Blogging The Dome

Home sweet Dome

2010-01-24T08:09:00.002-06:00

A blustery, sloppy day was no match for the warmth of friends yesterday. The long-awaited housewarming party filled the Dome with laughter, conversation, some pretty good food, and fun on a winter's afternoon. It was too cold & muddy to spend any time outdoors, but just wait till spring... we'll have a great lawn party then!

Lots of friends came over -- from work, from my knitting group, from town, from the kids' school -- and I loved giving the tour over & over. All homes are a work in progress, but the finished Dome turned out so beautifully, even if I've only scratched the surface of actually decorating it. Everyone raved about the colors, the hardwood floors, the spacious floor plan, and the beautiful arched windows over the entry doors (which you can see behind Nancy & Eileen here.)

The kids are thrilled to be moved in as well, of course... it's been a long wait for all of us. They were both a big help with the party, too. It's nice to finally be in a place that's large enough to have friends come over.

Of course, it didn't take long before they fired up the video games & started playing Guitar Hero. By the way, it cracks me up when the kids are amazed that I know whatever song they are playing, not realizing that it's some seminal piece of the classic-rock ouvre...
"Mom, do you know this one too?"
"Yes honey, that's 'Slow Ride' by Foghat." (trying hard not to say "Duh!")
Does anyone else have this experience with their teens?

Of course, with the knitters representin', it wasn't too long before the needles came out & the fashion show started. Mary just finished her lovely burgundy-heather cardi, which Shari tried on... I wasn't sure she was going to give it back!

All in all, a wonderful day. It's good to be home.

Home at the Dome

2010-01-18T10:39:00.002-06:00

What: Open house at the Dome
When: January 23, 2010, from 2:00 - 6:00 pm
Where: Dome Hill (if you know me well enough to want an invite, email me & I'll send you directions)
Why: Because we are finally moved into the dome! Hurrah!

Move-In

2009-12-15T19:05:00.002-06:00

Moving Day at the Dome! It took me nearly five years, three contractors, and a husband, but the day has finally arrived.

The move actually took place over two days -- one day to pack up the old place & load the truck, one to move the stuff into the new place. Since I recently had minor surgery & am not supposed to be lifting heavy stuff, I paid extra to have the movers come in & pack up all of the household goods (kitchen, &c.) Worth every penny. They did in one day what would have taken me a month, didn't break one dish, and I didn't have to hoist a single box.

When we moved from California to Missouri, we transitioned from a fairly large house into a much smaller (allegedly short-term, temporary) residence. We thought we had pared our belongings down pretty well when we set out, but there was still so much stuff crammed into that tiny house that it was kind of comical. The head mover told me that I won the award for having the most things in the smallest space. It'll be nice to have a little room to spread out at the dome. I am determined to not bring in a lot of new belongings there... I want to keep it comfortable without being overcrowded. There will obviously have to be some new furniture (guest bedroom, &c.) but I'm going to make do as much as possible with what I already have -- for both monetary & aesthetic reasons.

Everything was eventually packed up & moved out. Goodbye, little house. I'm thinking it will need a tiny bit of work before I get ready to sell it in the spring, but it wasn't a bad place.

The cats, naturally, were quite displeased with the whole process. We kept them crated up while the furniture was being moved. Oh, the indignity of it all.

Day 2, the day of the actual move, was bitterly cold. The poor guys were bundled up like snowmen while they were out at the truck, but if they were inside for more than a few minutes (shuttling cartons upstairs, or something,) they would shed the heavy jackets & hats as they worked up a sweat. So, all day long, it seemed like there were jackets going on & off just inside the doorway. It was actually pretty funny to watch.

Now, I'm just unpacking boxes & getting settled in. More later as I get this place knocked into shape.

The Tub

2009-11-22T12:25:00.002-06:00

Ahhhhhhhh.

(The access panel still needs to be stained. But other than that, it's done. Finally.)

Shower

2009-11-21T11:15:00.002-06:00

I think I might have a contractor-crush on my tile guy. Look at the beautiful job he did on the shower in the master bath. Love!

Indian Summer at the Dome

2009-11-01T19:54:00.001-06:00

It was a beautiful Indian summer day today, and things are moving along nicely at the dome. I walked down along some of the lower property -- it's a bit soggy after all the rain we had last week, but quite lovely as the trees shed their leaves.

The hardwood floor is done throughout the first floor. It has a semi-gloss finish which I think brings out the natural variations of the wood quite beautifully.

I have been waiting for over four years to use this tub. Once I finally do, you had better believe that it's going to be the biggest candlelight-scented-bath-bomb-whirlpool extravaganza ever known to womankind.

I Have the Floor

2009-10-16T07:19:00.002-05:00

Doesn't it look incredible!?! This is the master bedroom.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink, part deux

2009-10-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

We're actually a lot closer to the kitchen sink these days... countertops are in. I also picked out the drawer pulls & knobs; they have a pretty antique-bronze finish that I really like!

The countertops are a manufactured stone product. I would have loved granite, but just couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of money... these have the durability as well as the colors of natural stone. I chose a colorway that encompasses tans, browns, and near-blacks. It's quite lovely under the dust!

More Colors

2009-09-27T20:12:00.003-05:00

Some more progress pictures of the dome... I'll also show you the other two wall colors. The master bedroom is painted in Ruskin Green...

...and the kitchen in Hubbard Squash. (Totally aside, I am wearing what is possibly the Most Unflattering Dress In the World. Can you believe this thing used to be too small for me at one point? I refuse to get rid of it, even though it now fits like a potato sack, because it is just that comfortable. But it has now been relegated to a weekends-only, wear-around-the-house role.)

The second-story flooring is about halfway installed. They were apparently working in Hunter's room when they knocked off for the weekend.

Ali & her friends finished the splatter paint project today. There was a good bit of jumping to get the paint up high enough... a bit funny to watch.

Of course, once again, the girls ended up wearing as much paint as the walls.

Splatter

2009-09-19T17:30:00.001-05:00

The oak flooring is going in at the dome. It looks more fabulous than I could have possibly believed. It's slow going, though, it will probably take the crew two or three weeks to get it all down, sanded, stained, and sealed. And that's without doing the basement.

Ali was quite adamant about doing something different, paint-wise, in her room. She settled on choosing three of her favorite colors to do a splatter-paint pattern in her room. I was rather apprehensive that it would just look messy, but it's actually turning out quite nice. She (along with two friends) did half of the room last night, adding a few handprints too. The girls ended up wearing as much paint as the walls did...

Meet the Contractor

2009-09-16T20:21:00.003-05:00

Here's the dome's last general contractor, Chad. We <3 Chad. He's working on the electric finish today, should take another day or so. Paint is finished! Tomorrow the floor installers start. That's a big piece of the schedule, they'll probably be laying floor for the next week or two.

Three of the five colors in the dome's final color scheme are visible in this picture -- the dining room walls are painted Antiquarian Brown, then you can see just a little sliver of the family room's Roycroft Copper Red, and the far kitchen wall (and the ceiling) are done in Roycroft Vellum. (The other two colors are Ruskin Room Green, a medium sage green, and Hubbard Squash, a rich yellow.) I chose all of the colors from the Arts & Crafts palette by Sherwin Williams. I'm doing a lot of the finish work & decor in the Craftsman style -- bronze fixturing, stained glass, mission wood, &c. Perhaps I'm mixing metaphors here; there's not a lot of intersection between the square pillars of Prairie School and the ultra-modern triangular panels of the geodesic dome. But heck, they're my metaphors and I can mix them if I want...

Work continues.

2009-09-13T21:23:00.000-05:00

Some new pictures from the dome. The front deck is just about finished...

...as are the kitchen cabinets. The original plans called for a curved kitchen island, but I've decided to put a little bistro table on the far wall instead.

