so the blog has been quiet for a good while… it’s time for some updates:

we were visited by steve thomas from the discovery channel’s renovation nation the show should air soon - we’ll post an update when we find out the date.

we put up some of the exterior stud walls for the camera:

we’ll probably need to take them down in order to get the interior walls in. during the show we also took delivery of our composting toilet.

we also finished the steps into the shop:

and put a recycled pallet wall in the shop (picture forthcoming). Read the rest of this entry »

so i’v sprained my MCL (medial collateral ligament) pretty well, or is that badly? either way, i’ve been on crutches and mostly out of commission since last monday night.

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The house has begun!

The hole for the footing has been dug and nick and crew are beginning to construct the forms for the footing.

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we’ve waterproofed the shop and are now preparing to pour the footing for the retaining wall, which will hold the soil that will allow us to make a garden on top. once the retaining wall is done we will be able to start digging the house foundation!

so finally all the forms have been stripped from the shop walls and we’re starting to layout the electrical and plumbing that will traverse underneath the concrete slab within the shop. we still need to break off all of the snap ties:

which will require us finding a bar that is just bigger than the head of the snap tie to fit over it and bend them back and forth and then rotate them till they break off - it takes about 10-15 seconds per snap tie and there are around 1600 of them… so hopefully only around 4.5-5 hours of work.

upon recommendation/suggestion i spent the night in the shop, sans roof, under the stars - the big locust(?) trees in the neighbor’s yard behind swayed and moved their thousand fingered-leaves in the whispering air as i fell into a lull and sleep consumed me.

(note: concrete is referred to as “mud” in the trade)

so we (meaning ron, kim and gary) finally poured the walls of the shop yesterday - it’s been a long time coming (we first thought we’d be pouring the week of the 11th) - things kept getting pushed back, which has been frustrating to say the least. people keep reminding me of the adage that things in construction always get delayed or take twice…

i guess the ultimate frustration comes from the fact that we really want to get the roof of the house on as soon as possible, before it gets too wet…and waiting for someone else to work as we sit idly by is difficult at best…

i suppose there exists a cliche lesson in here - a lesson to be patient and allow for what is, rather than fretting what isn’t. but at the same time i’d like to be proactive and prevent further delays and foster better communication between the subcontractors and us. maybe with clear communication and an initial understanding of timeline, there can be fewer delays.

coming up next, we have to run plumbing, electrical and vacuum pipe in the shop floors before we can pour them - we hope to be pouring the floors in mid september, after our hopeful attendance at a vipassana meditation retreat.

I thought it might be interesting to you all to see some of the process that went into creating The Commons. With that in mind I am publishing here the paper I wrote while finishing school and working on The Commons project with Dustin.

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I’ve been quiet on the blogging front, but I’m back now that there’s little for me to do during the concrete forming process. Read on for a quick photo tour of our progress… Read the rest of this entry »