Friday, June 25, 2010

What a Send-Off!



Our last full day at our place in the Rockies was intense.  Not only was the building going full bore, but the Bobcat showed up to backfill around the foundation and bring the apron around the cabin up to a level that would preclude the need for deck railings.  Michael, the earthmover, showed up with reinforcements, his three springer spaniels.  Along with Brian's dog Happy, they had a good old time playing around, and on, the equipment.


Brian and his son Brett, home from his freshman year at college and working with his dad over the summer, were busy building the rear second floor gable wall and prepping a temporary platform to build the front counterpart and the trusses.  Last discussions about what size windows where were made easier by the fact that we could actually walk up the stairs and see what the best views would be from the loft.  We were quite aware that by the time we'd return in mid-July the project would be far along and with a roof on, and we'd be able to actually see the whole shape of the cabin.

The Rocky Mountains saw us off with a bang.  After three weeks with zero rain we'd gone to bed in our snug trailer boudoir with the hopeful flickering of distant lightning.  Maybe it would come our way and we wouldn't leave without having had at least one decent rainstorm.  Well, be careful what you wish for.  Around midnight the thunder woke us, and judging by the increasing volume, we were going to get our wish.  Except that our wish got a bit garbled.  We wanted rain, and we got ice, ice in the form of gumball-sized hail.

Good-sized hail pounding ferociously on a metal trailer makes you feel like you are inside a gigantic popcorn popper.  The noise was assaulting.  Our dog scrunched along the narrow floor space along my side of the bed, terrified.  At one point I heard a crack that sounded like it was inside the trailer.  After a few minutes the storm moved on, and we got up to assess the situation.  The vent over the foot of the bed had been holed and rain was dribbling in onto our comforter.  Outside the ground what white with hail.  We blocked the vent and threw a towel over the wet spot, calmed down the dog, and tried not to think about what the pummeling might have done to our car.  In the morning we had no power and it was 40 degrees inside the trailer, and out.  We decided it might be time to head home in our slightly dimpled car.  We'll come back when there's more hands on work for us and when the precip is more likely to be in a liquid form!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Upstairs Downstairs, Back and Forth

June 7th


The next cabin dimension is UP!  
About the back 2/5ths of the cabin, the area above the bedroom and bathroom, will have a loft. -- about 150 square feet of living space.  The eastern section of roof over the loft is raised, the shallower angle than the rest of the roof providing adequate headroom.  With only one real bedroom in a cabin that we hope will be the frequent destination of family and friends, we wanted a space with some privacy where they could relax and sleep and where the grandkids could spread out and play to their hearts’ content without being tread on all the time.  We’re not sure what furniture will be up there -- probably a sleeper sofa or futon for seating by day and sleeping by night, and beyond that there will be a lot of floor space for playing or sleeping bags.  When we don’t have guests, this room will give us a space for getting out of the traffic pattern ourselves for everything from sewing projects to jigsaw puzzles to a quiet corner for an uninterrupted nap.  And we’re hoping the grandkids will find the overlook to the kitchen and living area below a great place to snoop unobserved.
Building is a creative process and I’ve been wallowing in it now for almost a year.  We are lucky to have a contractor that encourages our input on a daily basis -- Brian Shelton is as committed to giving us the cabin we want (and not some cookie cutter  construct) as we are.  My husband is getting better at dealing with my glee over this constant pondering and deliberation, though he still looks motion sick at times when I say “instead of [fill in the blank] maybe we should do [fill in the blank]”.  It’s fun to optimize the opportunities as they present themselves, and if you didn’t change your mind (in a timely fashion, mind you), you might as well not be here.  Brian has a great esthetic, but only we know how we live and how we want the cabin to work for us.


We’ve decided to abbreviate this portion of our time here during the build in order for Bob to conserve a week for later when we’ll be of more hands-on use in completing the cabin.  We’ve taken on the floors (“wood” laminate floating floors and ceramic tile) and all the painting and staining inside and out.  If the roofing is going on while Bob’s here it’ll be hard to keep him out of it.  Trash removal falls to us and our trusty relocated truck, as long as we are here to do it.  Right now it is collaborative, but not as active as we’d thought, so after a visit from Bob’s kids and grandkids this weekend (when we’ll all write messages to the cabin on the framing), we’ll head back to Tucson for a bit.  
I’ll likely return right after the 4th of July so that there’s someone here to answer the “do you want it like this, or this?” questions, do the final design of the kitchen, and whatever else I can to help.  I’ll put my three weeks of Tucson time to good use purchasing hardware and some lighting where the big box stores are close at hand, and haul them back up with me when Bump and I return.  Bob will fly back a short while later (though it won’t feel short) when his presence will be most needed.  As much as we hate to leave our cool mountains and the project of our lives together, it will be nice to have running water, a flush toilet and a private shower, Netflix, and a grocery store ten minutes away, even if it will be 100+ degrees every day.  
It will also be good to check on our house and garden and check in with our good Tucson friends (some of whom are checking on our house for us while we’re away).  Not that we have been deprived of a social life here -- far from it!  We have friends here we’ve been sharing dinners with now for five years (and I appreciate their tolerance of coming to a trailer for a meal), and there’s lots of interest in seeing a cabin being built to replace the cabin that stood on this land for almost 40 years before the Hayman fire took it.  With the almost total lack of phones here -- most cabins/trailers/sheds/tents here are phone free and there’s no cell reception -- it is common to have friends or interested neighbors wander over from their five acres for a look-see and a short chat and a glass of iced water or tea. 

