Day 272 - Current Status and Plans

I wanted to show you the progress from the other day. All of this lighter colored material, this is what's left of the concrete washout I first spreaded out, and there's a lot of rock in this. Oh dogs, puppies, there's a lot of rock in here. So we've got a lot of aggregate on the surface and then you can see my my path right up here once again to lean to for my wife to park. The ditch system over here turned out great. A real quick shout out to these pups. They understand that that berm, those woods over there, that's where they go potty already. They are two weeks and one month old. I'm sorry, two months and one week old, but they understand that that is that's the place to go potty and I love that they understand that. You see my little wooden bridge here because this is where the ditch is to get the water out of here and I don't know how much it is showing up on camera but there is a pretty decent slope into here from both sides and it's a pretty deep enough ditch to where I think I don't think it'll gum up and flatten out anytime soon. On this side the ditch kind of terminates right up here where I have the tractor parked and on this direction you can get a better idea of the ground slope. I think so anyway maybe if I go low you can see so the whole pad from up here all of this slopes this way. I've got one little spot right right there in the middle of this outside corner that I think I need to I think I need to knock some more of this off but I'm waiting for this rain to actually tell me what all I need to have done but we're starting to get some flowing shapes for how we're going to interact with this space so let me come over come over here and show you what I'm thinking of as far as the driveway layout at the end of the at the end of the driveway well the driveway layout at the end of the driveway this is I guess the end of the driveway and this turns into the parking area I guess so anyway nice solid base right here all this has always been good I just put a little bit more material on now I'm going to line up in line with the driveway just to give you some line of sight to look at right so we're straight with the driveway and if I turn around that straight continues this way well the house is going to be over there so what we decided is right about where I'm standing the driveway is going to twist a little bit to right there and I want this driveway to be staring down the front door of the house right there's your visual right here this will continuously change and flow and and evolve as I'm working out here but when you come up to this point I want your attention to be dead center on the house so we continue this driveway this way excuse me my sinuses are a mess today continue it this way and then you see the driveway kind of goes off to this way we still have to get more gravel of course but it goes off to this way to where we'll have two parking spots over here next to that door so eventually one of the plans is down the road whenever maybe financially speaking do that same lean to over there over here and then we'll have a covered parking on this side and then where that door is right there I want to put a doggy door in there so that way the dogs use the entire shop essentially as a dog house but if we got to go somewhere they can let themselves out through the dog door they already let themselves out through the big door which is fantastic so anyway they come out here and then on this side of that door right there we'll have a fence and I'll fence in however long this way I want to go I'm not too sure up to the corner of the shop that way and then back to the shop so they'll have some eventual grassy area that they can get out in when we're gone otherwise these dogs walk around with us 24-7 which is awesome hey dogs Nali yeah Mr. Nali you know your name big ol hunkalunka grace grace grace are you distracted grace she is going to be much smaller than him actually I should say he is going to be much smaller than her much larger than her males of this breed I think are about 20 pounds heavier so 60 to 80 pounds and then 40 to 60 for her he is just a big old lovey-dovey teddy bear you walk up to him and he lays on his back says pet my belly she on the other hand is smart we're already learning to fetch we're already learning to sit and stay he's smart too but he's he's like he's very distracted as he eats a leaf update over here I still have to build this up as you can see we still have the side of the foundation exposed and it's really exposed over there uh it still goes down a good I don't know eight to ten inches below the sand right here for the footer so I need to get that but it's not like a super super urgency situation where I got to get this buttoned up I've just finally got to a position where we can park over here without sinking in so I'm going to see if I can't get a dump truck back here it's going to sink in right here so maybe if I can get them on that side to drop four or five loads of sand over here and then I'll use that sand to to flatten this up and then around that back side as well but we're still battling water I'm trying to get the water out of here and that's that's the main thing I think I did a pretty good job on this all this area over here this flows into the ditch on that side and it flows into the ditch right there the ditch that starts right there and goes inside of the driveway so I'm not too too concerned about this I