Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
2 p.m. Friday
By 3:30 p.m. today, the footings had been dug, inspected by the county, and 10 cubic yards of concrete poured. I believe that works out to around 15 tons of concrete.
On Monday the materials for the foundation walls will be delivered, and the masons should start laying blocks on Tuesday.
10 a.m. Friday
The work on my house has started. This morning they’re digging the footings. The concrete truck should arrive in the early afternoon to pour the footings. It rained yesterday, and the ground is a bit wet, but that doesn’t seem to be of much concern to the guys doing the work. I think I may leave this afternoon to spare myself the sight of the concrete truck rolling over my poor abused soil.
Stokes County couldn’t issue me an official mailing address until I got my final building permit. Since the time I left California, my mail has temporarily been going to family in Yadkin County. I got the building permit on Monday, and I put up my new mailbox this morning. I’m officially on the map now in Mayberry Country RFD. If anyone would like to have my new mailing address, please email me.
I signed a contract today with a construction company in King (also in Stokes County) to build the exterior of my gothic cottage. I also got the building permit from the county today. The construction company is eager to start, so work on the foundation may well begin this week.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, a metal roof, flared at the eaves, was just too expensive. I’ve ended up with a conventional 30-year roof. The roof will be dark green. The exterior of the windows and doors also will be dark green. The siding and trim will be rough-sawed white pine. The white pine, when newly sawed, is a cool yellow color. After a few months of exposure to the sun, the pine takes on a warm, golden hue. Then gradually over the years the siding will turn gray.
The people in the Stokes County building permits office, when I commented on the low cost of the building permit, said that it has been a long time since they’ve issued a permit for a house this small – 1,250 square feet. The permit price is based on square footage. I’m kind of honored, actually, that in Stokes County, North Carolina, which is far from a rich county, I’m building the smallest house that anybody has built in a long time.
I’m in the final stages of negotiation with a builder for the exterior of my gothic cottage. I’ve determined that I just can’t afford a metal roof and that I must fall back to a conventional 30-year asphalt shingle roof. That also means that I must pick a color. One can make an argument for roof colors like brown or gray. But I’m intrigued by the idea of something a bit bolder than that. There are many roofing colors, but window colors are much more limited. My siding will be white pine, which is a yellow at first, then a kind of warm gold, and then, eventually, weathered gray.
Here are quick-and-dirty sketches that I put together in Gimp (an open source program that does what Photoshop does). I would be delighted and honored if anyone has comments on these two color schemes or if anyone has suggestions for other color schemes. I need to make a decision soon, because I may be only a couple of weeks away from starting construction.
Some extra blur may help to stimulate the imagination:
Look who’s come to live with me. Her name is Lily. She was a foundling. She’s 10 weeks old and is the first cat I’ve had in about 20 years.
A little bit of deck goes a long way in making living in an RV more pleasant. The job took only a day, thanks to my brother’s skills and nice tools. His pneumatic nail gun really sped up the job. After the house is done, I plan to keep the little trailer as a guest house.
Home in the morning light
As I mentioned in a previous post, if you go about .4 mile up the road from me, you come to the paved public road. If you go down the road from me, you go across a tractor bridge and onto a little tractor road into the woods. Let’s walk down the road.
Baby clover in the morning dew. Where I exposed the soil for site preparation, I’ve worked hard to get ground cover growing, mainly fescue grass, rye, and red and white clover. This stuff is off to a good start. I’ll have more photos when it’s grown enough to be more photogenic.
Looking downstream in my woods
My little valley, where the branch comes through
Looking upstream in my woods
What pine trees do in the spring
When you’re in the woods, don’t forget to look down.
The woods are full of this in the spring, but I can’t for the life of me think what it’s called. Bonnie, what is this? Response: redbud
From this point on, we’re on neighbors’ land. The tractor bridge, and the lowest point on our little walk.
From the tractor bridge, looking downstream
Starting up the next ridge
Continuing up the next ridge
… and on up the next ridge
On the next ridge, looking across a little valley. Do you espy anything familiar on the far hill?
In case you couldn’t find it, here’s the location of my little trailer seen from the opposite ridge.
Where I live now…
Where I used to live. You decide if it’s a step up or a step down…
The trailer towed nicely yesterday, but it was a pain in the neck maneuvering it over the soft ground and backing it into its space between the trees. Jake, the RV maintenance man, did the towing for me and most of the work of leveling the trailer.
All the hookups are working — water, electric, and septic. More later about how I’m connecting to the Internet.
It sure is quiet here.
It’s disappointing that, because of the wet weather, I’ve not been able to move my trailer up to Stokes. The ground is too wet to roll the trailer out of my Mama’s backyard, or down my steep road. However, all that grass seed I planted is loving the rain. The white clover that I mixed with grass seed on top of the septic tank area is germinating nicely as well. The clover is still too tiny to photograph with my camera.
The loggers tore up the drainage ditch along the roadside, and I was afraid I’d never get grass to grow there again. But those excelsior blankets work wonders.