The Dome Geeks

The One In Which We Play Catch-Up

2007-10-21T10:28:00.001-05:00

It's been a few weeks, but you will be amazed at the changes that have happened in that time! Read on for pics of the progress in the past few weeks and a very exciting announcement at the end. (No jumping ahead now!)

September 29, 2007
Things are still looking pretty rough. There's not much to see that looks different from previous pictures.

The basement stairs are still pretty rough, though you can see that the electricity and plumbing have now been run. The basement floor is still just dirt with a sheet of plastic over it.

The insulation is in, except for the ceiling. It looks kind of dark now, but just you wait!

October 7, 2007
Check it out! Our garage has a slab! A real live floor! The driveway is a bit torn up, but they'll fix that after all the big giant trucks are gone for good.

Pretty rough wall yet. It's been raining, thus the plastic wall. You can't really see it here, but there is a slab floor in the basement too!

We have our very own electrical panel. Funny how such mundane things can be so exciting. It's labeled and everything! We found out by reading this that we are going to have a garbage disposal. We had no idea.

Heading on upstairs, we've got drywall. It's not complete yet, but they're making good progress. The ceiling is done and most of the walls. Just a few spots to fill in.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a shower! No toilet or sink yet, though the plumbing is there for them. The Geek looks pretty happy about that shower. Actually, I think he's just like me – happy about everything in this house.

And because I'm completely obsessed with our living room windows and that gorgeous view, you get to see them again. Aren't they just lovely?

Apparently the Geek thinks so too. That safety railing is quite the eyesore. Thankfully it's only there for the workers. It will be gone by the time we move in.

October 13, 2007
Our living room has been taped and mudded! Paper and goop has never been quite so exciting as this.

This is the kitchen. Check out all the holes in the walls! It's amazing how much electricity it takes to run a kitchen.

The well...ahhhh the well. The problem with building in our area is that there is a LOT of traprock. If you've never heard of that, it's a well-driller's nightmare. As I understand it, traprock is huge formations of rock deep underground. It's extremely hard and requires special drill bits as well as special pipes for the well. The cost of drilling through traprock is approximately double the regular well-drilling price. At this point, I think they had gotten about 280 feet down (400 feet was our goal) and had gone through three drill bits.

On a more happy note, the walkout is starting to shape up. The wall is done and the siding is going up now. I think My Geek is pretty jazzed about that. Check out the close-up of that goofy grin!!

October 20, 2007
We're just about caught up. These next photos are from yesterday. This is where it gets really exciting. The house is really starting to look like a real house now! Don't forget, you want to keep on to the end! Exciting news!

Ahhhh, the well again. The truck is gone, but they'll be back. They got down to 380 feet and had not the slightest sign of decent water yet. So they gave us an option. We could keep going, with no promise of how far they would have to go to find water, or they could do what's called a "hydrofrac", which has proved successful in the past. Basically they put a big balloon down there and blow it up to about 6500 psi, which shatters the surrounding rock. The hope is that it will create a pocket of water...at least that's how I understand it.

They did the hydrofrac this past week, and the well guy is coming back out this week to pump it out and see if we have water. Pray that we do!! Otherwise this may just be the most expensive well in the history of wells! It's already so horribly expensive that I can't tell you because your head might explode with the impact of it and I do NOT want to be responsible for anyone's head exploding.

Kitchen again, but without the tape/mud spots this time! Where did they go? They're buried nicely under a coat of white paint! Woo hoo!

And again with the window obsession. The living room looks so much nicer with that coat of paint. They did an orange peel texture on all the walls, and a knockdown texture on the ceiling. I cannot tell you how much nicer that knockdown texture is than popcorn texture on a ceiling.

And the dining room with it's pretty doors. The sun makes such pretty shadows. Oh, and that's not beige carpet, though it looks a little like it. That's just the chipboard sub-floor. The red paper is gone and they're starting on the floors on Monday. Yay!

Last, but certainly not least, is our front entrance. This door is going to go in the walkout when they're done and the front door with have a nice leaded glass window. Aren't the steps lovely? He's not done yet, but he's doing a very nice job. He gave us a choice of a cement front step or this cedar one. Of course we chose cedar!

SO, the big moment has arrived. For those of you who made it through all of that, we are very excited to announce that we have a move-in date, and it's less than 2 weeks away! We are moving on November 3rd! Woo hoo!!

This week they're finishing up all the flooring, trim, cabinets, etc. The walk-through is this Friday, and next week we plan to get in there and start painting. What? You didn't expect us to live with white walls, did you? The Geek and Geekwif? Nevah! We shall have pretty colored walls in every room...with the possible exception of the laundry room. Come back next week to see our paint choices!

The One With Lots of Awesome Changes (Or "What a Difference Three Days Makes")

2007-09-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

We checked out the house progress on 9/16/07. The basement walls had been poured and the walkout framing was in. Following is a taste of what we saw.

Looking out over the "house". Remember, at this point it's just a basement. The corner you see in the ground close-up is the garage foundation. In the distance you can see the walkout wall framing which our builder was working on early that morning.

Here's a view from the same direction, but down inside the basement. The two big openings in that wall on the far left and right are the windows. (They won't be quite that big.) And the smaller opening in the middle is the door. The basement will be unfinished to start, but our future plans are to add an entertainment room with the Geek's dream big-screen TV, a spare bedroom or den for the Geek, and a hobby room for the Geekwif. The stairs will come down right next to where the Geek is standing. See the lengths of concrete in the floor just in front of his feet? Those are the footings for the stairs.

This is facing the back of the basement. (The walkout wall is behind me.) That pipe in the wall connects to the septic, just in case you were wondering. Our utilities and some rough-in plumbing for a future bathroom will be along this back basement wall.

Here's the walkout wall again, but from outside instead of inside.

This is the walkout slope. They had to do quite a bit of grading. The are leaving us a nice big area around the house for starting a lawn, but there is still a lot of untouched space that is very weedy and will have to be dealt with...probably next year.

Speaking of weedy, we took a walk downhill to where they are going to dig our well. Our area is known for traprock which makes well-digging a huge pain-in-the-tuckus, but the well-digger thinks this spot may be a crack in the traprock. If he's right, we save lots o' dough!

And here's the first load of house parts. Under that tarp lies walls, roof trusses, and other parts of our house-to-be. It's like Tinker Toys!

Keep reading to see what happened just three days later!

==========================

On 9/19/07 we took another trip out to see the progress. The team had been delayed a couple of days, but was working all day putting together those parts that were under the tarp just three days earlier, and boy-oh-boy, what a difference three days makes!