The crew brought in a little bobcat to do some earth work. Hunter thinks it's pretty cool :-)

Update from the Dome

2009-08-29T10:47:00.001-05:00

Sadly, for the second time in the Great Dome Project, I must report that my general contractor has skipped town and left me hanging. This time, it was because the general contractor had some kind of a midlife crisis and divorced me. So, hopefully the third time's the charm! I have hired a new general, Chad, a local fellow who is turning out to be very reliable. Work is once again proceeding apace, both inside and out. The new front deck has been framed and should be finished next week.

The deck rail has black metal spindles, and some really cool-looking copper caps on the support poles. I imagine they will develop a pretty verdigris patina over time, but right now they twinkle like a new penny.

The new oven has been delivered, and is sitting in the entryway (the waiting area for all appliances, it seems, until the cabinets are ready to receive them.) We originally wired for an electric oven, but I really wanted gas, and Chad was kind enough to re-plumb it at a minimal charge.

The kitchen cabinets are in! The oven's days of hanging out in the entryway are pretty limited, I think. The cabinetmaker did a really fabulous job. Everything is a blond honey oak color, which will look great with the oak flooring.

One of the apple trees produced a single fruit, several years ahead of schedule. It's not big, but it's my first apple. I can't wait until we start getting a regular crop from these trees... visions of canned apples are dancing in my head.

Chad thinks he'll have us in the dome by Thanksgiving. So far, he is on schedule and under budget. Expect more regular updates as we get closer to move-in!

We have drywall!

2009-03-28T08:45:00.003-05:00

Ceilings!

Walls!

Springtime and a new year

2009-03-14T15:54:00.002-05:00

I'll bet you thought we had abandoned the dome project by now. Not true! I'm just a very bad blogger. It's coming up on four years (!) since we broke ground, and the work is pitifully slow sometimes, because we're doing it all ourselves in between all the rest of the stuff that goes on while one is just living one's life. Since I last blogged, there's been vacations, a gall-bladder surgery, and a thousand other little non-newsworthy things. The dome still has one small, elusive leak, but it only matters when it rains really hard, and Mike thinks he has it tracked down now. The footers for the new, less saggy front deck are in place. Warmer spring weather has come to the region and we are hoping to finish up this year.

Armed with caffeine, we headed out this morning to get some work done.

Mike worked on the wall in the downstairs bedroom. The exterior dormer walls are well insulated, since they are really the worst heat-loss points in a concrete dome, and then covered in plywood in preparation for the drywall guys.

In the meantime, I'm under orders to not do any heavy lifting (long story), so guess who got to sweep upstairs? We're both wearing dust masks, by the way, because there were some of those rat-poison cakes scattered about the dome to help get the rodent problem under control. No more mice, but the poison cakes are now all half-disintegrated; neither of us was much inclined to breathe in the dust as I swept it up.

After the upstairs was as clean as I could get it, I went outside and wandered around a bit on the lower half. Two red-tailed hawks were circling the second lot, looking for a late breakfast, I suppose. In spring, the hawk activity increases markedly as all the little creatures become more active, so they are a welcome sign that winter is just about over here.

In the meadow to the west of the dome (which I have started calling Gaia's Meadow), there are three stately trees standing in a triangle at the westmost point of a little natural glade. I call them the Three Ladies. They are, oh, forty-fifty feet tall. I think they are elms, but I will have to get someone who knows more about trees in Missouri to confirm this for me. The stone circle is going to go here.

Apparently, in the springtime, we have a little creek. It will dry up as soon as it stops raining, but for now, it winds down to the southwest corner of the property in a very charming way.

The pond is quite full, and looks weedier than ever. This is the same pond that I said was on the neighbor's property way back on the second post of this blog, but then we bought the adjoining lot, so it's our pond now! Mike has plans to clean it up once we get moved in, but for now, it belongs to the frogs. There was a raucous bullfrog making quite the racket as I walked around the pond. (Another sign of spring...)

The pond was fenced at one time, and about three-quarters of the fenceline still stands, although it is quite rusty and overgrown with vines. We'll have to pull it all down eventually. We're not going to run out of projects anytime soon, I assure you.

Grass Fire

2008-02-14T18:50:00.001-06:00

A little excitement for our Valentine's Day week -- a grass fire swept over the property yesterday when a neighbor's rubbish fire got out of control. Disclaimer up front -- Nothing was harmed (other than grass) during this incident.

We weren't actually at the site when it happened, but here's what we have pieced together: Our oh-so-intelligent neighbors to the south were burning some trash, and perhaps didn't attend the fire quite as closely as they should have. A light breeze is almost always blowing on the ridge even when the rest of the state is quite still, so a spark must have been blown over into the tall grass of the vacant property between us. Our weather for the last week has been cold but dry, so the dead grass caught readily. The fire swept through the vacant lot, pushed north by the wind towards the dome.

It got down into the lower portion of our property, the meadow where the leach lines for the septic tank were dug, and burned some grass down there. You can see that it passed over so quickly, though, that the trees are unscathed. I don't think we lost any trees at all; even the tiny apple trees in the orchard seem to be largely untouched.

More frighteningly, the fire also came right up to the propane tank behind the dome, but the fire department was on scene by this time and knocked the flames down before anything could happen there. The tank isn't even scorched. We had the gas company people come out to inspect it, just to be on the safe side, but there's not a thing amiss with it. (You can see the oh-so-intelligent neighbors' house in the distance of this picture.)

All told, around five acres burned. I am thankful that this turned out to be a minor-sidebar type of story -- it could have been much, much worse. Also, two good things will come of this little adventure: 1) The grass will come in green and lush in the burn areas this spring. 2) I won't have to work very hard to convince Mike of the virtues of brush-hogging the property this year.

Painting is Finished

2007-11-11T07:16:00.000-06:00

We finished the final coat yesterday, except for a few touch-ups and a little work on the upstairs dormers... as is pretty obvious in this picture, we were racing the weather. (It's supposed to rain tomorrow.) What a relief to finally have it done. Now, with the exterior finished, we can concentrate on the interior work all winter.

For some reason, there are ladybugs all over the dome. I don't mean a few here and there; I'm talking thousands. It's common to see these kind of swarms during Indian summer; the bugs will be gone once it freezes again. But still. I think they are attracted to the flat concrete surfaces of the dome, which may look to a ladybug brain like a cliff (its natural winter habitat)... or perhaps they think they have found the mothership, who knows.

Dome Primered

2007-11-05T05:56:00.000-06:00

Mike & I were out at the dome painting this weekend... the primer coat is almost finished. The dome looks completely different now. The finished color won't be white, however; it'll be more of a light beigey natural shade.

Painted Dome

2007-10-30T18:50:00.000-05:00

There is actual paint going on the actual dome! Mike started the primer coat today. He's using Loxon, an acrylic primer specifically meant for concrete. He has to roller it on because it's almost always too windy to spray on the ridge -- it'll probably be a four-day job.

Finished Dormers

2007-10-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

The dormers are all complete! We finished the wide first-floor ones with a colored stucco product called Dryvit... the smaller upstairs window dormers are plain concrete & will be painted with the house.

It rained off & on last week (what a wet season we've been having!), but the forcast says sunny & cool for all of next week. Paint at last!

The apple trees, by the way, responded well to spraying & put out another batch of leaves just in time for the coming frost. Oh well. It looks like they are in good shape to thrive next spring.

Bad News from the Orchard

2007-08-19T07:06:00.000-05:00

Something is eating the leaves on the apple trees. We thought that deer were the culprits, so Mike built some protective cages; but alas, the deforestation has continued unabated. Now there's also some kind of little green worm spinning spiderwebby cocoons around the branches. Hmmph. I have no idea what the critters are, but we'll hit 'em with a broad-spectrum pesticide & see if that does it. I hate spraying, but I don't think we can avoid it here.

More concrete

2007-07-18T06:40:00.000-05:00

Mike & Mark are plugging away at it -- the strike coat is done on all but a couple of upstairs dormers. It's been a long slow process over the last couple of months, interrupted by a week's vacation out of state, a week when it rained 12 inches, a week when Mark was having (minor) surgery on his hand... well, you get the idea. This week, due to the killing heat, the guys have been knocking off after half a day, thus avoiding heatstroke. Cooler weather's on tap for next week.

