer 2016.

Yep....more to come! 

Stay tuned for the Fall/Winter update coming soon....