Check it out! It's an actual house! Okay, so the roof looks a little funny yet, but hey, we have walls! Let's take a walk around before we go inside, okay?

Check out that gorgeous blue sky! Oh wait, this is a picture of the crane. How wild is that? They use the crane to lift the walls into place since with a panelized house like this, the walls are already put together when they arrive.

You remember this view from three days ago, right? No? Take a close look at that walkout wall. It didn't used to have a house on top of it. Inside those sliding doors and windows above are the dining and living rooms. We will be building a deck next year, but for now beware of the really big step out that sliding door!

All that dirt you saw in the above pictures? Looked innocent, didn't it? It was all newly filled and not packed down yet, so after 2 days of hard rain it became thick muck. We had to pretty much run from spot to spot to keep from sinking in over our ankles. Even so, our shoes bore the brunt of our little adventure. Now we're going to go inside. I must admit, even though it is a construction site, I cringed just a little stepping in the door with all that mud on my shoes.

There's our front door from the inside. We didn't actually enter through this door though. See, the muck at the front door was the worst of all. One of the crew guys demonstrated for us by stepping in it and literally sinking up to his knee.

Here's the door we entered by – the garage entry. It enters into the laundry room and then the hallway we're looking through.

Same hallway, from the opposite direction. I'm standing in the laundry room now looking down the hallway toward the living/dining room.

Off to the right is the office.

To the left is the master bedroom.

Trust me when I tell you this is a bathroom.

And then we enter the totally awesome greatroom. The living room is on the left and the dining room is on the right. If the house looks a little bent in the middle, it's because I had to paste two photos together to get the full view. By the way, we are totally in love with our windows. One of only a couple upgrades we chose, but SO worth it.

Another trust me – this is our kitchen. See that smaller window? That will be over the sink. And the jutting out part of the wall toward the right is my pantry! I have a pantry! I have never in all my life had a pantry before. I am so excited.

And how cool is this? No roof yet, but even once it is on it's going to be pretty cool. We have a vaulted ceiling in the living/dining/kitchen. Love it.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our tour. Thanks for coming and we hope you join us next time! We stopped out sans camera last weekend (bad me!) and the roof has been decked and shingled. There's sure to be even more progress when we go out this weekend. See ya back here soon!

The One In Which The House Is Finally Started

2007-09-10T17:56:00.000-05:00

The excavation was delayed a bit due to rain, but yesterday we trekked out to the site of our future home, and just look what we found!
The excavation is done as are the footings! Woo hoo!!! The forms for pouring the concrete foundation were all standing about, waiting to be put in place. We heard from the builder today. The forms have since been put in place and they were prepared to pour the concrete today.

More forms, stacked and ready to go.

Here's another view of the beautiful thing that will soon be our home. See that rectangle of concrete that juts out from the rest at the bottom of the photo? That's about where our front entry will be. The living and dining rooms will be off to the left, kitchen straight across, and the bedrooms off to the right.

This is along the west wall. The rebar embedded in the concrete will reinforce the foundation walls that were poured today.

As we were oohing and aahing over our new basement, something ran across our yard, way out in the distance. Can you see it?
Now, can you see it? There are actually two of them. Look very closely on the far left of the picture to see the less obvious one. (Hint:click on the photo for an even better view.)

We asked them to be careful about the two small birch trees that stand near the house. As you can see here, they came right up to this one, but left the tree itself unscathed. The rock just to the right of the tree was not there before. I'm guessing it was dug out of the ground when they were excavating. We're just glad they didn't find anything bigger. Our builder told us he once encountered an eight-foot long rock when attempting to excavate for a house.

We found this attached to one of the plethora of boxelder trees on the lot. The permit is a beautiful thing. The multitude of boxelder bugs swarming on it? More of an eeeewwww thing.

They've also been working on our driveway. It's probably not quite so obvious to anyone who has never tried to drive through our extremely bumpy lot as it is to us, but the driveway is shaping up very nicely. That big machine behind the Geek was the first thing we saw as we approached our property yesterday.

Last, but by no means least, is our south view. This was taken from what will be the exit of our walkout. The living room and dining room will be directly above the walkout and have big windows facing the same direction, which means that this will be our main view. Gotta love it.

This week they are finishing the foundation, digging the well, and making sure the foundation is prepared for the house, which will be delivered on Monday, Sept 17th – just one week away! We are going to spend the day out there and watch as they take factory-built walls and fit them into place to make our new home! Come back for more pictures. Things are moving along now!

The One In Which We Pick Out Lighting Fixtures

2007-08-26T08:25:00.000-05:00

Some things about building a house are definitely more fun than other things. Picking out lighting fixtures is SO one of the "more fun" things – at least for a girl. We need to allow 4- 6 weeks for delivery for our fixtures, so we had to order right away. The Geek actually seemed to enjoy looking for lighting fixures too, but he was a bit more interested in checking out home theater systems. He's really looking forward to building a home theater in the basement after we move in.

The excavation is now scheduled for Tuesday, so in lieu of photos of a big hole in the ground, I thought I would show you a bit of what will eventually be in the house which as yet does not exist. We may not be arranging furniture and fluffing couch pillows yet, but picking out fixtures certainly helps to start envisioning the finished product which will be our home.

So, let's start with my least favorite and work up from there, okay? I have never been fond of ceiling fans. I think they're ugly. I know. I'm a total snob.

The builder suggests we have four of them – one in the living room, one in the dining room, and one in each bedroom. So I compromised. We picked one fan that we will put in the living room and master bedroom. The 2nd bedroom is an office, so I really couldn't see having a fan in there blowing papers around. And the dining room? NO WAY! a) I do not want to have a fan blowing dust all over our dinner, and b) I want a chandelier! I mean, c'mon, the chandelier in the dining room is the most important piece of lighting in the house! (And all the women are nodding their heads in agreement. "Right on, sister!")

So, after considering budget and our decor, we chose this one.
(You can click on all these images to see a bigger version.)

Now, let's move outside for a moment. We needed five wall lanterns outside – one on each side of the garage door, one at the garage service door, and one at each door of the house. We chose this light for all of those places.
It's shown in a black finish here, but we chose what they call Verde Green, which is like verdegris – basically a black and green speckled finish.

The second bedroom is going to be our office, and we chose this ceiling fixture for that room.

And finally, the pièce de résistance, the dining room chandelier. We looked at some 5-light chandeliers, but they were out of our budget. I think this will do nicely.
As you can probably tell, we are going for warm fall colors inside the house. We're thinking dark red, sage green, buttery yellow. I think these fixtures will fit nicely into that decor. What do you think?

