Walls are up!

It's true. It's starting to look like a real house now. The garage is the low structure on the left. The entry is the big door in the middle. And of course there's the big pile of wood debris and the dog kennel in the foreground.

This picture was taken from the shelter of the trailer, just inside the door, since it was raining, as ever.

Here you can see the view from my future office, misty though it is. The 2x4 in the foreground shows the edge of the little covered deck off the office.

The 2x4 railing that makes a corner marks where the living room walls will go. Those walls are mostly windows, so those seem to be the last thing they are going to build.


And here you can see the full squalor of the trailer, complete with all the construction debris. Now if you can just picture the little paths of mud that go everywhere, along with the pounding rain we get every night, you'll have a good sense of life as we know it these days.



This corner is the laundry room and a VERY small guest bath. Not too exciting at this point from the outside. The small, square windows are interesting. I like the way they look from the outside. From the inside they provide light, and a view for tall people. That would exclude me. I think if I stand on my tip tip tippy toes I may be able to catch a glimpse of the outside world. Yet another example of imperfect communication with the architects. Sigh.

Just to complain for a minute, while the construction process has been fun to watch since framing happens quickly, it is also a bit disconcerting how many things we discussed with the architects that didn't end up in the plans. Part of this was because we weren't sure exactly where to look for the correct details in the plans - especially for design details that bridge multiple floors (like details involving stairs). Part of this was because we really wanted to get plans submitted so we could get construction underway before it got too late in the year.

What I've learned since then:
- Get clarity from the architect on what level of detail you are reviewing. We kept being told we were reviewing plans that were final enough to get county approval, but not necessarily fully detailed. This wasn't really the case, and we've been discontent with the plans ever since.
- Building happens in all different weather here and trying to build in dry weather is actually unimportant. So, we should have delayed plan submission until we were certain all the correct details were in place, then embraced building in the rain, since we are building in the rain anyway.
- If an architect tells you "designing a plan to suit your budget is not a problem - it's part of the creative challenge," don't believe them. Example: the deck design for our house, which is lovely and unusual in concept, is pricing out at around 25% of our total house budget. Hello! On what planet would that be realistic?! That, combined with regular suggestions about unproven, expensive materials we should try out, have been quite disillusioning.

Okay, I'm through venting now. In many ways, the architects have been great to work with. Just know that the 80/20 rule does not really apply when designing a house. That last 20% of the detail is what will make you delighted with the home.

We're working with the framer to make some plan tweaks happen, and choosing to leave some things the way they are in the plans, even though that is NOT what we really want. Tough decisions and lots of trade offs along the way. That's just how it works, I guess.

The dogs are getting along well, getting used to being left in their enclosure during the day.

We're getting used to leaving for work every morning, doing the careful dance around each other as we try to shower and get dressed in cramped quarters. It all works.

Writing this with a headache and trying to embrace the adventure,
~ Leslie

House pictures

At some point I will gather my actual thoughts about all of this but for now, here is a pictorial progress report.



1. Preparing the hole in the ground, into which we will cast all available money. It's kind of like a boat in that way. You can see part of the old foundation still standing. We're leaving that in place to contain the slope somewhat. We'll see how that actually works out.


The black thing in front is the silt fence - a long fiber border designed to contain the runoff when the rains come.


2. Forms for the footings (the biiiiiig, broad concrete bases on which the foundation walls are built). They will pour concrete into these.




3. Forms for the foundation walls. (You can see some of the footings have been poured at this point, if you look really carefully.

4. Foundation walls! They're not all the right height and some are not exactly as we had discussed or as the architect had drawn but it's definitely progress.



5. Gravel to support the concrete slabs in the garage and daylight basement.

What I should really have a picture of is all the mud that surrounds the project. It's better than it was but it is still quite a mess. The trailer now has a nature motif, as it is regularly scattered with leaves, sticks and dirt, tracked in by all four of us. I'd like to blame it all on the dogs, but let's face it. We're quite as guilty as they are.

More later!

Randomly perambulating

My attention span these days appears to be about...uh, what was I talking about?

Yes, it is that bad.

Here's the basic rundown of my very scattered life these days:


Work
Learning how to program client web sites by roaming around the editing pages wondering what all that programmer language means and how I get it to do what I want. No user's manual, no "tips" - just some very patient, saintly people who put up with my myriad questions when I get tired of beating my head against the wall.

The good news is they appear shocked anyone can learn it at all, so the fact that I am starting to pick it up is something of an achievement. The other good news is that deer occasionally show up outside the window at my office.

The computer stuff is interspersed with jumping on planes for meetings and trying not to say anything obviously stupid to clients, while actively participating in the conversation.

Bottom line: I like what I'm doing and I get to work with fun, easy-going people who set reasonable expectations. Freakishly lucky.



House/home
Okay, I have fully adapted to the loud, regular train whistles and track noise that shakes the trailer throughout the day and most of the night. Even the dogs have gotten better adjusted, though Quirk has decided he deals best with trains curled up at the foot of our bed. Since the bed is in a trailer, there is approximately 8" of space at the foot of our bed and I use that space to walk around to my closet and my side of the bed. Needless to say, we have words about the proper place for dogs.

