Had a great weekend in Asheville. I'm not sure I have ever had a bad weekend there. oneandonlymatt actually left for Asheville last Monday and spent the week up there doing some work. The plan for me was to drive up on Saturday and stay until Sunday when we would both come home.

Now, my car is a 1996 Saturn. While it is a good little reliable car that gets me to and from work every day, we weren't convinced that it would do well going up and down the mountains to get to Asheville. So, we rented me a car. On Friday, I went to Enterprise to pick it up before I went to work. I had reserved a compact car and when I got there they told me I could get the brand new, 2010 Hyundai Elantra with all the bells and whistles. It even had XM radio. Now, I will tell you that I do not want a Hyundai Elantra but it was pretty fun driving a nice new car for a couple of days.

I got up at 4:15 on Saturday morning. I got ready, put my stuff in the car, gave Piglet her food and water for the weekend and left for Asheville. I stopped for gas on my way out and hit the highway at about 5:15. I have never driven there on my own, but having been there so many times I had no problem finding my way. I got to the Downtown Inn on Patton Ave by 8:15. After Matt got finished getting ready we went straight up to Mt. Matt. He had decided not to camp because it was getting pretty cold at night in the mountains. However, it was absolutely gorgeous during the day. So, we spent the day insulating the tumbleweed house. We got the walls 75% insulated. We stopped half way thought and went to the brand new French Broad Deli and Cafe, which was right on the cut off to downtown Marshall. We had a great lunch and then went back to finish our work. We had to finish up around 5:30 because it was threatening to get dark.

We went back to the hotel where we relaxed for a bit before going to the Thirsty Monk for dinner. We went upstairs to the American Craftbrew bar. They had two different Bell's beers, the Double Cream Stout and the Winter White. Both very tasty. We also got a "build your own" cheese and meat plate - very tasty. I was pretty exhausted, though, so I went to bed pretty early.

This morning, we decided to go our separate ways. No, not permanently. Matt wanted to leave early and get home in time to go to the sports bar to watch the Lions game. I wanted to go to church at Jubilee and leave after that. It was a nice service, as usual, but this is the time of year where things are a little more introspective than celebratory in their liturgical calendar. I ended up leaving a little early because I was ready to go home.

I got back to Atlanta, turned in my rental car, and picked up my own car by 2pm. I met Matt at Mazzy's to have some lunch and watch the Vikings beat the Lions.

Now, we are home and I am just chilling out.

I do have photos of our insulation work. As soon as I download them and get them up on flickr I'll be sure to post the link.

Edited to Add: The link for the photos on Flickr... http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/tags/asheville/

I use to post all the time about my "upcoming events". Then, once we started working on the Tumbleweed Tiny House I put that on hold and posted almost exclusively about the building process.

We're coming up on Winter, so things will be slowing down a little on that front, so I thought now would be a good time to go over some upcoming events.
( things I will be doing soon... )
I think that is all. I'm not a stress ball yet, but I expect to be relatively soon.

PS - sorry for typos and such. After typing all that I don't feel up to editing.

I just have a few moments before I have to leave for a doctor's appointment.

We had a fairly light weekend in Asheville. The only job on the docket was to kill the mold, which appears to have been dying anyway - with it getting cold and less wet. We got up on Saturday and decided to go get coffee at Zuma in Marshall and then drove around. We wound up in Mars Hill where there was a street fair going on.

We got back to Mt. Matt about noon, had some lunch and then got to de-molding. We used MoldBlaster and sprayed the whole house. Once the mold is dead, we will treat with boracare the next time we go up.

After all that, we went to dinner with our neighbors and a good time was had by all.

Yesterday, we went to see the Lions game at Baylee's Sports Theatre in South Asheville. We won't talk about that.

Here are the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/sets/72157622288371869/

oneandonlymatt and I were back in Asheville this weekend, as you might expect.

( Read about our adventures here )

Here is the link to the photos on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/tags/asheville/

I wanted to at least come by and post the link to Flickr for the most up to date photos of the Tumbleweed House.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

We had a really great time. In a nutshell, we took Matt's mom to Asheville and took her to see the house. She was really impressed that the two of us had done most of the work by ourselves. I don't think she would even fathom building any part of a house. Then we went to French Broad Fridays - a citywide event in downtown Marshall. Our neighbor's studio was open and we got to go hang out with her and see what she was working on. Then we went back to Asheville and checked in to the hotel. Ethel was done for the night so Matt and I walked to Sante and had some wine and a chocolate flight. Then we turned in for the night.

The next day, we left Ethel in the hotel and went up to Mt. Matt to do some more work. She spent the day riding around Asheville on a trolley tour and had a great time. We got everything accomplished on the house that we set out to do (first time the whole project that has happened) and we were satisfied when we went back into town. We went to Table for dinner and then back to the hotel to watch a movie. Watched I Love You Man, which was surprisingly funny.

On Sunday, Ethel went with me to Jubilee. I love that church. Then we met up with Matt and went to Lowes to see about ordering a roof. They couldn't answer our questions (we want it to be safe for rain catchment and not have any weird chemicals), so we couldn't place the order. Then we had lunch at Green Life Grocery (yummy sandwiches) and came home.

Once home, we watched a recording of the first Lions' preseason game this year. We won - but we won all of our preseason games last year too. Then Matt and I watched the latest episode of Being Human on BBC America. I really like that show, but I think that Mitchell is a very irresponsible vampire!

And that is all. Matt goes up in two weeks without me and then we won't be back in Asheville until late September (Dragon*Con and a trip to New Orleans for Lions Opening Day happen at the beginning of September).

oneandonlymatt and I went back up to Asheville this weekend to do some more work on the house. We got there Friday night like we normally do, went to bed and got up early to start working.

Saturday started with a trip to Home Depot where we got the plywood sheathing for the house as well as some 16 foot 2x4s for the top plate. We got back to Mt. Matt and unloaded. Then our friend Chris came up, arriving about 1pm. He wanted to get right to work, so we got everything up to the worksite and got busy. We put up the collar ties, which are essentially the joists for the storage loft above the door and the sleeping loft above the bathroom and kitchen. That turned out to be an easy process, but Matt informed me that he had spent days on end thinking about how to do those the best way, and obviously that obsessing paid off.

After our work was done for the day, we had to take the truck back to Home Depot. We had originally planned to go into Asheville for Bele Chere (the music festival) but Chris decided he didn't want to go. The headliner was the Family Stone - without Sly - so Matt and I decided we weren't invested in that. So, instead we went to Longnecks in Marshall. We got there minutes after they were starting to close up the kitchen, but the bar was still open and the owners said they could make us a couple of things. We told them we would be fine to find somewhere else, but they insisted and we sat at the bar and ate like kings. We talked with them for hours about their travels around the world and living in the Madison County area and the things they had built on their land. They had been a husband and wife team of realtors but now they own the bar. The wife asked us a lot of details about our land and as it turns out, she was the agent for the woman we bought it from! We were there forever and had a great conversation.

We finally went back to Mt. Matt and I crashed. Matt and Chris stayed up and made a small fire and I think they both went to bed around 1am. We got up the next morning and got started on the wall sheathing. We got the bottom half done all the way around and cut all the top pieces, but then it started to rain so we needed to clean up the work sight and tarp the Tumbleweed House. Chris left around 2:30 and Matt and I left around 3:30. We decided to stop at the Asheville Pizza Company for dinner, which was fantastic. Then we got home around 8:30 and watched Being Human on BBC America and went to bed.

Check out the latest batch of photos on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

I wanted to post, to the best of my recollection, the events that occurred between June 26th and July 5th.
( You've seen the photos, now read the drama )

I will post a complete recap of our building vacation, but in the meantime I wanted to share pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

Also, lerg posted many great photos on his flickr page too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/akalat/

I just wanted to stop by and post the link to flickr for more photos.

