Slackers! That’s us! We haven’t been very good about keeping up on our blog this summer. And we found out from the few people who actually read this blog that they check on it every so often for entertainment purposes and we’re letting them down. Shoot! I don’t know where the time went. Here I thought we’d come back to Colorado and have ample time to fit in everything we wanted to do. HA! Reality has set in and it doesn’t quite work like that in the real world now does it?
Let’s see. I haven’t posted anything since June when we built our shed. A lot has happened since then. That same weekend that we built the shed, we acquired a trailer that someone on the ranch wanted to get rid of. It was a huge POS…really old, but we thought it could at least serve as a kitchen if we could get the refrigerator to work and maybe give us shelter in really bad weather. Well we picked it up and hauled it very slowly and cautiously over the few miles to our property hoping that it wouldn’t fall apart on the ride there. It made it just fine, but we were not very excited about it when we realized it would take a lot to get it level and usable. It smelled like mouse pee on the inside and it felt cramped compared to the tepee. We tried to overlook those things and went ahead and hooked up a propane tank to see if it worked. The stove and lights worked, but the refrigerator did not. Kirk pulled it out to inspect it and found a huge dead rat that had died inside the flue. Gross! Taking the refrigerator out uncovered a load of rat poop that was under the appliance and inside the cabinet space. It was soon spread all over the camper floor as we tried to clean that space up. It gave us both the heebie jeebies. So we left cleaning the floor for later and focused on leveling the trailer out. We accomplished that and actually used the stove once to heat up water, but we were just too grossed out to continue using it since we didn’t feel like cleaning it out any further. Then Kirk found a leak in the gas line and decided to just set up our camp stoves and camp tables in the shed. It turned out to be a nice little set up that we liked much better. So then the trailer sat untouched and became our little eyesore.
Back in May we were trying to decide a path for our lives and set some priorities. We found it wasn’t easy. Redefining our lives again after 2-1/2 years of being gone seemed so overwhelming since we just didn’t know which direction to go. Too many choices maybe? We eventually made a decision to rent an office in Buena Vista at the BV Professional Center. We thought this option would give us a place to start up our business, JK Mechanical Design, again and have a high speed internet connection. Actually I think the internet was our real priority at the time. It was a great decision because it helped us establish a routine and focus on getting our business and our lives established here.
Every Monday morning the office building is cleaned by a very nice man and his son. Somehow in conversation we told him about the trailer. He said that he would love to take it off our hands. We were shocked and pleased at the same time so we told him he could come and pick it up whenever he wanted and it was his. He called us later that same afternoon and asked if he could pick it up that evening. We were ecstatic! We really didn’t want it anymore since we hadn’t used it and lacked the motivation to make it clean and usable. We became worried about how we were going to get rid of it and along came someone who seemed to really want it. Yea! We came home that evening relieved to have it gone. It was a pleasure to come back to our pristine property once again. I think we owned it for about 2 weeks total and that was enough.
We found that this house building process is very difficult. We thought we would come back to the states and start the house in the summer and have something to move into by the fall or early winter. Well it didn’t exactly go that way. We kept getting input about our floor plan from several different people. This ended up being both a good and bad thing. Every time we thought we had made a final decision, we found that we second guessed ourselves based on other people’s input. It was good though because eventually we filtered through it all and figured out what we want. In the meantime though the summer passed and we didn’t make much progress. We finally had our well drilled a couple of weeks ago which is something. They hit water at about 60 feet but drilled to 100 feet so that we could get the maximum flow on our well permit which is 15 gallons per minute. Unfortunately the drill rig tore up our land a bit which we weren’t too happy about, but I guess that goes along with the construction process.
The next step is to finish digging the 8 foot deep soil test hole where our leech field will be. We also have to stake out the house and put up our address post. Then we can call the Environmental Health Department to come out and do their site inspection. After that we’ll be issued our septic permit and driveway permit. Then we have to submit our final house plans to the building department in order to receive our building permit. We’re hoping to get our plans submitted in the next couple of weeks so that we can possibly break ground in October. We’re not sure how cold it is going to be and if that will hinder the process so we’re just trying to remain flexible and play it by ear. If worse comes to worse we’ll wait until spring to start construction. We are going to try to start next month though because we also have the opportunity to use a friend’s heavy equipment (excavator and skid steer) for an entire month for the same price we could rent the equipment for a day at a rental shop.
