Welcome to the String House

We now have the house laid out in string.  Tried to get a picture of it from the roof of the house next door, but the string didn't show up too well and the perspective is weird.  Anyway here's what it looks like:

The String House


The front door is to the right, as is Dolman street.  The street at the top of the picture is Hickory.  The section labeled "A" is the actual house (about 35 x 35 feet or 2400 square feet in 2 stories).

The part labeled "B" is the mudroom.  Section "C" is a conservatory, which is very Victorian and will be built for plants as well as people to enjoy.

The double lines surrounding section "D" indicate where garden walls will be built to enclose two formal garden areas.  Beyond "D" and to the left of "B" and "C" will be yard space for more informal and vegetable gardens.


That's it, but it will take quite a while to build and then there's all that gardening.  The next steps include having a surveyor come out to make sure the house is located just as it's supposed to be according to our approved site plan.  The the big hole gets dug.

Can't wait.  It's darn hard to take a shower when you have walls made of string!


Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark and Isabel

No Luck of the Irish

This is the best we could manage for a ribbon cutting at 7:00 a.m.  The excavator came an hour before we thought he would.  But no complaining because at least we are finally starting the project.  We did have a dozen or so people stop by and some even wanted mimosas before work.

We didn't find any pots of gold during our St. Patrick's Day groundbreaking. It even looks like a potato famine blew through:

The flattened lot

Jason, our builder, is the good looking one.

And in case you're as excited by big machines as we are, here's a picture of the very talented Vinny driving his big scooper:

Vinny again, taken from the roof of the house next door:

Not much to say about the groundbreaking which was really just ground leveling. We had soil moved from the back of the lot toward the front and then some had to be hauled away because it contained old foundation and bricks. Sadly much of that rubble was not re-usable, but we had a salvage yard pick up the scrap metal which included gutters, pipes, doors and unidentifiable pieces.

Here are some other interesting things found in our little archeological dig:

Baby food jars that contained bulbs of garlic!

An unopened pack of cigs, making them the most valuable thing found.  The lighter is a free bonus.

Not a fossil, looks like an old cow bone dog toy.

Some woman is very chilly right now.

A metal door thankfully taken by the salvage yard.

Many other such treasures were found.  We also were able to save some stones to use in the eventual garden and of course, the daylily bulbs we saved the day before.

The next steps involve laying out the "string" house (stakes in the ground with walls of string) and using a laser level to see if we are close to the height of the building next door.  Then a surveyor comes by to lay out the official footprint of the house and finally the actual hole (expensive hole) can be dug.  Those events should happen over the next couple of weeks, weather permitting.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel

Groundbreaking on Wednesday!!

Quick notice:

We just found out that the excavator has a space open in his schedule and is going to start on our 1201 Dolman lot tomorrow (Wednesday, March 17th).

He's supposed to start around 8:00. We don't know what we're going to find buried on the lot, but treasure would be helpful.

We should now have more fascinating things to write about on this blog.  Stay tuned.

Here's a picture of the lot before excavation:

We'll show you the "scorched Earth" view in a few days.  Then periodically we'll post views of the lot as things progress until that day when we get the keys and start living happily ever after.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel