Construction catch-up

Here is the promised "whirlwind recap" of the construction progress prior to 7/6/2011. There has been a lot of behind the scenes work, and A LOT of picking stuff out, but I'll say more about all that in future posts. This one will just focus on the last couple weeks of site work.

The first sign of life at Turtle House was the appearance of a dumpster and a porta-potty -- two items that you don't generally associate with glee and excitement (6/21/11):

That same day they also demolished the decrepit outdoor deck on the northeast side of the house, resulting in an interesting "stairway to nowhere"...

The next day continued the demolition theme, with a bunch of debris turning the "stairway to nowhere" into a "stairway to large pile of debris" (6/22/11):

Doug and the rest of the carpentry crew also ripped the icky, rotting flat roof off the west side of the house, replacing it with a tarp that cast some pretty neat light into the future dining room:

The next week we really started to see some progress. The stairway to nowhere was completely removed... (6/29/11):

...and we're pretty sure we know where it went:

A whole bunch of materials showed up, including large stacks of wood:

The carpentry crew sistered all the joists in the main floor, to help stabilize everything and remove the "trampoline floor" feature of the house.

They also leveled the main floor using these shims. These look frighteningly flimsy to me, but apparently these small bits of wood are now holding my house up...

Most exciting (to me), they started framing in walls on the main floor! It was so cool to see the layout (that we'd spent so long thinking about) start to come to life. This is the view from the dining room into the guest room:

And turning the other way, from the dining room into what will be a wall, behind which will be the stairwell (you can see where the landing will be):

The next day (7/1/11) I remembered to document the super official looking permits for the construction site.

We also finally said goodbye to the offensively ugly chimney that had blighted our poor little ugly house (OK, among numerous other blights).

 

Also, the future dining room got a roof! This is where the old flat roof used to be, and where we are adding another room on the second floor.

The morning of 7/1/11, Brandon and I met the crew at the site to help/document the crazy process of getting our MASSIVE new ridge beams from the ground to the top level of the house. This amazing process was really worthy of its own post, but suffice to say we were incredibly impressed by the ingenuity of rigging, pulleys, and trucks that managed this feat. Here is Brandon with the massive beams:

And here are some shots of the process...

Success!!

Finally, they also shored up the ceiling in preparation for removing all the strange scaffolding up there, and replacing it with the new ridge beams. Brandon and I thought it looked like they were getting ready to build a boat.

 

And that brings us all the way to yesterday (phew!), 7/5/11. Yesterday marked the beginning of the excavation work, which will apparently be ongoing tomorrow. They dug the area where the new entryway will be:

And then started work on the foundation for the garage, but hit a snafu when the gas line was not where it was expected to be. As of now, we are expecting the gas company to come out tomorrow to look into options for moving the gas line so that foundation work can continue. The excavator also has a bunch of work to do in the backyard where the geothermal loops are going to be. While the excavator was there, the driver offered to get rid of Brandon's nemesis, a.k.a. the unnecessary cinder block wall next to the boat house... see ya, cinder block wall!

And... I think that brings us up to date! I will be adding more background info in other posts, but now I should be able to post quick construction updates for friends and family (and myself, when I'm happily moved in and need a trip down memory lane!).

Why Turtle House?

My enthusiastic babble about the house continued right on home to Brandon. He probably felt like a house-obsessed tidal wave had crashed over him (sorry, hon). Being his usual agreeable self, though, he agreed to go back up to Michigan the very next weekend to see what all the fuss was about -- along with his equally agreeable brother, Trent. This was the trip when the house got its name, because halfway up the driveway was a greeter waiting for us:

Of course I was thrilled to bits. This was species #1 on the site herp list, and the house's namesake.

There was also some wildlife living in the walls, in the form of honey bees. Later on, once we'd decided to "go for it" with regards to the house, we hoped to relocate these little guys to a hive... alas, they had already buzzed off (yeah, I went there).

This trip was the first time that we actually got inside the house, and the only word to describe it is... panel-tastic. I had to make up a word, that's how bad it was. Floor to ceiling in every. single. room.

Among other crazy features: the two-story spiral staircase of doom...

...a sauna in the middle of the house...

...some truly oddly placed leaded glass windows...

...the most disgusting carpeted bathroom EVER...

...a giant hole where the bathroom floor should be...

...oh, and a ballet bar. Nice job, gentlemen.

In fact, there were very few features we actually liked, INSIDE the house. Perhaps the only one was the neat loft with giant wood beams:

Regardless, we were told by the general contractor who visited with us that it was structurally sound, and had "tons of potential." We later learned to translate that phrase to its true meaning: "THIS THING IS FREAKING UGLY!"

First things first...

One of the first things people ask when we show them our future home is "how on earth did you find this place?" Despite being only 1.5 miles from our office building at Eastern Michigan University, the house is down a dead-end dirt road that many locals don't seem to know exists. Turtle House was a foreclosure, but luckily was listed on several mainstream real estate sites. Being a real estate junkie, I'd been intrigued by it for a while (three acres! on the river!), but I'd been scared off by the foreclosure status and by the fact that it looked to be in such rough shape.

In May 2010, while still living in Columbus, OH, I met up with my mom and sister in Michigan while they hunted for an apartment for Diana in Ann Arbor. I decided to bite the bullet and just drive out to look at that intriguing three-acre listing. I almost chickened out when I reached the end of the dirt road and saw this:

The road appears to crumble to pieces after a hilariously unnecessary stop sign. I steeled my nerves (and downshifted), kept going, and saw perhaps the ugliest house in the world:

It wasn't exactly love at first sight -- until I looked around at my surroundings:

And hey, the river side wasn't THAT ugly, right? Right?

I met up with my mom and sis babbling about the absolutely beautiful property I'd seen -- how it was peaceful and secluded and surrounded by nature, but so close to town! And maaaybe I neglected to mention that the house itself appeared to have been abandoned in the late '70s... Love is blind, right?