Christmas break

Mild weather returned to Taos for the final week before our Christmas break. We finished up some details. Here we finish the parapets on the master bedroom.











Here are the lookouts and fascia on the guest bedroom. We use rough cut cedar for these details.











Here is the view from the dining room to the kitchen and breakfast nook.




We will be back to work on Jan. 2nd. 2008 Have a merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Shaping up

The house starts to take shape. This view is from the street looking at the South end of the house.

Digging out

Yesterday we spent five hours clearing snow off the work site. This morning we woke up to a beautiful blue sky and a brisk 9 degrees.


Ivy and Johnathen assemble the posts and beams that will be part of the kitchen living room area






A view above.

snow day

It has been snowing for the last 5 days. We are not working of course. I would like to use this time to vent about my pet peeve. long term weather forecasters. They come out of the woodwork around October and predict what kind of Winter we are going to have. This years prediction? A dry, mild Winter with little or no moisture. Don't buy a ski pass it will be nothing but mud up there. OK all meteorologists repeat after me, "We can't predict the weather beyond five days and we will stop trying"

Corbels, paripits and canales

Ivy plumbs the post that will be between the dining room and living room. The decorative pieces that support the beam are called corbels.

Ivan and I start building the paripits (false walls) above the garage. The paripits will give the garage the appearance of being the same elevation all around.

I set the canale which is a copper lined decorative spout for water.

Pay attention to these Southwestern building terms there will be a quiz at the end of the term.

Kiva wall

Ivan and I finished up the kiva wall today. The wall is made of two rows of cinder blocks stacked with 2 inch rigid foam insulation in between. The fireplace builder will use this corner to create a beautiful fireplace.

Ivy prepares the first post which will support the center of the kitchen area.

Trusses

We got some of the trusses this week. Trusses are an engineered roof support. We order them according to the length and pitch of the roof. They come pre made and we set them on the beam. This is a fairly easy and quick way to get the roof up. There is plenty of room in the trusses for blown in insulation.

Hello walls

The adobe wall in the greenhouse is finished.

Johnathan and Brian finish up posts in the guest room.

New guy Eric came today to help with framing. Ivy & I finished framing the dining room and laundry room walls.

Thanksgiving weekend

On Thanksgiving day we visit the work site before going to dinner at our friends Marc & Linda's who live nearby. Amelia & Rick joined us for the day.

The next day we got hit with snow I spent some time Friday and Saturday clearing off the work site.

On Saturday the snow covered mountains emerge from the clouds revealing a view that is the reason many of us live here in Taos.

Adobe wall & round room

We started the adobe wall on Friday. The adobe will absorb heat from our South facing greenhouse for the passive solar aspect of our house.









After much head scratching Ivy and I figured out how to frame the curved breakfast nook. It will have 5 windows when we are done.

Post, beam & septic

The guys plumb up the box posts. The posts are used for mounting windows and doors. The windows are set inside the posts and the straw bales are set between them. The posts are 16" wide. After they are plumbed they set the bond beam on top and it and we are ready for the trusses.
Meanwhile our friends Norbert Vigil and his son Norbie install our septic system. They were able to clear the large area required for the drain field without removing any trees. We got the inspection
and they backfilled it by lunch today.

Window frames

We continue to frame walls. The South facing walls are mostly windows so we do them in traditional 2x6 framing. The other walls will be strawbale. We will set 16" wide posts to accommodate the bales.

Out of the ground

Today we started framing the garage. Here Suzie helps Ivy raise the first wall. Brian puts a brace on the wall. Finally at the end of the day we admire the two walls we framed.

Lets build this house

We let the concrete cure over the weekend and today the crew showed up to work on the next phase. From the left, Ivan, me, Brian and Ivy. Johnathan is taking the picture. We stripped the forms then set up an assembly line and started building posts.

The pour

Today was the big day, the pour. Art Gonzalez from A&S construction and his crew smoothed out the concrete for us. It went well. We will cover it up for the weekend and pull the forms on Monday.

The heat is on

We got our foundation inspection today. Now we are laying tubing for radiant heat. We laid it a 6" on center. That is a lot of tubing but it will operate at a lower temperature and provide a lot of storage do we can use solar hot water panels to heat the house. We have scheduled our pour for next Wednesday.

rigid foam

On Friday we started putting rigid foam insulation on the ground to insulate the slab. Today there was an inch of snow on the worksite when we arrived. Is this going to be a long, cold Winter?

Plumbing inspection

Plumbing is all stubbed out and we filled in the trenches. We passed our rough plumbing inspection. Note the picture on the right, we got snow on the mountaintops last night. Time to get this place closed in.

it flows downhill

Plumbing is stubbed out here. This is the view from the master bath looking North where the main line flows from the bedroom through the courtyard and catches the guest bathroom. The line on the right takes the greywater to the courtyard.

Rubble

Today we filled the trenches with stone creating a rubble trench. Tomorrow we will bring in 4 inches of crusher fines to build up the foundation.

We do curves

At left is our floor plan. Note the curved breakfast nook. Here it is formed up.

rigid foam

Ivy had jury duty this week so we lost some time. Here we hung rigid foam insulation to the forms. We should finish that by lunch on Monday.

Forming it up

The trenches are in. We will be putting in forms sor the next few days.