This weekend, on Saturday we took the two 16 foot 4x4s up the hill to the build site. I was going to help Matt carry them but he said it was just easier if he did it himself. I followed him to make sure we didn't have any problems. That didn't take as long as I expected it to. Then we took the dremmel tool up and measured the bolts and brackets and cut off any excess bolt. The bolt can't touch the wood, so we had to trim them a bit since setting them in concrete isn't an exact science. once we did that, we could put down the brackets and level with washers. We didn't have the right ratchet so we had to go to the brand new Lowes in Weaverville. We got as much done as we could. Just as we were finishing up, it started to rain. A little thunderstorm directly over Mt. Matt, but the skies were blue all around. We waited until it seemed mostly done and took our showers and then went to Lowes. We got a few things and then went to dinner in Asheville. (Thirsty Monk for Steak Frites...YUM). We came back and watched some of John Adams, which is really good by the way.

The next morning we woke to more rain. We knew we couldn't do much and checked Weather.com for the hour by hour forecast and it didn't appear it would stop until about 11. We did the only thing we could think to do...we went out for breakfast. When we got back we went back up to the clearing to level and do the temporary braces for the 4X4s. We got the brackets tightened down and it looks really good. We didn't have time to cut the 4x6s that make up the posts, so that will be among the first jobs for next week.

I also sprayed the heck out of the poison ivy with Round Up. I will kill that stuff!

That brings us to next week. We leave on Friday for our week long building extravaganza. Different friends are coming to help over different parts of the week. I am so looking forward to it!

Check out the latest photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

This is just a quick post to share the pics from the last two trips. We finished the last concrete pier on Saturday. Even though we mixed the concrete by hand, it was MUCH easier than doing all 7 of the other ones.

We also did a lot of work on the land itself. I didn't get pictures of that. Matt did a lot of weed-whacking. I opened up armageddon on the poison ivy and then made a nice wood pile for the fire pit. For the first time all year, I feel ready to host people. That is a very good thing, since people are showing up in two weeks!

Here are the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

oneandonlymatt and I are up at Mt. Matt working on the foundation for the house. We have been very pleased with our progress and are planning to stay as late as we need to tonight to get all the cement done. (Hooray for good weather!)

We got here on Friday night and went straight to bed. On saturday we got up intending to do everything but realized there was only so much we could do. So, we made really good progress. We got all the tools up to the tumbleweed clearing. We measured all the sonotubes so we could cut them. We did that with a water level which is my new favorite tool. I enjoyed water leveling as much as I enjoy creating flow charts. You may not know that about me, but I love making flow charts. Then we cut all the tubes. Crazy thing about the human brain. When you look at them they don't look even remotely even but sure enough they are level. Crazy optical illusion. Once we got all those set up and leveled we back filled the holes to brace the sonotubes. And that ended up taking most of the day. We had originally brought food to make but we decided that it would be way too late to start pouring concrete since we really couldn't stop once we started, so we went in to Asheville. We went to Hannah Flannagans and had a couple of beers and some yummy food. When we got back to Mt. Matt we fell right to sleep.

This morning, we got up pretty early and went back up to the clearing. We set up the batter boards and tied up the strings to make sure we have everything level and square. Right now, Matt is taking the concrete up to the clearing three bags at a time on the ATV. It is working very well, but there is little I can do for this process, so here I am. Once he is done with that we will eat some lunch and then it is concrete mixing time. Matt did already deliver the water and cement mixer up there as well. We decided since the weather is so perfect for it, we would stay and do this work as late as we had to. That may make for a long and miserable day at work for me tomorrow, but I'll work it out. It is all worth it to have the Tumbleweed house!

I have taken some photos and will take more. I'll be sure to pop those up on flickr when we get home.

So, back to building. This weekend we were joined by our faithful friend Chad who really loves helping us with our project. And the goal for this weekend was digging the holes for the concrete piers and then pouring those piers. Well, the weather conspired against us and we were only able to dig the holes, but I still call that a success. It was a lot of hard work. We weren't able to stay late today because it rained pretty much all day and rain and concrete don't really mix. Well, they mix all right but not the way we would prefer.

Check out the new pics on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

We were, as you may imagine, up in Asheville again this weekend. We did a lot of work. I don't have any pictures this time around, but I promise there will be many more to come.

( click here if you would like to read a recap of our building project )
Thanks for coming along with me on this crazy journey!

oneandonlymatt and I went back up to Mt. Matt this weekend to keep working. The project focus for this weekend was marking out the area for the foundation.