The original plan was to build a strawbale house, but after further research we have decided to use stacked concrete block instead. We recently met some folks who built a strawbale house and they said it was like working with insulation all the time and not very pleasant. I have an allergy to hay anyway, so it probably wasn’t the smartest idea for us in the first place. It also will give us more interior space to have walls that are less thick (bale walls are about 16” wide as opposed to concrete block which are 8” wide) and concrete block has more mass which is better for passive solar purposes. Any ol’ joe shmoe can stack concrete block too since it’s a technique doesn’t require a lot of skill. That’s a good thing!
We also had talked about building a garage first and living in it over the winter. It would be a smaller structure to build and serve as practice before building the house. Well, we found out that is not allowed in Park County. Our property is just on the other side of Chaffee County where they actually do allow you to build a garage first and live in it which is where we came up with the idea. Park County requires you to have a minimum of a 600 square foot main structure first before building any smaller structures. So we have had to revamp our plans as we got further into the permit process. It’s not a bad thing though because we currently have a solid direction to move in now that we are fully aware of the requirements.
Needless to say we’re learning a lot in this whole house building process and I’m sure that will continue as we proceed into the construction. We are hopeful though because we recently met two different couples that have built their own homes and didn’t have any prior experience. They were one of the few people that actually told us ,“Yes, you can do it all yourselves, except you probably want to sub out the drywall to someone else”. The majority of people look at us like we’re nuts when we tell them that we plan on building our home ourselves…meaning doing the labor ourselves and not just GCing the project. But it’s not the first time people have given us that look nor will it be the last. You should see the look on people’s faces when I tell them we live in a tepee. Or when we said we were going to the South Pole for the first two years of our marriage, or when we said we were going to cycle across SE Asia. We’ve come to believe that when people think we’re crazy we’re actually doing the right things. It’s very comforting to meet other people who are like us and can testify to achieving the same goals that we are going for even though they may be the minority.
Let’s see. I haven’t posted anything since June when we built our shed. A lot has happened since then. That same weekend that we built the shed, we acquired a trailer that someone on the ranch wanted to get rid of. It was a huge POS…really old, but we thought it could at least serve as a kitchen if we could get the refrigerator to work and maybe give us shelter in really bad weather. Well we picked it up and hauled it very slowly and cautiously over the few miles to our property hoping that it wouldn’t fall apart on the ride there. It made it just fine, but we were not very excited about it when we realized it would take a lot to get it level and usable. It smelled like mouse pee on the inside and it felt cramped compared to the tepee. We tried to overlook those things and went ahead and hooked up a propane tank to see if it worked. The stove and lights worked, but the refrigerator did not. Kirk pulled it out to inspect it and found a huge dead rat that had died inside the flue. Gross! Taking the refrigerator out uncovered a load of rat poop that was under the appliance and inside the cabinet space. It was soon spread all over the camper floor as we tried to clean that space up. It gave us both the heebie jeebies. So we left cleaning the floor for later and focused on leveling the trailer out. We accomplished that and actually used the stove once to heat up water, but we were just too grossed out to continue using it since we didn’t feel like cleaning it out any further. Then Kirk found a leak in the gas line and decided to just set up our camp stoves and camp tables in the shed. It turned out to be a nice little set up that we liked much better. So then the trailer sat untouched and became our little eyesore.
Back in May we were trying to decide a path for our lives and set some priorities. We found it wasn’t easy. Redefining our lives again after 2-1/2 years of being gone seemed so overwhelming since we just didn’t know which direction to go. Too many choices maybe? We eventually made a decision to rent an office in Buena Vista at the BV Professional Center. We thought this option would give us a place to start up our business, JK Mechanical Design, again and have a high speed internet connection. Actually I think the internet was our real priority at the time. It was a great decision because it helped us establish a routine and focus on getting our business and our lives established here.
