Hawaii "Owner-Builder" Construction

📐 Second half of July, 2024 🔨
Framing continues

This is the first avocado from the big avo tree on the Avocado Plateau for 2024. It seems a bit early, actually a lot early, usually the avos show up after school starts which is still weeks and weeks away. This particular avo is kinda small, but it is the first one so they will get bigger further on in the season.

The water tank corner hasn't changed a whole lot, we're still waiting on getting the utility trench organized. (The same big white pipe is leaning up in the same place, even though it's several days later) Hopefully, soon the trench will be approved and we will be able to fill in the trench and get on with some landscaping.

Floor joists across the under lanai area. It may become sort of a "carport" for lawn mowers and bicycles and such. I don't think an actual car - unless it's a very small one - would fit under here. It's a nice sheltered area, especially since the lanai above it will have a roof. There may be some ventilation coming through the lanai floor and it pretty much directly faces the prevailing winds so it should stay relatively cool in this area. It's all just foundation area though, not official house space.

The construction is almost up to the main floor level. Everything so far has been below the floor. Excavations, concrete foundations, concrete walls, drainage, gravel, fill, etc., etc. All of it so far has been below the main floor level. Even after the big 3/4" tongue and groove plywood subfloor 'floor plates' are installed, it still won't quite be the finished floor level. That won't show up until the finish oak flooring is installed. Which is still a long ways away. But, we're getting close to finding the basic main floor level.

Same day as the previous picture but from the other corner. The foundation is now pretty much set into the hillside. The level of the back yard should be pretty much level with the interior main floor. The yard will, of course, slope away from the house, but not by much. The little tractor is sorta parked across the end of the carport.

The past several days have been installing floor joists and backfilling against the wall between the Waipio side lawn and the lanai.

Nick and Ethan are walking along on the tops of the floor joists measuring to make sure things are square. When I asked Ethan if they ever fell, he said with a bit of a grin, "we're trained professionals, of course not!" They are very careful, though, I've noticed, so it doesn't seem terribly unsafe. It's also eight feet or less to the ground. Once they get up on the roof, then they'll have ropes and safety gear. Soon the floor plates will be on the joists, then it will be easy walking even for us 'non-professional' sorts. I've not ventured out onto the floor joists even though they make it look easy.

This will eventually (we hope) be a nice lawn area. Some sort of short grass, there's a few varieties which stay short. NOT Guinea grass! Nor bamboo grass, elephant grass, Reznor grass or any of the other species of insanely tall grass we get around here. Maybe some sort of mondo grass?

The front third of the lanai will have a glass railing between the lawn and lanai. The middle third won't be high enough to require a railing, although we may have a hedge or planter or something at the edge just to keep folks from walking off of it. The back (mauka or mountain side) third will be flat to the lawn and we will be able to walk off and on easily.

It had just begun to rain before the picture was taken (although Ethan is still working, he's either waterproof or doesn't shrink in the rain). The lawn area is sort of in terraces, although I don't know if there will be official walls between them or not. There are a few stacked rocks in the more vertical area, but that may only be a temporary thing. Depends on how it goes, I suppose.

The same glavanized water tank panels may be used here on this corner as well, although they would be lower than the Hilo side. The foundation is set into the hillside although it's offset so each side is at a different level.

July 18th & 19th, 2024
Subflooring!

This view is from near the lychee tree which is the mauka Waipio corner of the project. This was July 18th and 19th. Nick & Ethan have been putting on the subflooring so it seems like huge progress is happening. There has been huge progress happening pretty much all along, but it isn't always as visible as flooring. The subfloor is big plates of 3/4" tongue and groove plywood and will eventually be covered with 3/4" thick oak flooring, but that won't be for awhile - not until it's roofed over and watertight.

July 18th, part of the subflooring installed

July 19th, all of the interior subflooring is done! Yay!

The first of these four pictures is from July 18th, the next three are from July 20th although Nick & Ethan installed the floor plates on the 19th. They managed to get them installed in the middle of two days of pouring rain, too!

Installing the subfloor is the beginning of the house beginning to feel like a house in some respects. Prior to this, it's all been clearing the work area and foundation work which doesn't really give much of a feel for the finished structure. Now we can stand out on the edge of where the living room will be and see what the view will be like. I don't know if we will be able to actually see Maui or not, some trees may be in the way. Great views of the ocean and the weather over the ocean, though.

In other construction news this week, we did pass the inspection of the electrical trench so now that can be filled in. It will be nice to not have to walk across boards over ditches. There will still be a utility ditch for the water supply and an enormous hole for the septic, but we're not even thinking about that yet.

The view from the Avocado Plateau. It looks like the final floor level of the living room will be pretty much the same level as the Avocado Plateau, which is what we had hoped for, although to get between the two, there's a driveway in the way which is significantly lower than either. Oh wellos!

