…is not a place to store mud. When we first bought the cottage in December, Emily was all about the idea of having a mudroom. “If we’re going to be farming, we’re going to need a place to take off our shoes.” Yeah, i guess that makes sense. I didn’t like the idea of making the house bigger, bur ironically, adding the space allows us to keep the house small by containing the mess.

The first step to making a mudroom is to dig in mud. This turned out to be a lot less work than I was expecting, for several reasons: A) the soil is fairly easy to cut, being forest duff with relatively low clay percentage; B) I didn’t have to dig down very far, because the frost depth here is a scant 12″; and C) I was using a Guatemala-style hoe. I dug the whole thing in a short day.

Now we install rebar. This is something I got pretty good at while making water tanks in the Peace Corps.  The only difference is that to bend the rebar, I had to use a big machine at the hardware store, because no one in this country sells (or has even heard of) grifas. Rebar bending by hand will soon go the way of the lost art of Japanese swordmaking.

The next step was to form it up for concrete. David, an architect buddy of mine, had some monoform supports lying around his house so he donated them to the project. I’ve never formed a concrete wall this way before, but it’s convenient: you make the form for the spread footing, lay the steel supports over it, and drop plywood panels into the clips on the supports. The supports are left behind permanently in the wall, and you don’t have to do two separate pours for footing and foundation wall. This is awesome, because…

I have to pump concrete uphill! Our house is about 12 feet above and 30 feet  away from the closest place the concrete truck can reach, so I have to also pay a concrete pump guy $350 per visit to help me. So, doing this in one shot saves big money. The concrete pump is pretty cool, and is just what it sounds like: I giant pump with a 4″ hose that poops out liquid rock. As Emily will attest, concrete day is pretty stressful: you have to get everything ready beforehand, not forget anything (like the various embedded anchors), and you have only one shot at getting it right. The good news? It has a finite end to the stress, because by the time an hour has gone by after the truck arrives, you’re done whether you want to be or not! (the concrete is set)

After that, it’s waiting 7 days for it to reach first strength.

We had some friends who were eager to help work on the house, so we took that opportunity to match them up with a project that could benefit from some extra manpower, as well as be satisfying for them (and make it more likely they would return again!). They got right to work, starting out with stripping the forms, then cut the bolt holes in the treated mudsills and installed them.

While they were doing that, I called upon Ryan to use his elite woodworking skillz to help me make mortises for the heavy cedar beams that will hold up the awning over the front door. I decided to make it a really deep awning, to better protect from the incessant rain in this climate. Luckily, the incessant rain also grows awesome trees. You can get some wood in these parts that was definitely not available in the midwest- that thing Ryan is carving out is a cedar 6×10. Heh.

By the time I got back, they were ready for the platform, so I showed them how to do that and they got right to business. Here’s Lindsey and Allyson screwing down the subfloor. Once that’s taken care of, it’s on to making the walls. We built them on the platform, then lifted them up into place. About the time that happened, the cedar beams were ready, so we got everyone together and lifted them onto the walls.

This is a  good time to point out that they are WAY oversized… I wanted to use cedar, because I am going to leave them exposed to the elements and cedar is naturally rot resistant. And cedar is weaker than Douglas fir, so it would need to be a little bigger, but in this case they are much more massive than necessary to make the structure look “right” proportionally. Kindof feels like an Amish barnraising in this picture, huh?

Once the walls were up, the weekend was prettymuch over and our work crew had to return to their normal lives. But not me! After working my “day job” the next morning, I was back out that afternoon, putting in rafters. The entire mudroom is only 8′ wide, but I’m using 2×12 rafters to give me enough rom to get the full R32 insulation in there for superextra awesome warmity.

We’re nearly there! On top of the rafters goes the 1/2″ plywood, and then the synthetic roof underlayment. It used to be that 15# asphalt paper did that job, but newer technology prevails. After trying it, I’m hooked: it is lighter and easier to handle, not messy, covers more per roll, and has a nonslip surface. Also, if you use the recommended (goofy) 1″ plastic headed nails, you are warranted for 180 days exposure and 90mph wind. Now all that’s left is the roof itself, which will be the subject of an upcoming post.

