Let the Framing Begin!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

On that same Thursday afternoon, sand arrived for the basement and garage and that was also moved into place by the excavator. Late in the afternoon the first load of lumber arrived! What an exciting moment. We were moving out of the dirt and into the clean feel of wood!


I didn't go down to the job for a couple more days, and when I did (today), it was a pleasant surprise. They had nearly finished the basement framing.

To the Left is the TV Room

The TV Room Right Ahead

A Real Storage Room!!

(No more climbing down into the crawl space to put away Christmas decorations!)

Snack Time!

But first we had to deliver the treats we had brought: chicken wraps, donuts, and Ice Caps from Tim Hortons. Nothing like an ice cold coffee drink!

Offering Big Brother Donuts

I wish I had had my camera with me to show you what the boys did when they took a break! They took the ATV (quad) and Cassidy took his motorbike and they headed up the meadow and then took the logging road up through the left side of our property. Our property has a diagonal line running through it. This line is the train track. If you think of the property this way then remember that THAT side of the tracks is somewhere we have not yet explored. It is hard to get to, unless you drive down another road and enter from the other side.

SO, that said, we use the triangular part of our property below the tracks. To visualize this, imagine this computer screen with a train track running from the upper left hand corner down across the screen and exiting half way down on the left hand side of the screen. Well, our house would then be placed in the lower left hand corner.

Now you can kind of understand when I explain where the boys were. They left the house and headed up the road to the left hand side of the screen (lol) near the train tracks. Right there is an unusual piece of land. It is totally flat with longish grass on it. The kids were playing in there in old land photos I posted.

Well, these boys took the quad and motorbike up there and set up a race track!! When I went to find them, I drove up this long road and finally came out near the train track. There they were racing around in loops. Cassidy, on his motorbike in the centre ring, and Colt and Dane on the quad in the outer ring. Cooper and Austin were sitting on the grass watching the racers cheering them on. What fun!! And given how many stumps and trees we have on our land it is wonderful that they found this place to race! So cool the wonders this acreage is doing for us!

Pictures of the racers to follow another day. In the meanwhile, back to the house...

Here is a bit of an idea of what the basement layout will be like. I tried to get the labels *into* the rooms, but it was a bit difficult.

Briton Trying to Sneak Out of "Auntie's Bedroom"
(Auntie's bedroom because she and her family are our main houseguests.)

The guys are working incredibly hard! They are working for a living on other jobs and then filling their evenings and weekends building our house. It is very inspiring to see them all working together this way! My dream has always been that one day each of our boys, and now our girls, also, will build a home and we will all come forth to work together to get it up and built. Just like the old barn building parties! Can you imagine the amount of crew we all have, even if only the boys can take time to come out and help their brothers build. But then if you add in other family members, like wives and sisters, to help with painting and such.

I look forward to this day! If we were not building this as a family we could not afford to build, or worse, buy a ready made house, in this day and age!
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