may have to may have to push this over a little bit this way and then drag that ditch back up to here I'll probably end up doing that regardless I got to get that done got to get a lot of gravel in here to top this off I think this washout like I said is a is a really good really good material to work with this is still wet like it's really really light colored tan when it's dry so it's still wet and it doesn't ball up the bottom of my foot yeah my foot's a little my shoe's a little dirty but it doesn't ball it up like it does on that uh brown mud over there so I'm happy with the way this is turning out this is a soft spot that I mean I could just dig this out and refill it with new material or I could pack in these harder bolder rocks that were in part of the washout I still have a few of them over there I can pull from and pile in the soft spot so I think we're at a point now to where shaping is done and we start to develop ruts or soft spots I'm just going to fill them just going to keep filling them and fill them and fill them and fill them and fill them with as big of rock as I can find there's another one or two big rocks I can pull out this area over here I couldn't do much with it because it's still wet but I did dig a ditch in the middle of that and hopefully that gets a lot of the water facilitated out of here all that water going that way that'd be great so we're supposed to get a bunch of rain tonight and that's going to really show us how these little little itty bitty steps uh how they fared did it make an improvement or not still have a lot of a lot of dips and valleys in here so we're going to be holding water but as long as I can get the majority of it out of here I can tinker with this as it starts to warm up oh here comes some rain oh man all right well with that being said oh crap let's walk inside I'll show you what we uh what we've done in here I built this workbench for my daughter last year I think and as soon as we got it set up here in the shop wood is in the vice and she's making sawdust yes I'm gonna try and jump on here not kill myself okay so this is our living room I'm gonna give you a quick little tour of what we've got set up and you get to see all the clutter and all that good stuff so there's that uh let me talk about the different bays I guess you could say we're calling this bay one 20 foot in between the I beams bay one bay two and bay three and they go all the way across that's just kind of our one of the ways we talk about the different areas of the shop okay so basically from this I beam right here that way bay three will always be household non-working okay from this I beam this way 40 feet bay one and bay two and then again 40 feet this way is the working area so now the shop the workshop my last shop was a 30 by 40 and now my workshop is a 40 by 40 right now obviously the camper has not moved yet so it's sticking off into the work area a little bit but in a few months when the weather warms up this is going back outside and we're going to turn this section into our home until we build a house and the way we're going to do that is we're going to divide this 20 by 40 section this zone I'm sorry this bay into three zones so bear with me here this is 20 feet from here to the corner so this 20 foot square essentially that 20 foot square is going to be two stories we're going to build the loft in this corner now I've changed my mind on the loft so many different times it's just one of those things that as you think about it more as you interact with the space more it adapts to the space and adapts to the current situation more so than the initial plan right so it's going to continuously change but this is the way it is right now a 20 foot by 20 foot loft second story will be a bunkhouse and a bathroom so what I'm picturing is four bunk beds maybe four three to four bunk beds that gives us six to eight mattresses for people to sleep on so when all my crazy family comes and visits they will have a place to sleep and then also for us I basically only use the camper to sleep and use the restroom so if I have a bed and a full restroom up there that's fine if you're done for the day go up there go go take a shower go to bed whatever you don't need anything else upstairs downstairs in the next 20 by 20 zone I guess you could say zone one upstairs for sleeping and bathroom zone two down here in this corner will be the kitchen and dining room so I've got a couple burners I'm going to get a full stove set up over there basically a full kitchen and dining room downstairs right here and then downstairs on this side will essentially be a 20 foot by 20 foot vaulted living room now the living room right here because the vault the the two-story the the loft will be over here which will allow me to mount a projector and turn that into a movie screen and we'll figure out the seating and whatnot down here uh the washer and dryer is probably going to stay there the utility sink is probably going to stay there the office that's my corner office right next to the electrical panel same way it was in the last shop that wasn't intentional just the way it worked out and the refrigerator is probably going to move over there into the into the kitchen so when we get all this set up it'll it'll be a nice space and in the future we'll have a bunch of mattresses and beds upstairs for guests to come visit or or maybe we start doing classes here in the shop something like that I don't know it