The One In Which We Sign On The Dotted Line

2007-08-16T07:24:00.000-05:00

We did it. We finally did it. We signed on the dotted line. Okay, I suppose there were actually closer to 50 lines and most of them weren’t really dotted....

But the point is, we have now officially signed with the bank for the construction loan and from this point on there is no backing out. The house will be built. According to our builder, he will be breaking ground on Wednesday and the house will be complete in 60 days.

It’s hard to believe it’s actually happening. I mean, I realize it’s not the dome we wanted, and still do want, but it means that by the end of October (which is not far away at all!) we will be living in the country. I can’t begin to explain how much that means.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one, and while I know it’s true, it’s still hard to comprehend somehow. There have been so many set backs along the way, but I really do believe that somehow, God worked out the timing for the best. We may not ever know exactly why now is the right time instead of 3 years ago, but I do believe that He worked it out nonetheless.

As the house is being built, we will be posting photos here. Sure it’s not the dome, but we are still the Dome Geeks. We will probably be making comments along the way, indicating where the dome will sit in relation to the initial house, how it will connect, etc. We still plan to build the dome, it’s just being delayed a bit.

Our journey is not yet complete, but we have just taken what may be the biggest step so far.

The One Where We Change Our Plans

2007-08-03T17:56:00.000-05:00

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
James 4:13-15

Time we have spent dreaming of building a dome home: 14 years

Time we have spent drawing plans, adjusting, and redrawing plans for our dome home: nearly 14 years

Time since we started searching for a place to build the dome home: nearly 3 years

Time since we purchased our property: 2 years

Number of times we thought we were going to build "this year": too many to count

We got an answer from the bank regarding a construction loan for the dome home. The answer was essentially, "no". One investor was willing to loan us 60%, which would leave us to come up with 40% out of pocket. There is no way on earth we can do that.

Another investor offered to finance it with an 8.5% interest rate. Also not an option.

So, we sat down, a bit dejected, and did some serious brain-storming. We agreed that we must move out there this year, but I must admit that I was pretty unsure of how that could happen.

And then I had an idea. A crazy idea. So crazy I almost didn't say it out loud.

"What if we did something totally nuts? You know, like building a temporary regular house with straight walls."

Building anything but a dome home is an option we have not been willing to consider, and we still are determined to build one, but we are going to do what it takes to get us out in the country, which at this point seems to be building a straight-walled house.

It's still a temporary solution. We figure we'll start with the straight-walled house (Phase 1), and in a few years we will start building the dome home (Phase 2) which will be attached to the phase 1 home. Phase 1 will then become a guest house for our friends who come from out of town, or who just need to get out of the city for a while. In the future, it may become an "in-law apartment" if such a thing is ever needed by our parents.

When we are ready to build Phase 2, we will have some equity in Phase 1 to get started, and from there we will build as we have the cash to do so. No bank required. It may not be a perfect plan, but we think it will work for us.

We have begun to work with a builder who does panelized homes by John Wick. We picked out a plan, got it approved through the bank and have signed with the builder. The house should be complete by October 21st.

Through all of this, I am becoming more and more aware of the truth of the passage at the top of this post. No matter the plans we make, his plan will always prevail. I'm not sure exactly why it has worked out this way, but that's alright. I know He has it all under control.

The One In Which We Are STILL Waiting

2007-06-13T06:37:00.000-05:00

Our banker is still looking for an investor. He has a few leads, but hasn't gotten any great answers yet. One of them offered to finance 65% which means we would have to come up with an impossible sum of cash. We think the reason for this is that we haven't sold our current house yet. If we could just get this place off our hands.

So, the house is about to be back on the market. The Geek's parents offered to take our cats for a while, so we took them to their place on Sunday. They are doing well there, but we miss them. Beethoven is still hiding behind the dryer, so I suppose he's doing slightly less than well, but I know him. He's sneaking out for food and a litter box stop when things are quiet and the cat and dog who are permanent residents in that place are not around. Eventually he'll get brave, but it might take a little while. He'll be fine.

We had the truth-in-housing inspection done last night. Our first one was done more than a year ago so it had to be re-done. We have an appointment with our realtor on Saturday, and the carpet cleaners are coming on Tuesday next week. Meanwhile, we are working our tushies off (Hopefully literally! I could use a little less tushie!) to get this place sparkling clean and beautiful. We hope to put it on the market next Wednesday.

Things are definitely moving slower than we wanted them to, but we are still working toward building this year. At this point we probably won't be done until after the first of the year and we may have to rent an apartment for a few months, but we ARE going to build. So, while waiting for stuff to happen on this blog may seem like watching paint dry at the moment, pretty soon it's going to get much more exciting! Really! I promise! Seriously exciting!

The One Where The Dome Geeks Finally Hear Back From The Bank

2007-05-25T20:58:00.000-05:00

As you may have seen, the Geekwif posted a few days ago that we were supposed to hear back from the bank about our project appraisal. Well, as it happened, we didn't get the call. The bank had not received the appraisal yet. In fact, we didn't hear a peep except one email, to say that it wasn't there yet -- until today. Today, I got the call on my cell phone, as I ate lunch with a few co-workers and was telling them how we hoped to hear from the bank "any day now, maybe even today--" bbrrrriiinnggg!!

Pretty good timing on their part, I must say. It was a pretty short conversation, but the important part is that we got a number... a good one... in fact it was $10,000 higher than last year's appraisal -- which I take for a miracle, given the current housing market in our area. What this means for us is, our budget is not only in the "sweet spot" of being 80% of the final value of the project, but in fact we are well below that 80% mark, which makes it even sweeter.

The banker still needs to find an investor willing to take on this project -- but he's already spoken with a couple of people who were open to the idea, pending a favorable appraisal. This appraisal is definitely favorable, and so he expects that one or both of them will be willing to finance the construction. Unfortunately, with this being Memorial Day weekend, and the fact that it was already after Noon on a Friday (when he received the appraisal), we probably won't hear anything again until Wednesday or Thursday next week. (Sigh) Another week of waiting. But we certainly have hope, even more hope than we had before. And for that, I am eminently thankful.

For those of you so inclined, we appreciate your prayers, and ask that you continue with us until we've signed the construction loan papers. This dream has certainly stretched our faith, and we expect it to continue that way right through to the day we move in. After that, God only knows what He has in store for us. But with each successful step forward, we see another milestone, and more evidence of His faithfulness. What more could we ask?

The One In Which The Geekwif Can't Sleep

2007-05-22T03:06:00.000-05:00

See that time at the bottom of this post? Yes, it really is 3 AM. Today is the 22nd of May – the day the banker is supposed to call us with news of our appraisal. Of course, unlike me, the banker is most likely fast asleep in his bed, not the least bit worried about that call he'll be making to us later today...much later.

