Bits and pieces

We decided to do the cladding of the mezzanine with cedar board and baton.  There is a cedar mill just down our road.  Chris did a fantastic job!  I love the finished look!

The next step was to rent a pressure washer and clean off the posts and beams.  They had been exposed to the weather for 2 years, and I wasn't happy with the discolouration

Wow!  What a difference!

It was a wet job!

Its hard to get a good photo of the floor now with all the building materials and tools littered about

The beginning of stairs

I think Chris is proud of his handiwork!

He should be.  I love my new stairs!

Rough, but functional.  The finish will be added later

Under the stairs closet

Finnlee helping build the wall in the kids room

What's in a floor?

A lot!  First Chris had to shovel several dump truck loads of gravel into the foundation.....by hand!  Then run all the electrical wires and plumbing pipes that would be buried in the concrete.  Then shovel more gravel to cover the pipes.  Then level and pack it down.  Then the vapor barrier and insulation board.  Then the radiant floor pipes.  Along with many other steps I'm sure I'm missing!  All this very important prep work gets covered up and never seen again!

Angling the pipes so they have just the right degree of slope

Each pipe needs to drain towards the septic

Cold and hot water lines, waste pipes, and conduit for the electrical wires

Then after the many days and thousands of pounds of shoveled gravel it gets covered up with vapor barrier and foam insulation boards

Laundry room, bathroom, and master bedroom

The radiant floor pipes need to be spaced out just right

Next, metal grid is placed on top of the pipes to provide more stability for the concrete

The many thousands of Tent and Forest caterpillars had to be removed from the insulation board before the concrete could be poured.  We didn't want all the corpses floating in our floor

Finally ready!

The crew arrived early in the morning

They didn't waste a moment

This neat machine vibrates to get all the bubbles out of the concrete and level it

One wheelbarrow full at a time....

Hey!  Its starting to look like a floor!

Poured, smoothed, and finished!  We're so pleased!

New house, new chicken coop

Moving up the hill meant either leaving our chickens with less protection down the hill, or building a new coop at my parents' place.

So we converted a rusted out trailer into a portable coop!

We used very little new materials, most of it was construction scrap

Even I got in on the action!

Boots did too

It was nice working together on a project

Mostly working...

With the warm nights, the darkness didn't slow us down

We had other helpers too

Mostly helping.....

Whitewash!

We spent one evening moving the chickens up to their new home.  They had leg mites, so they all got baths, and pedicures before moving in.  No pictures of that procedure as it was intense!  Roosters are very strong! 

At first they were unsure

But a little bit of kitchen scrap makes chickens very forgiving

I think they are very comfortable in their new home