We got up to the land on Friday night after work, which put us there around 11pm. We set up camp and then watched the final episode of BBC's Robin Hood, Series 2. It was probably the worst written and acted episode of all of them, and that is really saying a lot because none of them were really good. I have no idea why, but I was really invested in that story. I feel like such a dork.

We slept until 10am on Saturday. When we got up, we had a quick breakfast and started to work. We loaded up the ATV with steaks and string and all the tools one would need to get the foundation area set up. Matt drove up to the Tumbleweed Clearing and I headed up the new northwest passage that we cleared. We spent some time planning but apparently took a little too long and broke for lunch before we got much done. When we got back to work, we were on the clock as we had made dinner plans with our North Carolina Neighbors. This led to some arguing, which didn't help our case for time but we finally decided to stop for the day after getting the front wall area and the two sides pretty much strung and leveled.

As it turned out, it was a good thing we stopped then. We went back down to the barn and took our showers and started to get ready when a sudden downpour started. We waited until it was over when we walked down to our neighbor's house. The four of us went into West Asheville to a Latin Cuisine restaurant called Tomato Kitchen. We sat out on their patio which was gorgeous. The food was fantastic and, of course, the company and conversation were great.

When we got back to the barn, we were pretty tired and we decided just to go right to bed and wake up early. We got up about quarter after 7 and started out the morning by putting together the trailer for the ATV. We got that most of the way finished and went back up to the Tumbleweed Clearing to get some more parts of the foundation area set up. We got one line of stakes set up for the concrete piers.

At 11am we had the car packed up and were ready to head back. We needed to make a stop at the Neighbors' place because a tree had fallen across the road. The Element could get under it no problem, but it will become a problem. Matt and John tried to pull the tree down with John's truck, but that idea didn't quite work out. We finally decided that we would just call in a professional next week to get it take care of.

Now we are home. Matt went to the Bruce Springsteen concert tonight.

I uploaded a couple of photos on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

The Tumbleweed Tiny House blog has a post about a guy in British Columbia who just built a Tarleton. This is the model we are building in North Carolina this summer. It is so cool to look at all his photos. oneandonlymatt said it even answered a lot of his questions about the construction.

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/build-it-yourself/wills-tarleton/

We got an absolute ton of work done yesterday. onandonlymatt, our friend Chad and I went up to Mt. Matt on Friday night and set up camp. We got up early on Saturday and Matt and Chad went into Asheville to rent a DR Brush Mower from a rental place. They brought it back and got right to work. They cleared the entire meadow behind the barn. It looks soooo good. Then the mower broke (the battery died and the guy at the rental place just told them to jump it when they called him to tell him it was dead). We borrowed jumper cables from our neighbors and used the battery pack that we use for our power up there to jump it. It worked and they took it up to the Tumbleweed Clearing to get that prepped for building. They wanted to do two more spots (the lower clearing and the ridge) to make camping areas but since they had to deal with the battery they ran out of time. But we are very happy with the progress that did happen. And we can clear the other two spots with our chainsaw and weed-eater, it will just take a little more time. Then we came home last night instead of staying in Marshall. Today, Matt and I are not doing much of anything.

Enough babbling from me. I'll let the photos do the talking. I took a million of them and they are now on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

We went back to Asheville this weekend. We have been there three weekends in a row and are going back next weekend, too. The good news is we have made a lot of progress on the barn. Moving forward, we are stopping all work on the barn to concentrate on the tumbleweed house and then we can get back to the barn. So, that means the wall cladding will have to wait. I am okay with that decision.

This past weekend we went up with mtn_hermit for a birthday extravaganza and work weekend. He helped Matt finish the ceiling, which was pretty quick. We also delivered the ATV up to the land. We started on the wall but a miscaluclation will cause us to start over. Luckily, we had only started a small test wall.

Here are some Photos of our adventures this week.
( Photos! )

We also went into Asheville to celebrate our birthdays, since all of us had one coming up. (Mine was Sunday, of course. mtn_hermit on Wednesday and oneandonlymatt on Thursday.) We had dinner at The Thirsty Monk, which was divine! Steak Frites! I can't stop thinking about them. Then we ended at Sante for dessert. Yum.

