We started the house on a glorious, blue-skied day --two dreamers, one wheelbarrow, a concrete mixing hoe, indigenous materials and a 90 pound bag of $1.97 cement. With a disdainful disregard for the inaccessibility to the chosen site by any means of product delivery or engineering assistance—think crane or caterpillar here—we began the foundation nestled in and over the age old boulders.
When we purchased Badboulder, our house site was lost in a thicket of cats’ claw, mistletoe-infested scrub oak, witch hazel, and holly oak. On a quirky October morn when a light shower turned to snow I assured myself that rattlesnakes would most certainly have retreated and crawled belly down (there wasn’t nearly as much belly those days) through an animal tunnel toward the magnificent stones that would become our home’s anchor. With a vengeance I began the clearing process that will take my lifetime. Bow saw and a pair of manual hedge trimmers were and still are my tools of choice. After subduing the chaparral the exposed boulders became my focal point of the property. David assured me that a house could indeed be built above the boulders, the tree growing in middle of the site was not a problem, see it has a lot of damage in it, it’s sure to come out easily. Yes, those are some sizable boulders that will need to be covered by the foundation but that’s not a problem either. And so it was settled, we would build a small house on the site to live out our retirement days.
The left picture is of Matt as he removes the remnants of the troublesome tree; the boulder on the right became a major player in the construction of our wine bottle window located on the first floor. The picture on the right, was taken July 13, 2010, a front view of our small retirement house.
When we purchased Badboulder, our house site was lost in a thicket of cats’ claw, mistletoe-infested scrub oak, witch hazel, and holly oak. On a quirky October morn when a light shower turned to snow I assured myself that rattlesnakes would most certainly have retreated and crawled belly down (there wasn’t nearly as much belly those days) through an animal tunnel toward the magnificent stones that would become our home’s anchor. With a vengeance I began the clearing process that will take my lifetime. Bow saw and a pair of manual hedge trimmers were and still are my tools of choice. After subduing the chaparral the exposed boulders became my focal point of the property. David assured me that a house could indeed be built above the boulders, the tree growing in middle of the site was not a problem, see it has a lot of damage in it, it’s sure to come out easily. Yes, those are some sizable boulders that will need to be covered by the foundation but that’s not a problem either. And so it was settled, we would build a small house on the site to live out our retirement days.
The left picture is of Matt as he removes the remnants of the troublesome tree; the boulder on the right became a major player in the construction of our wine bottle window located on the first floor. The picture on the right, was taken July 13, 2010, a front view of our small retirement house.
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