We still have no building permit (two weeks for the county to review the plans? Right -more like 5+ weeks). Despite that, we have gotten bids for quite a bit of the work and are trying to get enough information to settle on a general contractor. The business model for construction, as you well know if you've done any, is completely whacked. Basically, there is no incentive for a general contractor to do anything that saves you money. They have to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and this is a notoriously fraud-riddled profession. I feel like we're walking through a gauntlet of people with knives in their hands and smiles on their faces.

I think I'll write more about the construction business model topic at some point. It really bothers me and has some built-in connundrums like, why is it more expensive to build using used materials? Seems like that would be good - keep things out of the landfill and spend less on new materials. Turns out that's not how it works.

At any rate, Brian has been working hard to get the debris scraped up out of the burned cavity of the former house. Used bricks are stacking up beside the yard, and I have hope that eventually we'll have some kind of brick terrace made of bricks from the old fireplace.


Other random notes:


1. Overheard while hitting the ladies' room after a short flight:

"The guy next to me didn't do anything for the whole flight. He didn't read or sleep or anything. He was kind of old."

"Maybe when you get old you can kind of hybernate."


2. Favorite Craig's List ad for the day:

FREE Tile - All you can haul! (Eagle Creek)
The guy who last owned this property was a contractor (a shabby one at that) and he decided to dump all of his tile scraps on the property. Here they have sat waiting for a home in some beautiful mosaic, or as part of a shower surround, or as a coaster in some dingy basement. Whatever you have planned for these tiles, I don't give a rats ass (and I mean that in the politest of ways), just come take as many as you would like. The more the better. There are ceramic tiles scraps and pieces of some natural stone, slate perhaps. Most of the tiles are not whole, although if you look real hard, you might be able to find the matching piece (I really doubt it though.) NEXT AVAILABLE PICK UP: SUNDAY after 4:00 There is A LOT of tile so there should be plenty for everyone.

3. Recently completed knitting project:

Swanky handbag made of wool yarn and videotape

4. Thought while watching Monday night football:

You know how they have oxygen tanks waiting on the sidelines so whenever a team hits the bench they can start sucking down O2? I was picturing that in the corporate world. Got a big presentation? Have some oxygen. Got a stressful performance review with your boss? Have some oxygen. You get the picture.

Friend's visit leads to astonishing discovery (LONG)

Not to be sensationalistic but what started out as a simple walk along the river with a friend lead me, eventually, to an article on the phenomenon of erotic falconry. Now who saw that coming? Certainly not me.

Let's take this one step at a time.

Renita (former WaMu researcher extraordinaire) was in Portland this weekend and made time to come over for a visit with her two lovely young girls. We all thought walking down to the river and getting our feet wet sounded like a good idea, and the dogs heartily concurred, as evidenced by ridiculous amounts of tail wagging.

The river level has fallen so low, however, that it's quite rocky at the river edge and hard to walk. Rather than doing the sensible thing and heading up river to a neighbor's swimming hole (where, in self defense, I've never been), we headed down river in search of a sandy area that I vaguely recalled from a walk a few weeks back.

Well, we walked. And we walked. And we walked some more.

To get the full effect you have to picture small, sparkling girls tripping valiantly over large, bumpy boulders and algae-coated river rocks while Quirk (young English setter) runs wildly in circles, tangling his leash around ankles and occasionally pulling so vigorously that at least one person falls down. While tears were not shed, they were definitely considered.

All the while, Renita and I acted like everything was fine and talked about the latest goings on in our lives.

Finally we gave up on finding the beach and sat down on the rocks to continue our chat in peace. The girls found a blackberry patch in the woods and proudly brought berries to us, served on a plastic shovel we found washed up on the riverside. Quite nice.

At length, we headed back to the house. Now, the walk to get here had been a bit rough. And there seemed to be some rough trails in the shrubbery beside the river. So, we decided to take a different route back to the house.

We took a vote afterwards and agreed that this was not a good decision.

Blackberry brambles riddled the nonexistent path, tearing into tender young knees and ripping at our clothes. Then, disaster struck. With no warning or explanation, Renita, one of her daughters and I were all attacked by some kind of invisible insect. That's the only explanation I can find. We felt pin pricks, then excruciating pain - like needles being driven through our flesh.

Much flailing and screaming ensured, followed by running.

At long last we made it back to the trailer and did our best to salvage the visit. (Thank you for your graciousness, Renita!) We investigated the bite marks, applied cool cloth and ice cubes and confirmed that we would all be just fine.

Still wondering about that erotic falconry reference? It's coming, it's coming.

Post-dinner, Brian and I settled in for our nightly Internet & NFL-fest. I decided to try to figure out what bit us.

Through a variety of searches I came across a site that was not what I was looking for, but just what I needed.

Here's a snippet:
"Our recent coverage of "The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World" made reference to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, something we felt the need to explore further. Apparently Dr. Justin O Schmidt, an entomologist...felt the need to create a ranking system for insect stings ... Typically the "research" was conducted on himself and frequently required provoking the little guys to murderous rage (fear?) in order to get them to attack/defend."

Full article:
http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2008/01/the_schmidt_sting_pain_index.php

Example of sting ratings (on a 1 - 4 scale):
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.

