Hillbilly Hilton

Another video going back

2010-03-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

So much has happened....

2010-03-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

...and since I have no time to recap everything that has happened, I'll just give you the last sentence: Me-Mah has moved in!

:@)

Here is a video she took. (Please keep in mind she has not completely settled in yet, and we still need to put in her window sills and attend to her "lovely" view out her windows!)

Finished...sort of...

2009-10-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

September brought with it an amazing amount of rain. We only had 5 days without rain that month! So needless to say, we have nto gotten too far. However, we do have some good news to report:

The plumber has come and gone, leaving behind him a perfect plumbing system. Yay! And Jay and Ryan finished putting up the drywall.

Soon after, the drywall finishers showed up and "finished" the walls, filling in the seams and screw holes. They will be back Monday or Tuesday to sand it down and touch up anything that may need more mud. After they do that, they will be appling a texture to the walls to minimize any visible settling cracks and smudges. (we do have 5 messy kids, so smudges are just part of the deal if Mom lets them visit!)

When they are fixing the walls, we will be in town buying the paint, countertops, flooring and cabinets. Once the painting and flooring are done, we can pretty much call it a done deal, as everything else takes very little time. Oh yeah - except for the wood trimming around windows and doors. That can take awhile. But we're on it, Mom, and you'll be coming "home" soon! :)

More updates

2009-09-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Lots of progress! Here is a siding picture -it almost looks like a real house now! This angle is looking at the window that looks out the side of her livingroom. The left of the window will be her bedroom wall.

This is a shot into the bedroom. The wall on the left is the inside of the outside wall shown above (did that make sense?)

Another siding shot. Main entry way door is installed. if you open that door, you will enter the breezeway. Smaller window is in the "diningroom" and the larger window is the livingroom area.

View looking "through" the inside kitchen/diningroom wall through the bathroom wall (see white vent pipe going up in the center of the picture) and towards the back closet wall, which is now completely enclosed with drywall. Mom will have a large walk-in closet which will be accessed through the bathroom.

And here are the hard working men, putting up the ceiling. Those drywall sheets are HEAVY! I'll bet they're glad they are done with that job! Next steps: finishing putting up the drywall (10% left to do) and mud the drywall (we'll have the pros come in for that)

Building is a Breeze

2009-07-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

The breezeway is built!

Looking straight through from our livingroom doorway, through the breezeway and into Mom's doorway leading into her house.

Ryan framing the back breezeway wall.

Breezeway enclosed with the sheathing. Picture taken from our soon-to-be livingroom.

Front view of the house. the cut out in the center of the picture will eventually be the front door, which leads into the breezeway. Enter and turn left for Mom's house and turn right for our's.

The weeds will be replaced by wood decking and it will all look much better soon! More progress coming this week. There is rain in the forecast but the temperatures will be in the high 80s to low 90s.

Next steps will be doors and electrical work.

Major case of the shingles

2009-07-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

(Ry the roofer guy)

( Happy father and son team)

Above and below are some more pics of the few days before shingle day.

(Standing just outside the diningroom between the 2 houses, looking up at the roof going in)

(Standing in our livingroom looking through the breezeway, into Mom's dining/livingroom)

And below is the result of yesterday's work. Ryan and his friend Colton did an EXCELLENT job installing an entire side of roof shingles (See the right side of the roof). Thanks guys!

This is the other side of the roof for the house and breezeway with just the tar paper lining.

See the window installed there to the right of the ladders? That is the dining room window! The ladders are blocking the huge livingroom window opening. We hope to finish the roof and get all windows and doors installed so the electrician can come in and wire it up. Dare I say that list of "chores" will be done by this weekend?

Stay tuned!

Raising the roof!

2009-07-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

The weather is great today, and Eddie, Jay's construction manager at work, came down to build a house on his day off. What a guy! Thank you Eddie!

This is the truck delivering the trusses the other day.

And these are the guys hard at work!

Ta-Da! Trusses up!

Our computer no longer wants to connect to the internet, so posts will bea little sporatic (so what's new?) but rest assured, we will still keep you posted with lots of pics!

More progress

2009-06-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

(Poppe living room on the left, Mom's house on the right)

(Taken fom Poppe's living room, looking towards Mom's bathroom area through the opening onthe right. Observe the plumbing sticking up from the concrete)

Sheathing is going up all around the house and the breezeway between Mom's house and our soon-to-be living room are going up! Yeah, the pictures may look like it is crooked, but they are spot-on straight. I just had the camera a little crooked, as I was keeping Fulton's curious hands away from the camera!

Some people came by today to take measurements for the trusses (that's the part of the house that look like whale ribs for the roof) Delivery for those should be next week!

(View through Mom's front living room window)

And to show that we are not all work and no play, you will see that the carpenter and his son are having fun!

Walls well that ends well

2009-06-22T09:35:00.001-07:00

The interior wall framing is DONE on Mom's house! Woo-hoo! Only a minor accident this morning - an entire interior well section came crashing down, splitting a board. After a quick grammar lesson on appropriate interjections, the repaired wall went back up, good as new and....(see title of post)

It is about lunch time and it is getting HOT, so the boys will be taking a few hours off pretty soon. Work will resume this evening!

Walls UP!

