Framing Complete

It has been too long since our last post, and a lot has gotten done.

First came the sub-floor:

  

Then the first floor was framed:

Front of House (west)

South Side

Back (east)

North Side

Here's an interior view from the kitchen looking at the entry and front room.

This might be a little redundant, but here's pictures from close to the same spot after the second floor was added, they're in the same order as above:

Standing in master bedroom looking into master bath.

I'll post again after the trusses and ceiling are finished. 

How Firm a Foundation

 We have a solid foundation….  As we had the excavation going on, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a Primary song – TheWise Man and The Foolish Man.  The jist of the song is the wise man built his house upon a rock, it rained, and the house stayed strong.  On the otherhand…the foolish man built his house upon the sand, it rained, and the floods washed the house away.  Living on the coast, you can pretty much only build upon the sand.  Still, they say our foundation is nice and strong.  

Here is a lovely shot of the forms before the foundation was poured....  I'm standing in the garage.

Here is another of the foundation. 

 We do have a little problem with the garage.  We were told by two people at Adair that our garage would end up lower than the traditional Adair home.  Adair likes to have no steps into the home - ours would have at least one, if not two.  Our excavator also told us that based on our lot,  we would end up with a lower than 'Adair Homes normal' garage - to decrease the driveway slope.  This is our garage/driveway.  

Notice that it looks like it sits up about a foot higher that it should.  That's because it does.  It is higher than the other Adair homes in our neighborhood!  We were told it was the way our floor plan was designed, and it would cost us money to 'engineer' it to be lower.  We are working on fixing this because I DO NOT want a driveway with this much slope!  After speaking with some people in the know, we found out Adair should have informed us of this higher than normal driveway and at the very least given us an opportunity to make a change.  I would have gone with the smaller floor plan just to get a normal slope to my driveway.  

Oh - here is the driveway 'head on'.  Ignore me - Brandon didn't tell me I was in the picture when he took it.  

The framers are at the house today.  While we hope they get started, they may have to wait to fix the driveway issue.... Plus, after the last 3 weeks of amazing sunny weather, today it decided to rain.  Of course - now we have wet lumber.  Timing...

Home Is Where the Heart Is or something....

We took the plunge….we decided to build a house. 

So, here’s the basics of how this will work.  We bought a lot using a construction loan.  Adair Homes is going to build our home. Then we will pay Adair for our home with our mortgage.  Adair works with you to build your home.  We have to do some of the work – like excavation and painting.  We picked out the floor plan first.  Then, we decided on which options we would like to pay extra for.  Yeah, you have to pay for a garbage disposal…  We had a few musts - central air, the dark stain on the kitchen cabinets, Brandon's Christmas light plugs in the eves.  We also got to pick out things that were not extra cost like the cabinet color(within their choices, which we didn't like and upgraded) and door style, cabinet knobs, molding, shingles, and flooring.  This helped us with the building process.  We didn’t have to search thousands of samples to decide something like shingles – we had 3 choices we didn’t have to pay extra for(or upgrade, as Adair likes to say).  Yes, this won’t have all the features of our dream home, but this home will still be better than buying what was available in Newport.  It will be new and ready to move in.  

We did have a little problem with the property:  We wanted the house as far north on our lot as possible.  We found out there was a drainage easement that made us build 25" from the north property line.  Then, we had to build 15" from the front property line, which was more like 25" due to the 10" city easement for sidewalk and 'stuff', and 10" from the back property line.  This left our house fitting within 6/10 of an inch.  Tight fit.  We did get the drain pipe installed, so we don't have to worry about anyone building behind us and wanting the pipe installed later. 

Here is the lot as we purchased it. (Looking northeast.  The area to the left is higher than the rest of the lot.  Our neighbors in back are up higher, so hopefully they won't 'look down upon us'.  That's funny cuz he's a minister)

This is during excavation…. (northeast corner/east side of yard)

 Here is the lot after excavation (looking east)……  The area on the left will be the garden area.  The wall in the 'back' is our backyard area.

Nice retaining wall!

So we have a retaining wall in the back, and one started along the north side.  The lot is such that we have a higher section of land on the north side of the property.  We decided to keep it higher so we can plant a garden and still have the sun hit it (it's high so the sun can sneak over the house).  We won't get that wall completed for a while.  They need to use of the left over dirt to fill in a section and make the garden area a little larger.  Because our house fits within 6/10 of an inch, we will not have much of a backyard.  We plan on using the area 'above' as the backyard.  We also will have a nice front yard, which Brandon calls his area to throw the ball around.  I wish the lot was larger, Brandon doesn't want a yard, and so we went with what was available.  It was the largest in the subdivision, if you think a 10th of an acre is large.  We do have plenty of beach around if we need a place to play!

We should have a foundation soon.  Then it will be about 3 months until the house is done – another good reason to build with Adair.  They have this to a system so it takes less time to build.  There is an older couple building right now.  They have a smaller house, but they have all the walls up, and they started about a month ago.  We are hoping we get the house done before we go crazy in our more than ghetto apartment.  No, really.  This place is disgusting.  We won't show picture cuz we don't want to remember it....

Coastal Winter

Christine and I spent the end of December through the end of April in an old home in Depoe Bay.  We had an ocean view and occasionally we saw whales.
Here's some views from our bedroom window:

One Morning I woke up really early and saw this.

One morning I woke up not so early and saw this.

