Rather than bore with too many details, and I’m trying to catch up here, skipping over a lot of stuff that’s, well . . . boring, and the pictures don’t really give much of an idea.  It’s difficult to gauge spaces without walls. It's starting to look more like a house, though.

The interior walls start to get framed.  Home office.

We call this Stonehenge, a support for beams in the ceiling, and that will have a built in bookshelf.  And a sign of the weirdness yet to come.  That's the kitchen on the other side.

Sticks Start Going Up

  One day a guy from the water department stops to “talk to the nutjob who’s building a house all by himself”.   It's a helluva job, the whole house, every piece of lumber is carried or hauled up by pulley.

Eventually it actually starts to look like a house, stairs and doors . . . 

  

 The next floor gets started.

 

















A bit of balancing.   (Over the stairwell, no less)

Nutjob indeed. 

Laying the Foundation

New footings were added to supplement the originals as the back wall of the foundation was moving forward and the height was increased by a row of block.

 

With the center beam and floor joists in place the sub-flooring could go down.  Note the space between the house and bunker.

 New back foundation wall and a view of the lovely old cottonwood tree in the front yard.

The opposite of building a house

The house was reduced to a pile of rubble and carted off in four ass-kicking days.  First the interior was gutted, cabinets and fixtures were torn out, floor was torn up, interiors walls and the ceiling knocked down and the roof was cut up, filling what would become a constant procession of dumpsters.  

Next, the studs in the center bearing walls were knocked out bringing down the ceiling joists and rafters in a controlled collapse of what was left of the roof.  

Finally, the remnants of the walls came down leaving nothing but the foundation.   And "The Bunker".

All by hand.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

  I hate that saying.  People (like me) who say it (a lot) know (very well) what's coming (oh shit).  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  This is the story of a couple of nutcases building their dream house.  OK, one nutcase building and the other picking colors and coming up with kooky ideas.

Did I say dream house?

The plan was to tear off the roof and add a second story.  I was sad to see the kitchen go . . . .

 . . . and I had such high hopes for the entertaining I would do in the living room/lounge.

Everyone loves rustic, right?  Well maybe not in the bathroom.  A coat of paint or two  . . . .

And what the HELL is this?

Bomb shelter, bunker . . . you got me.  Forever to be known as the bunker.