Concrete (at last)

2007-05-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

Finally, the concrete is underway, but it's moving ahead in fits and starts due to the off-and-on rain that is typical in spring & early summer in this part of the world. It's actually a good time for doing concrete work because it doesn't dry out too quickly (which can result in cracks). Here's the front entry with the first coat about 80% done!

Some stairs, some trees

2007-05-20T20:39:00.000-05:00

When one is building one's own home, one becomes very familiar with the local building-materials establishments. Mike is here so often that the checkout clerks recognize him, which wouldn't be a big deal at a mom-and-pop store, but it's saying something for a big box store.

One of the many things on which the dopey contractor did a lousy job -- the entryway staircase up to the second floor -- finally bugged Mike enough that he tore them out & redid them, angling them out away from the exterior wall to give a little more room. They look much nicer & you don't hit your head on the wall where it curves in now. Just another example of funky dome geometry.

Next he'll reframe the half-wall that forms the stairway and second-floor loft railing.

Meanwhile, outside, the apple trees have thrived on the rain & sun, more rain, then more sun that we've been having for the last six weeks. Look at the Lodi putting out leaves! Well, it may not show up too well against the grass, depending on your monitor's resolution... but I'm thrilled to death with how well the trees are doing. My orchard is coming along swimmingly.

Springtime at the Dome

2007-04-29T20:37:00.000-05:00

The concrete crew is set to come this week & finish up the exterior work. Won't it be nice to finally get that done! Meantime, Mike bought an awful lot of quik-crete and stacked it in the garage, ready to use.

Hunter (sporting his usual summer buzz cut, newly cropped this morning) quite helpfully unhitched the trailer once it was unloaded. (We leave it parked behind the dome when it's not in use... easier than storing it in town.)

The apple twigs are starting to leaf! Spring is grand!

The beginning of the orchard

2007-04-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

Part of the plan for what will eventually become a nine-acre hobby farm/dome showcase is a small orchard of fruit trees: six or eight, or maybe ten, trees of various kinds to produce fruit for eating, baking, and canning. Apples, pears, cherries, peaches... This, in combination with a summer vegetable garden, could provide enough plant food to supply a pretty big chunk of our diet. (The chicken coop and animal pasture, to provide the protein portion of our diet, will be a different post.) Besides, who can resist a fresh peach still warm from the sun, or spiced apples that went into the jar an hour after they were picked? My pear mincemeat from last year is legendary. (Sadly, only two jars remain... but I digress.)

There was only one problem: a tree big enough to bear fruit within a year or two of planting costs a freaking fortune, both to buy it and to pay a crew to come out and plant it. Conversely, a tree small enough to be affordable (and still pretty easy to handle) won't bear for several years. Being the patient people we are, we opted for the latter choice. We'll put in a couple of small trees a year until the orchard seems complete; the first trees will probably start bearing about the time that the last ones go in.

Year One: Apples. We put in a couple of apple trees from Stark Bros., a Missouri-based nursery. (We wanted to buy from someone in our general region, to get the best-adapted trees for this area.) With apples, you have to be careful to choose varieties that will cross-pollinate, since they aren't self-pollinators. After consulting the cross-reference table, we chose a Lodi (hum obligatory CCR tune here) and a Braeburn. One tart green, one red sweet. Right now, they resemble nothing so much as a couple of four-foot twigs stuck in the ground, but that'll change. In five years or so, I'll be baking apple pies.

Happy New Year from Dome World

2007-01-28T19:02:00.000-06:00

The ice & snow is partly melted off from the last round of storms, but the driveway at the dome (which wasn't plowed) is still pretty much a skating rink. An interesting phenomenon that we have noticed: Falling snow tends to form a circular drift all the way around the dome, in a ring about 10 feet or so from the outside wall. It's mostly melted in this picture, but right after the snowfall it was drifted a good 12" deeper than the rest of the snow. We're not sure why this happens... it likely has something to do with the way the air moves around the dome, but that's just our highly imprecise guess.

Rub a dub dub, there's a frame around my tub.

Mike contemplates the framing to be done on the second floor. First will be the half-wall along the second floor loft so I can stop holding my breath every time he walks up there.

Winter Wonderland

2006-12-02T19:56:00.000-06:00

The recent midwest storm that made all the news this week dumped about 18" on us in town. It seems to be less (6" or so) out at the dome site, I guess because it's atop a ridge & doesn't get a lot of drifting, but it was still knee-deep along the bottoms at the west end of the property. The dome itself is quite snug, Mike has been checking to make sure the pipes aren't freezing or anything. It looks quite charming with a coating of snow along the top.

Googling the Dome

2006-11-30T15:55:00.000-06:00

I like to goof around on Google Maps sometimes, see if it can zoom in close enough to see cars & stuff like that. OK, you knew I was a nerd already, right? The hybrid map/satellite imagery is particularly cool, but unfortunately, the satellite images are often a year or two out of date. Well, it's a big planet, I guess they get around to updating it as often as they can.

Anyway, I googled the dome site the other day, and behold! The dome now shows up! Or, at least, the basement walls do. The image must have been taken on a sunny day in late May or early June of last year, sometime between when the dome kit was delivered (you can see it stacked up between the structure & the road) and when the frame went up. I drew in the approximate property lines for the nine acres. The land is highest along the east side, and then slopes down to the west. There's also a little pond nestled into the trees in the northwest quadrant. (A bigger pond is just on the other side of the northwest corner.) To the west, a lightly wooded area between us & the nearest houses.

We're on the map! :-)

Interior Framing

2006-11-26T11:10:00.000-06:00

Work is going to continue through the winter with various framing tasks. Here's one of the master bedroom closets (with the access panel to the tub right behind Mike's knees,) which is one of the last things on the first floor. Mike is planning to put lots of built-in shelves and stuff, especially in oddball triangular corners, of which every room seems to have at least one.

Just working away

2006-10-08T20:14:00.000-05:00

I wish I had more exciting progress to show, but it's moving along. Got a few more weeks to make it weathertight before winter sets in. It's supposed to be a cold, snowy one.

The score so far

2006-10-03T06:04:00.000-05:00

4 mice
1 large wolf spider
Many crickets (too many to count)

Mike is done with the west-facing dormer on the 2nd floor. One down, seven to go. :-)

Progress on several fronts

2006-09-23T14:40:00.000-05:00

Many things have been happening out at the dome, but I never can seem to get pictures of them, because Mike goes out there to work & nearly always forgets to take pictures. I did my best to remedy this situation today...

The propane tank was installed last week. They really are rather unlovely things, but necessary to country living, where there's no gas main under the sidewalk. It's located at the end of the driveway, far enough back that we can't slide into it due to ice or inattention, but close enough that the fill truck can access it reasonably easily. The HVAC guy also came out last week & tested the heater, too.

While working with the heater, Mike found that some kind of animal (mice, rats, who knows what) had been nesting in the insulation. An empty structure is a haven for all kinds of pests, but we need to make sure the place is reasonably creature-free before we put up drywall, so we've put out traps (both sticky & snap-traps) and some rodent bait. So far we haven't caught anything but some crickets and spiders in the sticky traps, but we also found a rather impressive snakeskin where a serpent apparently took advantage of the quiet sheltered spot of our basement. Mike doesn't like snakes, but I don't mind 'em when they eat rats & things... he was originally in favor of treating any snake found on the property with extreme prejudice, but I am trying my best to talk him out of that. Out of the fifty-plus snakes native to Missouri, only a handful of them are poisonous. We have negotiated a compromise where brown patterned snakes may be dealt with, but others are left alone. In this part of the world, "brown patterned snake" means a copperhead, a timber rattler, or one of a few non-poisonous imposters. "Others" means the black rat snake, the bull snake, various green-colored grass/garter snakes, and a host of beneficial, rodent-eating serpents. I can live with them.

