gravel – Primm & Property

Posted on August 30, 2020 by Emily

Day 318

Today marks one year(ish) that we went under contract on the property. My first folder of photos is dated 08-30-2019, so I thought I’d do a little photo comparison of then vs. now.

Rolling pasture…

Gravel driveway in progress. Mostly a muddy mess. All that is dirt now will return to grass soon.

Though it looks like we have torn up the all of the grass from some of the other angles, this one shows that, relatively speaking, we have left much of the property untouched.

See, not so terrible!

All of these little blobs in the yard are trees that will hopefully grow to be big and beautiful.

Josh is pulling out weeds around them.

This view has changed quite a bit!

Stepping inside for a moment: doesn’t this look like some sort of modern art installation??? Our electricians are very artistic with their wiring.

OK, back to our grounds tour: we were able to park up in front of the house on the gravel driveway!

One of the things we had to check today was the proposed location of the well, as indicated by those 3 tiny, white flags to the right of the tree grouping. Evidently the man from the well company “witched” the well location in just 20 minutes. He told our builder that this process sometimes takes an hour. I am very sorry that I was not present to document it.

Also, Josh cracks me up in this photo.

Back towards the house, our chia pet dirt mound continues to thrive. I’m about to fire up some of the heavy equipment on site myself if this thing doesn’t disappear soon.

The weeds in the septic field are as tall as I am. I turned to Josh to ask him what this lovely white and purple flower was and he quickly informed me that it is “trumpet vine”, which is highly invasive, and, therefore, undesirable.

Darn.

Peeking through our tree line, we can see where our neighbors have cleared a spot for their home. We’ll probably be able to see their house from our house in the winter, but the tree line is dense enough to keep our lots private.

Coming along!

Posted on August 29, 2020 by Emily · 1 Comment

DAY 317

It has been another week dedicated to electrical wiring, plumbing piping, and HVAC ducting.

Are you still there?

Just thrilling.

They used the template provided by the tub manufacturer to cut out the tub deck.

Unfortunately, they did not consult me on placement before they did this and the cutout is too close to the windows. But that is easily fixed.

Though I’m glad we will have adequate ventilation in the house, I cannot wait until it’s time for drywall and all of the ducts and returns are out of sight.

I’m sure it’s all very efficiently run, but this ceiling looks like a hot mess to me.

Meanwhile, outside, part 1 of 27 of the electrical to the house has been inspected and approved so John has filled in a section of the ditch wide enough for a vehicle to pass over. He also started spreading gravel up the rest of the driveway while I was there. It was exciting to see the beginnings of the circle drive!

We’ve also been working hard on finalizing orders this week as raw materials seem to be skyrocketing in price.

We’ve been trying to pick our spots and make some trade-offs to stay in budget. The herringbone brick floor in the mudroom and the heated floors in the master bath are on the chopping block. My dear husband offered to start driving for Uber Eats so we don’t have to give up these features. I’m sure he’ll have no problem squeezing that in between working a full-time job, getting his MBA, and building a house.

We decided on #1 red oak instead of select, which has no knots and less tone variation from board to board. Josh and I agreed that we’d like a little more character in our hardwood floors and this was a good area to save some money. This showroom sample has no stain on it so it’s much lighter than our floors, which will be stained dark walnut.

Though the hardwoods will likely be installed in the next month, they will not be stained until the very end of the build, so it will be a while before we get to see the full effect.

Our builder and I had a long meeting yesterday to finalize exterior trim, siding, columns, and garage doors, as well as interior trim, doors, transoms, stair parts, and miscellaneous millwork.

As I was double-checking the door quote today, Bu decided to make himself a little napping Bu-rrito in the house plans. He stayed like this for over an hour. I’ll take it as a sign that he’s excited about the new house.

Posted on August 10, 2020August 10, 2020 by Emily · 3 Comments

Day 297

Nearly 300 days in and it’s been a big week!

At my site meeting with the builder Friday, there seemed to be dozens of people working. Some were framing, others were putting in windows, and then John was out on the bulldozer moving dirt. I’m not entirely sure that some of them weren’t paid actors to make me feel like there was major progress happening. It worked.

The first major item I discovered was the driveway. It has been graded up to the level Josh specified with a fresh layer of gravel. Compared to what it had been, it was like driving on glass.

The second major item: windows!!! They are all in and I couldn’t be happier not only to see my pretty windows, but to see the views again from inside the house.

We have also gained a dumpster. Less exciting, but it means things will be happening.

I’m obsessed with these windows in the library. I had originally planned for 5 here, but when I was reining in the budget, I cut it to 3. Though you’d be hard-pressed to convince me there is such a thing as too many windows, I think 3 feels right here.

Several items of note in this photo:

windows
the raised hearth
there is a chimney and it is the correct size

All of the framing issues upstairs have been corrected. This is the spot where it all fell apart a few weeks ago.