Now, I ask you, how could I not read on?

To make a long story short, I followed many different tangents of this article, including a very well done interview with this guy. Holy cow. I don't know if he's crazy or the luckiest guy on the planet to love his work that much.

I finish reading the interview and look up to find one of the links on the page is to an article called, I kid you not, Erotic Falconry. I went through the thought process of asking myself if it could possibly be an ad that would instantly pop up all kinds of disturbing issues. But no. It looked just like all the other (somewhat bizarre) article headlines.

So, I read the article. It was mostly pictures, with a link to the Erotic Falconry website. One of the subsequent comments summed up the article nicely: "I don't know what's worse.. the fact that this site exists or the realization that I'm mildly disappointed it's all photoshopped."

Side note: If you read anything on the Zooillogix site, be sure to take in the comments. Nuff said.

I'll wrap it up since I doubt anyone has stuck it out through this extremely long post. Next update will be back to the latest on the house!

Medical update: yes, my arm does still hurt. A single bite/sting/whatever started as a small red dot, then a welt, and is now a 2" swollen area of pain. It's on my bicep so I look kind of bulked up and macho on that side. The redness is starting to fade and it will probably be a non-issue by morning. Which will lead me to look back on this post and wonder what could have possibly compelled me to blather on at such length over something so minor. Welcome to blogdom. :-)

The Deed is Done

It is a strange feeling to sit in a house and know that it will not be there the next day. A bit eery.

We pre-celebrated the demise of the house with a small barbeque for family and friends. The intermittent rain drove us into the living room, but brief breaks allowed forays into the yard for whiffle golf and croquet. (And no, we did not use the ladder the fire department pre-placed on the deck.)

Of course, we didn't get completely ready for the burn until the last possible minute. Waking up late, we scurried to get the last few items out of the house and garage before the fire fighters arrived.

And arrive they did - enmass - around 8 a.m. The fire trucks and volunteers' cars came pouring into our small neighborhood, comandeering the street and the yard in front of the trailer.

The crew was very organized. A half dozen individual scenarios were pre-set in the house. This means there were pallets and bales of straw set up in specific areas. Each area was lit on fire separately, with small teams of fire fighters assigned to put out each fire.

The more experienced guys (and yes, they were all guys) coached the newer volunteers. They started with a series of fires on the main floor, then did a rescue scenario using the smoke-filled daylight basement.

Then they were ready for the structural burn. This is where they let the beams and studs catch fire, eventually engulfing the house.

For this to go well, they had to manage the ventilation to direct the heat away from the neighbor's house and, to a lessor extent, the nearby trees. They broke out windows and cut holes in the roof and floors to assure good air flow.

By this time, there was lots of smoke and bystanders were starting to gather. It turned into quite a spectator sport, with neighbors, passersby and a few stalwart souls who came down from Seattle just to see the show.

I've got to say, these folks really know how to light a fire. The pictures speak for themselves.

Did I mention this process is extremely hot? The heat rolls out in tremendous waves.

The fire marshall made a point of talking to the kids in the crowd about what they were seeing.

He offered to walk kids up closer to the fire, circling the area so they got a sense of how intense the heat was and how the wind direction affected the temperature.

By 3 o'clock, the flames were dying down, people were starting to wander off and the fire fighters were packing up their hoses. By 4:30 we had the place to ourselves, in all its smoldering glory.

For the rest of the evening and through Sunday we had a steady stream of visitors.

Most people initially expressed concern about whether or not the burn was intentional. Once reassured, they asked about whether or not we were going to rebuild. Eventually I stationed the new house plans on a table next to the old foundation. It was fun to see people react to the new plans, and we received many, many good wishes for our building project.

Once the dust (and smoke) settles I'll post some portions of the new plans. In the meantime, stay safe out there.

From DINCs to DUNCs

It's official. Brian was laid off on Wednesday. We've gone from being a double-income-no-children household to being a double-unemployment-no-children household.

The good news is our overhead is quite low these days. Cable is probably our single biggest (non-building) expense, unless we splurge on something.

This did not come as a huge surprise and there are at least some relevant job postings in the area. I think Brian's going to take a day or two to go fishing, then look into the options.

In the meantime, we're forging ahead with the house plans. Had a GREAT meeting yesterday with the architects. We finally saw an exterior elevation of the house and I LOVE it. It's very modern and its shape directs your eye downriver in a peaceful way.

The main thing we're wrestling with now is windows - how many and where. We're not going with a giant wall of windows along the river side of the house and I have mixed feelings about that.

On the one hand, I love the exterior look that mixes a corner full of windows with some uninterrupted walls. On the other hand, there's so much drama outside our door. We spend a lot of time tracking osprey across the sky as they fish and cross to their nest with food.

We'll find a solution. We're working well together, coming up with collaborative solutions and good dialogue. It's definitely fun to design a new space and think about how you'll live in it.

Now, it might seem a bit counterintuitive to continue with the house when we have no source of income. Hmmm. Seems that way to us too, a bit.

The plan right now is to forge ahead at least through to getting a building permit and clearing the site. We're not going to live in the house, so we might as well not pay Oregon property taxes on it.

