Home Building Diary

Colors of Spring — Yellow

Spring is beautiful in Onancock … colorful plants are blooming everywhere. Bright yellow forsythia are putting on a show right now. I’ll have at least one forsythia in my new yard. It will add early spring color and fit right in with the Japanese garden theme I have planned.

Add comment March 31st, 2006

Ready to Pour

The foundation trenches are all dug, and the rebar is in place. We’re ready for the inspection, then we’ll pour the footers early next week.

Add comment March 31st, 2006

Small House Plans

It’s difficult to find plans for small houses. Mainstream house plan books and magazines rarely offer plans for houses under 1,500 square feet. Fortunately, there are some online sources for interesting small house plans, some as tiny as 200 square feet. Take a look at my guide to small house plans.

5 comments March 29th, 2006

Layout and Digging Trenches

On March 23 we finished digging (most of) the trenches for the foundation. We dug by hand. The soil has about 9 inches of topsoil over a clay/sand base. It was work, but not too strenuous for a little house like mine.

Batterboards and strings define the layout:

Trenches dug. They only have to be 12 inches deep here in coastal Virginia. The middle trench is the edge of the main house, and the outer trench to the right is the edge of the porch. There will be 6-foot wide porches on the first and second floors.

Add comment March 24th, 2006

5 Jefferson Street

This is the lot I own in Onancock, VA. It’s 10,000 square feet of level, cleared land. Looking northwest, pre-construction:

Looking across my lot to the east: You can just make out the ferris wheel on the carnival grounds. The big grassy area between my lot and the carnival rides is the parking lot used by the carnival and the Little League.

Add comment March 24th, 2006

Breaking Ground

Welcome to my home building diary. Follow along as we progress from a vacant lot to a finished small house.

My property is a quarter-acre in the tiny town of Onancock on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. It was unique in that the carnival grounds are my next door neighbor … but the carnival is going to be sold to make room for more homes. It will still be a nice neighorhood.

We staked out the lot and put up batter boards on March 16. Groundbreaking was March 20. No, there was not a ceremony. We finished digging most of the footers (by hand) on March 23.

Add comment March 24th, 2006