I, on the other hand, well I wouldn't necessarily say I'm worried, but I am a bit anxious – enough to keep me wide awake. Oh, sure I could blame it on the fan blowing my hair around making my face and neck itch; or Beethoven the cat, who decided at 2 AM it was time for me to pet him; but the truth is, it's all about the bank.

It's all about that number the banker is going to give us later today. It's all about whether we get to finally build this house after 14 years of planning and dreaming and 3 years of active work: purchasing land, lining up contractors, and pitching our project to banks. These are the real reasons that at 3:17 AM I have been awake for over an hour. And if all goes well, tomorrow will be a much less sleepless night.

The One In Which The Dome Geeks Go To The Bank

2007-05-09T20:23:00.000-05:00

That's right. We went to the bank today. We signed many papers. Don't get too excited yet. This was the initial meeting where we sign lots of preliminary papers – disclosures and permission for credit checks and good faith estimates – that sort of stuff.

The banker left us cautiously optimistic. We were very well prepared for this meeting which impressed him. We do have to have the project re-appraised. Our appraisal from last year is already outdated in this rapidly changing market. Of course, the fact that we're building a dome is a bit of a challenge in the appraisal process, but all they have to do is find one dome in our area that has sold in the last couple of years.

We came home with a little more homework which we will return to the banker by Friday and in the meantime he will be getting the appraisal started. We will have news – hopefully good – on the appraisal by the 22nd.

One more step in the right direction. It was a good meeting. I think we are both pleased with the results and of course we are hoping for a positive report to give next time we check in here. Come back on the 22nd. We should have news then, unless we are out celebrating! Then we might not post until the 23rd. :)

The One Where the Dome Geeks Are Almost Ready to Start Building

2007-04-29T08:03:00.000-05:00

Holy cow, time flies! It's been a long time since we last posted anything here, but now, at the end of April 2007, it looks like we really are about to get started.

Without going into too much detail, last year we decided to see if it would be cost-effective to hire a builder to manage the project for us, rather than do it ourselves. It took about 9 months, starting in the spring and ending in November, to discover that we really should have just stuck with the original plan to be our own general contractors. Live and learn, eh? Of course we also helped my (the Geek's) parent build their dome home, which was a great learning experience and also provided us with some valuable contacts.

So anyway, this year we renewed contacts with some of the subcontractors we'd met in 2005, and started working with many of the same subs that my parents used last year, and we now have almost everything ready to go to the bank and get a construction loan. We have submitted the forms and fees to get our land use permit, and are about to do the same for our building permit. Assuming the bank gives us the go-ahead without requiring any additional information or prep work, we could break ground as early as mid-May. Awesome.

If you had asked me in 2005, I never could have guessed the turns this project would take before we finally got to this point. And while we have had to endure delays and setbacks, I really would not change any of it. We've learned a lot, and I think we're just a bit wiser than when we started out.

That's all I've got to say for now. It's Sunday morning and time to get ready for church. But as new developments take place, we will be sure to post them for your information, education, and any other benefit you may hope to gain from reading about our little adventure.

The Geek

In Which the Dome Geeks Help Their Parents Build a Dome

2006-07-26T21:00:00.000-05:00

This is not directly related to our own dome, but rather my (the Geek's) parents' dome. They bought a property last year, about 15 minutes from our own property. It is 3.75 acres, and they are building a 30' diameter dome home with 2 extensions. On the weekend of July 8-9 2006, they had a "dome raising" event, and we were there to help. My parents are acting as their own general contractors, but they wanted to do the dome shell themselves.

A dome raising event is simply a two or three day event where the dome owners invite friends, relatives, and anyone on their mailing lists to come and help build the main dome shell. You get as many people together as you can, work as many hours as you think you need to (or can handle), and get as much of the dome completed as you can. I don't know if Natural Spaces (the dome-home company that my parents, and my "wif" and I, are working with) came up with the idea, but they send out a mass-email to their entire mailing list as well, for any customer who is about to build their dome. It's a great way to build a sense of community among dome owners and potential dome owners, and a great way for the builders to get their dome shell put together as quickly as possible, without feeling like they might have bitten off more than they could chew. I can't wait until we get to have our own dome raising weekend!

So as I was saying, they had a dome raising event, and we were there. In fact, I took Friday afternoon off from work, so I could drive out to their property, and help unload the semi-trailer with all of the parts for their dome kit. The kit for my parents included: all the pre-cut struts with the hub-connector sleeves attached to each end; all the hubs we would need; all the 1/2" bolts for connecting struts to the hubs; all the 1/2" plywood triangles we would need to completely sheath the exterior of the dome; all the tongue-in-groove pine or spruce or cedar triangles we would need to cover the interior of the dome; and a toolkit with various tools we would need to put the dome together. Actually, they did not ship the pine tongue-in-groove panels yet, since it will be a while before my parents are ready to install them. And also, my parents bought 4 custom triangle skylights, which were on the semi. We had to unload all of that. With the driver's help, plus a carpenter that my parents had hired to help build the dome, we unloaded the trailer in about 90 minutes. After that, we took a brief look at the parts (and a short break -- it was HOT out there!).

Since it was only mid-afternoon and I really didn't feel like driving an hour back home in Friday rush-hour traffic, we decided to get started working right away. By the end of the afternoon, we had the riser wall built and one set of triangle struts in place. At that point it was about 4:00 PM, and we agreed to call it quits for the day. The riser wall is a short wall (4' high in my parents' case; in our dome it will be about 2' high) built on the floor, and it acts as the base for the dome shell itself. The top "sill-plate" of the riser wall is actually made of the flat bottoms for the bottom-row triangles, with hubs embedded and ready to go.

Saturday morning, we arrived about 8:45 AM. My parents had been there since about 7, along with one of my uncles and the carpenter, and they had already got started putting the second triangle up. In fact, they were struggling to get the struts properly lined up at the peak of the triangle, and so when I showed up I was able to help them get things properly aligned and the bolts hammered home into the hub.

I should mention, that the wif and I attended a dome building school last year, put on by Natural Spaces. It's a weekend seminar, in which they teach you all about how to build the dome shell. It is very hands-on, so we were able to build part of a dome shell, including the triangle strut "framing", exterior sheathing, some roofing, installing a custom triangle skylight, installing some insulation, and finally installing the interior tongue-in-groove paneling. It was a lot of fun, and we learned a LOT. Of course, since it's been over a year since we took the class, we had also forgotten quite a bit, and had to re-learn a few things the hard way. There was more than one time where, after realizing we'd made a mistake, I would suddenly remember what we had been taught, and say, "Oh yeah, I just remembered what they said about this -- we have to do it THIS was, not THAT way."

