Giving Thanks Today...
About a month and a half ago I came home at lunch time and there was an excavator in the lot next to mine... pulling out the tree trunks of the Douglas firs that were removed last spring. While there, he also dug the trenches for the foundation of the house that would be built.
And then all kinds of building hell broke loose.
It took the carpenteers about a day to put the concrete forms in place, and the foundation was poured the next day.
This pumper truck pumped all the wet cement mix into the foundation forms.
The floor joists were next. I kept looking at the footprint of the house and hoped for a one story house, but I knew in my heart it would be a two story monstrosity that would ruin the privacy of my half acre.
I bet there hasn't been a one-story house built in Portland in the last 20 years
The floors and walls were next. It's amazing how quickly it moved along once they decided to get going. The walls were built flat and then lifted into place.
The peak and large window on the left are the front of the house
How'd you like to have your great big new house looking directly into the other two great big houses not 30 feet away? I don't know how people live on such small pieces of property. The space between the back of the house and my fence (south side) is no more than 15 feet. The west side is about the same space from the other fence. The side on the west is a huge yard of a depth of about 25 feet. Just think of all the baseball games that can be played there! The front yard is about 15 feet off the lane.
I stood on a milk crate to take this photo, but it shows very well how close the house is to my fence
Still, as the house went up, I held out hope that it would be a one-story house. I even asked experts about the process of building a wood frame home... do they frame the entire two stories at one time, or do they do the second story after the first? I got no definitive answer, so I continued to hope.
From across the yard, one story wouldn't be to bad
But it wasn't to be. Soon, the second story appeared, and I was heart broken. There goes my back yard privacy. don't those second floor windows look like eyes? I can feel them watching me already. I hope they like agility!
No more morning dog poop sweeps in my pajamas
A few days ago my friend Linda and I drove down the lane to see the front of the new house. It's pretty big, but I don't think it's as big as the ones directly to its north.
It's on a bit of a small rise, which makes it seem bigger
Luckily, as this photo taken from my kitchen shows, my neighbor's trees do a pretty good job of protecting my privacy in the house. I hope my neighbor appreciates this from her house as well, and doesn't feel the need to remove those trees.
A little privacy all year long
And then yesterday morning, the trusses arrived. They looked huge! It was quite a thing to watch the truck maneuver itself into the narrow lane to unload the cargo.
It's hard to picture how big these will look once they're in place
And in one day, they had gotten most of them up. And, I have to say, I was a little relieved. It's a somewhat modest roofline. There is another huge house being built in the neighborhood, again, right behind another house, and its hulking form looms over the entire neighborhood, making the modest ranch house in front of it look like it's about to be consumed by a horrible space ship!
Modest roofline, with a perfect view of my a-frame
The workers are really hard workers. They were even here today, Thanksgiving, and hard at it by 8 am. At around 1:00 I took out a cold six pack of beer and told them they shouldn't be working on Thanksgiving. They were quite appreciative. When I asked the guy how many of them there were, to make sure I brought enough beer, he said, "There must be at least 18 of us over here!" Ha! There were five!
I ran into my yard guy yesterday and he's going to come over next week to do some work in my yard and we're going to make some decisions on trees to plant to get some of my privacy back... and provide some shade for my patio.
Now, I just have to hope the monster house isn't some hideous color. I've accepted that my privacy is gone. But I don't want to look an eyesore every time I go out in my yard.
Today, I'm giving thanks that it's not nearly as bad as it could have been.
And then all kinds of building hell broke loose.
It took the carpenteers about a day to put the concrete forms in place, and the foundation was poured the next day.
This pumper truck pumped all the wet cement mix into the foundation forms.
The floor joists were next. I kept looking at the footprint of the house and hoped for a one story house, but I knew in my heart it would be a two story monstrosity that would ruin the privacy of my half acre.
I bet there hasn't been a one-story house built in Portland in the last 20 years
The floors and walls were next. It's amazing how quickly it moved along once they decided to get going. The walls were built flat and then lifted into place.
The peak and large window on the left are the front of the house
How'd you like to have your great big new house looking directly into the other two great big houses not 30 feet away? I don't know how people live on such small pieces of property. The space between the back of the house and my fence (south side) is no more than 15 feet. The west side is about the same space from the other fence. The side on the west is a huge yard of a depth of about 25 feet. Just think of all the baseball games that can be played there! The front yard is about 15 feet off the lane.
I stood on a milk crate to take this photo, but it shows very well how close the house is to my fence
Still, as the house went up, I held out hope that it would be a one-story house. I even asked experts about the process of building a wood frame home... do they frame the entire two stories at one time, or do they do the second story after the first? I got no definitive answer, so I continued to hope.
From across the yard, one story wouldn't be to bad
But it wasn't to be. Soon, the second story appeared, and I was heart broken. There goes my back yard privacy. don't those second floor windows look like eyes? I can feel them watching me already. I hope they like agility!
No more morning dog poop sweeps in my pajamas
A few days ago my friend Linda and I drove down the lane to see the front of the new house. It's pretty big, but I don't think it's as big as the ones directly to its north.
It's on a bit of a small rise, which makes it seem bigger
Luckily, as this photo taken from my kitchen shows, my neighbor's trees do a pretty good job of protecting my privacy in the house. I hope my neighbor appreciates this from her house as well, and doesn't feel the need to remove those trees.
A little privacy all year long
And then yesterday morning, the trusses arrived. They looked huge! It was quite a thing to watch the truck maneuver itself into the narrow lane to unload the cargo.
It's hard to picture how big these will look once they're in place
And in one day, they had gotten most of them up. And, I have to say, I was a little relieved. It's a somewhat modest roofline. There is another huge house being built in the neighborhood, again, right behind another house, and its hulking form looms over the entire neighborhood, making the modest ranch house in front of it look like it's about to be consumed by a horrible space ship!
Modest roofline, with a perfect view of my a-frame
The workers are really hard workers. They were even here today, Thanksgiving, and hard at it by 8 am. At around 1:00 I took out a cold six pack of beer and told them they shouldn't be working on Thanksgiving. They were quite appreciative. When I asked the guy how many of them there were, to make sure I brought enough beer, he said, "There must be at least 18 of us over here!" Ha! There were five!
I ran into my yard guy yesterday and he's going to come over next week to do some work in my yard and we're going to make some decisions on trees to plant to get some of my privacy back... and provide some shade for my patio.
Now, I just have to hope the monster house isn't some hideous color. I've accepted that my privacy is gone. But I don't want to look an eyesore every time I go out in my yard.
Today, I'm giving thanks that it's not nearly as bad as it could have been.