2009-06-20T09:10:00.001-07:00

Jay is taking a week off to catch up on Mom's house. This first wall seen above was constructed and raised by 8:14am.

I took these shots of everyone getting into the action raising the first wall. Hey, someone had to take the picture! And that counts as work, right?
The second wall was constructed and raised by 10:42am.

Things got pretty hot, so Jay took a break after lunch (103 degrees with no shade - can you blame him?) and this is what the rest of the day brought us! YAY!!!

Logan, Jay's right hand gal, worked hard getting the headers in for Dad before sundown.

Here is Jay standing in the bedroom. The small square in front of him will be where the water heater will reside. Further ahead of him in the top right corner of the house is the bathroom (that large square) and walk-in closet ( from the far upper right hand corner running along that back wall to the bedroom area towards Jay), accessed through the bathroom. The bottom lefthand side will be the livingroom, slowly morphing into the dining area and kitchenette. When you hit the wall on the far right towards the bottom, you will see her "front" doorway, which you can access through the breezeway connecting our two homes.

Next step - we build the interior walls and install them on Monday!

Work begins again!

2009-05-22T14:07:00.001-07:00

After about 6 weeks of drenching rains, we were finally able to pour the concrete!

It looks so much better, now that the crusher dust is covered! I believe the next step is framing - then the pictures will really get exciting! We'll keep you posted...

I know, I know...

2009-04-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

The silence is deafening!

Weather and time had put a halt to the progress here. But as of a few days ago, the gears have started to turn once again. The foundation is finally full of crusher dust. And Jay has decided to call in a plumber. He is just too busy to get it "plumbed" himself. We're waiting on the plumber to call us back (HA!) so who knows how long that will take. But once that is done, the concrete trucks will return for another pour and we can begin framing! Then the pictures will really get exciting!

So fear not - we have not forgotten about the house!

This ain't yer average Lego set!

2009-02-16T18:08:00.000-08:00

Today the blocklayers came and WoW! - what a difference! Up until today it looked kind of yucky and took a lot of imagination to see what the house will look like. But today.......

...the house foundation is set! Now lets hope it does not freeze over the next two days!

The next step is to finish filling in these "walls" with the crusher dust (aka Ryan's job), putting in the plumbing and then pouring in the concrete slab.

And a fun time will be had by all...

2009-02-14T07:38:00.000-08:00

Lots of fun this week! Yesterday the kids got into the act and started shoveling in the slag (AKA crushed rocks!)

Even CJ enjoyed the challenge!

But before all of that hard work was done, Jay and Ryan strung out the level for the blocks and reset the posts!

And the block layer will be coming Monday, which means more pictures soon!

Progress, progress...

And look Mom - signs of SPRING!

Convooooooyyyy!

2009-02-09T06:28:00.000-08:00

No, really, Mom! The rains are coming! We CAN"T get to work yet! :)

Despite the weather, 2 truckloads of crusherdust have arrived this morning! This crushed shale goes on the ground under where the concrete slab will be poured.

Unfortunately the next few days are going to be rainy, putting the blocks on hold. But that's OK because it will be easier to get today's delivery in place without having the blocks to work around!

Ryan has a mighty task ahead of him, moving these mountains, one wheelbarrel at a time, into place!
After an exhausting morning of writing a check for today's crusherdust delivery, the construction manager takes a coffee break before heading off to his real job!

Backyard Beach

2009-02-06T19:07:00.000-08:00

The sandbox is full!

The dumptruck came and dumped 19 tons of sand at the building site today. The kids had fun watching the truck pour the sand out and we all had fun taking some silly pictures after the driver left!

Next steps (weather permitting) will be laying the blocks and the delivery of the crusher dust!

Progress...progress.......

Aaaah!

2009-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

Much better! The weather here is much more reasonable this week(60s and sunny) We'll be laying the bricks for the foundation and shovelling in the shale by this coming weekend!

Ice Storm!

2009-01-28T19:58:00.001-08:00

After 2 days of ice storms, the children got a little more schooling than they bargained for, since Jay had to stay home for two whole days. But the girls got to take advantage of the new "wintery" landscape and took some wonderful pictures of Thunder Duck Ranch. Fear not, Mom! Winter comes to Oklahoma too! Building will continue next week......

Groundbreaking day!

2009-01-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

Happy day! We have started our Hillbilly Hilton project at last! MeMah's house is now officially in the process of being built!

About 2 weeks ago, we had the trenches dug out for Mom's house, plus the extension we are putting on on our own home. What an amazing amount of rocks! We decided on the spot that we will be putting all the rocks to good use for pathways and patios - we'll have plenty to spare! The trenching went as well as expected, and I say that because we had him dig right along our water line. Jay expected the water line to break - which it did - but he fixed it in a jiffy. (It's so nice to have a handy-man for a husband!) But it really wasn't the trencher's fault. His scoop got a hold of a huge rock and when he pulled it up, we found out the hard way that the rock reached all the way under the waterline. He pulled up the pipe right along with the boulder! OOOps!

Last week we had the concrete poured for the footings. This went pretty much without a hitch, unless you count the fact that one of the workers fell into the concrete! LOL! He was fine, and luckily one of his co-workers was nearby to help him before he got too messy!