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 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 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/

So, we last left our heroine watching oneandonlymatt cart 30 bags of concrete up the logging trail to our Tumbleweed Clearing. Well, after that we made some lunch (we had brought steaks and brussel sprouts for dinner on Saturday but decided to go out instead, so I made them for lunch instead). It was just the fuel we needed. We took ourselves back up to the clearing and started mixing and pouring concrete. It took a couple tries to really get our stride, but we did. We had to find a relatively flat spot for the mixer (harder than it sounds) so Matt had to carry each 80lbs bag of concrete from where he had dumped them to where we had the mixer - about 10 feet or so. By the end of the night we calculated that he had lifted and carried 2400lbs. I was in charge of water - one gallon per bag and we mixed two bags at a time. Then we would fill a bucket and take it to the sonotube and pour it in. Since each sonotube was a different size, the number of bucketfuls differed drastically. Despite our best efforts, we did run into a time issue. We had worked all afternoon and the sun was starting to go down. We really wanted to finish it all, but we had to leave one tube unfinished. We did get the anchor bolts set in the remaining 7 tubes. Next visit, we will have to mix some concrete by hand and finish that last tube, but we figure we can make that happen.

So by this time it was dark and we had to get the ATV back up to the clearing and cart everything back down. We made two trips of stuff essential to return to the barn and covered everything else with tarps. Then we packed up our things and our car and started home. We didn't leave Marshall NC until 11pm Sunday night. My original plan was to sleep in the car and sleep when we got home and go to work at my usual time, but at 1am I realized that wasn't happening. I left a message and said I would be in later in the morning. I hate doing that sort of thing, but I never do it so everything was fine. Matt was really tired at that point so I took over the drive at Tallulah Falls in Georgia and finished the drive all the way home.

In our rush to get things finished up, we forgot to cover the last sonotube. And I also discovered that my camera didn't make it back to Atlanta with me. That meant, it must not have made it off the mountain. I emailed our neighbors who are very gracious to us and asked if they would help us out and cover the tube and find the camera. Both of these things have been accomplished. That means no pictures until after the 14th of June, but I think you can all handle the anticipation.

We will have a post and pier foundation in time to start the build over the week of 4th of July. Hooray!

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 had an extremely productive day at Mt. Matt this weekend. Our friend Chad came along and was a huge help. We got most of the barn room insulated. oneandonlymatt and I should be able to knock out the last wall no problem next time. We hope to start on the ceiling cladding as well.

I felt great all weekend. No potential ill effects from my car accident on Friday. I have a theory about it, too. I should have been much more sore based on the actual impact of the Grand Am to the back of a Saturn. However, Asheville in general and more specifically our little mountain has a *lot* of quartz. Cultures have recognized the healing powers of quartz for thousands of years. Perhaps there really is something to it. Or, Mt. Matt is like the island from LOST. I'm not sure which.

On the way home, it snowed. Lots and lots of snow. It is even still on the ground a bit at my house.

( click here for photos of our work and of the snow )

Tomorrow, oneandonlymatt and I are heading out to Asheville. We have some work around the land that we want to do on Friday and then on Saturday we are attending a seminar led by Jay Shafer. Jay Shafer is the mastermind behind Tumbleweed Tiny Houses (http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/) and we are going to learn to build one. We have the place on our land picked out and ready to go. Our goal is to start building the tumbleweed house the first part of next year and we expect that we will have it finished by the fall.

The is the first step in a master plan. After the Tumbleweed house, we are going to build a Tree Deck. It won't be a tree house as it will be open air with, at most, canvas to shield from the rain. The we hope to graduate to other forms of building such as Cordwood Masonry.

I am excited to move forward with the plan.

I just wanted to post a few pictures of our trip to Asheville. We were there from Friday through Sunday. On Saturday, lerg his very fun girlfriend, M, came up to the land to spend the night camping. We took them into Asheville to our favorite places (Sante Wine Bar, Thirsty Monk Belgian Beer Bar) and then to The Laughing Seed for dinner. On Sunday we went for a hike just outside of Hot Springs, NC.

( click here for some photos of the trip )
Thanks for looking!