Building our new house
In early 2007, we began building our new Round House here at Sacred Groves with a vision to expand our residential community on this beautiful land.
We purchased 3 round structures from Oregon Yurtworks--a big house with a large round Great Room that has become the heart and hearth of the Sacred Groves community, and 2 yurtlettes, private bedroom-cabins for new residents. We are modeling a "small is beautiful" lifestyle with small personal spaces, sharing kitchen, bathrooms, laundry, living room. We are enthused about the joys and challenges of community living, committed to the spiritual and personal growth required for sharing life in this way.
This blog, which has the most recent entry at the top, tells the story of the construction of the new house, starting with the foundation built Spring 2007. Carpenter and Groves resident Tere Carranza has managed the project from start to near-finish.
Friday, June 22, 2007
The ground crew shapes up the house site
I'm pleased with JP Landworks and the work Josh's crew did to create more order out of chaos. What a difference the backfilling around the foundation makes! And beneath all that backfill and soil they placed various pipes and conduits and tanks that will carry water, and electricity and waste products into and away from the house. And moved vast amounts of 'material' (soil, dirt, earth) from piles they created in April - to holes and trenches and mounds that help define and shape the landscape around the house. Josh and crew have been a pleasure to work with and they're all just really nice folks to have around the site. And while Therese will NOT miss the noise of their machines, I know I'll miss their smiles and helpful hands and their awesome toys!
I'm finally getting my energy and focus back - I felt sluggish and sidetracked by various things these past few weeks : Andrea's sudden health crisis ( she's getting ready to go home this weekend!!!), the drippy cold weather, an overwhelming tiredness that made me want to sleep most of last week, 'shopping' for electrical conduit for the pending electrical hookup, AND no one to boss around.
Well, fortunately - the last point has been rectified: Eddie returned from his family get together in Maine and Sarah has pitched her hat into the arena as a valuable bundle of energy! This morning they placed 80 feet of conduit in the trench(from the pumphouse to the main house) Eddie has been working on for the past few days, and then while Sarah helped me out with the pony walls, Eddie started taking apart more of the formwork that's sitting on the drainfield.
Progress! ( view pics here)
posted by Tere # 10:06 PM 