Just a quick post about our weekend because I don't have much time. We did some more work on the barn room. The problem with a room that has no straight lines or angles is that it is hard to make things straight. We started out not worrying about it but them Matt's OCD kicked in and we took down everything we did last weekend and started again. Truth is, he was right and it is much better.

The ceiling isn't done yet. Along the seams of the flashing will be 4 inch battens in a dark brown stain to match the dark brown that will go on the walls.



The ultimate purpose of this room will be 1) a place to camp while we finish the tumbleweed house and 2) a studio for music, or writing or whatever creative endeavor we would like to pursue.

oneandonlymatt and I were back at Mt. Matt this weekend. We got a little behind earlier this year so we are working on catching up. Our friend, Chad, helped us get a lot of the insulation started in the barn room two weeks ago. We had to stop only because our batteries ran out. So, Matt and I brought extra batteries and got to work.

We left early on Saturday morning. Even though it was going to be a little chilly, we decided that we would camp. When we got to town we stopped at Ingles to get sandwiches and stuff for breakfast. As soon as we got to the land, we got started with the project. It didn't take long to knock out the rest of the wall insulation.

Then we put all the tools away and got out the air mattress and sleeping bag and such. We also had a thermometer in the room to see how the insulation was helping. The floor isn't done at all so a lot of the cold air still comes in there. However, it was much warmer than before insulation.

After we got camp set up, we grabbed a bottle of wine that we brought with us and walked down to our neighbor's house. They live there year round and we want to get to know them. They seemed genuinely thrilled to hang out with us and truth be told, we completely lost track of time and were there for almost three hours. It was about quarter to nine when we realized that we still needed dinner and the tiny town of Marshall "rolls up it's sidewalks" pretty early, as they say. We had forgotten our flashlight so we borrowed one to get back to our barn. I forget how dark it gets without a city around.

We went into Marshall and caught Bacchus Bistro still open for another 45 minutes. The food there is fantastic.

We finally made it back to the barn. We tried to watch the final episode of season one of BBC's Robin Hood but the disc was having issues. So, we put the heater on low and went to bed. It ran out in the middle of the night, but it stayed pretty warm in the room. The next morning the thermometer read 60.

We slept in to about 9:30 and then made some eggs. Then we took down the bed and stuff and started on the ceiling. We decided to do the ceiling with metal flashing. We thought it would be an easy and still rustic solution. It is a barn room that was tacked on to an old barn with no real rhyme or reason and walls are crazy crooked, so rustic is still the best look for it. We did three panels (which puts it at about a third of the way done).

Then we went to the nearby town of Weaverville for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then we drove home. We didn't get home last night until about 7:30. Then we downloaded that last episode of Robin Hood on iTunes so we could see what we missed.

Here is a link to flickr to check out the latest photos of our progress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13073825@N07/

We are going back to Asheville this weekend. Hooray. I am so excited. The weekend can never come fast enough.

These are our current plans. I like to make a record so I can see just how different things actually went. Kind of like the weekend we planned to get a ton of stuff done but ended up with a Budget Truck in a ditch.

Anywho, the plan is currently as follows:

I want to leave on Saturday before crack of dawn o'clock. Convincing oneandonlymatt of this time frame will probably not happen. I would be prepared to leave the house by 6am, but I'll be lucky to compromise at 7.

If we leave at 7 we should get up there around 10:30. We can stop and pick up some subway to hold on to for lunch. Then we'll head to the barn and finish up the insulation. The two of us should be able to knock that out pretty quickly. Then we can break for lunch. Then we can start on the ceiling. We are doing silver metal flashing across the ceiling that will eventually be "finished" with batons across the seams. This will give it sort of a rustic industrial look. It is a barn, after all.

Sometime during the day we'll pop in on our Neighbors. They invited us over for some wine the next time we were in town. I wanted to stop by and suggest we get together in the evening if they are avaible. That way we can work on finishing the ceiling. Then we need to go get dinner. I want to go back to Bacchus Bistro in downtown Marshall. Then we'll need to stop at Ingalles to pick up something to eat for breakfast the next morning, assuming we will decide to camp. We are fully expecting to have that be a game time decision. It'll be a little chilly, but we'll have just finished insulating the barn so it will help a bit. I've camped when it has been colder, that is for sure.

I am so looking forward to it!