We're Being Framed!

Wow, seems like just yesterday I made my last post, but apparently not. The house is coming along nicely and amazingly, just two carpenters have done all the work.  Here's some photos from the last four weeks.

Enjoy!


{Week 1}
May 28th, the lumber arrives!  Those large timbers to the left will be the front and back porch posts.

May 31st, the layout of the rooms take shape.  The room in the foreground is the master bedroom, the trucks are parked at the front door.

Same vantage point but towards the NE, view of the home's center and back porch.

{Week 2}
June 3rd, the master bedroom gets framed. View from back of home towards the North.

The master section framed in far left, dining framed just to the right of the center.

Same vantage but opposite side of home, the back, side and part of the front walls going up.

Again, same vantage point but with both sections.

 June 4th, more walls. Did I mention there's just two guys doing all of this?

June 6th, more walls and more lumber!  This view is of the front corner and master suite side. The front porch is hidden behind the tree.

View of the back.  Eleven foot ceiling through out center of living area and kitchen, nine foot ceilings throughout the remainder of house.

Threw this in here while we were taking pictures, we carved our names in the concrete the day it was poured.  We were pretty excited.  However, it wasn't until this day of taking this image that we realized, our names may be covered up by the stone at the base of the column.  So, if it is, here's proof we signed our names & initials.

{Week 3}
June 10th, lots more framing.  Alas, a front porch takes shape.  Those are just a few of the large timbers I mentioned earlier.

June 12th, siding was going over the bedrooms. View from the back.

Same day, view of the front porch.  Smile Jess!

June 13th, East side view of the home and back porch. Roofing now going up.

Front view of the home and its roof line.

June 14th, most of the roof line is up.

June 15th, this was the view we were greeted with as we pulled up!  I really need to clean up those trees.

View from the attic over the front porch facing North.  I can see my house from here!!  No, really, I can see it.

Parting shot taken from the attic.  The garden is coming along nicely.

Stay tuned!

Well, Well, Well, What Do We Have Here?

Um, okay, it really is a well.  Though we really wanted to go with a rainwater collection setup, costs and immediate need for water dictated otherwise.  Perhaps we'll end up with a hybrid system later on.

The well went in about the time the drain lines were put in the slab, you can see the drill towering off in the distance in this image from a previous post.

The final depth was 535 feet.

Foundations Part 2

The slab is poured.

View of the future driveway/parking and of the NW corner part of the house.  The dark line in the slab just to the left of the tree is where the front porch will be.

View of the W side of home, the master suite location, left corner is shower, area to the left of white pipe in foreground is bath, right corner section is bedroom.  Left side of slab is front of home, facing N.

Profile view of back porch, the sunken area of slab.  We etched our initials, names, year, last name, rank and serial numbers in the foreground corner of the back porch.

Jess trying to imagine her future sanctuary.

Slab forms come down and slab is considered done!

Foundations Part 1

Truckloads of sand dumped in for the foundation.

Drain lines getting installed.

Drain lines done.

Black plastic laid down and slab channels created.

Excited about the progress and for what's to come!

Here we go!

So things are really happening out at the ol' place.

Finalized the closing of the construction last Wednesday and we are off and running!  The day before closing, the land was cleared for the home site, and the day after closing we now have a port-o-potty and the slab forms are up!

I guess it's been awhile since any regular posting here, but things have been rather hectic and finding the time to post has proven difficult.  Okay, it's probably just laziness, but procrastination has always been my strong suit. 

We found a designer/builder whom has been a tremendous help getting us to this point by either being patient, reassuring, or understanding.  We finally nailed down a floor plan that seems to work for us and after what seemed like forever, he's in the process of making it happen.

A follow up to our wildlife valuation, Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept (TPWD) had completed their evaluation and sent it to us the first of January.  I setup a time to meet with the county appraiser back in February so I could turn in the paperwork and hopefully get the property under wildlife valuation.  He said that he had hundreds to go through and that he was the only one processing them so the response may be as late as April.  Still waiting.

Garden Time!

Here are a few pictures of our garden!  My mother and I have been planting and Brett has been tilling the garden and put the fence up around it! 

This Is For The Birds!

Before we bought our property I was reading some homesteading articles online, mostly about raising animals, living on/off the grid, and sustainability, however one particular article caught my attention.  Sheri Dixon's two-part article on Earth Stewardship (101 and 102) explains how she and her family moved out to the country and decided to keep a certain section of her property as natural as possible.  She contacted the Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) to schedule a visit from her local biologist to come out and help evaluate the property.  The visit was a free service offered by TPWD.  I remember thinking how neat that would be to have a wildlife habitat on our own property.

After finally buying our property, her article came to mind again and decided I wanted to delve further into this.  I thought I had bookmarked the article for future reference, I was sure of it.  Dang it! I hate it when I'm trying to find something and suddenly it's nowhere to be found, my bookmarks, my keys, my kids...  Anyway, I started combing through various homesteading sites for articles and Googling various key words, just hoping to run across that article once again.

I started researching information on TPWD's website for such information and actually found it.  The information, not Sheri's article.  Stay with me.  Turns out that TPWD offer the service of helping you turn your Ag valuation from livestock to wildlife (see links below).  I've learned that Ag valuation is the term most commonly, and mistakenly, known as "Ag exempt".  It's not an exemption, it's still being taxed but just at a different rate.  We were lucky, the property we purchased already has an Ag valuation for cattle, but since the property was sold (to us) we would have to then re-apply in order to keep the Ag valuation.  The problem there is that though we want some animals, we are not prepared to maintain the county's required number of heads of cattle, or goats, or whatever.

Enter the Wildlife Management option.  I won't go into the history or details on this, there's plenty of information on that here:

Agricultural Tax Appraisal Based on Wildlife Management

So, about a month ago I was messing with my email and lo-and-behold...I stumbled onto the article again.  After re-reading it, I called and contacted our local TPWD biologist to schedule a visit from him.   A couple of weeks ago, I met Derrick out at the property to get an idea of what all it would take.  I was sure we could meet the required 3 out of 7 management practices, perhaps most all of them as well.  After a few hours of discussion, we formulated a plan, he was going to put some information together for me and help with the proposal to pass on to our county appraiser.

There are other programs that offer financial assistance as well as information to aid in land stewardship and wildlife habitat from state (TPWD) and federal level (USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Services).  You just have to look for 'em...

Texas Parks and Wildlife

• Private Lands and Habitat Program.
• Land Incentive Programs
• Locate a biologist
• Farm Bill Programs
• Wildlife Management on Private Lands

USDA, NRCS

•  Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP)

Hopefully we'll find out more information within the next few weeks and will report back.