My sweet (7-year old grand daughter), Destiny was here all last week and we completed the footers, removed the footer forms and are ready for the foundation walls to be poured next week. From the air, you can see that we had to bend the house to fit it on this small lot (.81 acres). The shape to me either looks like a big Gingerbread Man (as in Shreck the movie) or an arrow pointing us in the right direction!

We had to order 50 tons of gravel to place around all these footers. Thats a bunch of rock! Here is a little 1 minute you tube movie of the gravel delivery.

I have been having fun with consulting with kitchen designers and flooring consultants. I have no estimates from them yet but it sure is fun to look! I have no clue (and will probably be shocked) what their bottom line will be.

I have gotten window estimates. We have 50 windows and some are a set glass (large ones next to the fireplace). All of the estimates are all pretty similar but I have had to read up on the reviews between Anderson, Pella, Lincoln and Jeld-wen windows.

We continue to enjoy this beautiful lake! This photo is our cove from the air showing the airstrip. You can see our property about in the middle of this photo right on the runway.

Today we harvest honey and Monday we pour walls.

Last week’s rain gave way to sun as we hoped and prayed for a few dry days to complete the footers for inspection.  This is  the mucky mess last Saturday morning (just 4 days ago).  But we pumped the water out and began working.

 

While Jack and hearty neighbor, Steve, started framing the footers, I went to Raleigh to pick up our seven-year old grand daughter Destiny to come spend a week with us. She has been a great help.  At seven, kids want to be helpful and she loves to hang with us!

 

She learned new construction terms like rebar, chairs, stakes, and support.  She learned to stay away from power saws and pneumatic nailers. OH!! My aching back from wiring the rebar to the chairs!

This photo shows today’s completed work — AND WE PASSED our first INSPECTION!!

These frames show where the concrete support footers will be poured (hopefully tomorrow).

In the meantime, we have both gotten our Virginia Driver’s Licenses and new Virginia plates.  While getting inspections done, we EACH ended up getting $450 worth of repairs on our vehicles.  The auto shop has a deal that they reject you, then they tell you how much it will cost to fix said rejected items, then they pass you, and take your money!

Check out our personalized tags.  Jack’s is the Pietenpol “N” number and mine is a bit of pre-marketing.

If there is a lull, we gotta harvest some honey. We have the labels but now we gotta rob the bees!

It has rained five straight days since we dug the foundation.  Since the dig, we haven’t been able to do much more on the house.

We sure are enjoying our porch as we watch the evening showers, wondering when our mud hole will dry up!  Check out this one-minute video of our view!

But we aren’t sitting still; on to other things. Jack finished wiring the workshop complete with six electrical outlets (four plugs each), one light switch, and an overhead ceiling fan.  I painted the doors and trim work.  Our little patio shed is almost complete.  We are planning an airport progressive porch dinner for August so this will be perfect!  More photos once my potting bench is done!

I have been working on a children’s book and found an artist finally in June just before we moved.  She has been producing some amazing art!  Here is the cover that she just finished.  Note my name is Karen Phillips when I am a writer!

The other thing we are doing is getting at least three estimates for each job and there are a lot of jobs in building a house!  I am trying to keep track of them all!

Life goes on in out hangar home!  Let us know when you are coming to visit!

 

Bedford County approved the Building Permit so we just had to celebrate (again)!

As soon as we walked out of the county office building, we called Jared Jones, the excavator.  So now we are really committed to this project; and I must say, it is exciting!  We couldn’t wait, so Jack and I started digging and got most of it done with just a shovel.

Just kidding!!!  Jared arrived at 7 am this morning ready to dig.  Beating the heat is the name of the game these days!  Note the temperature midday in the photo!

Jared says that this dig should take a day and a half but he has been working diligently on it for 5 hours so far.  After that, setting the footers will come next!

Thanks for celebrating with us!

Last week was the longest 4th of July week in history!  It was a great week, but with the 4th falling mid-week the public celebrated from June 29-July 8th!  It seemed someone grabbed the fireworks opportunity every night!

Since our building permit is still under review, we took the opportunity to take a mini-cation and do a little research.  We located a fly-in Bed & Breakfast in northern Pennsylvania right next to the NY border.  Oz’s Homestay is in the middle of no where but they run a sky diving school and have a wonderful 3000 foot grass strip.

We flew in our RV-4.  It only took 2 hours to get there from SML.  Take a look at the website and you will see the beds that Ash has hand made.  He is a native Australian (thus “Oz) and also is a wonderful cook!  We picked his brain about the operation.  Planning to spend two night and without wheels, we decided to fly somewhere on day 2.

Jack and I flew to Buffalo, NY where Rob and Kathy (Pietenpol buddies) picked us up and we all toured Niagara Falls. I had been there in 1976 but is still always powerfully amazing!

We arrived back safely to a much cooler temperature in Virginia!  This week, I have a job interview and we are completing the roof of the shed.  We are gathering estimates on excavation, foundation work, and HVAC systems.  I am keeping a large easel pad with notes (how like me) to keep up!  Jack has it all detailed in a “Project Management” software but it is 135 pages so we haven’t printed it.

Today, I travel to Blacksburg to pick-up Mom and wrestle her to the dentist.  Oh, Joy!  Stay tuned and stay cool!