Category: House Construction

Valentine’s Day brought a great gift to the Fry Ranch (well, specifically to Melissa and her mom): a helper to stain the gluelam beams on the ceilings. After trying it on their own and realizing they couldn’t hold their arms up in the air through 54 grueling beams, it was time to call in reinforcements! Helper Jim made quick work of the staining in about four days!

Feb. 22 Kitchen view, stain complete

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March then saw the arrival of new sub-flooring, a result of our realization that radiant floor heat would be overkill in the desert. The exterior doors, however, had been set in place to accommodate a layer of gypcrete and radiant tubing. Without the radiant floor system, we had to make up the height difference; hence the additional layer of subfloor. It’s sturdy now! By April 1, thanks to Steve’s hard work, the subfloor was complete (as well as some new load-bearing reinforcements).

April and May have been dedicated to installation of furring strips, which are 2×2 strips that will allow for plumbing and wiring. The furring strips provide a surface for drywall screws, and the snaking of plumbing and electrical in between the bays.

So – yes –we’re finally moving again! Sadly, though, monsoon season is quickly approaching. When the rainy season hits, the humidity will rise, making the swamp cooler ineffective, and stopping our progress again until cooler temps roll around in September. See you then!

See Spring 2012 photos here

Trenching from new house to pole 5/13

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I couldn’t resist the cowboy turn of phrase (or Aerosmith tune, if that’s what sprang to your mind), but we’re back in the saddle again, folks with regard to our house building.

On my birthday, May 13, we took the first construction step in more than a year: we now have electric from the pole to the new house! You won’t see it, though, since we chose to bury the cables. So while we had our trencher extraordinaire here (Rocky), Steve decided to lay water and telephone wire conduit as well.

Check out the digging progress, the breaker panel and the approved meter box! Next step on the electrical to-do list is to wire the entire house, but we think we will first lay some subflooring and/or maybe do some gluelam beam sanding and staining. Or pour some concrete in the garage so we can finally close it off. Or do the pavers in the courtyard … Or … Or… There are so many places to begin (again), it’s hard to know where to start.

But, of course, before anything can happen inside the house – with temperatures soaring in the 100s – Steve decided we really needed some cool air out there. So yesterday, he successfully installed an evaporative cooler that amazingly is cooling the entire space (check out the photos!). The house went from 94 degrees to 78 in a matter of hours. I suppose, now, there is no excuse for me not to get out there and finish varnishing the thresholds to the sliding glass doors (or use up the extra boxes of GreatStuff spray foam that we have lying around).

We aren’t sure if the evap cooler will be ‘temporary,’ in the sense that we’ll take it out when we move in, or if we may decide to keep a swamp cooler to complement an AC unit as well. One thing is certain, though: we’ll have plenty of time to decide as we inch, inch, inch along on our progress.

Oops! Hit the leach field. 5/13

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Final installation of evap cooler 6/11 – garage view

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The summer heat is here, but with the unexpected “cool front” over the weekend (93 degrees) – Steve was able to place some of our water collection tanks. Should be ready to harvest some water for monsoon season, which officially begins June 15. It will be nice to have the tanks filled and waiting for the first two planting shelves I’m going to work on in the fall (along the back wall).

But, back to Steve. Most of his time, these days, has been spent in his new “ham shack” – i.e. the camper. He’s now an amateur radio dude, making connections all across the U.S. with his radio. He’s most proud of the way he MacGyver’ed  $10 worth of PVC and wire together to build his antenna. And he’s giving himself a special pat on the back that those materials allowed him to reach the USS Missouri in Hawaii. He’s also made contact with hams in Michigan, Florida, Texas and Maryland.

So, if you’re ever out for a visit and wonder what the heck is jutting 20 feet off the roof of the house, now you know! It’s just Steve’s new hobby.

Take a peek at photos of the water collection tank install, and the four new videos on the home page, featuring our showering “dog” Macho, and our pouncing girl, Niña.

On Feb. 5, it looked like the Tasmanian Devil had whirled around the new house, given the freshly dug three-to five-foot deep trenches. But within eight hours, Steve had all the drainage pipes installed, and our backhoe operator, Rocky, had backfilled all the pits.

Roof water that isn’t being collected in the local tanks outside the dining room and master bedroom is now being piped down to the pecan grove. Eventually we’ll add more storage tanks there so that the water isn’t wasted. But for now, all water is being directed away from the house – a big milestone for us!

Enjoy our pipe-laying and digging photos – plus the watering hole we asked Rocky to dig for the wild animals.

