Escape From the Prison Planet

[Laecaon]

2500 is a solid living area. I think my house is 2700 between the first and second floors. (numbers are all remembered and my mom and I who are both equally correct remember differently...)

You have a lot of valid points. You absolutely should have a house of that size. The unfinished basement is great.

I have lived almost 20 years in this house, and one thing I would love to get rid of is a stair case. Stairs are not a problem, until you have to up and down them 15 times in 30 minutes, then its like an unplanned sudo workout.

[DRIVEN]

Good point on the stairs. These house plans never had consideration for a basement so we actually had to modify them tto include stairs by widening the living room 4' with the added bonus of making the office/library bigger in the process. That telegraphed to the outside as well and added square footage to the deck and patio below.
Having never built a house before, I went into this somewhat naively. I figured since the house needs a foundation anyway, a full basement can't cost that much more. Wrong! Basements are kind of a novelty around here. Very few people have them, for whatever reason. Seems to me that there are quite a few squandered view lots too. People have several acres on a hillside but build at the bottom right next to the highway. Meanwhile, livestock enjoys the scenery. The hilltop right above me is inhabited by 2 horses. The view is incredible.

[wayno]

People normally pick access rather than the view, they think of that as the back yard where stuff is grown or livestock lives.
Also it is a hill, if you had more flat part at the bottom it might have made a good hanggliding training site except it faces east and has trees, normally in the northwest you need training sites to face somewhere between south and northwest and not have trees at the bottom, the reason it makes a good hanggliding site is that it is windy at the top of the hill and calm at the bottom of the hill, it is always windy at the top of a hill compared to the bottom in the afternoon/evening.
Idaho is a great place to go for extreme hanggliding, you can get really high there and fly a long ways, I have personally soared back and forth over Borah Peak(tallest Mtn. in Idaho) watching my shadow in the snow on top of the mountain, I was over 13,000 feet MSL which was low as far as I was concerned, when your high you can see lots of lakes and places that would make great places to hike to, don't know if you could ride to them, they might be in protected areas.
Dust devils also tend to start forming at the tops of hills first in Eastern WA during that part of the year(hot part), but by the time the middle of the day comes along they tend to go off everywhere, they start at trigger points(tops of small hills/edge of a river/canyon) and then pull the hot air off the ground as they march across the landscape while being pushed by the prevailing winds, things get dusty out there unless you live in a city or are where crops are grown in every available place possible.

[Taterhead]

My number one is your number eight.

And we've lived in the new house for less than a year and I'm already sick of stairs. At least it's a split level and once I get upstairs I don't have to go up more to go to bed.

[DRIVEN]

Whatever effort I save on stairs will be offset by a trip to the mailbox. I'm either gonna get healthier or drop dead from a massive coronary.


Wayno, you're right about access. This is rural working land, traditionally. I would say anything built over 10 years ago (with the exception of some of the river front properties) was built with economy in mind. Short driveways and manufactured homes are just plain affordable. My next door neighbor has been there for almost 50 years and his house was built in the 20s. He told me he always wanted to build on top but other priorities always got in line first.

[DRIVEN]

The guys got the upper forms done and rebar prep in the basement. I'll be in L.A. for work most of the rest of the week. Hopefully we'll have concrete when I get back.

[Laecaon]

What you will probably do is acquire a golf cart, or one of those little john deere 4x6 things, or just an ATV. Plus they help move things around easily.

My friends farm uses ATVs to get anywhere fast. They have 3 or 4. They even attach sprayers to one of them to spray all the plants.

My mothers SO has a Gator and uses it to fetch his mail at the end of the road. Or when he just took delivery of his smoker, had the guys unload it right into the back of the gator. Then he just drove it to where he was setting it up.

[DRIVEN]

The TW pretty much fills that role for me. It'll probably end up with a small trailer at some point to haul tools and such around. Kind of a lazy-ass wheelbarrow. Side by sides are insanely popular around here but I really have no interest. Seems like the Idaho combo pack is a newer diesel, toy hauler, and some sort of SxS -- and a cattle dog. I'm conspicuously out of place here. Closest I'll probably ever get is if I build the 4x4 diesel NPR flatbed I've been thinking about.

[flatcat19]

Sure is coming along.

[DRIVEN]

Yup. Only been 6 months and I've already got concrete. Should wrap up around mid-late 2023.

[wayno]

It's not really funny, but your response was funny.

[DRIVEN]

It should move at a normal pace once concrete is done. If there's wood on site in February I'll be satisfied. Actual completion target is June so it's really not life and death. I have a place to live. I'd rather have it right than have it right now.

[DRIVEN]

Got more concrete today.




I always liked the look of stamped concrete so I splurged a little on the patio.



Supposed to have wood on site next week. Not sure when framing will actually start.

[wayno]

I would be figuring out how to put cars in that basement.

[DRIVEN]

Already a step ahead of you. At about the 4 o'clock position of photo 3 will be a double door. I plan to stow the Reaper project in there for a while. Plenty of room for motorcycles too if I want to. That area will eventually house some woodworking tools.

[wayno]

I mentioned it because it would be a warm dry place, that one just needs to be clean, no oil spots on the floor.

[DRIVEN]

Exactly. You read my mind.

[noflers]

+1 on the atv for getting around. We have a couple 660 Yamahas with independent front and rear suspension. Their a joy to get around on. We stick 40 gallon spray tanks on the back and go quite a bit. We're on 80 acres in the mountains, not the most friendly place to walk anywhere.

[DRIVEN]

I'm not totally opposed to the idea, it's just low on the list of priorities. My dad will probably put his little farm on the market in a few months so his tractor will come live down here. That should cover most duties around this place. The TW is just handy to run around on if I don't need to tote something bigger than the rack can hold. My dad has a 4x4 Polaris 600 I'm sure I can borrow if a special need arises.
If there's anything I really need it's a small trailer like this.

[wayno]

The trouble with open trailers is that everyone can see what you have, this is especially bad in larger parking lots where lowlifes can stand behind other vehicles and watch you leave to go eat or do some shopping for the weekend adventure, they then get a closer look after you are gone, call there buddy in the van and he does a drive-by while the guy that called him throws you stuff in the side door of the van as fast as he can and then they leave.
I have a shitty enclosed trailer with a home made top that no one ever gives a second look, it has never been vandalized so far, and it looks uglier and uglier every year.
The only things I leave in the open are brooms, shovels, a wheel barrow and my concrete cleaner I have when I know I will need it, and most don't even know what it is, but it looks heavy, it's not something your going to run down the road with without standing out.