A meandering blog with no clear topic. You will find me talking about knitting, building, kids, social and economic issues, Alaska, and lots of other stuff.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Everything that has a beginning...

has an end, Neo.

Seriously, this is my first post, and I am not sure what the etiquette is for starting a blog. I guess I wanted to start a blog because I think some of the things going on in my life are interesting, at least to me, and I want to talk about it. And since my coworkers and friends sometimes seem to think I am a little wacky when I start talking about the stuff I am really interested in, concerned about, or doing, the internet seems like the best place to express myself, since I am pretty convinced I am not the craziest person on the web.

OK, so...

We are building a house. We bought the land at auction from the State of Alaska last summer. Couldn't homestead, since homesteading ended a few years back. In 1986, to be precise. But we are doing the next best thing. We have a relatively small payment for our land, and we are building a house.

Now, when most people say they are building a house, they mean they are paying someone to build their house for them. Not so in this case. No contractors, no subcontractors. WE are building it. My husband, myself, my 12 year old son, and 7 year old daughter. My 4 year old son likes to think he is helping too. Mostly he drives his Tonka frontloader and dumptruck up and down our new driveway. He helpfully digs holes in it too :)

We actually at present are building our "first house". We are building a small (24' x 28') cabin with a loft to live in while we build our house. I am determined that we will be living in it by the time school starts. My husband is convinced that it will take a little longer than that to get it done. I, however, will not concede defeat until Monday, August 20, the first day of school, if we are not living there. Until then, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. My husband says I should mention that he is a carpenter (and I am not), so therefore he is right. According to him. :)

So, what we have done so far, is put concrete posts in the ground, run beams between them, and floor joists between the beams. Then we put OSB down for the floor. This was finished last weekend. This weekend that just went by, we stood up 2-1/2 of the 4 exterior walls. We plan to finish this job on Wednesday, since it is the 4th, and we are both off work. I will try to remember to post pics.

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