just one revision.

Sorry for the delay; I've been slammed lately and honestly I was trying to put together a video for the next post but it's just pictures for now.

A busy week on the mountain and busy week elsewhere.  In just one week, we got a new niece [Kiera], I got promoted at work and we've got a roof on the house.

[Sheathing on the garage Monday; shingles by weeks end?]

[Taping the seams and sealing the envelope.]

[His/her closets leading toward the bath.]

And here comes our first, hopefully last revision - as you'll see in the picture below, the carpenters have completed the first run of stairs.  To the right the treads is the kitchen and to left is the pantry.  Things just didn't seem to flow right; we'd have to walk out of the kitchen to get a potato or fetch the bag of chips.  So we thought about it and I called Aaron at Structures.

[Current stair configuration.]

My first concern in the revision was $$$ and my other was delays; how much was this gonna cost us and how much would this set things back?  Nothing, except materials of course and Aaron even said Jim might work on it today.  [In the picture above, the new pantry will be located were the current stairs are.]  Since the stairs were built, all they would have to do is move them; upstairs I'd lose 12" of my "his" closet.  Ha, Steph wasn't giving up an inch ;-)  Aaron had a sketch to us by the end of the day and it was a done deal this morning.  Also, we'll be picking up some built in shelves in the kitchen, as a result of the revision.  I think Steph was pretty excited about that.

garage, walls, seals and ccc road

Another action packed weekend on the mountain.  The rain cleared up last Tuesday and it took a couple days for things to dry out, but the walls upstairs and the garage are well underway.

[Its taking shape.]

On Saturday, Dad stopped by to help replace hydraulic seals on the loader; they were in dire need of repair.  By 6:30 pm, we had things wrapped up and he was on his way.

[A before shot; nasty, leaky mess.]

I squeezed in a couple hours road grading and ditch digging Sunday afternoon - all of the rain we got last weekend really did a number on the road.  If I can get the ditches dug and cleaned, drainage shouldn't be a problem for at least a couple years.  This makes the perfect segway for some interesting history about our road:

Labeled as CCC Road in Thaxton, VA, our private road is also known as Flat Top Mountain Road.  CCC Road was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) either during the 1930s or early 1940s.  As many of you already know, Franklin D. Roosevelt formed the CCC to provide employment for young men in relief families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression while at the same time implementing a general natural resource conservation program in every state and territory. (Source: Wikipedia)  The CCC was broken up into roughly +/- 1400 camps that were scattered across the country.  Each camp was assigned separate types of work projects; anything ranging from forest protection to wildlife management.

Although I've exhausted my research efforts online, I have reason to believe our road was established in an effort to protect the forest and prevent fires.  One of my neighbors often rides his four-wheeler by when I've been on the mountain.  As he passed one day, I flagged him down for a visit.  He pulled to a stop with a big smile and we started talking.  It turns out that close relatives of his were CCC enrollees and they had all worked on the construction of our road.  [I'll have to take some pictures of the culverts, its impressive; all of the rock appears to be chiseled by hand and stacked.]

So you would think that this would mean our road is public, right?  Wrong.  The CCC was known to do a quite a bit of work on private land even though the majority of their projects were performed in our state parks and national forests.

If you'd like to learn more, please reference Wikipedia for more information on the Civilian Conservation Corps.

two floors and a puddle

The walls are going up, but the rain and wind has been pelting the mountain over the past couple of days.

I got a call from Jim with Structures this morning - he told me there was a large tree across the road blocking access for our delivery truck.  While we were on the phone, he said the delivery truck had chained to the tree and was already pulling it out of the way - you gotta respect that kind of dedication; I just wish I had some photos of it.

Also, Jim mentioned that even though the roof isn't up everything is intact and the site is draining properly.

[A view from the driveway.]

[The garage will come later.]

[Mudroom, half bath, and closets.]

[Looking at the front door.]

[Kitchen and stairs to the left.]

[A wet guest bedroom upstairs.]

[Master bedroom; to be continued.]