After that, we'll take stock. Our current thinking is that we should go ahead and build. We're going to need to live somewhere, after all, and it really is a great time to build from a cost perspective.

Financing will be a bit interesting. It was looking nearly impossible to get an owner-builder construction loan. Throw in the no income thing and that door slams shut.

We have some options, from tapping into ROTHs to getting private financing to...I don't know what all. If we were both unemployed I suspect we'd end up doing a lot more of the physical work ourselves, with the help of our "construction coach," Leo. More about him later.

At the moment, we are trying to live in the now and not get too churned up about things we can't affect. Easier said than done at times.

For now, I'm inspired by the shape and look of our house-to-be. That's driving me forward. I guess in this case, hope actually is a plan.

And it always could be worse. I could be pregnant. (Which I'm not - just in case my mom is reading this and hyperventilating.) :-)

Demolition permits aka fun with bureaucracy

Today I ventured into the world of permitting.

Where we live, it turns out you can’t just tear your house down (let alone light it on fire) without a permit. Now, I tried to get a demolition permit before, but didn’t have enough paperwork with me to swing it. Today I am better prepared.

I brought with me:
One building permit application
That’s right – the permit you use to demolish a house is titled “Building Permit Application.” You can imagine the kinds of details that form calls for. It’s hard to fill out details on the “new dwelling area” when the goal is to tear out an existing dwelling.

A legal description of the property (which took us two days to find, since we still have belongings in three homes)

A plot map
The directions for creating the plot map are two pages long and rather daunting. I faked my way through this by sort of, ummm, making up the property elevations at various points. They seem to require an elevation survey ($500) in order to tear down the structure. I suspect this is solely due to the fact they’re using the building permit application, but it’s confusing nonetheless.

The county has a new “campus” of a jillion buildings. If you have a hybrid car, you can park right up where it’s convenient. Fascinating.


The Planning and Development office is in a large, open building full of light. The receptionists are very helpful, very well-caffeinated and you HAVE to talk to them before you can do anything else. They fill out a time-stamped routing card based on your situation, and tell you what “stations” to go to, in what order.

Me, I started at the Permit desk. The nice gal there got me started, verified that I had what I needed to proceed, and directed me to Planning. However, I decided to open a whole ‘nother can of worms with her instead.

Back when we first got the trailer, we worked with an electrician to install a temporary power pole on site. This is standard during a construction project, and it lets you plug into electricity while you’re working on things. The electrician did the standard submit-electrical-permit thing, assuming the permit would come through.


The county, however, declined to issue the permit. We could only get a permit for temporary power after getting a building permit. Since that’s likely to take until the end of August, this was not a good answer for us. Once the house is demolished, we’ll be dependent on the good will of our neighbors for electricity – not a situation to look forward to.


I’ve talked to several people in the construction trade who are shocked that we weren’t granted a temporary permit. “It’s never been a problem in the past” is a frequent comment.

So, I thought I’d plead my case for getting the temporary power pole permit approved.


It was pitiful, really. I threw myself on their mercy, explaining that it was a matter of public safety. After all, wouldn’t the fire fighters want lights on while they did their training? And we’d need lights to be able to properly observe the house after the burn, to make sure no one stumbled into the smoking crevasse. Not to mention how much easier it would make the demolition process itself. Come awwwwn, man!


No dice. I did inspire the woman at the desk to go to the back office and confer with someone more senior. Neither of them could make much sense of my case. The permit was declined with some sympathy. The explanation?


“Not that you would do this of course, but you’d be surprised at how many people will use temporary power to put an RV on their property and live there. That’s a violation of code and we just can’t have that. I’m really sorry.” Blink. Innocent look. "Really? Thank you for explaining," I responded.

So, I moved on to Planning. Their role involved disappearing into a back room for about five minutes, coming back to do something on the computer and initialing my form. Then I was sent to WES, which is something to do with water and the environment. I think they handle different sewer systems.


Trudging up two flights of stairs I arrived to find a note on the door: All WES employees will be in training from 1 – 2 p.m. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.


I looked at my watch. 1:07. Hmmm. That’s the perfect amount of time for not getting anything done at all. The department wasn’t locked so I took a seat and settled in for a nice, long wait with my book. Time went by. 1:30.


A woman emerged from the bowels of the cubicles, purposefully on her way to a late lunch. She stopped when she got to me. “Are you being helped?” she asked, noticing the complete absence of anyone helpful.


I explained the situation and she was appalled, nearly to the point of speechlessness. Once she got through muttering about unacceptable customer service she asked what I needed. In about 30 seconds she popped open my application on the computer and approved it. Wuh hoooo!


Now, back to the Permit desk. I mean, back to the queue for the Permit desk.

After some more (brief) waiting and $21, we are now the proud possessors of a demolition permit. Hallelujah.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

It's official. We've given over our house to the local fire department and the big day is this Saturday.

The morning starts with volunteers fighting several pre-set fires upstairs, then they fight pre-set fires downstairs.

Eventually they get to the really good stuff: the structural fire that brings the whole house down.

A couple dozen volunteers will take part, and some of their family members will gather to watch.

The neighbors have all been informed, including the neighbor whose house is immediately adjacent to the leaping flames. They've been extremely receptive to having fire fighters clambor over their roof to station a live hose. Wouldn't you be?

