The First Half of October 2024

🔨 📐 More Roof Decking! Yay! 📐 🔨

Hopefully Less Rain Inside
(still gets lotsa drips, though)

October 1st, 2024

Looking up from the Hilo side driveway

This has become a typical view, looking up at the house from the Hilo side driveway. Probably because it's the easiest way to walk up to the job site from the house we're living in below. Look up, take a picture and continue on up to the jobsite. This area is supposed to get a lot of fill, but it hasn't shown up yet.

The main ridge beam is up, but it doesn't really seem like there's a lot of support for it quite yet. As the decking gets installed more towards the front, the front wall framing will be installed, no doubt.

Looking out from the loft

This picture is from the loft area looking towards the ocean. The main ridge beam is in and staying up in the air, but it still needs a LOT more framing on the front wall. We're still working on the final window sizes so it's been difficult to figure out exactly how the framing should go.

Looking towards the ocean from the catwalk

There will be a window on either side of the doorway. Just a fixed glass window, nothing that opens since it would be hard to reach it. The door goes to the Crow's Nest Lanai, which isn't framed in yet, either. It will be rather high up in the air, I think we will have to put a really sturdy railing around it or it will be too spooky to hang out on. It won't be all that big, though, and we probaby won't be able to use it all that much since it will be out in the weather. We may be able to see Maui from it, perhaps?

Looking Down from the Catwalk

There will be a view of the dining area from the loft and catwalk. The half circle extends out onto the lanai area so it will segment the lanai into the front (ocean side) windy half and the back (mountain side) sheltered half. All of the back half of the lanai will have the lawn right up next to it and less than a step down. The part of the front lanai will be level with the lawn and part of it won't.

Some of the boards going across the picture are temporary scaffolding boards. Nick just kinda builds a personal catwalk where ever he needs one. Then he romps across them carrying boards and doesn't look nervous at all! I get up to the edge, look over it timidly and then decide that maybe going across his catwalk boards may not be quite the thing. It's only eight feet to the floor and I'm sure the fall wouldn't hurt, but the suddon stop at the end would be way less than pleasant.

October 2nd & 3rd, 2024

Side View from the Workshop

This picture is from the side of the workshop looking towards the new house. Usually, the pictures are taken from behind the work shop or in front from the avocado plateau. But, every once in awhile, pictures are taken from different areas.

The sheet of roof decking ( 1/2" plywood ) stuck at the end of the lanai is on a "helper rack" that Nick built. Since he's pretty much building it by himself these past few weeks, he has a lot of different tricks for solo working. There's a little wooden jig for holding up the other end of the fascia, this plywood rack for holding the boards up to him while he's on the roof and a whole lot of other methods he has for going solo.

HPM had a Paint Sale!
The colors are now known!

For some reason, our local hardware store, HPM ( Hawaii Planing Mill ) has been having some 90% off sales. Not sure why, something about new vendors or inventory clearing or some sort of thing, but 90% off! One of these sales was on paint, so we now have enough paint to paint the entire interior, lacquer for the interior trim and cabinets and a whole bunch of other miscellaneous things. Brackets for holding the stairway handrail, door stops, door knobs, etc., etc., etc.

These aren't the exact colors I may have chosen given more time to consider as well as a full option of base paint to work with, but at 90% off, they're great colors. The base for lighter colors wasn't on sale so we had to go a bit darker, but it will be good.

The green will be for the kitchen, back hallway, possibly one of the baths? Probably the back bedroom as well. Basically, the mountain side of the house.

The blue will be for the living room, sun room, maybe the side room ( library? Office? Spare bedroom? Guest room? All of the above? ). Not sure what color the loft will be. Other than these two colors, there's also a five gallon bucket of a grayed out lavander. Kinda a bluish mauve, if that description helps any? That bucket showed up before the big paint sale, it was from ReStore or Craig's List or somewhere. Might be a good color for the loft? The main bedroom? One if not both of the baths? We will figure it out once we get to the painting stage.

In any case, we got most if not quite all of the paint for the house for $150. That's a serious markdown! We now haunt HPM every time we go to town and hope for another 90% off sale.

Other than their lovely clear-the-inventory sales, we've been using HPM for almost all the building supplies. They have good stock, good service and good prices and are close by. What's not to like? They are also locally owned and help take care of our island which is another huge plus. Any time we buy anything at a big box store, the money immediately flies off the island and goes to a mainland corporation. HPM has to stock a lot of mainland supplies, of course, but they do a lot to help take care of the folks here. Plus, they are part of the folks here.

October 5th through 11th, 2024

Front View of the House

Very similar to the October 1st view but much better weather. A little bit of sunshine can make almost anything better.

Some new roof rafters, more roof decking. There's some floor decking on the catwalk, but I think that's just temporary decking. Slowly but surely, things are progressing.

Back View of the House

The back view of the house is getting filled in. Still no carport roof, but most of the siding is on. The doorways and the bath windows are cut out but the two upper windows on either side of the upper door are framed in but not cut out yet. There's still roof decking extending past the roof edge. Nick likes to install things and then cut them to fit so it's more exact. He's a really excellent builder!

Since there will be a roof over the carport, it wasn't critical to keep the windows absolutely symmetrical. Not that it's required, but it looks nicer, at least, IMHO. Most of this house is pretty symmetrical, although it's not exact.