Every Monday morning the office building is cleaned by a very nice man and his son. Somehow in conversation we told him about the trailer. He said that he would love to take it off our hands. We were shocked and pleased at the same time so we told him he could come and pick it up whenever he wanted and it was his. He called us later that same afternoon and asked if he could pick it up that evening. We were ecstatic! We really didn’t want it anymore since we hadn’t used it and lacked the motivation to make it clean and usable. We became worried about how we were going to get rid of it and along came someone who seemed to really want it. Yea! We came home that evening relieved to have it gone. It was a pleasure to come back to our pristine property once again. I think we owned it for about 2 weeks total and that was enough.
We found that this house building process is very difficult. We thought we would come back to the states and start the house in the summer and have something to move into by the fall or early winter. Well it didn’t exactly go that way. We kept getting input about our floor plan from several different people. This ended up being both a good and bad thing. Every time we thought we had made a final decision, we found that we second guessed ourselves based on other people’s input. It was good though because eventually we filtered through it all and figured out what we want. In the meantime though the summer passed and we didn’t make much progress. We finally had our well drilled a couple of weeks ago which is something. They hit water at about 60 feet but drilled to 100 feet so that we could get the maximum flow on our well permit which is 15 gallons per minute. Unfortunately the drill rig tore up our land a bit which we weren’t too happy about, but I guess that goes along with the construction process.
The next step is to finish digging the 8 foot deep soil test hole where our leech field will be. We also have to stake out the house and put up our address post. Then we can call the Environmental Health Department to come out and do their site inspection. After that we’ll be issued our septic permit and driveway permit. Then we have to submit our final house plans to the building department in order to receive our building permit. We’re hoping to get our plans submitted in the next couple of weeks so that we can possibly break ground in October. We’re not sure how cold it is going to be and if that will hinder the process so we’re just trying to remain flexible and play it by ear. If worse comes to worse we’ll wait until spring to start construction. We are going to try to start next month though because we also have the opportunity to use a friend’s heavy equipment (excavator and skid steer) for an entire month for the same price we could rent the equipment for a day at a rental shop.
The original plan was to build a strawbale house, but after further research we have decided to use stacked concrete block instead. We recently met some folks who built a strawbale house and they said it was like working with insulation all the time and not very pleasant. I have an allergy to hay anyway, so it probably wasn’t the smartest idea for us in the first place. It also will give us more interior space to have walls that are less thick (bale walls are about 16” wide as opposed to concrete block which are 8” wide) and concrete block has more mass which is better for passive solar purposes. Any ol’ joe shmoe can stack concrete block too since it’s a technique doesn’t require a lot of skill. That’s a good thing!
We also had talked about building a garage first and living in it over the winter. It would be a smaller structure to build and serve as practice before building the house. Well, we found out that is not allowed in Park County. Our property is just on the other side of Chaffee County where they actually do allow you to build a garage first and live in it which is where we came up with the idea. Park County requires you to have a minimum of a 600 square foot main structure first before building any smaller structures. So we have had to revamp our plans as we got further into the permit process. It’s not a bad thing though because we currently have a solid direction to move in now that we are fully aware of the requirements.
Needless to say we’re learning a lot in this whole house building process and I’m sure that will continue as we proceed into the construction. We are hopeful though because we recently met two different couples that have built their own homes and didn’t have any prior experience. They were one of the few people that actually told us ,“Yes, you can do it all yourselves, except you probably want to sub out the drywall to someone else”. The majority of people look at us like we’re nuts when we tell them that we plan on building our home ourselves…meaning doing the labor ourselves and not just GCing the project. But it’s not the first time people have given us that look nor will it be the last. You should see the look on people’s faces when I tell them we live in a tepee. Or when we said we were going to the South Pole for the first two years of our marriage, or when we said we were going to cycle across SE Asia. We’ve come to believe that when people think we’re crazy we’re actually doing the right things. It’s very comforting to meet other people who are like us and can testify to achieving the same goals that we are going for even though they may be the minority.
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 4:58 AM
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