We plan to camp out on the river side of the house, reading books and watching the fun. There should be a couple of great photo ops - like Brian with his back to the flames, smoking a cigarette. We'll see if I can sneak that in. He hates having his picture taken.

Today we finally resolved our issue with surveyors and surveying. The first surveyor did initial work, then "forgot to mention" the need for an additional $1500 worth of work they'd need to do. Duh oh! Game over.

The new surveyors had a good price and solid recommendations, but their contract was waaaay sketchy. Like, there's a retainer fee up front AND the work is C.O.D.? Why pay a retainer before they do the work if they have complete control over their work product? They basically have the power to withhold their results until I pay them. Seems like that should be enough.

Oh yes - and the big signs on the doors saying their lease is up and the space is for rent also made me reluctant to write them a big ol' check before they do any work.

Fortunately, we had a good, reasonable chat and hopefully things will get underway now.

There's a great deal going on these days. We should have house plans posted to an FTP site so you can see them soon. We're wrestling with all kinds of insulation, sound proofing and siding decisions, and I keep looking at the lot and wondering where on earth the house is going to go. It just doesn't seem like we can get the garage built on a slab-on-grade without bringing the house back toward the (very loud) road and away from the river.

But first things first. Let's burn this baby down!

Canine Fear and Uncertainty

In all this, the dogs have had a great deal of change to contend with: The upheaval as we packed up in Poulsbo, living in several different places at different times, handing them off to my parents for awhile, stowing them in the back of the car for hours at a time.

Through it all they've mostly been troopers. Dogs sleep a lot.

Now, we've been in the RV for a couple of weeks. We have figured out a way so they can have the run of the (falling down) house and deck, with occasional sojourns to the yard for bathroom breaks.

They spend their nights with us in the trailer, and they occasionally go on jaunts to the hardware store or to visit friends.

This has all gone pretty well, with a couple of notable exceptions.

For some reason, Quirk has decided the heating vent in the trailer is the devil. It makes noise. It sucks in air. It's right next to where he was sleeping.

So, he refuses to be anywhere near it. To be clear here, it's a small trailer. It's not actually possible to be very far away from the heating vent. After all, it's in the middle of the tiny living room/kitchen/dining room/lounge area.

He compensates by trying to sidle one hip up onto the couch when he thinks we're not looking, hoping to climb up fully onto the couch as he cowers away from the dreaded vent.

Needless to say, we're all glad to see the warm weather that lets us turn the heat off entirely.

Peach has been unflappable about the heating vent. Her nemesis has a different form: the invisible fence.

We decided to install an invisible fence for the dogs so they could have a space to run around on the lawn unattended.

This is a bit of a hassle, since it involves running wire around a permeter, securing it in the ground so it's not going anywhere, but so we can pick it up and move it when demolition begins, and it involves plugging into electricity - and you know the dilemmas with that at our place.

She started getting nervous when we started playing out the wire off of the spool, running it in a big loop around the yard. Nervous, but not completely freaked out.

Peach didn't start shaking until we put the invisible fence training flags up. These white flags are placed along the wire, so dogs have a visual cue of their boundary. This makes it easier for them to learn the permeter and avoid being shocked by their collars. Sounds good, right?

Wrong. Peach appears to associate the act of LOOKING at the flags with being shocked.

Her approach: do not leave the trailer.

Even when the urge to pee is nearly overwhelming, do not leave the trailer. Let the humans coax, weedle, even hold out food. It's not worth it. Just stay with the trailer and avoid being shocked.

Peach was trained on an invisible fence at our old place in Poulsbo. She was quite young, and even the mildest shock used in training made a BIG impression on her. She shakes and quivers when she has to go out in the yard.

The irony of this is, we can't figure out how to get power to the fence, given our current electrical situation. So, not only is she not wearing a training collar, it wouldn't shock her if she did because the fence isn't "live."

We've tried telling her this, but old habits and associations die hard.

When I pause to think about this, it's like having a big board whack me on the head while saying, "Look at the assumptions you make about things that hold you back, and push on them once in awhile!" Not that I'm eager to do this. I'm just saying there's a big board whacking me on the head.

At the risk of being trite and cliche' I'll throw it out there: What's your invisible fence? And is it really a fence, or is it just a set of warning flags? Food for thought, brought to you courtesy of our canine friends.

Out, Out, Damn Asbestos!

I started removing the asbestos tiles and mastic the same day a friend of mine pledged to be "Polly Positive" in her Facebook post.

With the help of a good-friend-former-OSHA-guy, the tiles came up with a minimum of fuss. We whaled away on the floor with scrapers and created heavy bundles of tiles, all ready to be double-wrapped in REALLY thick plastic and duct tape. Oh, yes. And he thought wearing masks was unnecessary, since we hosed down the tiles before we started. This is not what I was expecting from a former government inspector.

Then came (insert dramatic horror music here)...the mastic. This seemingly benign black layer has become the personification of evil. It is hard. It is ever-so-slightly sticky. Just sticky enough that you'd think it would be possible to scrape it up. But noooooo. Even a sharply hone chisel skids right off it, occasionally creating a tiny nick in the surface. Just enough to give you hope that if you only found the right angle, it would slice right through and peel up the gluey substance. False hope, I'm afraid.