We just couldn't seem to get a bid on the concrete work -- no contractor was willing to take on such an oddball job -- so Mike finally bit the bullet & started on it himself. Lo & behold, it wasn't as difficult as he had feared, just plain old hard work. The second-floor west-facing window dormer is serving as his training ground. He starts by mixing up the quick-crete in small batches...

...and then putting the first coat, which is called the scratch coat, around the window dormer. We actually both took a turn doing this, but Mike is much better at it than I am, I am quick to confess. Nonetheless, we'll probably both be doing our share of it on the weekends until it gets done.

I came inside to fetch the stepstool, while Mike kept working on the concrete. Look at our view! This is looking more-or-less north, over our second lot.

So, yes, there is stuff happening out at the dome. One last improvement of note -- the plumbers came out to finish their last little bit of work, and installed one very important household fixture in the basement. Hurray. The female members of the crew (aka Ali & myself) are very happy.

Driveway

2006-08-19T20:59:00.000-05:00

The earth-mover guy came in for the last two days to grade & gravel the driveway. He used a type of rock mixture that starts out loose, but eventually packs down with wear & moisture to form a fairly hard surface. There's a big horseshoe-shaped drive in the front, as well as the drive that runs around back to the garage. It took six truckloads! (Too big to get a proper picture of the whole thing.)

Heat Wave

2006-07-22T06:09:00.000-05:00

Mike took the week off to avoid working himself into a sunstroke in the brutal heat that has been gripping the whole country... but the heat has broken with yesterday's storms & the forecast looks much better for next week. More pictures soon, I promise.

The Importance of Using UL-Rated Tools

2006-07-07T18:54:00.000-05:00

(A comedy in one act)

Scene: Exterior of dome, morning.
Enter Mike, carrying a hedge trimmer, and Ali from stage left.

Mike: OK, kiddo, I've got a job for you.
Ali: Sure, what is it?
Mike: I need you to trim back the bushes & weeds that have grown up under this window. That'll make it easier to get the ladder in here to finish putting up the lathe.
Ali: Sure! Cool! (reaches for hedge trimmer)
Mike (holds back trimmer:) Wait a second! You need to be careful with this thing, it can be dangerous if you're using it incorrectly.
Ali: I know, Dad, I'll be careful.
Mike: I want you to cut the bushes about 6 inches off the ground. (demonstrating on a five-foot or so area) Hold the trimmer level with the ground and sweep it from side to side.
Ali: I know, Dad!
Mike: And most important, make sure you keep the cord well away from the trimming blade!
Ali: I know, Dad, I know! I'm not dumb!
Mike: Ok, then, here you go. Be careful.
Ali: I know, Dad.
(About fifteen minutes later, there is a large popping sound. Sparks fly & the circuit breaker trips with another loud pop.)
Mike: Al-l-l-l-i!
Ali (in a very small voice:) ummm.... sorry?

(Disclaimer: No one was hurt during the enactment of this comedy.)

Window in the Sky

2006-06-28T19:43:00.000-05:00

Today Mike tackled the hardest of the second-floor dormers: Ali's bedroom, which is the only one that doesn't have a first-floor dormer underneath it. It's also on the side with the walk-out basement wall exposed. All this adds up to one long ladder. Mike tied it down, and wore a harness tied off (through the window) to a beam on the inside, as well. He also wore a very chic safety helmet borrowed from Hunter's sk8r gear.

After five hours of working atop the ladder, all he can do is complain about the burning in his calves. :-(

Some More Windows

2006-06-25T17:11:00.000-05:00

The dormers are coming along nicely, thanks to Ali & Mike who have been working diligently pretty much every day. On the second floor, Mike is reinforcing the window dormers (which were a little under-engineered) by running 2x4's next to the windows, prior to insulating & closing them up with plywood. The temporary braces will come down when the plywood goes up. This is the bedroom above the master bedroom, which Hunter has claimed (for the moment). The view is to the southeast, over our friend Bill's property.

Here's the same window, plus the master bedroom below it, from the outside. The tar paper & expanded metal lathe is up & it's ready for concrete!

A bonus picture of the world's best dad-and-daughter dome builder team.

Scaffold

2006-06-15T19:13:00.000-05:00

As always, click for larger pictures.

More pictures of the pre-plaster work on the dormers. Mike built the scaffolding & braces.

Mike applies the mesh over the tar paper.

As a totally unrelated aside, I took the kids to see the new Pixar movie Cars last weekend. I was surprised... no, delighted... to see that Fillmore, the hippie-dippy VW microbus (expertly voiced by George Carlin,) lives in a day-glo-painted geodesic dome! You can see a bit of it on the right side of this promo shot. :-)

Tar paper

2006-06-10T18:28:00.000-05:00

The roofing paper is going up! This is the first step of stuccoing.

Note that the saggy front deck has been ripped out & replaced with a temporary set of steps that were borrowed from a neighbor. Mike has promised to rebuild the deck properly, with a railing & nice steps & everything.

Insulation

2006-06-02T19:13:00.000-05:00

No pictures to show, mostly because Mike keeps forgetting to take the camera out there, but three of the first floor dormers now have their insulation and/or interior plywood what-do-you-call-it, the inside of the wall. Facing? I have no idea what it is properly called. Anyway, Mike & Ali have been working as a team; Ali goes first, cutting & fitting the insulation, then Mike comes along behind her, closing it up with the plywood. They make a pretty good duo... Ali has inherited her dad's skill with working with his hands, it seems.

We're into the early-summer rains, which means that exterior work is very weather-dependent. Nothing done on the outside for the last few days due to the recent heavy downpours. Mike will need to wait for a clear spell to test out his new scaffolding.

Entry Framing

2006-04-29T15:49:00.000-05:00

A picture of the plywood on the interior of the entry way, which has been reinforced & insulated. Note the sawhorse table in the foreground -- Mike was appalled at how much a sawhorse cost at Lowe's, so he built a few. A leftover piece of plywood makes a nice work table.

Progress report

2006-04-17T11:48:00.000-05:00

Work continues at a slow pace, but progress is being made. Unfortunately, I have no pictures at the moment; I'll see if I can't get some soon.

Last week Mike finished squaring & shimming all the exterior doors, installing said doors' hardware, and removing the slapdash front deck that was so poorly constructed that it was already beginning to sag. (Yet another thing we need to redo.)

This week he plans to apply to all of the first-floor dormers the felt-paper stuff that is the first layer of masonry; also, he will reinforce and insulate the high-profile front-entry dormer opening, which will otherwise turn into a major heat-loss area.

One of the things we have learned about dome construction is this: it is not for people who don't enjoy finding solutions to oddball problems. The non-right-angle geometry means that, at every step, you wind up saying to yourself, "Well, in an ordinary house I would do thusly, but that won't work here, so..." and then you have to puzzle out what is likely to work best. Some people enjoy such a challenge; some folks would be driven batty by it. Fortunately, Mike is about 75% in the former category.

Work Resumes

2006-04-02T20:40:00.000-05:00

After a winter hiatus & far too much legal drama with our ex-contractor, work has finally resumed on the dome, with Mike at the helm. Today's project was to redo the half-assed installation of the front door, square it up, and install the permanent hardware (locks and handles.) Here, Mike shims the door frame, something the contractor didn't bother to do. I am just so happy to see something happening with the dome... we've both been quite bummed over the winter months that we didn't get anywhere near done last year. Now, with Mike doing the bulk of the remaining work, it will go slowly; but at least we can be sure of where the money's going.