This was looking out the window of the upstairs studio:

One thing we found interesting was how close the fishing/crabbing boats got to the shore around here.



At night the lights from the boats would sometimes shine into the house and light up the living room.  That made it a little difficult to watch TV, but it didn't happen very often.

The sunsets were awesome, too.  You can see a boat way off in the distance as a small speck of light.

We were also cat-sitting the whole time.  My favorite part of the house was probably the cats.  Here's some pictures to prove it:

Hello - anyone out there???

Brandon told me he would take care of this, but I forgot that he started working and probably doesn't have time now.
So I'll update with the Christmas Letter

In June Brandon was hired on with Central Lincoln PUD.  This meant a move 2 ½ hours southwest of Portland to Newport, Oregon, a small coastal town.  It’s been a change with stores closing early and no mall….but it is nice to be in a slower pace.

Brandon does love his job.  He is not a practicing attorney, but part of his position includes writing power contracts and negotiating power rates.  Brandon travels to Portland monthly, and was able to attend training in Chicago in August. 

Christine ended her 5 years with Home Depot.  Thankfully Home Depot did not carry out their plans to build in Newport.  She took a few wonderful months off while looking for a job.  In October Christine started working for Central Oregon Coast Association and Oregon Coast Visitors Association, both non-profits promoting tourism. 

We would love to have visitors.  This area is just gorgeous and a shame if you never show it.  But, if you decide to come, make sure it is summer – unless you like winter storms.  We included a page of pictures from the area to persuade you to come.  Just let us know and we’ll get the spare room ready!

 

Winter Holidays 2009

     OK, I know every day is a holiday for me, but I'm talking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.  Christine and I stayed in Portland this year.  She couldn't really get work off and as long as I’m not working, we don’t really have the funds to travel.  Though after I start working, I ironically might not have the time off.  

     We had Thanksgiving with the Hines family, however I got to spend some time in California with my family just before.  Christine’s mom makes awesome turkeys and great pies, so it was a nice Thanksgiving. 

    We also had Christmas  with the Hines.  Because I haven’t found work yet, we couldn’t really afford to buy each other Christmas presents, so we had a $5 limit.  Christine chose to buy some fabric and make an Oakland Raiders apron with matching hot pads.  For graduation, Bronson got me a pillow with a Raiders pattern, and Christine used the same pattern for the apron and pads.  It is awesome!  Although she didn't spend much, it was a very nice gift.  (I didn’t get much, just a simple thing for the kitchen.)  I really needed an apron because I keep cooking since she works and I get grease splatters and I hate ruining shirts.  Also, the Bishop from our church, who knew how difficult things were for us dropped off a food basket with a little extra in it and that was a great help.  Thanks to any who read this and helped with that. 
    To welcome the new year, we moved to a new crappy one bedroom apartment at the end of the year.  Our new year's resolution is to live within our means.  We couldn’t afford to live in our old place if I wasn’t working.  At the end of the lease, since I hadn’t found a job, we moved to a cheaper place so that we could live within our means.  The new place isn’t as nice, but it’s closer to Christine’s work, more central to stores and things, and much cheaper.  Moving is a hassle and I hated it, but I think we are finally done now that it's February.    
    Other than that, nothing changes.  I still can’t find work, but at least Christine has a job.  We’re still poor and I still need a Playstation 3 so I can spend my time being productive by progressing in video games rather than applying for jobs!

Celebrate No More Studying

I will post for the foreseeable future since I am the one with all the free time. That means this post will be less humorous and quirky, though more dry and pedantic. Awesome.

We celebrated my finishing the bar by driving to LA and taking a cruise to Ensenada. It was the most cost effective vacation since the cruise was cheap and it included meals and lodging and we could spend some time in LA while staying at my Grandma's.

Of course the first lunch we had in LA was at Tommy's, the best place in the world. We took my grandma and visited her sister. We also visited the 99¢ Only store (the only good dollar store) where I got some weird, possibly expired candy, which is my tradition.

My friend James and his girlfriend Nikki took us to Balboa Island and Newport Beach so that I could give Christine the Brandon Childhood Memory Tour Part 4. We got some frozen bananas, walked around, and ate dinner at Mutt Lynch's. Then we played a few hours of Rock Band at James's house. Rock On.

The Carnival Paradise was our home for the remainder of our vaction. It was fun and somewhat relaxing, though not as fun or relaxing as I remember my first cruise being. Each night we were welcomed to our cabin by a different towel animal, a Carnival tradition. We also participated in the cruise tradition of keeping our bellys constantly full: including a hot dog and chili fries everynight at the midnight buffet for me and a perpetual ice cream cone for Christine. I payed for the food, so I'm gonna eat as much of it as possible!

In Ensenada, we found a Home Depot (Christine just can't get away) and saw the Bufadora, which was more active than I'd ever seen it. The carne asada tacos we bought from a street vendor were delicious, but would have been better with a delicious beverage - after walking up and down various shady streets, I was unable to procure a glass-bottled Pepsi to accompany my tacos. No ceviche was consumed; I didn't like it last time, and it scares me. I probably won't take the Ensenada cruise again, but it was fun to share a fond college memory with my wife.


When we got off the boat, we visited the Long Beach Aquarium since it was right there and walked around the nearby shops and marina. Of course for lunch, we could not resist an opportunity to consume more delicious Tommy burgers and chili-cheese fries. Apparently we just can't punish our bowels enough.