It has rained cats, dogs and small mongooses (or should that be "mongeeses"?) for the past two days and especially last night. The front lawn area didn't wash away so that's a great thing! There's some areas of ankle deep muck in what looks like nice gravel areas (fortunately I was bare-footing so no shoes were lost), but once it's packed down it should become much firmer. Gotta run the digger around and make stable flat spots, that'll be a fun project.

July 24th, 2024 We had some heavy metal panels used to make culverts. Since we want to keep erosion away from the lower corner, we're putting the metal panels around it it in hopes of keeping the soil in place.

This is four days later, July 28th. We're pretty slow workers.

Looking down from above, the curve of the panels is much more apparent.

This is pretty much the final height of the wall although we hope to add a few feet of soil in front of it. We're running out of soil to backfill the walls, so we may even have to bring in a few loads of soil to get the ground back up to the level it was when we started.

Leveling off the erosion control wall with the lower foundation. This keeps all the foundation at the same level.

Final Finishes
still a bit early, but starting to think about them

Thanks to Craig's List,- (hmm, or was it FaceBook Marketplace?) - anyway, Rossini used his super power and acquired this solid oak flooring. Three quarter inch tongue and groove solid oak. Prefinished in "Breezy Gray", kinda a driftwoody sort of color. There is enough to do the whole house so solid oak "Breezy Gray" flooring it is. Actually, perfect and way upscale from vinyl! Since the floor is a huge expanse and not a color we could easily change, we will use the Breezy Gray as the primary color to factor in when choosing everything else.

It's still pretty early on to pick colors and finishes, but we did need to know what the finish floor will be so the floor joists can be set at the proper level. So far, the plan is to have this oak floor everywhere, although we may want something else in the wet areas such as the kitchen and bathrooms. Not sure what, though.

Really hard surfaces, such as tile, marble, ceramic, granite, etc. are really rough on dishes, celly phones, people or anything else that falls on them, so we're opting for softer finishes when possible. The wooden oak floors on wooden joists (which have a lot more 'give' than concrete floors) will be very much easier and kinder on hip and knee joints as we age. Which is also why no steps up into the house. Thirty years from now, or even next week if I sprain an ankle, I don't want to be going up steps to get home.

It's not just the floors, there's other surfaces to consider as well. Not sure what the kitchen counters will be made of, but something somewhat soft, I think. I'm thinking old school Formica counter tops or the Wilsonart version, which is basically Formica by another name. With perhaps a wood bullnose on the front instead of the usual Formica edge, although they have some new shaped edges which replace the old school kind with the black line where the two edges meet.

This is Wilsonart's "Gray Glace" on the left and "Titanium" on the right. They're stocked at our local hardware store so they'd be easy to source. So far, I'm leaning towards the "Titanium", although I've not checked other sources for other colors of Formica/Wilsonart. These were just from a quick trip through the local hardware, there's probably other options available on island somewhere.

Laminate counters are old school, but they won't break dishes, they're available without expensive importing and they should look nice. The kitchen counters here in our old house are Wilsonart's yellow "Cracked Ice" and were installed in 1953. Along with the requisite chrome (it's actually polished aluminum) trim. They've held up well over the past seventy years, so Wilsonart/Formica counter tops would be good for the new house, too. Surprisingly enough, they still even sell the same Wilsonart yellow "Cracked Ice". It's listed online at Home DePot - HOWEVER, they for some reason which they don't mention - won't ship that particular pattern to Hawaii. They stock about a hundred different patterns and will only ship about 2% of them to Hawaii. For some unknown reason the Cracked Ice colors have the dreaded "Will Not Ship To Hawaii" tag on them. Hmpf! Well, we've not made any real decisions yet and we probably wouldn't have actually chosen the, hmm, let's call them the 'vibrant' colors of their "Cracked Ice" laminates.

Zebrawood Veneer plywood
kitchen cabinets?

We also already have twenty six sheets of three quarter inch ten-ply plywood with zebrawood veneer on both sides. Some of the sheets have a reddish/gold/brown stain on one side and unstained wood on the other side.

These may become the kitchen cabinets, they may become the stairway, they may become bookshelves in the library. Not sure where they will be used, but kitchen cabinets are pretty high on the list.

Hopefully, the kitchen cabinets will be built in place. Cabinet units sourced from Home DePot or Lowe's and then installed in a house are sheer rubbish. Why build a house that will last for hundreds of years and then use flimsy cabinets? With this plywood available, I will try making kitchen cabinets. Should be a fun project. Of course, the hard part will be determining which color of stain will go along with the "Breezy Gray" floors and the what-ever-color Formica/Wilsonart countertops.

Well, it's still early on to be making any final finish decisions.

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