So anyway, while I am somewhat handy with tools and framing, I was also there to show them all how to build the dome framework and exterior sheathing "right" -- even if it meant doing it wrong the first time, in order to remember the right way to do it. For the most part, though, we did things right the first time, and only had to undo a few hubs/struts that had gotten mis-aligned.

By about 6 PM Saturday, we had the entire dome framework completed, and had installed 2 or 3 exterior triangle plywood panels, just to see what they looked like. During that day, we had several additional people show up. Most of them jumped right in to help, a few just came to observe (which was fine -- it was an open invitation to come and watch OR to help). One guy, a trucker from the east coast, happened to be in the region and decided to come out and help. He was there all day both Saturday and Sunday, and was definitely one of our key team members. Also of note was the carpenter on Saturday, my uncle on Saturday and Sunday, and my cousin on Sunday. It actually got to the point a couple of times, where I was feeling kind of useless -- the other guys had got the basics down from me showing them, and were "going to town" building the dome while I was being something of a gopher on the ground. Eventually though, I was able to jump in and start working more directly on the building process, which was definitely more fun. Besides, we had a lot of helpful ladies on the ground who were more than happy to fetch struts, triangles, tools, brace ladders, and generally help in any way that we needed.

Several of us got sunburned pretty good on Saturday, myself and my wif included. The day had started out cloudy and threatening rain, and so we forgot to put on any sun block. By mid-afternoon we were both bright red on our faces, shoulders, and other exposed areas. Definitely time for sun block, even if it was somewhat too late -- at least we could prevent any worse damage being done.

Sunday we started at 9 AM, and worked until about 6 PM. We finished mounting all the exterior triangles in that time, worked hard in the hot sun (but remembered our sun block this time!), and had a great feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day. My parents' dome shell was complete, and ready for the next stage in construction, the extensions. The carpenter is going to do that part himself, so our work on this project is basically complete -- unless my parents call and ask for help installing flooring, or electrical, or some other item that they plan to do themselves.

In Which The Geeks Name Their Property

2006-04-10T20:39:00.000-05:00

It's been a long winter, and we are so happy that spring is here! The house is on the market, and we have high hopes that it will sell quickly, so that we can pick up the dome project where we left off last fall.

I don't think we've mentioned this before, but the geekwif and I are geeks :-) Perhaps that doesn't come as a great surprise to some of you. As good and honest geeks, we are BIG Lord of the Rings fans. I've read not only the main six-book / three-volume story several times, and the 'wif has read it at least once.

Anyway, I'm sure the REAL Tolkien fans are now laughing at me for bragging about such piddly accomplishments. Maybe I can brag about something else...

Oh, yeah. We're going to name our property. In elvish. With a welcome sign. In elvish. Boo-ya.

We were actually having a hard time coming up with a name, because it seemed like our property was more like the Shire than any elvish lands, and we went through several different names, none of them really fitting. I'm not sure when we finally came up with the name we are going to use, but basically we started looking through different place-names that Tolkien used, and read about the meanings behind the names, and how those meanings related to the nature of the places. Somewhere along the way we found a website with Middle Earth place-names, translations of the names, etc.

After going through a whole lot of names without really finding anything that seemed to match our land, we hit upon the name we have chosen. The only problem was, the meaning of the name was a description that could only be verified at night-time. In the dark. Where it can be hard to see things.

Still, the name seemed to fit. At least, in our imagination of what the land would look like at night, the name fit. But it took us until last week (April 7th, 2006) to actually go out to the property at night and confirm what our imagination had already suspected. The name fits like a glove!

It was a beautiful evening, with a clear sky and a slightly larger than half-moon waxing in the sky, shining brightly and illuminating the land all around us. We got out of the truck and I started picking out my favorite constellations (Orion, the Big Dipper) -- ok, actually the only constellations I can find! We marveled at the almost-blinding light of the moon. And we sang elvish hymns under the night sky until the hobbits fell asleep and we left them in the woods with full bellies and peaceful dreams ....

Ok, hold on a sec. Scratch that last sentence. We did confirm that the name fit, however, and so we have made another momentous step in our dome building project. Yay!

I guess that's about all I have to say about that.

Oh, wait -- did you want to know the name?

Are you sure? Because I'm not going to give you the translation -- that part is up to you to find out. Just remember, Google is your friend.

The name is...

...

...

Ithilien.

Just A Quick Update

2005-10-11T10:08:00.000-05:00

We've put off the building project until spring. Our house in the city hasn't sold yet and it's too cold to get started building now anyway. We took the house off the market temporarily. We'll put it back on the market in February and hope for a quick sale then.

As soon as it's warm enough we'll get back to the original plan - move out to the camper and get started building. In the meantime, we'll stay cozy warm in our little house in the city for one more winter.

We are excited to share our building project with you in the spring! Come back and see us then!

P.S. I had to turn on comment verification since we've been getting annoying comment spam almost daily on this blog. From now on you'll have to type in those funky looking letters to prove you are not a spammer. I apologize for any inconvenience, but it had to be done.

Little Camper on the Prairie

2005-09-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, I took another road trip out to the lot. I had a meeting with another potential sub and an appointment to have our temporary home delivered. It will be good when our house has sold so we can actually move out there. It's over an hour drive from where we live now, which can be hard on the pocketbook when gas prices are what they are these days. Fortunately, God saw fit to grant me a run in with a great gas price (22 cents less than any other station I saw all day!), so I filled 'er up and was on my way.

I won't go into details about finding/hiring sub-contractors as it could take pages and pages of writing in itself, but suffice it to say I was not particularly impressed by this potential sub. For starters he was significantly later than the time he estimated he would be able to meet me which meant that I had him and the camper delivery people there at the same time. I think I handled it well, and the camper people were great. They asked a few questions and got right to work while I finished up with the other guy.

Once he was gone, they showed me around the camper which is to be our home for a few months while we build our real home. There wasn't a whole lot to see - it's very small - but it will serve our basic need for shelter.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it has a heater. The guy told me that it should keep the place warm enough for us, even in the dead of winter. This is great news, since we thought we might need to rent an apartment for a couple months after it got cold. We really didn't want to spend the money for it, and now we won't have to! Thank God for simple blessings.

In the picture to the left, you can see the closed bathroom door on the right with the heater directly in the center and on the left is the closet. It has a clothing bar and some shelves along the right side which don't show in the picture.

Here you see our kitchen. It takes up a large part of the camper, thus serving our need for food. We haven't tried them yet, but we're told the refrigerator, stove, and sink are all in working order. I think I might just have more storage space in this kitchen than in the kitchen in my house! Lots of cabinets and drawers, plentiful in spite of their small size.