opens up the doors for a lot of possibilities and also keeping these these we essentially have a a 20 by 60 because we have 20 feet downstairs 20 feet downstairs and then 20 feet upstairs so essentially we have a 20 by 60 living area and a 40 by 40 working area in a 40 by 60 shop that's that's the plan and that's what we're going to roll with for a little for a little while hey nollie grace quit chewing on each other quit being puppies I want to show you how I'm doing the electrical well first off right off the bat we have the dryer vent venting here into the space this dryer has a really good uh lint catch so we're not really throwing much lint at all this way I haven't noticed any anyway but this is allowing us to heat the space in the winter time in the summer time I will put a vent through the wall that's no problem at all but right now we're going to utilize this heat with the heat out of the dryer comes humidity so we're running our dehumidifier into the utility sink um and that that keeps it uh right up between 50 and 60 percent humidity so we're at 55 percent right now so this is even though this is a big space this is dropping the humidity from was like 70 or so when we hooked this up without this running um and there you go electricity the humidifier dehumidifier and washing machine both plug into this receptacle which is gfci protected over there so I'm not worried about water and electricity mixing it's gfci protected and also this is very similar setup to where if this there was a wall right there well you'd still have electrical right here for the washer anyway on the dryer side the electrical on both of these I went up with electricity because it's convenient to go right through this beam this beam is like a little trough you can put all kinds of stuff up there so that's a seven-eighths of an inch diameter hole which is perfect for like a half inch knockout crimp nut whatever those things are called right there uh seven-eighths of an inch diameter hole holds that wire nice and tidy and then bend it up 90 degrees and go over there same thing on this side right through the metal up there with one of those little knockout things so seven-eighths of an inch diameter hole for a half inch knockout nut these vertical two by fours are secured to the metal through the top with a few screws and then also I used a 48 inch wide board to space these out that way I could take that same 48 inch wide board to the ground and anchor it and then connect the top bottoms right there and it's working out quite well on this side over here where the electrical panel is he had uh the guy who installed this had a horizontal two by four in between right here but it was blocking the whole path up for your wires so it serves the same purpose but it looks kind of goofy I moved the single one out and installed two on either side those are secured through the top and then secured through the side like that which would which allowed me some access room to cut some holes in here those are I think two and a half inch diameter holes I'm not exactly sure but you got to go outside you want it at the door good doggie go outside man these pups are smart wonderful uh put two and a half inch ish diameter holes there and then use some some rubber hose I think it was for air hose or something uh slice it down the middle and then wrap it around the metal opening right there so the wire does not touch the metal it hits a rubber hose grommet and that seems to be working out quite well when I do my lights I'm going to go this way and then up and I'll go over and figure all that out but when I do the electrical on this wall I'm going to carry this same concept over I'll have to unfortunately I don't know if I'm going to notch that particular piece of metal right there or if I just go and wrap around that I beam and put a piece of rubber hose on that I beam I I don't know exactly how I'm going to but I'm going to bridge the wire over to here and then on the right side of this door you know what I may not add an outlet right there because I have a bunch right here receptacle on the left side of this door is where the light switches will be and then on the right side of this window will be a receptacle and then the right side of that window will be a receptacle and all six windows all the way down I'll have a receptacle on the right hand side and I'll run the wires the same as I did with this one right here so metal building not using conduit using Romex and there's a lot of ways to run the wire I'm finding in pretty inconspicuous locations and also you know done properly everything's going to be grounded where it should be grounded and not touching metal where it should not be touching metal and then of course everywhere there's an I beam I'm going to have to come out from the I beam and then back around I'm not going to drill through it by any means that's a structural member I don't want to change that so I'll have to figure out something to cover that up because I know that's going to bother me seeing all these wires when I'm not going to see any wires from the this so we'll figure that out when the time comes there's our little update on on the inside of the shop it's turning into a home first and then shop second I updated you on the outside I updated you on what we've got going on on the inside let me update you on us right so in my 20s I hustled like crazy to build a business while working full-time and also paying our wife my