At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Eddie,
Yes, you're right. It can be tough at times reading everyone's comments. Building a house is very stressful, both for me and my pregnant wife. However, I'd rather do something now if I need to than later so I really do appreciate everyone's input. At the end of the day, I just have to consider what everyone has said and go with my best judgement based on TBN comments, questions I ask friends I know in the business, reading the code book, and other research.

Everybody, thanks for your input. All comments are welcome.

Obed

 

[Obed]

We are now living on our property!

Sunday and Monday were two very long and hard days. There were no catastrophies. It was just slow, hard work. I'll post pictures of the camper in it's new location another day.

Don, the trailer mover we hired was incredible. He got the storage trailer in a location I didn't think he would be able get it to. But he got it in a great spot based on our options. Saturday, the day before we moved, we got 2 inches of snow that saturated the ground so putting the 2 trailers in positions was tough. We didn't have gravel where the trailers are going.

Once we got both trailers in place, we had a muddy mess everywhere, right to the camper door. We had to take off our shoes before entering the camper each time. Monday, I took the day off, scraped off the topsoil in front of the camper door, added some red clay, and then added gravel. I also made some gravel walk paths so we can get to things without slopping through mud. It's so nice not dealing with the mud.

We had back-to-back 14 hour days out in the cold. Today I went back to work so I could get some rest.

Obed

 

[dcyrilc]

We are now living on our property!

Obed

Glad to hear that you have made it to living on the property. I'll bet it feels good.

Once we got both trailers in place, we had a muddy mess everywhere, right to the camper door. We had to take off our shoes before entering the camper each time. Monday, I took the day off, scraped off the topsoil in front of the camper door, added some red clay, and then added gravel. I also made some gravel walk paths so we can get to things without slopping through mud. It's so nice not dealing with the mud.

Obed

I understand mud. In October and November, we doubled our normal rainfall. With the cattle, the area around the barn was about 8" deep in soupy mud. It's been freezing or below for the last several days with the sun out and is nice now that the mud has frozen. Especially since I had 7 tons of hay delivered this morning that had to go into the barn. We'll warm up and be back to mud within the week, but it was sure nice being able to back the trailer into the barn instead of having to pack the hay through mud. Next spring/summer, the soft ground around the barn will get removed and good material put in about 18" thick to bring it up to grade, but this will be a muddy winter until then.

 

[ruralruss]

Eddie,
What you describe in your area is what it was like here 2 years ago. Last year things really starting going downhill. This year things are terrible. There were 350-some houses built in one nearby town last year...a down year. This year there was one new house built in that town. Numbers for all towns and counties around here are similar.

A friend on mine's son is a developer. He usually builds 50-60 high end houses a year. In mid to late 2008 he laid everyone off and stopped all work on everything he had going that wasn't sold. He'll resume operations when there's a reason to. Right now there is NO market for new homes around here.

Its not just the housing market. My brother-in-law works for a commercial construction. They have onging contracts with a local hospital which is one of the major employers in the area. Late last year they cut him to 3-4 days a week. He's been off as much this year as he's worked. He's a foreman and has been with the same company 20+ years. Unless something changes drastically he expects to be out of a job by spring.

I'm glad things are still decent where you are. Its a different world up here.

Where is "up here"? Just curious.

Russ

 

[jayste]

We are now living on our property!

Today I went back to work so I could get some rest.

Obed

I can relate to this! I wish I had a nickle for everytime I've said or thought it!

I'm sure the move to the property will take a little stress off. Looking forward to those new pics.

Jay

 

[piller]

We had back-to-back 14 hour days out in the cold. Today I went back to work so I could get some rest.

I can also relate to this.

I'm enjoying reading about your project. We are practically neighbors, I live in Oakdale, near the Emory river, a little ways downstream from the Obed. I work in Oak Ridge.

Where are you getting your gravel? Just wondering, I will soon need some for my driveway.

 

[Pops15]

Obed,
Glad to see you got moved.
The worst is just about behind you. There shouldn't be too many surprises from here on out.

Russ,
60 miles south of Chicago. I do mostly residential remodeling so I haven't been affected as much as the builders. I think by May or June things will begin to improve.
Pops

 

[Obed]

This past Saturday, I went to the property and wired up on our temp electric pole a 30A jack for our camper. We have a long extension cord that I made a few years ago using outdoor grey wire from Lowes. I just added a jack and and a plug to the wire. The wire is probably 100 feet in length. My homemade extension cord cost a fraction of what one at a camper store would cost. My wife found a plastic water hose reel that had been thrown away that we use for rolling up the extension cord.

