Phase I Complete

We set out on our recent set of activities to get the Bardominium completed on the exterior.  We accomplished that goal plus also completing the very large planter along the front of the Barn.  Also, we have the camper trailer now safely parked inside the Barn and we'll be using the Barn as our base of operations for all activities during Phase II.  We'll be doing planning on the interior architecture for a few weeks now, along with slowly doing some of the electrical wiring for the garage portion of the Barn as well as setting up for the wiring of the house, once the interior framing is done.

Here's a couple of shots of the exterior, all cleaned up and tidy.

After getting the exterior of the Barn in good shape, I spent a few hours removing some of the dirt from the north side of the building and putting that in the driveway area to build it up a bit.  There's too much dirt on the north side anway, and that excess will provide good fill for the driveway.  We'll get that dirt moved at a later date.



The final few activities of Phase I were to get our camper trailer from our daugther's house over to the new garage.  As you can see from these few shots, the trailer fits extremely easily within the garage with lots of room all around for the truck and lots of other storage.

And before saying goodbye to Casa de Christie and our Texas property for a few months, we got the shop and tools all organized and clean so that when we return to another pile of lumber on the porch, we are ready to start to work immediately on Phase II.

Until then, our family and friends will be doing electrical work and getting things ready for the next phase of intense activity.

Hi Maria

This post is a quick shout out to our friend and neighbour in Australia, Maria.  While we've been doing all the work the past three weeks, Maria has been looking after our house and cats.  Thanks Maria!

Finishing Work for this Trip

When we arrived back from our trip to Minnesota, we went immediately to the new house to see the work that had been done on the planter along the North side.  In these couple of pictures, you can see the first "wall" of the planter (the wall closest to the house) has been completed.  We had a small toast to this progress as it was obvious that this pla nter will become one of the features of the Barndominium and, although not part of the work plan for Phase I, certainly is one of the activities we are most please with.  Here's the pictures:

We've had a very productive 2+ weeks.  It'll be 3 weeks by the time I'm done but the majority of the visible work is done and can be seen in these pictures.  It's hard to believe that only a few weeks ago, we had a bare plot of land here and since, have improved the road to the building site, built a well, created the site for the building, poured the slab and erected the building.  Over the past two weeks, we've enclosed the "house" portion of the Barndominium, put in all the doors and windows, sealed and fixed everything to the metal building and slab and finished the painting.  The functional and decorative part that we didn't plan on doing until we were here and saw the site and what it needed was the very large native stone planter all across the north face of the building as well as 12' down each side.  That work now provides 76' of planter box (it'll take awhile just to fill it with dirt).  That'll enable us to have a wide variety of plants and vines along the east side where the morning sun is strong on the patio and some on the west side where the evening sun is really strong.  Also, there's good protection on the north side in the case of an exceptional storm in terms of providing a wall to prevent water from coming down the hill and getting up on the deck.

Also, electricity has now been pulled through the ground into the building and work is started on wiring the inside so that the next time we arrive, it'll be home sweet home for us, even though there is all the internal construction remaining on the house.  At least we'll have the camper trailer inside the barn, connected to the power, water and septic systems.

you can clearly see the planter box across the front and the west side.  Also, note the sandy color of the HardiPlank and the Periwinkle blue trim around the windows and door.

The size of the planter is more visible as well and the blue trim.  While we won't get it done on this trip, the next trip will involve putting shutters on the edge of the windows.  These shutters will be the same blue color and will add a lot more "blue" to the building - a nice contrast to the color palette of the land, trees and the building.

A good panoramic view of the west and north sides of the house.

A final view looking across from our daughter's house to the Barndominium.

Exterior Almost Finished

After a number of days of incredibly hot weather, we've gotten to the point of having the exterior almost finished.  All the Hardi Plank is installed and some caulked.    This picture shows Julie and I doing some of the HardiPlank installation.  It actually goes very well with the fixture that goes with the planks.  If the bottom and second course are installed very level and properly, you can then use the fixture (as seen in this picture) to install the subsequent courses.  As a result, the planks are installed in a very level fashion and fit beautifully.

We're leaving for a couple of days to visit other family in Minnesota (and hopefully cooler weather).  That will be a welcome break from both the 10 hour days and the 100 degree heat.  Here's the status as of today.

Julie's doing a little clean up along the front of the house.  That area on will be built up with a large planter box - some of which will be done while we're gone to Minnesota.  You can barely see some of the sample stone in the left middle of the picture.  The entire 52' front plus 12' down each of the east and west side will be where the planter goes.  I'm eager to see how much progress they make while we're gone.

We also went and procured all the electrical equipment and lots of wiring (much more expensive these days) to bring power into the Barndominium.  That should also be well underway while we're gone.

We are very grateful to all the family and friends who have helped us get to this point in 9 days on location.  We'll have a week when we get back to get the final caulking done (the color you see is just the primer) and get the final painting done on the house.

Building the Barndominium

We've been here in Texas for a week now and are making substantial progress on the Barndominium.  The first day here was spent setting up the shop in the garage portion.

Notice the open walls.  That's where we'll be building out the walls starting tomorrow.

Going from having the sticks up to getting everything absolutely secured from the slab to the steel beam above the studs took another day or two and then we put up the sheathing and weather coating.

So now it's starting to look like a real house.  The windows are in.  The door is not and the final weather protecting paper isn't installed at the top of the sheathing, but the following day, it's all ready for putting the final covering on - the Hardi Plank.  Here's a picture just prior to Hardi Plank.

Finally, here on the 4th of July, we worked about half a day starting the Hardi Plank.  Here's the fruits of our labors:

 A huge thanks to Joel (second son) who spent the better part of the week with us.  Without him, we would never have gotten this far nor would we have created something as sturdy and attractive as we have.  Thanks Joel!

The next couple of days, we'll be completing the Hardi Plank.  There's caulking to do and then painting the exterior to match the building.  The colors now (a brown and an unattractive yellowish color) are only the natural primers on the Hardi Trim and the Hardi Planks.

It's been a very vigourpous week and a day.  The last two days  have been pretty easy - fairly much a half day on Sunday and the 4th, but it's back to full days tomorrow and Wednesday.