Auction Today

2006-01-07T14:37:00.000-06:00

Today we discovered the joys of country auctions... specifically, a building-materials auction down at the fairgrounds. Our neighbor Bill called Mike early this morning and basically said, Get down here, they've got a bunch of stuff you've been looking for. What a zoo! I've never been to an auction before. The auctioneers (a father-son team) doing that rapid-fire singsongy thing, hordes of contractors & good old boys milling about looking at cabinets & tubs & sinks & tile & whatnot, the women tending to gather in the back riding herd on the kids. Mike bid on & won some very nice 2 3/4" unfinished oak flooring, enough to do the whole 1st & 2nd floors, and at a bargain price -- we paid less than half of what we would have paid at Home Depot. Such a deal.

The bidding was a little crazy, but we managed to come out of it OK. There were three pallets of the flooring, which were sold by the board foot, and Mike determined that we needed two of them; but he got into a bit of a bidding war with another guy & had to go up to 75¢ before his rival dropped out. (The previous three pallets, in a wider board, had been won at 55¢ by our electrical contractor, who is building a house down in Centerview.) Still a bargain, the stuff goes for at least $1.40 - $1.50 at the home warehouse stores. With multiple-unit auctions, when you've won, you tell the auctioneer how many units you want, and if there are any left they auction those separately. So Mike told him he wanted two pallets & they went on to auction the third. No one was all that interested in a single pallet; auctioneer père was pressing Mike pretty hard to bid it -- he dropped the bid increments to 2.5¢ to keep him interested -- and something was nudging me at that point, telling me we'd need it. So we got the third pallet for a paltry 42.5¢. Later, we checked our calculations & realized we had done the math wrong & would need nearly all of the square footage of three pallets. Score!

An exciting milestone

2006-01-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

O happy day, there is work being done on the dome again. The new electrician that Mike hired just before the holidays has been out there wiring away all last week & this. The main breaker panel (down in the utility room) is a joyous sight with lots of wire being run to it.

Year's End

2005-12-20T06:58:00.000-06:00

Well, we had really hoped to be in the dome by now, but we obviously didn't get anywhere near finishing this year. Everyone always uses the best-case scenario in planning, I guess, but we didn't allow anything remotely like enough time for weather delays & problems with contractors & slow deliveries of materials & all the nine zillion little things & big things that come up on a project this size. So, we continue.

Ali told a funny story about a school project yesterday -- the kids were supposed to mark the approximate location of their home, using a topo map, which they were learning to read. C., a classmate of Ali's, noted her pin near C.'s own pin and said, "Hey, I didn't know you lived near ___ road." Ali launched into her usual explanation of no, actually I live in town now but my dad is building a new home, yada yada. The following exchange ensued:
"Hey, we'll be neighbors after you guys move in! Where's the house?"
"You know the round house off Hwy __?"
"Wow, you live near the round house?"
"No, I'll be living in the round house."
"COOL!"

Snow Dome

2005-12-10T16:06:00.000-06:00

A winter storm dropped some snow on us Wednesday & Thursday; it won't last long but it looks lovely at the dome site right now. Too bad you can't work on stucco until the temperatures get up above 40° or so.

Stucco

2005-11-26T12:04:00.000-06:00

A spell of fine, fair weather means that we can get the stucco finishing work done around the windows & doors in the exterior dormer spaces. I believe this is the last step before painting the exterior. We'll keep our fingers crossed for clear weather!

Hiatus

2005-11-17T10:42:00.000-06:00

Work is at a total standstill on the dome, because....

...it's hunting season! D'oh! I should have anticipated that we wouldn't see anyone this week. Next week should mark a return to actual activity.

Attic & Front Door

2005-11-08T15:45:00.000-06:00

Clearly we have hit one of those lulls common in building, when nothing much seems to be happening because everything that actually is happening seems too trivial to photograph. There's still a bunch of little things that have to be done before drywall, but the main thing going in right now is the second-floor ceiling. We'll have some storage space up in the attic, but it will be only partly useable because the dome curve is flattening out pretty sharply by the time you get that high up. Still, a good spot to stash those boxes of seasonal decorations & the like.

The other big development: We have a front door! It is an unfinished wood double door, actually; it will be finished with a medium-oak stain, making it darker than it looks here. I have no idea why Mike looks so grumpy in the picture. Perhaps he is contemplating all the painting/staining/finishing work looming in the near future.

Hot, hot, hot

2005-10-29T19:55:00.000-05:00

Seems like everything going in right now is a heating appliance of some variety. First, the water heater is now situated in the corner of the utility room in the basement (although not hooked up yet, obviously.)

Next is the heating/AC unit, which wound up in the workshop, actually (it was too big for the closet in which it was supposed to go... Oh well, I just have to live with some extra storage in the rec room.) The ducting & vents are all in place; you can see some of the vents in the second-floor bedrooms here.

Finally, we took delivery of our new woodstove today from Dillon Heating & Cooling in Odessa. Highest recommendation, BTW! They were very helpful & were happy to keep our stove on their showroom floor for a couple of extra months until we were ready for it. We got a Jøtul F3CB stove, which is not huge (as you can see) but should be perfect for zone heating on the first floor family-room area. Plus I can cook on the stovetop in a pinch. (Pinch is here defined as a power outage.) I think it's an adorable little stove, just the right size for a cozy little fire. Wayne, one of the owners of Dillon H&C, mentioned that the demand for stoves has grown so much that there is a fairly hefty wait for some models these days. Seems more & more people are turning to wood/corn/pellet stoves as a way of offsetting ridiculously high heating-fuel costs. Woo, am I glad we put our order in early.

Autumn Leaves

2005-10-19T17:54:00.000-05:00

Here is a pretty shot Mike took of the dome while pulled over on the highway. He was chatting with a couple of guys that are building a house here on the lot facing the highway (it's the lot kitty-corner to the dome lot; it backs up to our second lot) -- he had actually met them a while back & had offered to show them the dome sometime. They took him up on the offer today & took the tour; they were quite pleased to get a chance to see the inside. Apparently we're the talk of several neighboring towns... all the contractors & builders know about the crazy dome that's going in, and everyone wants to get a peek at it. I have a feeling we'll get some random doorbell rings once we're moved in.

HVAC

2005-10-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

With framing in place, the various things that go between the walls are all being installed. This includes pipes for plumbing, as well as the ducting for the heat & air conditioning. Here is the ducting coming out of the basement shop (where the HVAC unit will be located). Looks ugly, doesn't it? It all gets covered up anyway, so no matter.

Nuttin much

2005-10-04T19:01:00.001-05:00

Nothing photo-worthy seems to be happening at the moment. There was a big old boo-boo in the basement plumbing, putting the toilet drain only about six inches from the wall, which is making the plumber unhappy because he'll have to tear up a section of the floor & re-do it. Measure twice, cut once, right? Oh well, I guess there's always at least one of these things.

Mike walked through with the electrician today, he should start wiring in the next day or two. After that, DRYWALL! and floors & cabinets & sinks & stuff! It's getting close...

Generator

2005-09-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

The generator was delivered last week, but Mike forgot to take a picture of it. It's not doing much right now, but the electrician will wire it in when they pull the electrical in the next week or two.

Windows installation

2005-09-22T17:09:00.000-05:00

The windows have arrived, and were installed today. This mostly seals up the dome (with the exception of the front door, which is installed separately) and gives us the finished weather-tight exterior, needing only paint. Just in time too -- yet another rainstorm is coming tonight.

The kitchen will be light & bright with a large sliding glass door leading out onto the deck. The plans originally called for a regular old door here, but we substituted the slider, and I'm glad we did. It opens up the kitchen a lot & has a lovely view.

Some slow progress

2005-09-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

Not much happened on the dome this week, between Mike missing a day or two with his oral surgery (he's fine, less one impacted wisdom tooth, but he was pretty groggy all day Tuesday) and a couple small thunderstorms that rolled through & soaked the ground again, precluding any outdoor work.

The second-floor dormers have been framed to accept the windows, which should arrive next week. We ended up ordering a traditional double-hung style instead of casements, which a) was quite a bit less expensive and b) worked a lot better in the entry area. Hunter is actually in the guest room here, which is over the kitchen looking to the west.

