tankless and tiles

Well, another week has passed, and too quickly, it seems. Many details were dealt with, and a lot of rain fell, but only two things seemed worthy of photos for the blog. First, Pam finished tiling the balcony and got the grout on (except for 3 tiles - she ran out). It's a big deal!

Second, I got the rest of the plumbing finished (inspection next Tuesday), including the tankless propane water heater. Can't wait to try it out. I suppose it is just like the ones in Europe and Japan, but still, it is a different thing for here.

We did start laying out boxes for the wiring, and we have the electrical permit in hand, but that will be next week. Stay tuned.

The disappearig containers

We had a busy, productive week, with many things happening sooner than expected - which is good, for the rain is coming. Among the things accomplished, and not in any specific order, are that the windows and doors in the ends of the two (container) bedrooms arrived a week earlier than expected, so they got installed. The appearance of the house changed completely.

Next, Consumer's Power showed up a week earlier than expected, so there is now power to the house!! yippee, but no pictures. They just had to come and pull wire through the conduit and connect the panel.

Pam got lots more shingles put up on the North wall. Lots of detail and patience.

I cut out the inside hallway into the lower bedroom. I used up several abrasive cutting disks and had a lot of pinpoint burns on my arms (they go away quickly).

I installed an urbanite (broken concrete) porch. Just in time for the mud!! And notice that we put in the main entry door/window. I was going to wait in order to avoid possible damage, but seeing that the rains were coming, I decided to put the big doors in while the weather was still good so I wouldn't be working in the mud. What a concept!

Finally, there are no pictures of the plumbing rough'-in or of the new chimney cap or the framing for the downstairs bedroom closet. but it all happened.

gatargoyles

We made some progress this week, as you can see. First I must report that 2 gargoyles have started roosting on the edge of the balcony. We hope that you will recognize him if he should stray. Pam hasn't quite finished the tile on the balcony, but the gargoyle doesn't seem to care.

Next, we got most of the windows in (finally). The large one is for the dining/living area, and inside it offers a window seat for those who want to sit in the sun(?) and read.

You can also see some of the final earth color coat of lime plaster that we applied. At least we think that this is the final coat.

Finally you can see Pam and some of her work which lately has been putting shingles on the upper story surfaces that will not get a lime plaster (like the upper portion of the straw bales). She is enjoying using her creativity.

more lime renders

So this week we made many seemingly small, but significant, changes. We started laying the tile up on the balcony, but we won't post a picture till there is more to see. We also connected the water line that goes inside the house, and added a hydrant style outside faucet. Mostly, we got all of the first and second coast of lime render on the walls, which is a bid deal to us. And, before it rained!!!! The best mix seemed to be 5 shovels of hydrated lime to 8 of clean mason's sand. Seems like a lot of lime, but the mix acted best when applied that way.

roofline

To end the week, glossing over many of the things that we did, I enclose a shot of the western roofline so that you can get somewhat of an idea of what the finished product will look like. Bear in mind that much of the back (north) wall will be buried under a berm, along with part of the west wall. Stay tuned for whatever happens next week.

stair well and natural cooler

Two more things that happened were, 1: we cut part of the lid out of the 40 and opened up the stair well, where we inserted a double 2x8 14 ft long to act as the newel post, and then I finished connecting the 12 inch culvert that will (hopefully) bring cool air in from the small wooded draw, both to cool vegetables as well as to provide some cooling for the (few) warm days.

door removal and thin slab

At the same time that Keith was putting the metal lath on, Solid Ground (electrical contractor) and Pioneer Telephone arrived (magic co-ordination) and put in their cables, etc., so that we were able to fill in the trench. Meanwhile I cut one of the doors off of the upper container (the only way to remove one) and then poured the thin slab on what will be the balcony. The slab was poured on top of a sheet of container siding that we cut out of the 40 footer when we opened up the living room.

lime plaster

So it has been a very busy and productive week, with many changes. To begin with, our friend Keith (he lives near Liverpool) showed up on a surprise visit and was looking for something to do. So, of course!!!! First he finished the trench to put our water line in, and then began putting metal lath over the bales in preparation for the lime plaster. We have used chicken wire on other occasions, as well as the wire lath, and the lath works better for the lime plaster. If it were a natural mud plaster, the chicken wire would work fine. Then he and Pam began applying the first of what look to be 3 coats of plaster.