Sagebrush & Solar

I’ve never been more acutely aware of the passing of days, weeks and months than during this project.

We are currently under the gun (is there a nicer analogy for this?) and the clock is ticking. Dad leaves on February 6th for the other construction job he’s working on (thaaanks, Karl!) and we are really, REALLY hoping to get the walls poured by then.

Get this: I think it’s possible. In fact, I have a lot of hope — more hope than I’ve had for any “we hope to pour next week!” moments thus far. I’m a lot more willing to put faith and hope behind my Dad than a contractor; I know if it wasn’t doable, Dad wouldn’t sugarcoat and over promise/under deliver.

There’s a really big chance that by this time next week, our exterior walls are at least curing from being poured. Then trusses and sheathing. Then interior framing. We might have a dried in house sooner than we think.

Which is good, because the other clock that’s ticking is our apartment lease. It’s up May 1. And then…well, we don’t know what the plan is. We’re hoping by mid-March, we’ll have an idea of where we’re at and have a realistic timeline. This might mean signing another lease somewhere else, living in our RV, begging Mom to let us come back … we’ll figure it out soon.

Oh, yes. A quick build update.

Today was Gavin’s last day working with us; he owns a concrete company and has jobs to do next week. He’ll be returning for our flatwork when we’re ready for him. Have we talked about Gavin? He’s been awesome. He’s worked with Dad to fix the ICF issues and stack block.

The house block is up to 3-4 layers (out of 6). Window bucks are in, structural support rebar is installed. They took a break from that to tear down the garage and work on laying the first layer, which proved to be more difficult than anticipated due to issues (surprise!) with the stem wall. It went slower than expected but things are now in good shape to continue upward. Again, we are so thankful these issues were caught prior to pour or we would have a massive, expensive and uninhabitable problem on our hands.

Keith will be out this weekend to work on the rest of the house with Dad — stacking block, etc. Can’t wait to see what it looks like by Sunday evening!