wife's way through college without taking on any debt my wife was working my wife was going to college she's she was in the military we were non-stop go go go go hustle all through our 20s we were hustling and getting stuff done and that gets old quick that's a that's a quick way to just run yourself into the ground I've noticed so when I was in my early 30s my daughter was born 2018 and when she was born my wife and I both had that talk of like we need to slow down we need to slow down not only for our sake but for our daughter's sake so this past year adventure was the opposite again we got back into the hustle mode we're trying to get stuff done constantly also trying to stay active in our families and our and our local communities and whatnot and just go go go go go and we're at a point now where we're pumping the brakes I am mentally exhausted I really am physically not so much I can go out and do anything that I need to get done no problem at all but I think this year has really taken its toll on me mentally because I can't recall another year where I've made this volume of important decisions I've made so many important decisions this year and on one hand you know it's pretty good to to just be in charge of things and I'm in charge of my life and this is wonderful and on the other hand it's like you know what I don't I don't care what we have for supper tonight I just don't want to I will eat a box of food or any kind of food I don't care right I think that's also why we've both gained a little bit of weight over the past little bit is we've we've just hit mental exhaustion with all kinds of decisions and a lot of those decisions are food related and convenience related so there you go with that but anyway that's the long spiel of saying I'm ready to slow down again my wife is ready to slow down again and we're ready to keep chugging along but like at the turtle's pace when the lights get done they'll get done when electricity gets done it'll get done when all this stuff gets done it'll get done so long as I'm up and moving and doing stuff every day and being productive that's good enough for me and watching these dogs grow these dogs are a hoot these dogs are great so yeah I don't I don't know when I'm going to get the electricity done I need a forklift before I can do that I don't know when I'm going to get the shop set up I need a forklift and the lights to be done before I can get that set the shop set up I don't know when I'm going to do the dust collection but I know it'll be after the lights are done and before the shop is set up I don't know when the loft is going to start but I know that's going to be after warm weather is is is back at our doorstep I don't know when a lot of happen and I'm okay with that I'm I'm really really okay with that today's January 7th and uh the pups this is their second time out to the creek they are let's see they're nine weeks old maybe 10 weeks old and they're bigger well she's Grace the female she's going to be slightly smaller than the male oh I've got a zoom lens on here sorry y'all Mr. Nally right here needs to learn to not jump on people get down sir but he's going to be bigger than Grace and Mr. Nally is already bigger than old man scooter they're going to be some big dogs puppies are like early teenage boys they're just rambunctious holy cow I didn't realize how rambunctious they are Grace what you doing up there girl you having fun big old hunk of lunker he's so much bigger than his sister already he's gonna be a real big dog hey bud hey scooter bud that water is really cold you know that where are you going what are you doing did you get yourself on a pickle oh boy hey let's take the easier path back up here let's go let's go bud hey bud come on let's go bud oh oh that was the call they're already starting to listen let's go back up the hill it's good about what you doing bud just exploring I suppose that uh hardwood tree right there leaning in the camera it wasn't leaning that much when I noticed it was leaning and it looks like those roots are starting to give way down there so this big hardwood is coming down soon mentally noted where the first hardwood source will be on the property she's coming down all right this is probably going to be hard to convey on camera especially with this uh 35 millimeter lens it's a 35 millimeter lens on a crop sensor so it's zoomed quite a bit and I can't change the zoom anyway the trail comes through here and goes back to behind me over there so that's roughly 180 degrees do this way which is I think west hard to show up on camera but there's a big goalie over there and there's a big goalie that starts right at that darker area right there going that way and this is something I didn't know was here while there's a lot of vegetation it's a land bridge into that area over there I didn't think it was accessible by tractor but now that all the vegetation's died down for the winter I just walked that and it's a complete land bridge to a spot that I thought had zero tractor access so I'm gonna have to come back here um come springtime with the tractor and the rotary cutter and the grapple and just move a bunch of that stuff what do you want I'm not carrying you dude you're a dog you can walk bud yeah that's get down sir your sister's really showing you out big old man big old bad boy and little innocent girl it's making you look bad you're just a big old teddy growing boy though growing fast all right let's go back