Taking shape

We are still on vacation, expecting to arrive home later today. Our dear son, Patrick, went by the house and took these pictures so we could see the progress. The shape of the exterior is beginning to emerge. When the roof trusses are sheeted with plywood, the shape will be quite evident.

Looking at the northeast corner of the house.
The shape is beginning to emerge.

This is a shot of the patio area with the overhanging eave,
which will give us a covered patio area outside the master
bedroom and dining room.

The great room/kitchen has a vaulted ceiling.

The front of the house will have a covered porch area.
The trusses on the ground will frame the portico.

Raising the roof in Dallas

We are currently on "vacation," although that term has taken on a new meaning on this trip. (See our blog "Travels with Sadie." ) While we are away, son Patrick was kind enough to visit our building project and take a few photos with his phone.

This is the northeast corner of the house.
Looking through the garage "wall" into the interior.
Note the trusses are lying on top of the house.

This is looking into the RV garage. Note the heavy
bracing of the walls. The trusses for this section are
over 50 feet long. They can't be light in weight.

This is the front of our soon to be home. I notice a stack of
trusses on the ground. I wonder how they will lift those onto
the top of the walls.

We hope that, by the time we return to Dallas, the trusses will be standing up and the roof sheeting will be started. Soon, we will be able to see the outline of our new home. We are thrilled.

We have walls!

It has been a few days since my last post. It is not that there has not been progress on the house, because there certainly has been wonderful progress. The walls are all framed. The shop floor has been poured. The roof trusses are due for delivery tomorrow.

The reason I have not posted sooner is that there is not much that will show up in a picture. Now, this is not a picture blog, per se, but pictures are much more interesting than my writing, and they tell the story much better.

So, with that being said, here are a couple of new pictures.

Here I am in front of the opening to the RV garage/shop.


And here is a shot of the shop floor. Duane had
the floor poured now, because the concrete truck
could back right in and pour. Once the header for the
garage door is in place, a pumper would have been
required. Duane looks out for our pennies!


Here is a photo of a home built with our plan. It doesn't
have the RV garage, but otherwise, it looks pretty much
as we expect our new home to look. We haven't decided on
exterior paint colors yet, so we took this photo to upload
to a simulator. That will allow us to recolor the house and
try some colors without purchasing the paint and then
being disappointed.

Welcome to Wall-ie World!

Looking at the front of the house, you can see the office on the far
right with one window and the music room in the center with two windows.
The front door will be between the two.

We have exterior walls that are actually framed and standing up! Trusses will be delivered on Monday. NO! The workers did not overexert themselves; I mean roof trusses!! The weather has turned clear and cool. Today and yesterday were in the 70s, and the remainder of the week, the temps are forecast to be in the low 80s. This has made for lots of progress. By the end of next week we should be able to see the whole outline of the house.

Looking from the master bathroom diagonally across
the house to the guest room (on the right).
The Alcove on the left will be the dining room.

Waste not, want not...

The shepherd's crook that was too wimpy for the hanging baskets turned out to be just right for a couple of bird feeders. We picked up a hummingbird feeder and a song bird feeder. Now the patio feels like a backyard.

It will be interesting to see if we get any birds, given the density of the population here and the number of wandering cats in the neighborhood! Perhaps, if we leave Pogo tethered outside, she will scare away the cats, and the birds will thrive... maybe not...

Incidentally, the plant I hadn't identified in the hanging basket turns out to be scaevola, also known as Fan Flower.

Scaevola "Blue Wonder"

It is native to Australia and the south sea islands and Hawaii. The interesting thing about it is that the flowers are semi-circular, as if someone had cut the blossoms in half, hence the name Fan Flower.

Notice the "half" flowers.

The legend goes that a young maiden was jilted by her lover, so she cut the flower in half. He was then doomed to wander the earth until he could find a whole flower.

Oh, yeah!

I forgot to mention in my last post that we did some shopping today. We have been here a little over 3 weeks, and we expect to be here about another three months, so we decided it was high time we dolled up our patio to make it a little more attractive. Jill bought a double shepherd's crook plant stand last week, and we thought we would hang a couple of pots of flowers on it. Then yesterday, she was shopping at Rite Aid and found out they had left over red, white and blue color bowls for sale for $5.99.

Today we went to Dallas to see the house progress (see previous post), and we stopped and bought a couple of the pots of flowers. We also tried Wally World, but their plants were way too expensive. Imagine, Wally World with prices that can't compete. On the way back home, we stopped at Bi-Mart and picked up a hanging ivy geranium and a hanging something else that I don't recognize. I also got a drip watering system with timer that I can hook up to the faucet and keep things nice and moist.

Our little retreat.

I put out our patio rug, and now we have a nice retreat in the out of doors. Unfortunately, the shepherd's crook was not stout enough to support the two hanging baskets, so we are planning to pick up a couple of bird feeders to hang there. In the meantime, we have some color on the patio.

The prettiest flower of all!

The first wall goes up...

The first wall of our new home is standing!!