After much online research (which at least showed me I wasn't alone in my frustration), I found a magic product called Bean-e-Doo. I call it magic because it's made of soybean oil and it basically dissolves the black mastic into a puddle of goo.

Ahhh! It was heaven. I just let the oil sit on the surface over night, came back in the morning and voila! One wipe of the squeegee revealed clean, smooth cement.

Unfortunately, only a few feet of the downstairs has smooth cement. The rest of the concrete floor was apparently spread by four-year-olds using serrated spoons. The surface is so rough the mastic slides down into the scratchy troughs as if it will still be there when global warming has run its course and mankind has perished.

The former owners apparently noticed this, and took action. First, they installed some kind of flooring using mastic. Then they took up that flooring, left the mastic, and poured on some kind of plaster-like leveling compound across the two rooms, in a spotty, unpredictable way. Then they installed another floor using a different, thick yellow mastic that doesn't respond to Bean-e-Doo. It was only then that they installed the last layer of asbestos-containing tiles, with yet more asbestos-containing mastic.

That's a long way of saying, it's been a bitch to get this junk up off the floor.

Now, as I was discovering the many layers of mastic, etc., I kept seeing my friend's post in my head: "I will be Polly Positive today." Inspired despite the many trials and tribulations, I came up with the Top Ten Things About Removing Asbestos from Our House:

10. The soybean oil solvent makes the air smell like salad dressing. (Most mastic solvents are very flammable and toxic.)

9. It builds up all those knitting muscles in my arms and hands.

8. I didn't like the clothes I'm wearing for this project anyway, and now I have a reason to throw them out.

7. My husband thinks I am amazing for taking on this project, so he's extra adoring.

6. We're saving jillions of dollars by not hiring a contractor.

5. At least they didn't tile the walls.

4. The dogs only walked across the goo-covered floor once. And we immediately washed their

paws off.

3. I've single-handedly increased Safeway's sales of scrubbies and mops for the month of May.

2. The solvent leaves my hands extremely well moisturized.

And the #1 thing about removing asbestos from our home is...

I'm finished!

That's right. The mastic is basically all removed and we're moving on to the next phase: demolition.

Electrical challenges

This is the reason we haven't turned on the electricity at the house. If you look carefully you'll see cloth-wrapped wiring at the top of the box, circa 19...20's?? They did upgrade part of the wiring at some point, but they left all the old wiring in place, making things very confusing.



There's no cover for the box (and there are so many wires it would be impossible to close a cover anyway).

The other reason we haven't turned on the power is that when it rains, the garage roof leaks and water runs down through the electrical outlets on the garage ceiling.



Perhaps we've been overly cautious. I think we're about to find out just how bad the existing electrical really is. What's the worst thing that can happen? The house burns down? We're already planning to burn it do, so how bad is that really?



Of course, we started off thinking rationally about the electrical. "The power in the house looks scary, so we'll get a temporary power pole installed," we said to ourselves. That's a separate power source that we would use during construction. It would allow us to disconnect all electricity to the house and have power to the trailer. It seemed like a great idea all around.

Yesterday these two gentlemen came to install the temporary power. They dug a very deep hole, planted the pole, stabilized it, and ran a special cord to the trailer so we'd have 30 amp power. Then Elmer, the fellow on the left, called the county to follow up on our temporary power permit application.

At this point he found out that the county will not approve a temporary power pole unless you already have an approved building permit. What's involved in getting a building permit? You need detailed architectural drawings (we're six weeks away from this), and an approved flood plain development permit (which takes six weeks to get, and you can't apply for this until you've got detailed drawings), then you need to go through the building permit approval process (another two weeks).

So while we have a lovely pole in our yard, we are still three or four months away from actually being able to have power at the pole. Which means we need to find a different way to get power to the trailer.

Which takes me back to the beginning of this post. What's the worst that could happen if we turn on the power to the house and plug in the trailer? And if we go that route, are we being brave or just desperate. Wait, don't answer that.

If things start on fire, I'll post pictures.

In the meantime, I wonder if we can get some kind of "do not resuscitate" order in place for our house so the fire department doesn't respond if it catches on fire...

Trouble in Paradise

Meet Melissa. She sure looks cheerful. Melissa works at a lab where they do asbestos testing. She's holding samples from our house in one hand, and our testing application in the other.

We had several materials that were...suspicious. The insulation in the attic was scary, since there is LOTS of it and it flies all over the place. And, I've been spending a lot of time in the attic. Breathing. Wearing a flimsy little mask, but breathing nonetheless.

I won't go into all the details but we heard back from Melissa within 24 hours that we do indeed have asbestos in our house. Darn it. Fortunately, it's not in the attic insulation. It's in the linoleum tiles downstairs AND in the mastic that helps them stick to the floor.


I've started making progress on getting the floor tiles up. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to get rid of the mastic. That's the black stuff you see under the tiles. It's a concrete floor that's thoroughly covered with mastic.

Oh, and you might notice the burgundy trim where the wall meets the floor. That's carpet. Yes, burgundy carpet used to cover this whole area and wrap up the walls. Because you just can't have enough burgundy carpet.