Across from the kitchen is the dinette. When the Geek and I go to certain restaurants, we always hope for a booth. Well we got one here at Chez le Geek! Booth seating every night! And with under-seat storage to boot!

Oh and if you look closely, you can see the bed in the background. I'm pretty sure it's shorter than the Geek. He's probably going to have to sleep in the fetal position to fit on the bed. Yup. It's gonna be an adventure.

And here is our bathroom. Talk about living in the lap of luxury. Can you see the shower? It's at the top of the picture just to the right of center. Yup. That's the shower. The door must be shut when you shower since there is no surround and no curtain. The entire bathroom is the shower. It think it's funny now. I wonder what I'll think in a few months.

Back outside, this is looking through the "front" door - actually the only door. Inside you can see the bathroom door with the mirror. There will be no using the bathroom with the door open here, that's for sure. Not that I'm in the habit of doing so or anything.

So there you have it - the grand tour of Chez le Geek. Yes it will be cramped and I'm sure we'll be anxious to be in much roomier quarters, but we're grateful to be able to be near the building site and I'm sure any discomfort this place affords will only serve to keep us on track with our schedule!

And by the way, just take a look at that sky. Have you ever seen one so blue? I'm pretty sure the sky is about 10 shades bluer in the country than it is here in the city. I just can't wait to live out there every day.

The Geek Speaks

2005-08-26T19:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't had much to say since we started this project. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the geekwif has been speaking quite well for both of us. As you can see, she's posted some of my doodles for the yard and whatnot, and other than that I really haven't had much else to add to the blog. Not sure if I do now, but it seemed good that I should put up something, even if it was just a bit of inane chatter to fill space.

So anyway, yeah, we're pretty excited about the whole dome-home, do-it-yourself, self-sufficient off-grid living thing. Not exactly sure why, except I have this wierd thing about doing stuff that most people won't do, and avoiding doing the stuff that most people will do. Example: it seems like lots of people want a nice 4-bedroom/3-bath house in the 'burbs on 2.5 acres, in a nice development where the biggest choice in housing will be which shade of beige or white for their siding. Call me crazy, but that sounds booorrrriiinnnggg! Our first house was a fixer-upper in a not-so-great neighborhood that we bought for a song and fixed up. The neighborhood has improved over the years, too, and it is the profit from this house that will pay for the land and provide a down-payment on the construction loan. "Sweat equity" is a wonderful thing, and we intend to capitalize on it for this next house as well.

Another example: just about everybody I know drives either a minivan, SUV or truck. A small minority of them actually need such a vehicle, the rest just want one... I don't know why. Status symbol? Fitting in with the crowd? Whatever -- give me a small, fast sports car with a tight turning radius and manual transmission any day! Of course, since we're not made of money I will just have to "settle" for my 2000 Celica GT-S ;-)

After the house is built, I'm really excited to get started on some serious landscaping. I never thought I'd get pumped about moving dirt and rocks around, but the thought of building my own recirculating waterfall/stream/pond just sets me all a-quiver. And of course, before we get there, I get to build my own house! After the foundation is poured, we will have a dome-raising party. This is basically a weekend thing, where you invite all your friends and family to come help you put together the dome framework and exterior sheathing. They provide the muscle, we provide the pizza and pop (beer at the end of the day).

Even though we are general contracting the house and will certainly subcontract much of the difficult work, I am perfectly capable of doing the shell and exterior sheathing, including window and door installation, insulating the dome, interior paneling, running electrical in the walls (along with network cabling and speaker wire, of course!), and lots of other stuff. I could do the plumbing but I just don't want to (anyway the city won't let me, they require a plumber to do it), the roof, the drywall and interior framing, etc. Some of those jobs might be fun, but I simply don't have time to do it all myself and still get the house done in a reasonable amount of time.

What else to say? You may have noticed I originally wanted to have my own shooting range in our yard, but that won't work out due to zoning restrictions. I do enjoy shooting, both handgun and rifle -- I bought my first handgun last year (Beretta M92 Brigadier), and am already looking at a smaller one that will be suitable for concealed carry (Cz P-01, if you must know). Yes, I have a concealed carry permit -- I would prefer a more "unfettered" Second Amendment to the Constitution (that is, an "originalist" interpretation rather than a "living document" interpretation), but I will follow the law even if it grates on my nerves at times.

I am, of course, a computer geek -- specifically, I am a systems administrator and programmer-analyst for a rapidly growing manufacturing company in the Midwest USA. Most of our software is home grown and quite functional, even the code I didn't write myself ;-) I'm a Linux user at home, and we run some Linux at work but we are basically a Microsoft shop. I have to admit I like programming in VB.Net and C#, while my Linux programming skills are rather limited to lightweight Perl and Bash scripting. I've played around with Mono (on Linux) and used it to teach myself C# at home, but haven't really written anything useful with it.

I am also a Christian. This fact probably says more about me than anything else, though not everyone likes what it says (or what they think it says, anyway). As a Christian I know something about faith in the face of difficult circumstances, and believing in something in spite of evidence to the contrary. But quite frankly, I think that it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. I could lay out all sorts of logical arguments about why I believe (or why you should believe) in the Christian God as opposed to some other god or no god at all, but in my experience that is a waste of time and energy. What counts is a life changed by the grace of Christ, by the miracle of spiritual rebirth -- nothing else matters. Not even a dome home. But we're still excited :-)

Landscape Plans

2005-08-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

The Geek has been practicing his landscaping and drawing skills. Here's what he's come up with for landscaping plans. Of course, this will be carried out over the next several years and may change as we go. Click on the pictures to see a full-size view.

This is a somewhat-to-scale plan for the entire lot. Contrary to common map-making procedures, south is up on our map. There is a small forest of pre-existing trees along the south side. We will plant the privacy trees drawn in along the east and west sides. The Geek originally wanted to build an in-ground shooting range, but we found out our lot is zoned residential, not rural, so that plan has been scrapped.

There are several features we would like to include in our landscape: a fire pit, and above-ground pool, a water garden, a veggie garden, flower beds, fruit trees, and a volleyball sandpit for starters. The placement of these features has changed a bit (see following picture), but the idea is pretty much the same. We may end up spreading it out a bit more than this since we have plenty of space available, or we may add other features over the years. I guess time will tell.

The placement of the fruit trees in this drawing will be changed since the septic ended up right there. The trees will probably go to the west (right) of that. I plan to plant flower beds on top of the drain field and septic area. The vaguely backwards-P-shaped thing is a circular driveway. He wrote "flower garden" in the center, but the two birch trees are located in what will probably be the center of the driveway.

