House Project: The Sills Are In, And The Gravel Is Mostly In Place


I previously mentioned some excitement about the sills. They still aren't quite what we have in the current house, but everything is nailed in place, and they look okay--not enough for my wife to jump up and down about. (Not that she is a terribly excitable person, anyway.) Anyway, we went up Wednesday evening, and this is what the sills now look like.


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Our builder was waiting for the first heavy rain before having gravel dropped on the driveway; others we would have had to pay someone to come up and dump water on the road so that it would sink into the underlying loose rock. This stuff is called "road mix"--a combination of gravel and sand, and quite a bit less tasty than trail mix.


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As should be evident from the tire tracks, it has not all sunk in even yet, but at least there aren't big sharp rocks sticking up to attack the underside of my Corvette. With time (and more rain), it will pack down into something more like a road. They didn't run it all the way to the concrete apron in front of the garage, and they didn't drop any on the driveway behind the house, so it's time for another visit.

Our builder is having a heck of a time finding construction workers, because so many people are building houses in the Boise area right now--increasingly, his family and friends (and now us) are providing the labor. Since this is a cost-plus contract, the more work that we do, the less he charges us, so it isn't entirely a bad thing.

I drove up this morning to mix my labor into the house. I ran around this morning putting patch material (which has a disturbing similarity in texture and appearance to thick whipped cream) on nail holes, and using a nailset and hammer to get a few nails down below surface level. Unfortunately, these are a very, very small grade of finishing nail, and some of them insisted on bending instead of sinking.

The clouds still had the sun obscured when I shot this picture about 9:00 AM.


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Here the sun has finally broken through.


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It is so quiet up there!

Last house project entry.