I don't know if I am excitedly disappointed, or disappointedly excited. It's somewhere in that general neighborhood. We went by the house today, and the first wall is up. Woo Whoo! That part is exciting. The disappointing part is that Jill went by yesterday, while I was in Portland, and they have not made any progress. She spoke to Robert yesterday, and he was frustrated, because they needed a shipment of materials from Parr Lumber. It had not yet arrived, nor has it by today, as nearly as I can tell.

Here are some more walls yet to be erected.

So, all of that being said, I must say I am grateful to have one wall up! This whole process of pulling up stakes and moving to Dallas has gone so smoothly that I forget there will be snafus from time to time. This is one. Since the weather has been a hindrance -- first too wet, then too hot -- I guess I am feeling the time slipping away. Tomorrow is Sunday, so I don't expect anything to happen. My hope is that Monday will bring the needed materials and more temperate weather so that we can get some real progress.

A look at the 3 car garage

And of course, the piece de resistance, the RV garage/shop.

Nine (count 'em), nine years...

Would you go to the beach with this gorgeous chick?

Yesterday was our 9th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe. Seems like only 8 years and 12 months. Actually, in some ways it seems like a couple of years, because we are still on our honeymoon! In other ways it seems like 30 years, because we trust each other so much and communicate so well and think so much alike. But I digress...

Neither of us had ever been to Pacific City. Unlike many of the more famous towns on the Oregon coast, PC is not situated on U.S. 101. It is several miles off the main highway and just north of Nestucca Bay. We decided it would be fun to explore the area in celebration of our anniversary, having no idea what to expect.

It was an indescribably delicious feeling to know that the beach was only 45 miles away! After living most of our lives in Portland, we were unaccustomed to such a short drive to the shore. It is a straight shot from Dallas to Pacific City on Oregon route 22. That is it is straight in terms of staying on the same route. The road, on the other hand, winds through some of the most beautiful countryside you can imagine. The Oregon Coast Range is not tall, but it is covered with vegetation like a rain forest.

We arrived at PC around mid day and found that the parking lot near the beach access in the "resort" area was packed. Driving further north, we found a place where we could park on the beach and have a stroll. Pogo loves running on the beach, and how she did run.

After a romp on the beach, we drove back toward PC and up the hill to see the "view lots and homes." Wow! We are talking rich-guy houses here... 3,000 square feet, with views of the ocean. Very swanky!

We headed back to "PC central" and did a little exploring on foot. There is a grocery/deli/gift shop on the main drag that has wonderful ice cream, and it is only $2 for a large scoop on a cone. Try the coffee almond fudge!

Our explorer genes clicked in, and we got back in the car. Following our noses we had a long and winding journey through a beautiful state park and wound up in Netarts and Oceanside. These two tiny towns sit one on Netarts Bay and one on the ocean. They are charming and were crowded with tourists/sunbathers/sand castle architects.

We toured the area in the car and then headed for Tillamook, which is a larger town of several thousand population and the center of milk/cheese/dairy production on the north Oregon coast. Passing through Tillamook, we headed back toward PC. Scenery abounds on U.S. 101, and we quickly found ourselves back in PC. By this time, fog had rolled in, and the crowds had thinned out.

It was then too chilly to stay on the beach, so we decided to have an anniversary dinner at the Pelican Pub and Brewery. This is a place I can recommend wholeheartedly. In spite of its name, it is quite family friendly. The food is top quality pub food (we had the "famous fish and chips") and the handcrafted beers are wonderful. The Doryman's Dark Ale was smooth and chocolatey with a tiny bite of hops... a perfect complement to the fish. I might add that the service was friendly without being too familiar. We will no doubt return to the Pelican.

At last, we had to head for home. One last stroll on the beach for Pogo's sake convinced us that the warmth of the day was past, which made it easier to leave. The drive back through the mountains was just as pretty as it was on the way out. Going by Nestucca Bay, Jill couldn't resist one shot from the car. Clearly, the fog in PC was a local phenomenon.

When we arrived back in Independence, we found the heat of the day was NOT past! A few minutes with the AC on, though, and Sadie was quite livable again. We both agreed that the anniversary celebration was a complete and utter success.

More progress...if the weather will co-operate.

We stopped by the house on our way to the beach yesterday. The sub-floor insulation was being installed. We had a chat with Robert, Duane's right hand man. He said the crew would start at 6:00 o'clock this morning to lay the decking on the joists.

The weather is up to its old tricks again. Now we have the opposite problem -- whereas, the crew couldn't do anything for a couple of weeks due to rain last month, now the weather has turned hot. It was 98 degrees yesterday and may be hotter today. The good news is that Robert said, "This house will go up really fast."

We have plumbing!

This photo shows the foundation at the corner of the garage
and the front of the music room. The white vertical things are
plumbing stubs, and the boards, of course are the rim joists.

We stopped by the house today to see the progress. Unfortunately, just as we were driving over there, the sky opened up. When we arrived the ground was pretty soggy. Nevertheless, I braved the mud to see what progress has been made in the last couple of days.

We now have a foundation, joists and plumbing! Today, the HVAC sub-contractor was scheduled to arrive and install the heat ducting and the base of the furnace. He hadn't arrived as of the time we were there for a visit. Duane was pretty sure he would finish today, though, and we would be able to get an inspection today and start decking the foundation next week. I hope he is right, since we have a holiday on Monday, which means no inspections on Monday.