Many walls have been moved to achieve the specified measurements and alignments in each room. Please note here in the master bath that the vanity wall no longer obstructs the windows and that the hall and doorway into the bathroom are now centered on the windows as intended.

Now I can sleep at night.

Chimney take II. Now that the chimney has slimmed down, my shutters will be able to lay flat against the exterior wall.

The lovely library windows again. I am also in love with the small window to the left of the dormer. I put it in to tie in with the windows in the mudroom clerestory on the front of the house.

The driveway up by the garage is looking better and better as John continues to dig it out.

And you might be wondering where all of this dirt is going?

To the front yard! John is getting pretty close to the final grade up against the house.

And who is that off in the distance?

That would be Josh and my dad, continuing to work on the fence.

Yesterday morning, I gave my mom and grandmother a guided tour of the house, highlighting all of the structural updates and furniture placement thoughts. I fielded questions at the end, which led to an in depth discussion of stair parts.

I was stalling to avoid fence duty.

But, alas, I was summoned to put in something on the order of 500 screws to be sure the boards were well-secured to the posts.

Though I own many power tools and am not afraid of a little DIY, we will be hiring out the fence on the other side of the property.

Josh finished putting in the last few hundred screws today. Meanwhile, I sat in the dining room and finalized a detailing document for the builder with diagrams and notes about things like plumbing fixture placement, countertops, tile layouts, and cabinetry coordination. It’s currently 36 pages.

This was my fancy setup.

I never thought I’d be so happy to have a $5.98 folding chair from Walmart.

Posted on April 19, 2020April 19, 2020 by Emily · 2 Comments

Day 181

We have a partial driveway, folks!

Josh could tell from here that it had not been graded per the plan. More on that in a minute.

As we drove in on the easement, we could see a bunch of new rock on the easement itself. Evidently the developer we purchased the land from did not build up the easement road properly so one of the dump trucks delivering gravel sank into it earlier this week. Oops! Thankfully, our contractor was able to repair the road and keep things moving through the week.

Hey, guess what?

This is our driveway. Nifty, eh?

Screen Shot 2020-04-19 at 2.33.39 PM

We had several videos on the trail camera of the driveway coming to life.

See where that dip is between the trees? Yeah, that’s not supposed to be a dip anymore. Josh was not pleased. But, good news: it can be fixed! I keep telling him this.

Back to other progress. They have gotten the house pad pretty well set. Next up: digging the footings and the partial basement.

The spot where Josh is standing will be graded down a few feet for the driveway.

Joshua, step away from the heavy machinery.

The first bathroom has been installed. Ready for guests!

We decided to take a walk around the perimeter of the property to asses the trees. Though they’re really close together, Josh wanted to keep both of these. One is a sycamore and the other he believes is a birch.

We stumbled upon an ephemeral stream. I just learned this term from Josh yesterday.

Since we’ve started this process, “ephemeral stream”, “cubic yards of dirt”, and “earthwork guy” have been part of my vocabulary.

Boy, does having a partial driveway make this feel more official.

We brought this sapling from our current house. It was growing in the landscaping right up against our back porch. Josh thinks it came from one of the gigantic oak trees we have in our yard.

We planted it in one of the back corners of the new property. Hopefully it survives and thrives and becomes an eighty foot tall tree in the next fifty years. We named him Craig since that’s part of our current street name.

We didn’t want Craig to be lonely, so we searched in our woods to find a few more saplings to plant in the other back corner.

This one is a beech tree. There were several others that were slightly bigger, but Josh was concerned that they had already developed “a habit” and wouldn’t transplant well. Nobody wants a tree with a bad habit.

My dad loves beech trees so we decided to name this one for him. Meet Barry.

This is Dora, the dogwood. I don’t know anyone named Dora except for the explorer.

And this is her sister dogwood, Darla. Also don’t know any Darlas.

Let’s hope they all make it!

This tree did not make it.

According to our neighbors, much more of our property used to be forest, but a tornado took out a lot of the trees about twelve years back. Many of the remaining trees in the open space have a narrow span or have no branches except at the top. They are also really close together, which works in a forest setting, but not so much in an open setting where they will start to crowd each other out and compete for resources.

My husband is rubbing off on me and I am now a tree expert, in case you were wondering how I know all of this fascinating information.

So, Josh decided this tree needed to go because he wants the tree next to it to thrive.

Screen Shot 2020-04-19 at 3.48.51 PM

My dad, Barry (beech tree named for him), helped move the sectioned tree so we can use it later for firewood.

It was a red oak and it smelled so good!

OK, just one more thing to end this rambling post:

Screen Shot 2020-04-19 at 8.57.28 AM

We’ve hired Tom as security at the front gate.

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