On a more positive note, the bluebells are up in great profusion and the flowering trees in the yard add clouds of glorious color and perfume. Spring is really here, making it hard to be anything but hopeful.
I plan to stay positive at least until we find out what it will cost to remove the mastic. We'll see how that goes, and I'll keep you posted.

Logistics

I've been recording the more aesthetic and spiritual aspects of having a sense of home, but it turns out it all comes down to plumbing.

While we now have a 5th wheel on the property, we haven't moved in yet because all systems are not yet go. We need power, water and sewer to make the place really functional. Though this seems like it should be fairly straightforward, I thought I'd share some details.

Running water
First, we have very nice neighbors. They have offered to let us hook up a hose and extension cord to their place any time we want. How thoughtful is that!

However, since they've already mowed our giant lawn twice, we're reluctant to impose on them any more than is absolutely necessary.

Now, there is already a house on the property. So one would think getting running water to the trailer would be no big deal, right? Well...picture this.

The guy from the water company comes to turn on the water at the road. So far so good. We turn on the water in the house at the main valve. We hear water making it's way through the pipes. Very exciting! It's working! Then we realize we hear a bit more water noise than we should.

Racing upstairs from the bowels of the basement we find a geyser shooting up the middle of the kitchen, soaking the thick, burgundy carpet and spraying everywhere. Much shouting, running and fumbling for shut-off values ensues.

It turns out the previous owners had cleverly removed the dishwasher and not capped off the line. After all, why would they? They wouldn't be there when the water was turned on again.

This adventure with water happened before we took possession of the house. We quickly ripped out the lovely burgundy carpet in the kitchen to reveal about 1/4 inch of mud/sand, lying over stylish parquet oak. Sheesh.

At any rate, yesterday was a blue ribbon day since I got that dishwasher line capped off properly and was able to turn on water in the house. Which caused...a riotous leak at the hot water heater. Grab the bucket to catch the leak, turn off water to the heater and drain the heater down to a level below the leak point. Phew.

It's official: we now have running cold water in the old house and we can hook up a hose to the trailer. Why do we care about running cold water in the house? Because...

Sewer
...it means we have somewhere to go to the bathroom.

Now, there's a perfectly nice (though tiny) bathroom in the RV. We're just not sure what we're going to do when we fill up the waste tank. And, there's now some concern that the tank might be full of solidified gunk anyway. This is based on talking with other trailer owners and thinking about what the sellers told us. It may not be true, but we're concerned. So, we're doing anything we can to keep material out of the waste tank.

Longer term, we hope to get a cleanout put into the sewer line in the yard and then hook up the trailer to that. However, there's some concern that the trailer is too far away from the exisiting sewer line for that to work very well. Another reason to minimize waste.

On the upside, in addition to indoor toilets in the old house, we're two blocks away from a gym. Can you say "warm showers"? I certainly can.

Power
We are not turning on power to the house. No way.

When we first bought the house it was raining. Inside. Dripping down through the electrical fixtures on the ceiling. Kind of a neat effect if you don't mind being electrocuted.

It's dry inside now so maybe we're being paranoid but really - what are the odds the electrical is safe to turn on after five years of roof leaks? Also, they were a little free with their staple gun when they secured the wiring so there are several scorched spots where the wiring meets other materials - like the wood floors.

Our plan is to get a temporary power pole installed. We'll need one anyway for construction, so it's not a big deal. The last quote came in yesterday so I'll get an electrician lined up soon and PG &E approved a big area where we can put the pole.

All of which means we're well on our way to moving into the trailer. I've moved in my knitting books and removed the horrible cabbage rose bedspread, so it's already feeling more like home. Now if I can just figure out how to get the cable hooked up...

The 5th wheel

After getting stuck in the soggy front yard several times, the 5th wheel trailer we'll soon call home is now in place.

At the moment, it seems surprisingly spacious. The big windows in back help, and the living room and dining nook (picture miniature versions of whatever's going through your mind right now) slide out to form a wider space.

Shopping for one of these was quite a trick, mostly because of Brian's height. I kept making him lie down on all the beds of all the trailers we went into. Eventually he started saying, "This could work. No, really, I think this could work," even when his feet stuck off the bed by 3". He'd gotten used to having them stick off the end 6", so the improvement was marked.

With this trailer, he just sticks off the end of the bed about an inch and I attribute that to his wearing tennis shoes. Surely we'll be able to make this work, as long as we don't thrash around too much. Otherwise, someone's going to end up with a black eye. Hopefully we'll get the hang of this pretty quickly.

Aside from having to coax the trailer out of giant divots in the lawn, the next biggest surprise was that the former owners had left many useful items in place. Like...silverware. A corkscrew. Plates. Mixing bowls. Pots and pans. Bath towels. A charming cabbage rose bedspread. And best of all, a coffee pot.

This makes me ecstatic because I have no idea where we would find those things in our boxes and boxes of stuff that is still spread out across two states and five separate locations.

That sounds like it would be stressful but it turns out I don't really care about knowing exactly where everything is. I need to know where Brian and the dogs are, and my computer. Best case, I can also locate a toothbrush and a good book. Other than that, it's just not that big a deal.

