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.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
the wall board goes up
Carol and Jodie came over last Friday and we kicked some electrical butt!!! Dennis K joined us as the five of us pulled the main power wires all the way under the crawl space and up into the panel - in conduit all the way!
As if that wasn't enough - Carol balanced the breaker layout in the panel and set Jodie on the fast-track to installing receptacles! The two bedrooms are properly 'receptacled'!!! As soon as we get power into the house - we'll have electricity coming out of the walls - instead of the miles of extension cords running everywhere!
And Tonia brought her smiles and good cheer to chip away at a lonely and cold task: caulking the exterior joints between the rafters and siding/soffits. It can be a thankless and miserable and messy job - Tonia made it look effortless and fun! I provided buckets of thanks and gratitude!
all right - we're on a roll now! After a few days of cutting the v-groove shiplap that Jeff brought over a few weeks ago - Sarah and Teagan began the installation process. And what a process it is!! There are several complicating factors hindering our flow ( the fact that the boards are different widths, the fact that the boards are recycled and some of them are QUITE splintery, the fact that none of us has ever installed beat-up material on walls before - etc) - but we think we've worked the kinks out in the kitchen - and we expect to find our stride as we make our way to the other rooms.
However - we ARE running out of this v-groove shiplap that came off of a granary in Montana. And while we have another pile of shiplap sitting outside -it does NOT have the v-groove and will not be a GREAT match if we run out of material mid-wall. Oh well, we'll cross that slippery slope when we come to it...
for now - ONWARD and up ward!!
We hope to have a painting party on Friday - as Tonia is planning on returning - with recruits! - and paintbrushes - and we'll tackle the interesting issue of " Will the paint stick to this old very weathered wood?"
Stay tuned. Meanwhile, back to the cutting board...
posted by Tere # 8:58 PM 