Pretty exciting day yesterday. The framing crew got all the exterior walls up for the house. If you can see, there are panel sections that are 4 feet wide and 9+ feet tall. Those are glued together with orange foam glue, then nailed at the base and strapped at the corners. It’s a very sturdy construction technique. Now the crew will focus on building the load bearing walls inside the shell, then move to the roof.
The concrete slab that’s open is the garage. The garage is a module addition to the house, so the framing crew will build it after the roof is on. Where it meets the house, it’ll be attached with straps and roof trusses. Really interesting to see how this is coming together. So far, it’s been about 6-man days of work to get the walls up. Much faster that stick builds.
Now that the wind is slowing down, things should move faster. I’ll post a picture at the end of the day to show progress. Might even fly the drone if the wind is under 20 mph today.
Today is more Itron work. Getting more and more interested in just retiring for good. Once we have our budget meeting with our contractor, I’m going to reassess if I still want to work to the end of the year. I need to talk to my daughter, the CPA, about the tax situation and see if it makes sense to take out a loan for the remaining balance on the house. Not sure it makes any sense as our deductions will get smaller over the next few years. We just need to be able to cover property taxes and expenses. Our only big expense on a monthly basis is electricity. It runs a couple of hundred when we are in the RV and running A/C. That should be smaller once we’re in the house. I’ll need to “do the math” to see if installing solar makes sense and what the payback period is once it’s installed.
On Saturday we’re doing a off-road ride in Mountainaire through the Manzano Forest. I’m pretty stoked about the ride and meeting all the folks. It was arranged by our contractor and she’s bringing a bunch of folks, so we’ll have 10ish vehicles. This will be the first group ride for Wendy and I. I’ve ordered an electronic device mount for the Can-Am so we can mount a cellphone or GPS device in the dash instead of holding it all the time. I should get it in the next day or so, just in time to mount it for the ride. I’m considering getting a GPS based device for tracking rides and recreating trails. I don’t know how to use onX-Offroad to create that function, even though it’s supposed to do turn-by-turn. I still need to order a front light bar, but it’s expensive and I’m going to wait a bit before I order one. I need to pop out the center console and cut out a switch location for another switch as my dash is full. Thinking I may move the lighted whips switch down to the center console and mount a light bar switch on the dash. I think it would be good to have the light bar switch next to the headlight switch. I’ll have to see how motivated I am to move switches around on the dash.
Managed to get everything done for our Memorial day trip to Seattle next week. Booked wine tour, lodging to Thursday night, rental car. I do need to book some lodging for Monday night in Renton as Wendy is going to be with the girls on Monday night and we leave on Tuesday around 11 am. Makes sense to stick close to the airport. Hoping to have time to see the grandkids for a bit on Thursday evening. I’ll need to check in with my son.
Well, I need to get ready for the day today. Get garbage out to the curb. It’s cold this morning, 40 degrees. I’m going to watch the wind today as I don’t want our garbage blowing out into the highway and on people’s property. Anyway, it’s 6 am so I’ve got to get moving. More later.
-Gary
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