If any of you folks outside of Arizona have been watching the news, you’ve seen that we were bombarded with rain in January. Fortunately for us, we got our gutters, scupper boxes and downspouts installed just before the deluge. We didn’t have time to get our ditches dug for drainage pipe before the rain hit, but we were able to make a temporary drainage system, which Steve refers to as “The Alaskan Pipeline.”

We also didn’t have time to hook up our water harvesting tanks or paint some of the downspouts so that they blend in with the stucco color. Steve did, however, temporarily install our rain chains – in the rain. They’re these neat, decorative metal cups that funnel the rain into collection tanks. In one instance, we’ll have a rain chain go to the ground and empty into some river rock (because that overhang is so small, we wouldn’t collect much water anyway).

The goal is to use harvested roof rainwater from the four tanks around the house – to water plants, clean porches, etc. Any overflow from those tanks will be piped down to larger tanks in the ‘pecan grove,’ which we will use to water our pecan trees. Okay … so we don’t have the larger tanks yet, nor have we planted the pecan trees. Oh – and we haven’t hooked up the underground pipes that connect all the tanks together either. But that’s the future plan!

Enjoy our photos that display all the gadgets that will keep rain away from the house. Next step: trenching and painting some downspouts. And probably some cultured stone to go around our porch posts. And if you missed our spiral staircase install, check it out.

P.S. – During gutter installation, we were standing outside taking photos when we witnessed a U.S. Customs air chase (per one of the sheriffs Steve works with). Apparently the newest thing is to drop drugs low to the ground from planes coming out of Mexico. See our video of two Cessna Citations in hot pursuit – following so closely that they can’t be detected by the first plane’s pilot!

The Dunn Edwards version of the color we chose is called s’mores (and perhaps why I was drawn to it), but the Dryvit color is called burnt oak. No matter what you call it, it is done! Our house no longer sports the ghostly white Tyvek wrap, the striped lath, or the boring gray scratch and brown coat colors.

The Dryvit material, a synthetic alternative to traditional stucco, is incredible – and our stucco crew was meticulous. We absolutely love it! This material is not supposed to crack like real stucco mud.

So … Nov. 17, the first day of Dryvit, was a big day, since we’d been working toward our Step 1 goal for 13 months: to have the house “dried in” with stucco, windows, etc. We have also been fortunate enough to complete a few other steps that we thought would have to wait: overhangs, concrete stoops, in particular.

Visit our November 2009 Construction photos to see our stucco progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” links below each blog. Next step: rain gutters/scupper boxes – and, money allowing – the spiral staircase to the star-gazing deck.

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Sixty-five windows. Two gallons of stain. Two gallons of Danish oil. Six sanding pads. A box of 100 rubber gloves. Hundreds of screws and hardware. Three tins of paint thinner and lacquer thinner. Two bags o’ rags. Two brushes, two gals, one husband and two professional Pella staining “teachers.” That’s what it took to complete our window-staining project on Nov. 8. But we’re done!

And our second coat of stucco – the brown coat – was completed Nov. 10. On Monday, Nov. 16, our final color coat is supposed to be applied (the two-week cure time was overkill, so we opted for one week of cure time and watered down the house 2xs per day for ample curing time). Visit our November 2009 Construction photos to see both our stucco progress and our staining progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” links below each blog.

Scroll for sample images below.

Our first coat of stucco – the scratch coat – was completed Oct. 28, and for the next three days, we sprayed down the house to harden the base coat. On the second day of ‘house watering,’ the interior also saw some action as my mom and I began window staining. Wow … those windows have a lot of hardware and assembly. Thankfully, we had a professional painter who specializes in Pella windows working with us the first two days. Now, thanks to his guidance, we’re on our own – power tools, paintbrushes and lacquer thinner in hand… Oh yes – and with Steve’s muscles to take the larger windows out and reinstall them for us.

Visit our October 2009 Construction photos to see both our stucco progress and our staining progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” link below.

Our house now has some color! Lath (tar paper and chicken-wire) was completed on Oct. 20, and the next step in the stucco process is the scratch-coat. Our giant pile of sand and Western One Kote (scratch coat) awaits! We’re applying stucco in a three-stage process that involves two week’s cure time in between each stage: scratch coat, brown coat, then final (Dryvit) coat. By the time the holidays are over, the outside of the house should have a ‘finished’ feel to it. Don’t tell anyone that the inside isn’t even close to being complete. Check out the October Construction Photos.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to recreate the website (you’ll see we added some construction videos back, and we’ll be working toward re-uploading our old flora/fauna images, etc.) Feel free to leave comments within each blog post.