On another note, we're starting to talk with potential designers and I've been haunting building material salvage yards all over town. We're getting close to starting the fun part!

A Sense of Place...?

When we first moved down to Portland, we lived with my husband's parents briefly, then moved in with some extremely kind and gracious friends, and their octogenarian mother. They didn't seem to mind that we had tons of stuff and two dogs. And they had two dogs. And three of the dogs are big. And they all like to run around together. Fast. On wood floors.

At first, it was really disorienting to move into someone else's home. We were encouraged to make the house our own, invite friends over, etc. So, we really moved in. Undies in the drawer. Toothbrushes in the holder. Art on the walls and books on the shelves.

We were treated to gourmet meals and a housecleaning service. We quickly adapted to having a commercial espresso machine at our fingertips. And we learned to pick up after ourselves and keep everything but our own room tidy.

It still felt weird. Like reverting to childhood where your room is your sanctuary and the rest of the house is your parents' domain. It was hard to feel comfortable cooking in someone else's kitchen. I mean, what if that salt I used was the last of some special salt from a rare sea that ran dry in 1893? I would feel terrible.

It felt weird not to wander around naked looking for my glasses. (Now I wander around in my robe looking for my glasses.) And it felt weird to virtually always have someone else around the house. It turns out I get very stressed out by not having some time each day to be completely by myself.

The dogs, however, acclimated quickly. If anything, they're happier sharing space with other dogs and humans. Their sense of place seems to be defined by where their dog bed is, where the food container is kept, and meals on a regular schedule.

It turns out, they don't even need us. We shuttled them around for two weeks before settling in with our friends, then we sent them off to stay with my parents for a week while we went to Hawaii. They did great! Loved it. Why? They had their dog bed and they knew exactly where the food container was at all times.

Personally, I'm not sure of my human equivalent to doggie beds and Scooby snacks. Privacy and aloneness are important pieces. I need to be outside of anyone else's thoughts and space, so I can fully tune in to how I'm doing and what I care about. I find I can't do that very well unless I'm completely alone.

That's a good thing to know before building a new house. I wonder what it would cost to add an isolation tank to the unfinished basement...

Out with the old (house, that is)

One of our first challenges was figuring out whether or not we could save the existing house. Responses ranged from enthuastic about making some slight modifications (replacing the roof, scraping off the mold and taking down the mirrors that were hanging EVERYWHERE), to mockery at the idea of trying to make it work. (Thanks, Dad.)

Once we got expert advice about the cost of bringing the current structure up to snuff versus the cost of new construction, we had to face the sad fact that our 1920's bungalow would need to go.

Which brings us to an interesting dilemma. This being Portland, there are lots of "green" options. The greenest is probably the DeConstruction Service provided by the ReBuilding Center. This service takes buildings apart piece by piece, by hand, and recycles/resells/reuses every last bit possible. They run site field trips during this process to teach children about the benefits of salvaging building materials. They bring in the media to highlight their good work. They pay "living wages" to their workers and any profit goes to support their program supporting communities in need.

The blackest option, and I mean that literally, is you can have your house burned down as part of a local fire department's training program. I've gotta say, the idea of watching this structure of mold go up in smoke is pretty appealing.

Somewhere in between falls the option of demolition, with some salvage and recycling happening around the edges when the materials make that worthwhile.

While I would like to say the moral dilemma of all this weighs heavily on me, I've got to be honest. This is going to come down to money and risk. The "green" option, as is often the case, is likely to be the most expensive. The "black" option is likely to be cheapest since it will leave the least debris to be hauled away. Both let us feel good about making a contribution to the community, though obviously one carries a lot of emotional baggage about contributing to global warming. But, hey! The firefighters here don't fight a lot of structure fires. I don't want them out of practice when the real thing hits. It's a selfless move, really.

On the risk side lies...asbestos. The fire department requires an asbestos survey of the property and abatement if asbestos is found. So, we have a dilemma. What if we do an asbestos survey and it turns out there is asbestos? Then we have to take care of that (which adds expense - sometimes a LOT of expense), before doing anything else. If we go the straight demolition route, we don't have to risk finding asbestos and being required to abate it. At least, that becomes the problem of the demolition people. And they're trained professionals, right?

This is still a hypothetical discussion of sorts, since we don't yet have bids back from the demolition and deconstruction people. I'll let you know how this all works out.

Welcome

In the fall of 2008, my husband and I reexamined our lives, sold our house, moved to a different state, bought a house, then figured out we needed to tear down that house and rebuild from scratch.

Along the way we've dealt with a job loss, family judgement and disappointment, moving out of one home without really knowing where we're going to sleep at night, and in the new home, lots and lots of mold. And maybe asbestos. We hope not. We're afraid to find out. Did I mention the mold?

Since that's all happened in the first few weeks, it seemed worth keeping a diary of sorts as we build a new life together, in a new place.

WARNING: In this blog you will read about the challenges of balancing financial pragmatism with environmental responsibility. You may be offended by some of the choices we make. That's fine. We may not be too happy with some of our choices either. Then again, we may just have a different perspective and priorities. Feel free to share your thoughts on our progress and vent where you feel the need.