This plan is more recent, so it has changed a bit. We'd like to have a major water feature with a waterfall and stream leading to a pond - all man-made and pump-fed.

The little square piece coming off of the southwest side of the dome house is a 3-story extension. The upper floor will be our master bedroom. The middle floor will be our dining/sun room. The lower floor will be my gardening/craft/all things Geekwif room and a walkout. The path leads from my room to the garden and also to the left toward the other landscape features.

The steps coming off of the southeast side of the extension lead down to the deck which we want to have lower than the main floor level so it doesn't obstruct the view out of that side of the house. There will be 5 large triangle shaped windows creating a panoramic view on that side.

The Geek would like me to offer this disclaimer regarding the elevation drawing in the upper left corner: He was in a hurry when he drew this and was using a pen, so he couldn't fix it up to look as nice as he would like. Anyway, that is what it will look like if you were to look at the house from the west. The slope may appear a bit steeper than it actually is, but this gives the general idea.

So there it is. Now, if all goes as according to our normal procedures, it will change several times by the time it becomes a reality. But that's all part of the fun of it, right?

Disaster Averted

2005-08-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we had a bit of a scare...well, I was scared anyway. We received an email from our realtor informing us that the seller's agent had been out showing the lot next to ours and noticed that the space marked for the septic system was very close to or even over the property line.

I pretty much went into a panic. How could I let something like this happen? If I'm going to be our general contractor, I need to think of these things. I just assumed that the perk tester would be careful to test within our property lines. What are we going to do if it is outside of our borders?

See, by the time I received the message, I knew the septic system had probably already been installed. The septic guy (I'll call him Mr. S.) was supposed to be out there yesterday and planned to finish in one day. It had rained here in the morning, so I called Mr. S. thinking maybe he was rained out. Nope. His wife assured me that he did finish and informed me that he was out of town for a day and could not be reached. Aaaahhh!!!!

I forwarded the email to the Geek, asking him to pray and secretly hoping he might have some wise counsel in the matter....and he did. He called when he was leaving work and suggested that we go out to the lot right after dinner and see for ourselves. He knew that I wouldn't get a decent night's sleep if I didn't know.

I called our realtor and asked a few questions, like "What do we do if we are out of our property lines?" To which she answered that we'd have to negotiate with the owner - which essentially is the city since we'd be intruding on the easement if we were over - or it would have to be moved. Great. There goes another $4000 we can't afford. So, armed with a 100' tape measure, and even more panic than before, I left to meet my dear Geek at Perkins where we had a nice dinner while he calmly assured me that everything was going to work out just fine. He is so good for me.

After dinner we made the drive out to the lot. Nothing quiets the soul quite like a nice drive in the country. By the time we got there I was feeling better already, though anxious to obtain the answer to our question. We pulled out the tape measure and measured 40' from the edge of the road (which is the north border of our lot). When my husband marked the 40' point, we still had a good 15' beyond him to the edge of the drainfield.

Whew! What a relief! The panic instantly disappeared and from that point on, our little unexpected trip was pure joy. We snapped a few pictures of the new septic (see below) which hadn't been covered yet, presumably so it can be inspected first. The Geek snapped a picture of me - not a particularly flattering one, but the first we have of me at our new home.

Yes, it's beginning to feel like home even though currently it's just a great big field with a few trees and a big underground tank with some pipes sticking up. We agreed that we have a strange mix of feelings there - a hybrid of "Is this wonderful thing really happening?" and "This place already feels like home."

I can't wait until the day when "driving home" becomes the drive away from the city, rather than the drive into the city. That will be a glorious day!

The Septic is In!

2005-08-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

As I've probably mentioned before, I find it perplexing that the first thing the county wants us to do is to get our septic installed. Why not electricity or well? I don't know why it's all about the septic, but I have to admit, I've never been so excited about a sewer in my life.

It was installed yesterday and we went to take a look. Here are some pictures of what will be buried underground in front of and slightly to the side (northwest) of our house.

The Tank.

It's big. See the green pipe sticking up in the back? That will be where we plug in the camper we will live in while building. There will be a pipe going from that spot (underground) to the house (which will be to the left of this photo) when the time comes.

The Tank and Drain Field.

This is looking from the other direction at the tank and down toward the drain field. The four white pipes (two close and two farther away) are the vents. Those will stick up from the ground, but I'll plant a nice flower bed in this area to disguise them. Considering what will be in the ground beneath, I bet that will be one flourishing flower bed!

The Drain Field.

This is looking back on it from the road. The two closer pipes are the ones that were further in the previous picture. Just imagine, in a few months our home will be just to the left of this picture and next year, perhaps there will be the start of a new flower bed right here.

Progress is Good!

2005-08-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

The Geek and I met our septic guy out at the lot yesterday. Everything looks hunky-dory! The location we wanted for our home will work out perfectly with the location of the septic system/drain field. He has obtained the sanitary permit and he will be out there first thing Monday morning to get started. By the end of tomorrow we should have our septic system in place!

This means that...
a) we have taken the first step toward building our home, and
b) our existence will now be recognized by the city and county and therefore by anyone else who we might hire as contractors on our project.

I find it really funny that that it's all wrapped around the sanitary permit. Why not the building permit or a land use permit? This little piece of paper is, in fact, our first step toward having the power to obtain a land use permit and ultimately a building permit. With it we can now obtain a fire number and address which means we can hire contractors to dig our well, run our electric, excavate, and pour our foundation!

Needless to say, we are very excited!

Pictures of the Lot

2005-08-01T18:55:00.000-05:00

There hasn't been a lot to say about the building process yet. We've hired a septic guy, so that should be done in the next week or two. Once he's obtained our sanitary permit (hopefully today or tomorrow) we'll have an address and people will actually believe we exist. Around here, everything else follows this. If you don't have a sanitary permit, you don't have an address and you can't get electric, telephone, a land use permit - nothing. So this is a pretty significant step forward.

In the meantime, we visited the lot on a sunny day and took some pictures to share. Enjoy!

This was taken at about the midpoint of the length of the lot, facing the road. Do you see the very thin light colored line crossing between the two trees? That's the road. We have approximately that same distance behind me too. Six acres goes a long way! Especially when you're accustomed to about a 1/8 acre city lot.

Looking southeast across the lot. Mostly tall weeds and a few trees. Pretty in a "Little House on the Prairie" way. And it's ours. :-)

I love birch trees. Something about that papery white bark and the way they stand tall no matter their size. We discovered this pretty little birch on this visit. There's another even smaller one behind it. I'm so happy to have birch trees!