We reached a milestone this weekend: we have stairs to the bedroom! This has been a long time coming, and there is (of course) a story.

I have regular interactions with building officials in my job as an architect, and know that they aren’t something to be feared- rather, they can be helpful if you get them involved early and are willing to listen to their advice. Our local inspector (we have ONE inspector in Tillamook county, if you can believe that) is knowledgeable, friendly, and FAIR. When we first bought the property, I invited him out to look at it. The cottage was originally built in the early 80s, and the owner took out a building permit but never had the final inspection. End result: the building was never legalized. We need it to be legal, in part because it’s “the right thing to do”, but mostly because of a weird zoning complication on our land requires a legal dwelling be constructed within 3 years. So I wanted to talk to Leonard about what he’d like to see done to get an occupancy permit.

You’d think, being an architect, I’d know what to do. But this is complicated, remember? There have been many code revisions since the early 80s, and there is no way we can comply with all the current regs on this old, existing structure… but the building technically can’t be considered a “remodel” since it was never really a building. You get the idea? Luckily, building officials are allowed some leeway and judgement in special cases like this. We toured the building for about half an hour, and Leonard pointed out things that he would require, and other things that he would let slide. To be honest, I was surprised at how lenient he was, and we are doing a lot of stuff that he didn’t require- things like adding holddowns and shear panels against the wind and upgrading the windows to exceed the energy code. Other things are just “what’s required,” like relocating the stovepipe to be 18″ clear of combustibles, adding a kitchen vent, or installing a backup heat system.

The stairs were a particular concern to me. They were WAY to steep to meet code, were ugly, and took up a lot of space. I asked him about the stairs early on in the conversation. He glanced at them, looked away, and went on to talk about the siding. A few minutes later, I asked him again. He glanced at the stairs, looked away, and then mentioned the vent hood for the range and required clearance from operable windows. Eventually, towards the end of the inspection, I asked him a third time.

He sighed, took out his tape measure, and looked at me with eyes that said “how many times do I have to hint at this?”  He was trying to give me a break, because he could see just as clearly as I could that they were not anywhere near compliant, and he knew they would be a huge cost and hassle to upgrade. What he didn’t know is that I wanted an excuse to get rid of them. “Too steep, too little tread…” he moved his tape. “Missing handrail, not enough clearance, too narrow…” his tape moved around some more. He shrugged. We both crossed our arms, staring at the staircase, not saying anything for minute or so.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell ya,” he started slowly.

“Actually, I was sortof thinking about one of those spiral stair kits you see on the internet,” I replied, testing the water. Some code officials don’t like them as the sole means of accessing a sleeping area.

“That’s a great idea!” he replied, smiling. “I’ve seen those, they’re pretty nice.”

Aha! Success! So, in the next few days, Emily and I spent some time looking online at spiral stairs. We eventually settled on a steel one, with bamboo treads and stainless rails. Mmmm.  It was sortof expensive, but it saves space, will look great, and we only plan on buying it once. I ordered it, and we began the month-long wait for them to fabricate and ship it.

This was way back in April. As happens, things got in the way: demolition, reconstruction, weather, lost payment emails, the works. And we were busy with other parts of the house, like the roof. But eventually, lo and behold, the day came: I was on the roof working, and Emily just started reading the instructions to the stairs and staging the parts. Yay Emily!

Then the really amazing break came: we got a message from our old friend Amy. She’s a lawyer in Portland, and comes out on occasion to visit on Saturday and get in some “coast time.” She wanted to come out and help with whatever work we were up to! Luckily, she is a super type-A personality, and was more than thrilled to attack a staircase. By Saturday evening, they had the stairway half up.

Amy stayed the night, rather than driving back late after diner. Sunday morning, she decided that she’d rather stay another day and see the stairs finished than go home right away. Did I mention she’s Type A? So, by that afternoon, we were racing up and down the spiral goodness like kids at the playground.

And now we have another part of hour house that we can forever attribute directly to one of our friends.