The gigantic bath/shower stall has been moved upstairs & is framed into place in the 2nd floor bathroom. We got an email from some relatives (Hi Bud & Pat!) who are reading the blog & were under the impression that there was only going to be one bathroom in the whole place. Not true & I apologize for giving the wrong impression. The plan calls for 3 1/2 baths -- powder & master on the 1st floor, a full bath on the 2nd floor, and a toilet & shower in the basement. I oughta scan the floor plan & post it here, I just realized I still haven't done that.

Digging

2005-09-09T20:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and today the septic tank was put in. Turns out we are sitting on a limestone shelf, more or less, and excavating the hole to drop in the tank was a matter of pulling out stones, rocks, slabs, and some mucking big boulders. (Mike is happy because now he has lots of rock for landscaping. He has plans for a firepit and a stone circle on the lower half.) Anyway, the pit was eventually dug & the tank went in just below the driveway; it's a thousand-gallon system, which should be plenty for a family of four, we're told. Leach field below that. Should be a nice green grassy field there ;-)

Meanwhile, the second-floor flooring is going in... rooms are starting to take shape. They'll frame next week.

Second Floor, Going Up

2005-09-02T06:56:00.000-05:00

Second floor is going in. It is basically four identical wedge-shaped bedrooms arranged around a bathroom at the hub. Here's the joists for the bathroom & the furthest-back bedroom. The other bedroom joists will radiate out at different angles, but that's dome geometry for you.

Steel Yourself

2005-08-30T21:02:00.000-05:00

The steel yard finally delivered the steel we had ordered to frame the second floor. We had the design guy use steel framing to get some nice, open expanses that you couldn't do in wood without support pillars; it makes for a very open floor plan. Of course, the price of steel tripled between the time we designed and the time we ordered the stuff. Oh well.

The huge blocky thing sitting just inside the front door is the second-floor shower/tub, which of course can't go upstairs until we actually have an upstairs.

Mike has finished sealing all the seams here (at least the visible ones; he was still working on the back when this pic was taken) and I think it looks quite cartoonish, like a drawing of a turtle's shell. Of course, the whole thing will be painted a solid color eventually so we won't have that chunky-line look.

Progress Report

2005-08-22T20:27:00.000-05:00

Lots of progress to report, now that we had a clear day!

Mike goes up in the lift to put the final seal on some of the seams. Hopefully it set up before the next wave of rain hit at about 5:00 this evening.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guys finish off the railing on the deck stairs.

We have a garage door now!

I had a ridiculously luxurious tub in the master bathroom at our California house, and was sad to leave it. Imagine our surprise when we found that a corner whirlpool tub wasn't that much more expensive than a regular tub. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Rainy Day Blues

2005-08-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

Drought has been gripping the Midwest this summer. Rain has been sparse & the corn is pretty much a total loss in this region. Lawns are brown & the smaller trees are looking pretty peaked. Therefore, I can't be too upset about the soaking rain we've been having for the last several days that has finally brought some much-needed water to the area.

We can't build in the rain, though. The septic guy can't dig in the rain. We can't paint the exterior of the dome in the rain. The steel guys won't deliver the second-floor framing elements in the rain.

So, no progress until the site dries out a bit. :-(

Front & Back Decks

2005-08-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

The stairs coming down to ground level from the rear deck zig-zag down next to the garage opening, from which you can presumably access the rest of the back lot. A garden & compost pile will be situated just a little below the house, so I imagine this staircase will get a lot of use for running out to the pile with kitchen scraps. (I was a lousy gardener in California, always forgetting to water, but hopefully can be a bit more prolific here in Missouri.)

Todd must have goofed on his calculations for the lumber needed for the deck, because we had way more than we needed. Hey, why not build the front deck with the leftovers, instead of pouring cement for the steps like we had originally planned? Todd quickly designed a nice entry area deck et voilá. Saved us a little money on the steps too, since we don't need to get the cement now.

Here is the north-east-ish corner of the kitchen (it's sometimes hard to describe which corner is which since the rooms are not square... but anyway) The refrigerator will be here at the end of the countertop. On the other side of the wall, in the family room, the wood stove will occupy this corner and serve as our zone heater when we just want to warm the living area. We put a deposit on a wood stove last weekend, a smallish one since we won't be using it as our primary heat source; but we got a nice glass-door model so we can use it, fireplace-like, to take the edge off a chilly evening & create a cozy ambiance.

All Hands on Deck

2005-08-11T22:18:00.000-05:00

Kitchen deck was started today. We will have a nice west-facing deck area with room for a table & some chairs & maybe a grill or something, so we can sit outside & admire the sunset on nice-weather days. We originally considered building it out of that engineered faux-wood decking material, which lasts just about forever & doesn't need to be refinished every year; but eventually we realized that pressure-treated lumber had to be used for the framing in any case. In the end we just went ahead & built the whole thing out of pressure-treated lumber. There will eventually be some stairs going down to ground level, too.

Turtle Soup

2005-08-04T18:37:00.000-05:00

Here is the dome with the seams finished (but not quite dry; they are still darker than the panels. The whole thing will be painted, of course.)

The continuing adventures of Steve & the local wildlife featured a large snapping turtle today. It was a vicious brute, too, with claws a couple of inches long and a nasty beak. Nonetheless, Steve was determined to have it for dinner. Hopefully he will meet with more success with the turtle than he did with the turkey.

Driveway Skirt

2005-08-03T17:53:00.000-05:00

Today the driveway skirt was poured, along with some more finish work on the seams. First the driveway guys used a jackhammer to knock off some of the flashing & unevenness from the slab edges.

Then they dumped a bunch of gravel into the form.

Next, the concrete is poured for the driveway skirt & the generator pad. Note the lovely pictures from the new camera, an anniversary prezzie for Mike! We can get a whole lot more detail in the pics now. Love it.

Kidz in Da Dome

2005-07-30T18:23:00.000-05:00

Ali's friend K. was here last night for a sleepover, so in the morning, we zipped out to the dome to see how the framing is going. The whole first floor is framed! We can finally walk the spaces that we have been visualizing on paper for a year. The dining room seems HUGE.

Sometimes Hunter is so adorable, I can't help myself. We are in the dining room here, with the pantry & the powder room (half bath) visible behind us.

Meanwhile, the girls went exploring on the bottom of the property. The grass is summer-tall & you can't take a step without a cloud of grasshoppers zipping away in all directions. We'll bush-hog and seed it next spring, once the construction is done & the driveway & landscaping is finished, but for now we've just let it run wild. We have many mature trees on the bottom that we'll be able to keep -- our own private grove.

Atop the Dome

2005-07-27T19:49:00.000-05:00

Today was a gorgeous day, a day like no other. The heat wave has broken & there was a bit of a breeze keeping things cool. Mike & the guys took advantage of the perfect weather to get atop the dome & start finishing the seams. (The unfinished seams leaked like a sieve in Tuesday's thunderstorm, by the way, but once they're finished they should be completely watertight.)

This is what the finished seams look like; they are slightly rounded to highlight the dome geometry. Look at the view from the top!

Yay, we have basement stairs now!

First Floor Framing

2005-07-26T22:01:00.000-05:00

Framing has started on the first floor; here Todd & Rob work in the laundry room & the pantry areas. Oh how I will love having a laundry room that's not a garage or a patio.

Tomorrow the basement stairs go in. Right now it just looks like a yawning pit. Yikes!

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

2005-07-22T21:21:00.000-05:00

Actually, we're still quite a ways short of the sink; but here is the framing for the back-door/kitchen window dormer. The sliding glass door (on the left) will open out onto a wooden deck, while the window over the sink (on the right) will look out over farm country all the way to the county line. The kitchen will be generously sized, with a large center island with built-in range. Well, you'll see it all later.

Dome Shell Completed

2005-07-20T19:55:00.000-05:00

A momentous occasion! The last panel is lifted into place.

Dropping it in to finish the shell of the dome.

Home sweet dome.