Back View of the House
from the inside

This is the interior view of the previous picture. The windows are framed in, but not cut out. There will be the door, two big possibly louvered windows and possibly vents above. If the windows are louvered, we won't need the vents above. If the windows are fixed glass, then there will be the vents above.

It's a touch confusing to make sense of the roof framing from this picture angle. The horizontal beam is the ridge rafter for the dormers. Once you get closer, all the angles fit together perfectly. Have I mentioned Nick does great work?

Yellow Wax Beans
it's actually soil improvements

Since the big culvert corner was backfilled with general soil and not specifically top soil, I planted a bunch of beans there to help add nitrogen to the soil. A side effect of that, is, well - beans! Pretty tasty ones, too! The first beans to flower were saved for seed and those have been replanted for the next crop. There's also sweet potatoes growing there and some volunteer cherry tomatoes that are probably going to have to be removed. Otherwise they will take over the space. I'll plant a different variety of tomato since tomatoes seem to grow well there, but those little cherry ones have tiny fruit and are seriously too prolific with their vines.

I may use the "culvert corner" as a veggie garden for awhile. It's pretty safe from weed wackers and is sorta like a big really raised garden? I'm sure the soil will settle there and more soil can be added between plantings until the settling is finished. Then it can go into some sort of lawn area that is more decorative and I will hopefully have my vegetable garden closer to the kitchen door.

Dining Area View
sort of, anyway

This is a view from the dining area towards the living room. Actually, it's almost the walk area between the dining area and the stairway up to the loft. The white floor joists are the lanai area, that wall that you see edge on is the living room wall where the front door will be. Then the two big windows on either side of the wall under the catwalk. The far corner is the "sun room" with another big window. At the end of the catwalk on the level of the loft is the door to the Crow's Nest lanai and two big fixed glass windows on either side. Maybe they should be louvers? Possibly too much in the weather for louvers? They'd add a lot of ventilation if they were louvers so those might be good.

There's also quite a few extraneous boards, of course. Several of them are Nick's scaffolding, most of the diagonal ones are temporary bracing. I don't think they're actually necessary anymore, but they may as well stay there until all the siding is on.

View from the Easy Chair
or perhaps a couch?

This will be the view from whatever seating will be for viewing the TV. It is a big flat panel type and it is planned to be mounted on the wall under the end of the catwalk. We will be able to watch TV and see the ocean view at the same time (hopefully, anyway, we will see if there will be too much sunlight coming in the windows). If there is too much incoming sunlight, then there will be some sort of light blocking shades there, but I hope not.

The siding hasn't been cut yet for the window openings. They will go all the way down to the floor but the exterior siding hasn't been trimmed down yet. There is also, of course, all the extraneous boards and braces in the picture as well.

View from the road in front
tucked in there pretty tight

We are now able to see it from the road in front of the houses. It can also be seen from several blocks away now, too. Woot!

It's gonna have the same brown shingles with white trim as the Little House on the right side of the picture. After we get finished building this one, we will renovate the green house in front of it. That one will also get the brown shingles and white trim to match. The workshop will also end up with brown shingles and white trim. That will eventually be four structures all with the same color scheme. I think it will help the new house blend in with the others.

Even though this new house doesn't need the 'bellybands' of the original single wall houses in front, we will probably put two belly bands on it to help it blend in and look like the others. The belly bands are structural, they're to hold the vertical tongue and groove boards of a 'single wall' house together. Those vertical T & G boards make up the entirety of the house walls. The one side of the board is the interior of the house and the other side of the board is the exterior of the house. No 2x4 or 2x6 studs, no drywall, no siding, no interior wall space to run electrical or plumbing, either.

The new house is built using current and typical construction methods. 2x6s @ 12" on center for the lower foundation walls and 2x4s @ 16"o.c. for the upper walls. On the outside, we've deviated from 'standard' with the plywood and three tab asphalt shingles, 'standard' construction would be T1-11 siding with paint that would need to be repainted every ten years or so. The shingles don't need to be repainted for much longer than that. There will be drywall on the interior for most of it, with 1/2" thick cedar boards for the interior of the closets and pantry. Probably the same cedar boards for the lanai ceiling? We will see what happens when we get to that point.

Loft view towards the ocean

The front wall framing is filling in which is a really good thing. It makes the main ridge beam seem much more connected and supported.

The roof decking still doesn't reach the front of the roof framing so there's more light coming in than will when the roof decking is completely installed. We can now see the doorway out to the Crow's Nest lanai as well as the two windows on either side. There will be railings on either side of the catwalk, too. At the moment it's a bit spooky to walk on it. At least, for me, I'm sure some folks wouldn't even notice?

October 12th, 2024

Beginning of the Sugar Days Parade
sugar cane trucks running thru town again!

The Realtors always like to say the three most important things about a house is "location", "location" and "location". Which, IMHO, also includes the town it's in. The new house is being built in a lovely small town, Honokaa, on Hawaii Island. We get lots of various celebrations throughout the year, most of which have a parade or a street party.

This is the beginning of the Sugar Days Parade. It's been thirty years since the Last Harvest when Hamakua Sugar went down. Many of the little towns along the Hamakua coast didn't survive the demise of sugar, but Honokaa was half sugar and half cows so Honokaa town survived.

Old Sugar Equipment
a sugar cane grabber

What's that coin operated game called, where you use the derrick and grabber to try to grab toys? They must have been thinking of that game when they built this cane grabber. The claws would grab huge piles of cane and load it onto trucks to be hauled to the sugar cane mill.