Saturday morning we got 2 inches of snow which melted in the afternoon. I wish I had take pictures of the snow in the woods here. It was probably pretty but I was too distracted concerning the work I had to get done before moving to really notice.

Three weeks ago I had prepared the pad for the camper; the camper pad was in fairly good condition in spite of the wet conditions. However, due to building materials that had previously been in the way, the area for the storage trailer was not it great shape. And now the snow didn't help matters because it saturated the ground. Later in the afternoon on Saturday, I thought the ground had dried out enough for me to use my tractor to at least get rid of the ruts that the concrete trucks had made. Well, as I started using my tractor tires to even out the ruts in the soft dirt, I ended up making my own ruts. I was able to do some good but there was a low spot that was just unfixable in the conditions. The truck and storage trailer would have go through this low spot in order to put the storage trailer in its final destination.

Saturday I left the property resigned to the disappointment that I would have to ask the trailer mover to park the storage trailer in front of the future garage. I would have to move the storage trailer myself with my truck at a later date when conditions were better. I know it sounds pretty easy to just hitch up the trailer to the truck and back it in place. However, the trailer is completely full and very heavy. Moving it is a real effort. The trailer is so heavy that I can't lift it by cranking the jack handle. I have to put blocks under the tongue and use a small hydraulic jack to jack it up. I can only jack it up with this jack about 6 inches at a time. Then I have to add more blocks or wood and jack some more. This process takes forever. Also, once the camper got parked, the maneuvering room for moving the storage trailer would even be more constrained.

 

[eazyduzzit]

Hi Obed! I got interested in your story before I realized we are neighbors (sort of). I live in Halls and I did what your are now doing about 10 years ago. I was divorced and couldn't afford a contractor, so I built my own house. I subbed out some parts and did a lot of the labor myself. I really enjoyed it, and wouldn't take anything for the experience. No contractor will look after you interests like you will.

It looks like you and the missus are building a great life for yourselves. Good luck with everything, maybe I can come out and see it one day.
Jim

 

[Obed]

Sunday morning, the wife and I got as much ready for the move as possible. Don arrived with his Chevy dually at around 11:30 AM. Don is wearing an orange coat in the pictures. I had blocks and my hydraulic jack all set up for jacking up the storage trailer tongue. We hitched up the storage trailer to Don's truck and caravaned to the property with two of our cars. When we reached the bottom of our steep street that runs straight up to the top of the ridge, we had Don park his truck and our trailer. I drove him to our property so he could decide how he would maneuver the trailer. I recommended that Don might want to back the trailer down our 900 foot long driveway because of tight maneuvering conditions. However, Don wanted to pull forward down the driveway and turn around at the house site.

We went back to the bottom of the street where Don had parked. Don drove the trailer right up the steep grade without any problems. I was concerned that the low trailer might drag down our driveway. However, dragging was not an issue. I'm pretty proud of our driveway. It has handled the large vehicles fairly well.

When Don reached the house site, he started maneuvering the trailer in position to back it up into its final destination, not the temporary spot in front of the garage. I really wanted the trailer in its final spot and was happy to let Don try it. As he was maneuvering, a pile of gravel was in the way so I moved it with my tractor.

Once the gravel pile was out of the way, got the trailer lined up and backed it toward its home. Unfortunately the back of the low riding trailer hit a hump in the parking pad it could not get over. I got on the tractor and started back-dragging with the front end loader but didn't make much progress because the hump was to well settle and hard. This hump was just to the right of the low muddy point we were trying to avoid. Don asked if he could use the tractor and I let him. He started digging with the FEL. I was grimmacing because I was watching my hard packed dirt get removed and deposited as soft dirt on the camper pad. And with conditions left over from the previous day's snow, I knew what would happen to all this (now) soft dirt - MUD! Don saw me grimmacing and got off the tractor and said he saw I was displeased and didn't want to make me unhappy. I tried to smile and told Don to keep going so he did.

After removing the hump, Don backed up the trailer. As he maneuvered back and forward, his truck kept sliding little by little closed to the low muddy area. With heroic efforts, Don eventually backed the trailer into place. What a relief! I was dreading having to move the trailer myself later.