Wildlife?

Jasmine and I came across some prints on our morning walk this week. Second shot looks like it might be from a turkey (that's my handkerchief folded on the ground to try to give some scale, about 4-5" across).

Long Distance View

A lot of the leaves are off the trees so the view to see the house from the approach road has improved.

Shop Siding Continued

I've continued to work to get the siding on the workshop, all of the siding is up and the battens and trim have been completed on the front and back. Took some time to get the plywood up in the soffits but making steady progress. We plan to spend a bit of time in Romney for the Thanksgiving week so hope to get both ends completed while we're there. Here are a couple of pictures.

You can see the extension ladder and it's not a fast process to put up one board at a time- for the battens, I was able to nail on 4 of them before I had to move the ladder, a lot of up and down but it's going well. The winds were really strong today so decided to call it a week and head home to Leesburg- too strong to be spending time holding plywood on a ladder!

BTW, I used the same 1x12 rough sawn wood for the horizontal siding around the garage doors. Used a router to make a rabbet on the edge to create the overlap. Plan now is to get the rest of the wood in place and then to put another coat of stain on the entire building in the spring- all the wood has at least one coat of stain so should be good until then.

Exterior House Pictures

Here are 3 pictures that show all four sides of the house now that it is completed, we're really happy with how it turned out and can't wait to move to Romney full time. You can see the firepit in the third picture ready for cold mornings or evenings. Thanks to all the folks at Custom Contracting and Snowy River Log Homes for their efforts and attention to detail as they built our home.

In the meantime, there are plenty of projects (list seems to get larger each week) to keep us busy. Now that the fence is in, we can spend weekends and extended holidays in comfort while we work on the projects. Will try to update this blog once in a while with progress, thanks to all for looking. Please feel free to comment or email if you'd like.

Shop Siding Started

We're using board and batten siding on the shop/garage building and have started getting this put up. I'm trying to put a couple of coats of stain on the siding to match the house before I install it- plan will be to do a final coat or at least touch it up once all the siding, soffits, and trim work is completed.

Pictures show the progress, the front and the back were relatively straight forward, siding is in 10' lengths on these sides and up to 16' on the ends. On the lower portion of the building around the garage doors, I'm going to use the same siding horizontal for the lower portion- I'll put a rabbet in the bottom of the siding so it can overlap a bit for water protection, hope to start that portion next week.

The final set of siding boards were stained this week and ready for install. You can see that the terrain and height of the building on the ends makes a bit of a challenge, especially working alone. A few years back, for another project, I installed a set of levelers on my extension ladder and they have worked well. Basically, the two legs work in unison using a ratchet mechanism so that when one leg moves up, the other moves down to end up with both sides of the ladder firmly placed on the ground. You can see the extensions in the fourth picture if you click to enlarge it. I'm going to put up all the siding before I start on the trim and soffits- the last steps will be to put on the battens to cover the vertical seams between each board.

The last picture shows the jig I'm using to set the siding on the ends of the building, this is attached to the wall with screws at the appropriate level for the bottom of the siding boards. I can set the board on the jig holding it steady and level with one hand and then put a couple of nails in it with the nail gun. From there, just a matter of setting and climbing the ladder to finish nailing all the way up. I can put up 3 boards before I have to remove the screws and move the jig to the next section.

The gap at the top of the ends above the vertical siding will have horizontal siding just like on the back. Had to do this because I could only get 16' siding boards locally and didn't want to have a seam to cover with trim.

All in all, we're moving forward. I plan to install electric and insulate the shop over the winter months and hopefully will have the outside done before the weather turns bad.

Yard Fence Completed

Now that all the work has to be done ourselves, no construction crews involved, progress has slowed but we're still moving along. The first two priorities were to get a fence in place and to get the siding on the garage/shop.

Here are a few pictures of the completed fencing for the yard. We're now able to bring the dogs to the house and let them roam a bit in the back yard. All the wood is from a Leesburg neighbor (thanks Kathy) who had some red oak trees taken down which I milled in to 1x6's for the fence rails and gates. Turned out well and focus has turned to the siding.

Generator and Final Inspections Completed!

Our log house is officially complete! The building inspector made his inspection on Wednesday and only had a couple of minor items he asked to be changed- final occupancy permits are to be issued to us right away! On Tuesday, the propane company had been to the house to install the regulator for the propane service to power our cook top and generator.

While waiting for the inspector to come to the house, Dave T. (electrician) completed the hookup for the back up generator and ran it through a test. Everything went as planned. The unit senses the loss of main power to the house and after about a 10 second wait, the propane fired generator starts up and then switches to power the house circuits. While the unit is providing power to the house, we're automatically disconnected from the main power feed. This is a safety issue so that none of the power from the generator is showing up on the main power lines where someone might be working. Once power restores, after a short waiting time, the generator shuts off and switches back to the utility power.

The unit will also test itself weekly but running for a few minutes without actually switching the circuit to power the house, this way you'll know if something should go wrong. We figured having a back up was a good idea given we're the last house on about a mile long electrical extension that in the event of a widespread outage, might be a low priority for restoring.