So, that said, on to the house building.
The floor part of the deck is finished, so Ben and Ray came back to do the overhang on the back side of the house - it was a bit far off the ground for them before. It took a little engineering, but they were up for the task. Notice that the triangle window is now installed.
Not only is neighbor Bill a fine cabinet maker, he has expertise in wiring also and was a big help to Dean doing all the electrical work. With Bill's help, we only had 2 inspections before we passed. And speaking of inspections, we got to know the guys from Jefferson County pretty well. They were great to work with and we we're glad we aren't in Deschutes County! We were building during the big surge in Bend and Redmond and would have been on the long list for inspections. As it was, we were usually able to call and the guys came out the next day. 
I took photos of ALL the wiring and plumbing so we would have reference should we need it later on.
Now that the wiring is finished and signed off by the inspector, the sheetrock guys can go to work. They brought in these HUGE sheets of sheetrock, NOT 1 at a time, and piled them all over the house. The sheets were up to 16' long. You can see that we now have the woodstove installed and are we ever using it! We moved a bed in upstairs (don't tell the inspectors....) and slept warmly for the first time in several months! The black lines in the photo below are the tape which seal the panels from the inside. We applied roll after roll to every seam in the house. The stuff was VERY sticky.
Dean is enjoying the warmth, surrounded by piles of sheetrock.
The view of the mess from the loft. Thank goodness they hauled it all off when they were finished.
Then some guys came in and cleaned up everything and put paper down on the floors to protect them when they taped, sealed and textured the walls. It was interesting that there was a different bunch of guys for each step in the sheetrock process. One crew delivered it, another crew installed it, another crew cleaned up, another taped and mudded, another sanded (what a mess that was) another cleaned up that mess, another applied all the paper to the floors, another crew did the texture, and still another came in and cleaned up again. They were all Mexicans, only a couple spoke any English, but they were all very nice and very good workers.
We needed a little R & R, so went for a ride one nice day out by Prineville to the Ochoco Reservoir. Did I mention previously that the winter we were building it was very cold?
While we were walking along the frozen shore of the lake, Abby got into some burrs which of course got into her feet. I think this was a dog version of a grimace.
This is our bedroom - a bed for Dean and I and a bed for Abby - the mattress out of the tent trailer. Our mattress is on a tarp so that we can drag it out onto the deck every morning before the sheetrock guys arrive.
Good next door neighbors Bill and Joyce were separated from us by the water/cable/phone/electrical ditch, so we installed this primitive "bridge" between us. Fancy, huh! 
So, I'll end this installment on a positive note - our house electrical is hooked up. We had been using the temporary power box up until this time - with heavy duty extension cords running every which way. Dean is making sure that they do it correctly........
1 comment:
How come Dean is always watching the work? In the one picture he looks like the Pillsbury dough boy, need a little color. It is different than the picture of him when he was in the Navy stationed in Key West, he looked like a boat refugee from Cuba.
Your counter is at 365 days, time is moving to slow.
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