December 2024
🔨 📐 Framing Continues 📐 🔨
still slogging along
December 1st, 2024
Waipio Side View
It's getting towards the end of the year and December is sort of a "feral" month. Work really slows down and even ceases for at least a week. So, there will only be one entry for the month of December
We're still in framing. It's pretty slow since most of it has been done by just one person.
Flat, Level & Dry!
(well, eventually, It's still not waterproof yet)
The back of the house has got it's "bones" pretty well complete now. It's still not waterproof since it's just the roof decking without any covering.
The big pile of lumber in the front of the picture is the decking for the side lanai. We need to paint them all before they get installed since it's pretty difficult to paint the cracks in a lanai deck. Also, it's easier to paint boards when they're laying flat than to paint them overhead. The bottom of these decking boards will be the roof of the under lanai area so painting them now will be a lot easier than painting them later.
The big pile of boards inside the carport posts are Nick's concrete form boards, they'll move out eventually once his next job is ready for them.
Hilo Side Back Corner
"mauka Hilo corner"
There's been some fill brought in front of the house, but we still need to fill in for the new drive along this side. Probably one to three loads of soil/rock followed by a load of gravel. That'll be an upcoming project.
Eventually, we would like to be able to drive through the carport and go down the other side of the house. That will save from having to back and turn the car around. We're trying for "easy" in everything possible.
Crow's Nest Lanai
(you still need to be a crow to be comfortable there)
The Crow's Nest Lanai is still at the stage where you have to be a crow to be comfortable there, but we hope for more progress soon. It's pretty spooky at the moment.
Access to the Crow's Nest Lanai
It's still a bit spooky to even get to the Crow's Nest Lanai from the inside of the house. The catwalk is four feet wide, but the railing isn't there yet so it's spooky to walk across it. The railings will be wires strung through posts, although there will be a solid top rail so that will make the walk much more comfortable.
Looking back from the Crow's Nest Lanai
From the Crow's Nest Lanai the view will be across the catwalk and into the sewing loft. It will probably be a multi-purpose loft, part sewing loft, part guest room, plus anything else that ends up there. The door at the other end of the loft goes out to a sundeck on top of the carport roof.
From the Front Door
(still need decking on the lanai)
This is the view from the front door, the white floor joists are the front lanai and obviously, the lanai floor decking is still not installed. Looking to the right as you enter, there will be the big half circle of the dining area and looking into the end of the kitchen. Looking forward will be the living room with the catwalk above, but I don't have a picture of that handy at the moment.
Mauka entrance to the lanai
There's still a lot of wall bracing in place, although with the roof on, they're not really necessary anymore.
Mauka Waipio side of the house
This is the public access side of the house. The front door will be on the ocean (left) side of the lanai. The lawn will be brought up level with the lanai floor between the first three posts on the carport end of the lanai (the right end). So, starting from the carport all the way past the dining room half circle, you will be able to walk directly from the ground onto the lanai. The front door is over at the ocean end of the lanai.
Mauka entrance to the lanai
one week after the previous picture
Starting at the carport end of the lanai, it opens up nicely as you walk. The idea is to sort of expand the view as you walk. There's sorta enough boards there now that we can test this theory. So far it's just been "on paper", it is interesting to see how the front door access feels in real life.
Walking onto the carport end of the lanai, the entry is at grade with no steps. One goes from a gravel drive (maybe cement at some point?) and then walks along the decking and the lanai constricts and gets narrower as one reaches the dining room bumpout. The lawn will be brought up level with the floor eventually.
Past the Dining Area Half Circle
Going past the dining area's half circle, the lanai opens out and feels expansive. Almost like a transition space. It's subtle, but I like it. Hopefully, it will be even better when the decking is down and the front walkway continues the path.
Roofing!
Ross on the Roof!
Ross spent a whole day prepping the roof for the sticky paper. He set up the safety rope, pounded all the nails down and swept the whole thing. It's a big roof!
Ross on the Roof
(the view isn't too bad)
We had some nice dry days that had ocean breeze and not too much sun so it wasn't a bad day for hanging out on the roof. Pretty good view from there!
Ross AND Eddie on the Roof!
We have some incredibly nice neighbors! Eddie who lives next door helped Ross put the sticky paper on the roof. It's some sort of almost but not quite tarpaper stuff. Very sticky on one side and pretty much requires two people to install it. They did an awesome job!
Hopefully, once we get this house done, they will come over and help us play board games and eat pizza.
Lanai Decking!
Ross Painting the Lanai Deck
it's a huge stack of boards
The lanai decking used up more than five gallons of primer to get them ready for installation. It took rather longer than we expected. Lay out a few boards (maybe we should build some more sawhorses?) then paint the boards. Let them dry, turn them over, paint again.
Painted (but not yet installed) Lanai Decking
Once it got painted, it was put under the lanai roof to keep it dry. Plus to get an idea of how it would look. Although, I suppose it was a bit in the way when Nick came back to fasten it down.
After the first week to ten days of December, Nick was doing family holiday things for most of the rest of the month so we didn't see much of him. While construction was taking a break, I built a new bunny hutch. With construction, there's all sorts of scrap lumber left over so I didn't have to buy anything to build the hutch other than the wire for the floors. Amy and Clover are living in the new hutch now. Hopefully lots of new baby bunnies this upcoming year?
Building a Bunny Hutch
Ross had been building window frames on this table, but since he was taking a break from window frame building while waiting for the glass to show up, I took over the table for bunny hutch construction. There will be a whole section about the new hutch over on the bunny hutch part of this website, but I haven't written it yet.
Making room in the container
We had stuff stashed in a storage locker in Kona and since there's now a container here on the construction site, it seemed a good idea to relocate all the construction stuff from the storage locker to the container. It's mostly fancy plywood for the kitchen cabinets, but we had to make room in the container first. The septic tank isn't that heavy but it's pretty awkward to move around because of it's size.
It lives!
This is a cutting of the Meahalani rose that was originally from a plantation camp house garden in Ookala, then at our house in Ookala, then at our first house in Honokaa, then the second house in Honokaa and now here. Hmm, we missed putting a cutting at the Little House, guess we will have to sprout one for over there at some point? Kinda like we're leaving a trail of rosebushes?
In any case, the little rose is blooming. It was just a cutting snipped off a rose bush and jammed into the ground along the edge of the culvert tin at the Hilo makai corner of the house. I stuck three or four of them in there, two of them took. Woot!
The source of the rose cutting
This is the bush that the cutting was taken from and you can see the house in the background so the new cutting has only migrated about fifty feet. But, the more roses the better. This one is a pretty red color, thornless and smells nice. It also grows without any fussing whatsoever.
If you like, you can send us an email and ask about bunnies, yarn, Hawaii things, what we should have on our webpage or just about anything else.