Sagebrush & Solar

Ever since the subfloor has been laid, I’ve consistently felt that the house feels…small. We currently live in a sub-1000 square foot apartment. Our last house was close to 2500 square feet. I have a hard time imagining it being an actual 2000 square feet home.

That is, until Keith and I shoveled 2000 square feet of several inches of wet snow out of various windows. While my parents watched Luke, we cleared off the subfloor so it wouldn’t freeze into an ice rink to later melt into the crawlspace.

My dad has been continually backfilling as drains are laid in trenches. He has also installed our septic drains and conduits for electrical.

Our ICF contractor wants to pour concrete on this week. He recently sustained an injury and will need to have a backup crew come in to finish laying the garage block. Prior to pouring, we will need to also install the penetrations for exterior outlets. Because our walls are made of cement, it’s critical that we preplan where our outlets will go so we can place pipe through the forms to allow electrical wires through. It’s extremely expensive to drill through the concrete later, so we are going to avoid that.

Keith and I went to see his family in Alturas for Christmas; while we missed most of the polar vortex that swept the country, our property did not. My parents reported subzero temperatures and lots of snow. We’ll be catching up on more living room snow shoveling when we get back. My dad worked on getting trusses delivered (hill deiced, gravel in soft spots) and backfill/trenches/drains.

This is a rather short update for the sheer amount of work that has been done. This has been one of the coldest winters we’ve ever had here; it rarely gets this cold so early, and snow hasn’t fallen this early in the season in recent memory. It’s definitely been an uphill battle, but things are looking good and we’re back on track.

We are still trying to get dried in as quickly as possible. The next biggest step we’re waiting on is getting our walls poured; this will complete the ICF portion of the build. Once poured and set, we can have our subcontractor crew come out and place trusses. Then it’s a roof, windows and doors. Sounds simple, but it’s a lot of time and labor — and working with the elements — to accomplish.

One thing I imagined this Christmas morning was waking up in our home, warm from the wood stove and glow of the tree, sourdough cinnamon rolls rising on the counter and hearing Luke pitter patter down the hallway. Life is going 100 miles a minute right now and it’s nearly impossible to slow down and absorb it all. We’ve gotten good at savoring the stolen moments in between paid work and working on the house/raising a toddler; we know it will be completely worth it in the end. We’re so thankful for this opportunity and love what kind of childhood it will give our son.