My First Time "In" the House

I drove from Grand Haven to Presque Isle in the rain, arriving about 9:15 last night.  We clearly got a good soaking here after several days with no precipitation.  The fast-moving clouds — looking very dramatic at sunrise — moved out about 7:00, but more rain is expected this afternoon.

My home site, as seen from the Paltelky's house.

Last night I forgot to turn the hot water heater on, so my shower this morning was brief and bracing!  When I got to the property about 7:45, Jim and one of his men were already at work cutting expansion joints in the concrete floor. The floor was poured yesterday atop rigid foam insulation.  Heat seeks cold, so the insulation will keep the basement floor warmer and reduce heat loss.  Four inches of concrete was poured on top of the foam.  Jim's associate told me they finished about 2:00 p.m., giving the cement a chance to set up before the rain moved in.

Jim uses a concrete saw to cut the expansion joints.  The saw is brand new, his former saw having been stolen.

Dow's thick styrofoam, now buried under the concrete, will help keep the basement floor warm.

When the masons left for another job, I walked around for a few minutes on my new basement floor.  I guess you could say that this is the first time I have actually been in the house.  I'm beginning to understand how compact my home will be.  There will be little, if any, wasted space.  Visualizing the ground floor, I can see that my two extra-long four-poster beds will take up most of the bedroom.  And I was wise to make the living, kitchen, and dining areas all one space.  If each was walled off as a separate room, the effect would be claustrophobic!

If this was the ground floor, I would be standing in the bathroom shower, looking through the living room (center) and into the kitchen.

Not that this will be a small house.  It's a bit less than 1.950 square feet.  However, the average home built in the U.S. over the past couple decades has been 2,300-2,700 square feet.  Thus my place will be smaller, a "not so big" house, as architect Sarah Susanka would put it.  When the residential construction industry finally digs itself out of this Great Recession, I suspect that smaller homes may displace the faux chateaux monsters of the 1990s and 2000s.

Poking up through the basement floor is the first course of the L-shaped masonry wall which, on the first floor, will define two sides of the living room and serve as a thermal mass.  This, along with the stairway, will be one of the unusual visual features of the house.

One floor up, the wood burning stove will eventually sit on the foot of the "L" shaped wall. 

Jim and his crew will be back on Tuesday to lay up the basement walls.  At the moment, however, I expect that like most Americans they are looking forward to a long weekend off.  Come to think of it., this will be the first Labor Day Weekend in many years when I will not be leading Sunday services in one church or another.  Retirement really is quite odd. •••