This lifestyle has an old-time feel that we like, and along with the informality comes a genuine generosity that I find astonishing.  We’ve had offers of everything from “use our washer/dryer, satellite Internet, phone” to “use our cabin” to “I come up every Thursday so let me know if I can bring you anything from town”.  Generosity breeds generosity, and we find ourselves making offers to help dig trenches, clear timber, and “adopt” a counselor at the adjacent youth camp.  I’m not saying my Tucson friends aren’t generous -- they very much are! -- but here it’s on a more elemental level.  When you’re 16 miles of dirt road and 40 minutes from a gallon of milk or a cup of sugar and an hour from a hospital you tend to have each other’s back in a way you don’t in a more citified place.
And yes, we know how unbelievably lucky we are to be able to create a life that encompasses two such wonderful places.
Next post with this week’s work from Tucson.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Looking Out the Windows

June 4th


The first floor exterior walls are all framed now, as are most of the interior ones.  We are enjoying the exquisite pleasure of being “inside” our cabin looking at the views from all the first floor windows.  Needless to say, they are all wonderful; there’s not a bad seat in the house.
We’re sitting in the library in Florissant, about 16 miles of mostly dirt road from where our  contractor and his son are finished the interior first floor walls and getting ready to work on the second story loft.  As we were leaving the property a truck from Hutchinson’s Lumber was arriving with wood for the next few day’s work.  It’s an exciting process to see change every working day.
Last night our friends with the enchanted cabin across Deer Lake from us showed up as the light was just starting to fade with a bottle of wonderful Colorado wine.  We brought glasses and an opener down from the trailer and all clambered up into the framed cabin (the breeze will never be better than it is now!).  After showing them around -- here’s the bedroom, walk-in closet, bathroom, and the stairs start up from here -- Margaret and I sat in the camp chairs in what will be the dining area (with plenty of wall space for my collection of hammered aluminum trays) while Harry and Bob pulled up a window sill and we raised our glasses to the project that means so much to us and to Bob’s family.  
After our friends left, Bob and I were wondering about the role they’d played, and continue to play in our decision to make this investment and commitment to a life partially lived on the old family land in the Rockies.  What if Margaret and Harry hadn’t given us such a warm welcome, having us for dinner that night so many years ago that was my first visit to the land, and Bob’s first visit since the fire took the old cabin?  Would it have resonated quite so much with both of us, enough to start the ball rolling with the trailer?  Probably.  There was lots of love of place and family history to consider.  But the support of friends there certainly didn’t hurt.

Wall Raising

June 1st


What a difference a day makes.  After the long holiday weekend -- which we put to good use with hiking, reading, and snoozing in our anti-gravity chairs or the hammock in the shade of the ponderosas -- we appreciated the drama of raising some walls.  
After our little Florissant excursion on Friday afternoon -- ooh the excitement of visiting the Joe’s Philly Cheesesteak trailer, the library, the post office, the feed store, and getting bread and milk and an ice cream sandwich at the gas station stop ‘n’ shop -- we arrived back to find the subfloor completed.
Nothing is quite so exciting in the building of a framed home as when the walls are raised and you suddenly can walk around in your rooms and gaze our your windows.  Our contractor Brian is usually a one man show at this point (though he is appreciating Bob’s help, especially with the hauling and lifting) and has developed lots of strategies for working solo, such as building the sections of framed walls up on sawhorses and then almost virtually tipping them into place.  


It’s great for everyone that we’re onsite now.  Even though there are building plans, we have the option of last minute changes, such as deciding to add back a window we’d taken out; the view from it will be too wonderful to miss.  Mostly it’s just minor tweaking of an inch or two here or there or deciding where to put the access to the crawl space, but it’s great to have the chance in real time.  After living in this cabin in my head for most of a year, I realize the time was well spent as there are very few things I haven’t already considered and feel confident that any decisions are well thought out over a period of months, not minutes.  I’ve worked with contractors before who made it seem like a federal offense if you asked for the most minor, non-structural adjustment, but Brian is so engaged in our build that he’s looking for clever ways to make our cabin even more unique and wonderful without adding costs.  At less than 1,000 square feet of interior space, this is the smallest home he’s ever built, and has encouraged me to “get creative” in the kitchen especially to make best use of the space I have.  A meticulous and exacting builder -- no, make that carpenter -- he knows little details will stand out even more in a smaller cabin, and wants this to be a little gem.  And we have no doubt that it will be.
And forget “onsite”.  It’s just lovely to be here.  I am so very aware that when we’re sitting outside reading, needing a fleece to keep warm enough in the shade, that we’d be holed up inside if we were in Tucson.  Not that there aren’t strange reminders of the desert here -- downy woodpeckers swoop through the pines, reminding us of gila woodpeckers flitting from mesquite to saguaro, and we hear the call of the great horned owl at night as we sometimes do in the desert.  The pussytoes are starting to bloom here, the loco weed is appearing overnight, and yet we occasionally run across cactus (at nearly 9,000 feet)!  Several of these mountain pincushions dot the more exposed saddle of our five acres, and we run across shin-dagger type yucca on some of our hikes.  Reminiscent to say the least.  I do wonder about the fruiting of the saguaro, the blooming of the ironwoods, and just big those baby quail are now, but if you are going to split time between two wonderful landscapes, it’s best simply to love the one you’re with.
Bob’s readying himself for another day of wall raising, but alas, I must do the Woodland Park run -- we’re out of clean clothes and dinners have gotten quite creative -- so I’m off with five loads of laundry to do at some charming (NOT!) laundromat and a big provisioning (needing everything from bread to bat house paint).  That sort of chore needs a reward, so I’ll stop in at The Hungry Bear for a pile of Blue Bucks (buckwheat pancakes with blueberries) and peruse an antique-y shop or two during the spin-cycle.
The only one more excited about our cabin is Happy, Brian Shelton's dog who comes to the site every day.