Cottage 7 and 8 in the ground
Getting a foundation in is not the easiest thing to do. It's very weather and subcontractor dependent. It works like this - the excavator clears the building lot of trees and stumps (2-3 days), digs a big hole (1 day), with the bottom of the hole being at least 4'+ underground to prevent any impact from frozen ground 'heaving the building'. The mason then comes in and lays the forms for his footings (4 hours on these size houses). Then the building inspector needs to come by to check it out - the width/depth and rebar reinforcement. The mason pours the next day. The mason comes back to strip his forms, and start forming up the foundation walls, which sit on the footings ( about 1 day). Then the inspector returns to check out the walls and the cross-grid rebar reinforcement. Then the mason pours his walls, and 2 days later comes back to strip his forms. Then the excavator waterproofs the foundation (tars the foundation), and installs his footing drains all around the perimeter of the basement to keep it dry (#2 stone and perforated pipe). Then the inspector returns to check out the installation of the drainage, then we are ready to move the dirt back (backfill). If everything goes perfect, it takes under 2 weeks - but rain can make it a nightmare for access (cement trucks, stone trucks, mason trucks, big excavator) and progress. These went pretty well, mostly because the subcontractors were right on schedule. Paying them quickly helps this process.
Here is Ana & Pablo's new sexy foundation in the morning sun. This is what they call a walk-out, with doors and windows leading out from the basement.
And Rob and Leah's foundation, tarred and backfilled, waiting politely for the house framers. Another couple of weeks and the trees will be ablooming.
Just the facts and Reflections
The facts are pretty straight-forward - if hard to believe.
We closed on a house in January, two in February, 2 in March, 1 or 2 in April, am sitting on 3 signed contracts, and have 2 $10k deposits sitting in the bank in order to reserve a place in line. My team and I are feeling very fortunate to be ripping a hang 5 atop this economic tsunami.
"Builder" magazine is doing a feature on 'niche building' and we made the cut, finally. Although from my limited experience, the people who make the papers and magazines aren't the ones actually doing anything noteworthy - they just have friends in high places. I know that's a class-ist statement, but hey, my dad was a house painter so a little chip on the should never hurts anyone.
Spring is here, and so far this week the weather has been great. The ground is drying out and a few more days like this we will be able to tidy up Bella Drive and the houses that reside there, get the grass growing, and leave it as neat and natural as possible.
We executed our winter gameplan pretty well on target - another week and most of the work will be done at Highland Farms. Given the respite of finishing homes gives us the opportunity to take care of some loose ends like build a deck at my new office, finish Cheri's exterior stone patio, repair a small leak at Farm 7, troubleshoot a basement moisture issue at Farm 8, review a 6 month post closing walk-thru with the gentlemen at Cottage 1, etc... Amazing, 1 yr ago Cottage 1 was not even finished, and now we are reserving Cottage 14.
Well, no need to beat a dead horse (what a terrible saying), but we have our fingers crossed that all the interest in our homes results in closed sales and happy homeowners.
Here's a pic of me and my dog in front of Farmhouse #1, the very first house I built. It sold in April 2004. It wasn't bad for my first try at country building.
And then our first attempt at grassroots marketing, when the marketing budget was around $45. It's been suggested my buzz cut is not the best look for me.
And then, after 12 months of planning, begging for money and early advances, pleading with my help to show up, reinventing every wheel ever invented and rolling along on a huge learning curve -
...this happened on the final week of construction.
To say the least, it took a lot of gumption to get past this pickle. I remember Curtis calling me up and trying to break it to me easy - 'um, uh, 2 trees fell on the house last night."
Catskill Farms - International Headquarters.
That's right - I bought a 2000 sq ft garage with 25' high ceilings that served as the school bus repair garage for the past 30 years for the Eldred High School. While I can use the 3 acres and the 2000 sq ft, I'm not sure if the 'heavy duty lift' will come in too handy. Sounds dangerous, especially to a mechanical moron like myself.
What a beautiful picture - Good Ol Yeller beside the ghetto bus garage. Note the avant garde paint scheme of poop brown on bad white.
Inside is wide open - this pic shows the framing for my 2nd floor office that'll be the dope - casement windows southernly swinging out, metal roof, big phat screen tv for me and my clients to check out pictures, audio, security, internet - space and permanance. I mean, really, I call an internet vendor I use and he has 7 addresses for me over the past 2 years. That ain't an easy life to lead, and even harder to sell to the lady. But my good looks and country charm have enabled me to wiggle through not completely unscathed, but at least undaunted.
Great picture from my upper floor office looking down on all the god damn furniture I own. Seriously, that's all furniture - bought over the years while we were furnishing houses that no one would buy (only because the realtors were too cheap to invest the commissions they were making off me in good advertising - but that's another topic and another story for another day.) I got like 7 couches - macy's, lazyboy, ikea - chairs, dressers, antiques, mirrors, rugs, pictures, art, mailboxes, boxes, armchairs, rocking chairs, broken chairs, typewriters (too many too count - i collect them).
And below one frickin' pile of lumber, windows, doors and siding that we have accumulated over the past 4 years of construction and until we bought the ghetto bus garage (thank you Jeff Bank), it was scattered all over the county.
There is at least $10k of material down there, and everyday we stop by and pick up this or that and it is glorious to a cost-conscious sort of guy (just ask Lisa about my audits of her credit card and my empty threats to 'cut her off' if the liquer store bill gets any higher regardless of her claim that it's 'all for you'). Construction is about managing waste, and to use all this extra material up is just like a dream come true - easy money.
Swiss Hill Farm Part 1
On a back pretty road between Jeffersonville and Bethel, NY lay a beautiful and dilapidated tiny little farmhouse and 2 barns on 30 acres. Even though I was past my eyebrows in debt, and owned a dicey business with a good idea but no assurance of short or long term success, we had tired of full-time living in the Rock House, our 600 sq ft house in Cochecton, NY - so I bought it.
Now, it's always interesting for a designer/builder/contractor to put the other shoe on and become a home improver - and now that I have done it a few times, I think I am a believer that every builder should build something for himself and his wife every few years just so they can remember the stress involved by home improvement/home builder participants - financial stress, decision stress, relationship stress, animal stress, did I say financial stress?
The thing about decisions is that the bigger they are, the more intractable and unchangeable they are. You can change a light fixture you don't like, but you can't shrink the house once you put the foundation in, you can't change the kitchen cabinets once they are ordered and installed, and you can't improve a piece of land that can't be improved.
Here's where started:
And with an empty wallet and many stories, some jubliant some sordid, here's where we ended -