Speaking of trees, look very closely and you'll see a fat, fuzzy little baby evergreen in the center of this picture, growing among the abundant weeds.

More Pictures - The Building Site

2005-08-01T18:13:00.000-05:00

These were taken the same day as the pictures above.

The Geek is standing on our building site. There will be a big beautiful dome home right there one of these days. We'll have to move the trees you see here and a couple others. We don't want to just dig them up. They should do just fine in another spot on the lot and they're all pretty small, so it shouldn't be a big deal. They look huge in this picture but he's standing quite far behind them, so it's just an illusion.

This is the view we will see out of our south facing span of windows in the living room. We call it Fangorn Forest. A small portion of those trees are on our lot.

Here's a closer look, peering into Fangorn from just outside the forest.

Last, but not least, this is our southwest view. This will be what we see when we sit on the little deck off our master bedroom, only from higher up. Beautiful. Just looking at it makes me want to breathe in deeply to absorb all that sweet fresh air.

Why Dome Geeks?

2005-07-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

Well, here we are. The new blog is up and running - open for business. I (the Geekwif) have spun this off of my other blog (the Geekwif), so that those of you looking only for information and updates on the building of our dome home do not have to wade through the sea of my blathering on my personal blog.

You may wonder - why Dome Geeks? I was trying to think of a good name for this blog and was unsuccessful until I was speaking with my neighbor the other day about our move. When I told him that we would be building a dome home, his reply was, "Oh, you're dome geeks".

It was perfect. The Geek is a geek and proud of it. He works with computers all day and comes home and jumps on the computer again. He has turned me into a lesser geek too. My Mac is one of my most used tools, even though I don't enjoy computers for computers sake. Add to this the fact that we are building a relatively unusual home, and I guess Dome Geeks just fits.

We will be posting updates and pictures as we move along in the process of building our dream home. We hope you enjoy following along with our progress.

Dome Floor Plan Scan - Basement

2005-07-03T22:43:00.000-05:00

As promised, here is the basement...with the super secret spygeek information replaced with super secret code. As before, click the picture for a bigger picture, and the link below the pic for an even BIGGER picture. (Beware that the BIGGER one will load slowly on a dial-up connection.)

Lower Floor (basement)

The walkout in the upper right is my (the Geekwif's) room! This room will be for crafting, sewing, gardening, and laundry. We want to have the whole house wired for computers and the computer closet will be where everything comes together. The Geek wants to have some fancy entertainment equipment in the entertainment room. (Maybe he'll talk about that sometime. I don't know what all he wants in there. That's his department.) Just like the Geekwif, the Geek needs a place to call his own too. The office/den might end up being his room - or he might use the bedroom on the main floor once we've moved up to the master bedroom on the upper level.

Dome Floor Plan Scan

2005-07-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

Following are pictures of the first draft of our dome home floor plans. Only the main floor and upper floor are posted here. There was secret spygeek information in the basement plans that has to be eliminated before I can post it. I'll do that asap.

Meanwhile, enjoy the show. If you click on the picture, it will bring up the full-size version of that picture. For an even BIGGER version - to get all the gory details - click on the name of the floor below the pic.

Main Floor

The entry (on the left) will be between the dome garage and the dome house. We've made a few changes. The kitchen is too small. (The designer had to change it to allow for a flat wall for a window in the bedroom. We added a little space by extending the kitchen counter/bar.

On the top, you can see three sort of trapezoid shapes along the wall. Those are triangle shaped windows (5 actually - they point up, down, up, down, up) which create a panoramic view outside the living room. It will look out over our "back yard" with a beautiful old forest as a backdrop.

There will be a couple other changes too, but we'll post the updated version when it is completed. Our plan is to complete this floor first, move in, and complete the upper floor while we live on the main floor. Then we'll move to our master bedroom upstairs and start working on the basement.

Upper Floor (loft)

This is phase two. Once we move into the main floor, we'll work on completing this floor. Again, there are a few changes here. We will have a view cupola, which is a small room that kind of sticks out of the top of the house. It will have windows all around. I've always been a huge fan of little spaces to curl up, read a book, take a nap, dream, etc. This is the ultimate example of such a space.

We want a dormer window (see where it is noted on the bottom left) with a window seat - another great little space. For some reason the designer left it out so we'll be discussing that to see if we can add it back in.

For Those Who May Not Have Seen a Dome Home Before...

2005-06-27T13:04:00.000-05:00

This is an example of a dome home. This one has the natural wood siding like ours will, but we won't have as high of a riser (the wood part), so there won't be as much siding.

We Did It!

2005-06-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

We closed on the lot. We are now officially landowners. I suppose technically we already were since we own a small home in the 'hood, but when your personal space is the size of a postage stamp it doesn't really feel like land-ownership. Add in the fact that this home was purchased with the intention of fixing it up and selling it (otherwise known as fixing it up for some stranger to live in), and...well, let's just say it feels good to own some land. This is the place where we will build the house in which we plan to grow old. I told the Geek this morning that it's like a 20 lb. weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Yup, feels good.

Building a Home Together

2005-06-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

The Geek and I are planning to build a home this year. We have been planning this home for over a decade and are very excited to finally see it coming to pass. We want to build in the country with plenty of space around us, yet close enough to the city so the Geek can continue at his current place of employment.

When we first started looking, we thought our requirements were unique. Who else would want to live out in the country? Doesn't everyone else want to live in the city, right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of it all? Surely there is plenty of land out there just waiting for us to find it, sporting all the amenities we want like trees, water, and space.

Right.

Nine months after we began actively looking for a piece of land, we are finally closing on a lot tomorrow. It seems now that EVERYONE wants what we want - to be away from the city but close enough to work there. The only difference is that most of the people in our situation are content to live in a development where they will still live close enough to their neighbor to carry on a conversation from the front porches and where their home is one of a million cut from the same cookie-cutter.

We are going to be building a dome home. Yes, it's a round house. No, it's not underground. No we're not hippies...well, maybe a little. Our fascination with domes started one summer shortly after we were married. We were at the State Fair and ran across a booth for a company who has been building dome homes for 30 years. We were both vaguely familiar with the concept since the Geek's parents had considered building a dome some years before that and when I was a teenager, I had accompanied friends when they stayed for a week with an uncle who lived in a dome. We started studying the literature they offered and attending their biannual tour of dome homes, and found that domes are incredibly efficient both in space and energy, stunningly beautiful, exceptionally strong, and best of all - intensely unique.

This year, after over a decade of planning, we build our dome. The process will be chronicled here and you can join us for reports of the joys and trials of building a home whether you are interested in dome homes or in the process of building a home of any kind. Who knows. Maybe you'll find yourself interested in a dome home too!