Back in my element

Unfortunately I got a late start today since nothing in NH opens until 10 on Sunday, and I might have slept in a bit...  But mostly it was the store hours I swear.

The first thing I noticed is that my standard bed is not really big enough for 12 foot boards.  I was hanging several feet off the right side and out the back several feet.  I cinched it down tight enough not to go anywhere, but there was enough hanging out that I could have easily clipped some street signs and mailboxes if I had wanted to.


All 6 8 footers and 13 12 footers for the joists are there in the bundle.


I was a bit rusty at swinging a hammer, but it quickly came back to me.  I got pretty much all of the framing done/joists installed, but it isn't done yet.


I still have to install the supports that go in between the joists.  Unfortunately since I don't have power up there yet, I lost over an hour just getting the boards cut, since I had to drive home, cut them, and then drive back.  I plan on calling the power company this week to see if I can convince them to turn the juice on.


This is how I handled the joint in the frame, which naturally had a joist in the middle of it.


The sunset view from the shed.  It will be nice when I get the tree house put up on top of the hill.  Sadly that is a long ways out though...


It's a tarp!  Tarped it up since we are supposed to get rain, and I have a busy week ahead.  Hopefully it holds up, it was an 8 dollar tarp from harbor freight.


I also picked up a free faucet and a toilet tonight.  The toilet will likely be use to make portable facilities.

My eyeball needs massive recalibration...

Working in the cold wind today was less than fun, but everything is ready for the frame and floor and I started picking up the trash.  As the title suggests, it was a lot more work than expected though.  I thought they had looked reasonably level when I laid down the original bricks...  I was wrong.  A lot.

I ended up getting another 15 larger bricks.  On a side note, while I haven't been too impressed with the massive engine in my truck, I only barely noticed a difference with the 15 bricks (550 lbs) in the back.


But all the bricks and 4x4 runners are down now.


And level too:


I still have plenty of spare block should I need it.


The wind has been howling.  My pathetic attempt at covering my lawn mower didn't go well.


All in all, there wasn't really any damage from the nasty weather the past week.  The water levels are still high, but have gone down a lot, and in a reminder that it is still winter, the creek has a layer of ice on it, though I wouldn't walk on it anymore.



There was a little bit of washout, but the it was all in the driveway which was already a disaster.


Hopefully there will be another update tomorrow with the framing complete.  I also got to watch a nice sunset form my front yard.

The flood

The last two days we have gotten an enormous amount of rain, and there is a lot of flash flooding going on.  While I didn't expect the property to flood, I was curious how well it was handling the large amounts of water.  The property seems to have handled it rather well.  I apologize for the pictures, but it was dark and my camera doesn't have a beefy enough flash on it.

So the massive defrost that hit the driveway has spread to the hill up by the shed, even walking up there causes several inch holes now.



The creek was quite high, but not even close to overflowing its banks, though by the time I got up there the worst of it was long since gone.



Interestingly enough, my Nissan seems to handle the mud better than my truck.  They both have aggressive snows on them, but the Nissan just drives right up the hill, despite the undercarriage dragging a little bit when I went up.  The truck spins a lot, even in 4WD.  Hopefully it won't be a problem too much longer, since I intend to get a couple loads of stone now that my tax return has come in.


Towards the end of the headlights is where the car scraped a little.


The end of the driveway is getting pretty bad too.

I got a little bit more done.  After discussing it with dad a bit last night, I decided to put down a third line of supports.  I wanted to do it today after work since the weather is supposed to get really nasty tonight (freezing rain turning into a wintry mix).  I haven't put down the 4x4 supports yet because of it.

I do have a tarp that will cover it once I get something up that needs covering.  I used it the other day to help keep snow off the site and had left it on the slab to dry.  It is now riding out the storm stuffed in the back seat of my truck.  A good reason to get an extended cab...

The blocks are now all laid.  Nothing is level yet, but everything is in the proper location according to the tape measure and I have some spare blocks of various size to shim as required.

I also got my new card reader today.  It is a lot smaller than I expected, but seems to work better than my old one (which no longer works at all).

Getting started, first update.

Before I get to the updates, a note about this blog.  It will probably start off pretty slow as I can only do stuff on the weekends, but as spring rolls in and I start working during the week too I expect the updates to come more frequently.  The goal of this blog is to track the progress of the new tiny home project, though I will post everything on it.  Most of the pictures that are here won't end up on my Picasa, since that is running low on space and is my primary photo backup; of late I have been using it like a photo blog, which was never its intention.  

So the first update is regarding the truck.  It has plates and I drove it up the property today.  It is nice having a 4WD with aggressive tires on it.  It went all the way up to the shed site without any trouble at all.

The driveway looks like it needs more work than I thought it did.  I never had a problem with it last fall, even going up right after rain, but it was very soupy today.  Looking at this, I am surprised that my car made it up without trouble yesterday.  One set of tracks is from the truck, one set from the car.

The property came to greet the new vehicle.

I am not sure where the log came from or what prompted it to roll down the hill.

I made use of one of the tarps that was already on the property and covered up my lawn mower, now that it has already been out in the snow.

The blocks are in place.  Unfortunately I forgot my level, so I didn't get everything leveled up, but the blocks are in the right place.  

Zoomed in shots from each side:

I did build up one of the blocks that was obviously lower than the others, and I still have plenty of dirt to level up the others as needed.  I also bought some smaller bricks in case any major adjustments are needed.