Another Dome Blog

2005-07-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

Poking around on the Web for links, I came across these folks who are blogging their dome. It's a trend!

More Skylights

2005-07-19T04:51:00.000-05:00

The rest of the skylights are going in, over the four upstairs bedrooms. (Each bedroom will have a dormer & a skylight, but all facing different directions, of course, so it'll be interesting to see how the light differs in each of the finished rooms. The kids are already jockeying for what they consider to be the best views.) It's looking like the shell will be complete by the end of the week.

Yesterday was one of those days with lots of little mishaps that could have been much worse. I hate it when Mike comes home & tells me, "Well, I'm lucky I still have all ten fingers" or something, but it's not the first time -- it's just a side effect of working with power tools. (He used to do that to me when he was working at the laser place too.) Plus, they almost dropped a panel on poor Bob, which could have been disastrous. Thank the gods that nothing horrible did happen, and pray the whole crew stays safe right through.

We're finalizing our door & window choices so they can be purchased in the next few days -- we're talking about going with a set of 96" double doors to go in that high-profile entryway. I've always thought that tall entry doors were particularly elegant. Won't they look nice there?

Chimney

2005-07-15T07:06:00.000-05:00

Turns out the chimney won't work in the location we originally planned for it -- there's no way to route the flue other than smack in front of the second-floor dormer, which is 1) asthetically crap and 2) illegal, since the dormer framing contains flammable elements. So, we are talking about going back to our original plan of a small wood-burning stove. We abandoned that idea because it was first gong to be located in a corridor that was far too close to a foot traffic lane -- I had horrific visions of a kid or a guest carelessly bumping into a white-hot stove -- but now, Todd points out that the kitchen-side corner of the family room is an ideal location: simple to punch a hole in the riser for a flue, out of the traffic pattern, and not directly underneath a second-floor dormer. Visions of a cozy little nook with a small box stove, a basket of kindling, and a rocking chair are filling my head. Plus, a wood stove can still be used for heating & cooking when the power goes out, as I think is going to be inevitable in late winter when the ice storms hit.

Mike points out that wood stoves can be so efficient that my little fantasy of a rocking chair next to the stove may be laughable. He grew up in a house with a wood stove that would actually drive people out of the room, it got so hot. He also remembers a Portland silver thaw (ice storm) that knocked the power out for three weeks when he was about ten. His family was the only one with hot food for blocks around. :)

Going Up

2005-07-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

The openings for the second floor dormers are going in! These will be framed with the windows for the upstairs bedrooms.

Entry Skylight

2005-07-12T19:56:00.000-05:00

The first skylight is lifted into place over the front entrance. The dome will have five skylights, as well as large casement windows all around the first & second floors to catch breezes from any direction. Open & airy, light & bright! This is one of the reasons we chose the dome plan.

Here's the front entryway, the high profile going all the way up to the top of the second course, crowned by the skylight.

All the other first-floor dormers have a lower profile, which means that a foam slab is filled in between the dormer & the next course, and finished with stucco. Here Todd & the guys fit the chicken wire.

We've got rain in the forecast, a little sideswipe from the last remnant of Dennis, but nothing that should cause problems. It's amazing how fast this thing is going up once it's rolling!

Dormers

2005-07-09T06:56:00.000-05:00

You can see in this photo that we have started putting in the first floor dormers, which is what goes into those gaps between the panels. Inside the dormers is where you put the regular old architectural features like doors and windows -- you just frame 'em into the dormer space using conventional framing techniques. There will be four first-floor dormers -- the front entryway, the kitchen/back door going out onto the deck (which is above the garage), and then some cool picture-window spaces in the family room & master bedroom. We designed a fireplace between two windows into the family room dormer, but I am not at all clear yet on how the chimney will work. I suppose I'll find out soon. :)

The Chrysler Building

2005-07-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

The third course went up today, taking us to the point where we can start putting the dormer frames in the wide openings. Right now, the narrow spots between two dormers look a lot like the logo for a certain automobile manufacturer ;-)

Across the back (northwest) quadrant of the dome, there's a wider span without a first-floor dormer (a bathroom & utility room will be located there.) This is where the emerging dome shape is best seen. It's facing the highway, too, and is clearly visible from the road, about 1/4 mile away. It is actually stopping traffic. The other day as I was leaving the dome site, I came down the county road & waited at the stop sign to make my turn onto the highway, because there was a red Jeep on the road, maybe 100 yards down, coming towards me. And I waited. After a bit, I realized he wasn't moving & went on in front of him, muttering about dumb drivers. It didn't dawn on me till later that he was stopped in the road right where you could get the best view of the dome construction! OK, so I'm dense sometimes.

Recovery

2005-07-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

The last two days have been spent repairing the damage of the storm last week. The whole dome twisted & settled a bit in the high winds. The guys have been using the skiploader to nudge the risers back into their correct positions & straighten out the triangular panels.

The first two courses are set (or re-set) and ready to mud.

A minor setback

2005-07-01T20:22:00.000-05:00

A great big thunderstorm rolled through yesterday afternoon, just as the guys finished cementing the first two courses. (The beveled edges of the panels are filled in with a cement mixture, just like a giant grout job.) The cement all washed out, of course. Plus, it was blowing so hard that the scaffolding toppled right over. Grr. One step forward, two back. None of the panels were damaged, though, so it's more annoyance than trouble.

Panels

2005-06-29T21:19:00.000-05:00

The concrete & foam panels are going up!

Todd lifts the triangular panel with the crane, while Mike & Bob guide it into place.

Once the panel is snug in place, the mesh edges are clipped together and the beveled edges will eventually be filled in with concrete.

My sister, visiting from California, saw the dome for the first time today and pronounced it "supremely cool".

Framed

2005-06-27T19:26:00.000-05:00

The frame is complete. No, this isn't a duplicate of Friday's picture. Note the 4' risers all around the bottom, which give the dome its final height of 28' at the center.

Framing was a sometimes arduous process, and the frame would often threaten to wobble itself to bits up until the bottom bracing was put in place. Then, the whole thing became steady as a rock. This is the nature of the dome shape -- it exerts pressure evenly downward and out, so it will pretty much never collapse as long as the foundation ring is uncompromised. Concrete domes have been known to stand for centuries completely unaffected by the passage of time.

Behold the Dome

2005-06-24T16:56:00.000-05:00

Today around noon, I came around the corner by the farmhouse and saw the frame arching into the blue blue sky. It took my breath away. The curve of the dome is so lovely and organic, nothing like an ordinary house.

First Floor

2005-06-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

Today we finished laying the ground floor and started building the support frame prior to erecting the dome panels.

The last little bit of floor going in. That's Todd's son manning the adhesive gun.

The start of the frame. It will support the dome panels until they are cemented in place, at which point the dome shell will be completely self-supporting; then, the frame will be disassembled and recycled in the interior framing.

A note regarding that turkey

2005-06-23T18:04:00.000-05:00

The turkey that met its early demise at the hands of Steve's van's grille has, sadly, not fulfilled its destiny of becoming dinner. It has been quite hot lately, so Steve picked up a cheap-o styrofoam cooler on the way back from the errand (one of the reasons it took so long), and threw Mr. Tom in there along with some ice, so he would make it home in edible condition. But, later in the day, the cooler suffered a destructive impact from a toolbox that was dropped during a somewhat careless offloading moment. The cooler would no longer hold ice at that point. Not wanting a smelly turkey carcass in the van, Steve transferred the whole shebang to Todd's truck, thinking the boss would deal with it. Inexplicably, however, Steve failed to tell Todd that he had done such a thing.

Next morning, Todd had one of these kind of moments when he opened up his truck: "Holy crap, what's that smell? Hey, what's this cooler doing in here?"

So Steve didn't get a turkey dinner after all, and Todd has to ride around with no air conditioning and the windows down in the 95° heat for a few days.

More Framing & First Floor

2005-06-22T22:22:00.000-05:00

Things are hopping! The basement is framed and we are close to having a first floor.

The garage, with the rec room behind it & workshop on the right.

Looking up through the first floor joists. We are using an engineered wood product here for strength & greater span.

The guys working on the first floor. The view behind them will be what we see from the master bedroom windows, roughly.

You can see the opening for the stairwell on the right side here, it's the thing that's not at a right angle. Domes make funny angles, and while the plans made as much use of right angles as they could for laying the joists, you still have a few oddball cuts here & there. I think the guys are getting used to it.

Lumber & Framing

2005-06-20T19:44:00.000-05:00

Lumber was delivered today, and framing started for the basement. Todd's checking the manifest here. The kids were at the site this morning -- Hunter is wearing his dad's hat, since he got a bit of a sunburn yesterday.

The crew starts to lay out the frame.

Look, we have walls! This will eventually be the utilities room with the water heater, a/c unit, etc. (on the left), and the 3/4 bath on the right. Two of the smallest rooms in the house, actually.

Todd sent Steve out on an errand that shouldn't have taken too long, but he didn't come back for over an hour. Just as everyone was starting to wonder what happened to him, he showed up with a slightly mangled turkey. It had flown up in front of the van & he couldn't avoid hitting the stupid creature. (Note the feathers stuck in the headlight.) Not one to let a perfectly good gobbler go to waste, he threw it in the truck & brought it back, already planning a turkey dinner.

See what's on the slab!

2005-06-10T19:25:00.000-05:00

The concrete guys managed to get the slab poured today, despite the intermittent rain that's been plaguing the region for the last few weeks (& will continue for at least another week, according to the forecast.) This was the last thing before framing! Hopefully you will see actual rooms in upcoming pictures.

Bonus Picture: Your friendly neighborhood dome builders Mike & Todd.

More Power!

2005-06-08T17:08:00.000-05:00

Now that we have the all-important power pole at the front of the property, we must run the line down to the dome, of course. Todd & Bob discovered that the power was not actually working during this process. A jumper must have been blown down or something during the weekend's storm. (We are figuring that power outages will be a regular feature of rural life once we get out there, and have already made plans for a backup generator, just in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, Bob called the power company to report the outage & get someone out to fix it. He was laughing when he got off the phone. When he gave them the location, the power company guy said, Oh yeah, that's the new pole we just put in for the grain silo.

Uh, yeah.

Twister

2005-06-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

We were awakened this morning a little after six by the sound of the tornado sirens. It didn't look too stormy at that particular moment, but a huge cloud front loomed like a black wall to the west. The rain hit about 20 minutes later. Good gracious, was it windy! A tornado had touched down near Holden, the next town to the west, and was said to be headed our way. We duly herded the kids into the designated tornado hall (we don't have a basement), and listened to the wind howl. Fortunately, the tornado passed a couple miles south of town, no damage.

Mike, naturally, hopped in the truck & drove out to the dome site as soon as the winds started to slack a bit. He found the dome kit's cement panels were wet but absolutely undamaged; the foam panels, on the other hand, had been blown hither & yon. He & Todd spent a couple hours rounding them up & containing them, just in time for the next storm front, due to roll through about dinner time or so.

Power to the People

2005-06-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

We are now part of a rural electric co-op! I love the idea of a co-op, let's get some o' them solar cells set up & maybe a wind turbine & let's get that meter turning backwards. Lots more on that later.

The cement guy is dragging his feet for some reason, we still don't have a slab in the basement. Tomorrow, he says. We'll pass on holding our breaths. Oh well, we had some time built in to slip here, so it won't impact the schedule all that much.

...Delivered!

2005-05-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

The dome kit was delivered today! It's now stacked in our front yard area, just waiting to be assembled.

Here's the truck arriving. The trucker was quite the character. He loaded up the dome & left central Florida at 11:00 am on Tuesday -- he delivered the load in central Missouri at 4:00 pm today. Don't know how many hours of sleep that works out to, but there you go.

Mr. Trucker drops the straps on the load, preparatory to offloading.

Todd brought in a crew & forklift to do the offloading. The crew was great, but the forklift was barely adequate. It kept threatening to tip over under the heavy trianglular panels. Here Rob provides some essential counterbalance.

So, eventually the whole kit got offloaded, and we chatted for a bit with the curious neighbor who came over on his ATV & introduced himself as the shadows grew long under a lowering sun. The kids, finding the talk boring, grabbed the camera & ran off to take a few pictures. Don't know which one of them took this shot, but this is our view looking out over the back part of the property. Isn't it gorgeous?

High Times

2005-05-19T13:19:00.000-05:00

OK, here's an example of what a small town we have moved to... At work today, I met a couple, David & Lee T., who had a late-morning appointment with my boss. After having the "why is that name familiar" moment, I realized were the sellers of the lot on which we are building the dome. (We didn't meet them at closing; it was handled by the real-estate agents.) When I told them, they asked my last name, and then exclaimed, "Oh yeah, you're building the dome!" I think we are becoming notorious in this region.

Oh, and one other little tidbit -- Lee told me that she chose the name "High Meadows" for the subdivision just on the basis of liking the name. But, the surveyor who came out to do the property line markers told her that High Meadows is actually the highest point in all of Johnson County. And we'll be right at the crest of the ridge. What a view we'll have from the second floor!

A Sea of Gravel

2005-05-17T18:48:00.000-05:00

A few more basement pics, now that they have spread the gravel in there.

The inside view.

Looking out the garage door. Nice truck, BTW. We had to wait a couple extra days before they could get the gravel in without sinking the truck up to its axles, due to the big rainstorm that rolled through the Midwest last midweek. But the schedule is still good, we've built in some slack for this type of thing. Drains to be installed & slab to be poured soon.

Gravel

2005-05-12T16:19:00.000-05:00

Mike rakes gravel along the outer wall over the drainage pipes.

Signed, Sealed...

2005-05-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

The portion of the basement walls to be backfilled have been painted with first a coat of Dryloc masonry sealer and then a coat of tarry black goo. I don't even want to tell you what Mike's clothes looked like after this job. Uff da.

Finished Walls

2005-05-06T20:56:00.000-05:00

A few views of the finished basement walls.

A shot from the exterior west side, looking in through the garage opening. Looks like an arena, doesn't it? We should be flying pennants from the rebar or somesuch.

This is from the inside, looking out through the basement walk-out and shop window. Nice view!

Mike is about halfway done with applying the concrete sealer. Next comes the drainage pipes and gravel.

Basement Walls

2005-05-04T14:25:00.000-05:00

Right now it looks like we're building a silo or something!

The forms are in place, ready to pour the concrete. This is from the front of the lot, so you can see only about half of the wall -- the rest of it is hidden by the lip of the excavated pit. This is the side that will be backfilled, of course, and will be entirely underground once it's finished.

The cement trucks arrived one by one, staggered throughout the morning. It took 4 trucks in all.

This is the concrete pump that they used to fill the forms. Pretty impressive, huh? The boom could be seen, not just from the county highway a quarter mile or so in front of the dome site, but from wa-a-a-y down where the highway turns east & you can look across about a mile back to our place. Here's the picture:

Rebar

2005-05-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

Today the basement walls are going up.

Here I am in the middle of the basement; you can get a good idea of the scale of the dome footprint from this angle. Mike (taking the photo) is standing a little to the left of the location for the front door. The white trailer that is offloading the rebar is backed up to the garage opening, more or less. (The garage will take up half of the basement, natch.)

These are the forms for the concrete basement walls being dropped in with a crane. It's all modular, apparently. The guys in the foreground tying off the rebar were having a heck of a time with the angles, BTW. They would consistently bend them too far & then grumble & swear as they had to ease the bend back five degrees or so. One gets the feeling that they think we are crazy for building a round house. I'd bet money that they've never seen a dome with all its funny 72° angles before.

More cutting & tying of rebar. The walls should be poured late this afternoon. They have to cure for a day or two before sealing them, I would imagine; then the drainage pipes will be put in. Things are moving right along...