Live Time! A house building adventure...

9 years ago

Come build a house with me!

The foundation is in, and framing has just started. This is a custom designed house, stylistically hard to peg but the closest description would be Arts and Crafts with extra Asian influence. It's in the mountains of North Carolina.

The house is on a slope, so half the lower level (where the bedrooms will be) will be underground yet will feel in the treetops. The upper level will have views from the open floor plan.

Watch (and help!) this house go from a hole in the ground to a totally finished and furnished home. It will be an adventure!

Featured Answer

TraceyE

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

HI Stryker, I'm sorry to hear about your separation, especially after the work you have put into your house. I was in the same position nearly two years ago- ex husband decided (without any warning or anyone else involved) that he didn't want to be married anymore- we had only had our house less than a year and were only half way through renovating it- Selling at this point would no see us get out money out of the house. I was hurt and cross as I had only just started a contracting job in public health and was setting up a work from home data analysis service. I ended up closing down the data analysis job (it would take too long to get established) I went onto permanant staff with Public health, I used the revolving line of credit to complete the house- and realized I still wasn't bringing in enough- I missed out on a promotion that would have made keeping my house feasible so had to do the hard sit down and think about my options- I could get a second job to make ends meet and never be at home to enjoy it or I could sell up- if I sold I would not be able to buy in the same city so that meant giving up my job and buying in another part of the country.....or if I was moving then move big time. My mum needed help to maintain her house and someone around to help her or she would need to move to a retirement home which she didn't want to do- so we have sold her house and my house, and are moving half way around the world to move back to where we have more family (my wee family consists of my Mum, my daughters and myself. ) it's been the best decision ever- I felt the fear but did it anyway. In the separation paperwork the retirement funds had all been in exs name and were to be split equally-buying him out wasn't possible. Because we hadn't held the house long enough we didn't sell for what we should have but that's ok -I am free to set up again somewhere else. In the begin I wanted to be the poster child for being civilized , but I did meet with a divorce lawyer to get some info! All I can recommend is be true to yourself and get some perspective. All my paperwork and house sale came together on the 7th Feb- my wee family flew out on the 8th- we are happily holidaying in London before we reach out final destination and our new home.

Good luck I hope everything works out well for you :)

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Comments (12K)

stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
It puts me more in mind of Halloween than Christmas.

I'd love to see stars before electricity was harnessed.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago

Owlfred and I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas!
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samoken
5 years ago
Back at cha, girl. 2019 is going to be a great year for you!
stryker thanked samoken
zazfuzzroc
5 years ago
Merry Christmas Stryker... have a great day! xo

Happy Holidays to all that pass by... :)
stryker thanked zazfuzzroc
indomom
5 years ago
Merry Christmas! Love Owlfred!
stryker thanked indomom
glschisler
5 years ago
I hope y’all had a lovely Christmas Day with friends, family and delicious food! :))
stryker thanked glschisler
happyleg
5 years ago
I had a spirit filled Christmas with olive branch I extended. <3 I hope yours was peaceful.
stryker thanked happyleg
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
I'm glad you had a good time, happy. Discord is no fun, especially furing the holidays.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
I had fun with my people. We made gingerbread people and animals and other things. Here are two, that are as yet, uneaten. One is slightly obscene.
liasch
5 years ago
Lol on the cookie. Happy Holy Days, peeps!
ladma
5 years ago
Happy New Year, Stryker. May the new year bring you peace and happiness.
stryker thanked ladma
glschisler
5 years ago
Stryker, will you be teaching any art classes where you work this spring?
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
I'm not sure, glassy, but I doubt it. I feel barely competent myself, much less a teacher. The biggest challenge is to come up with a class where people can paint or draw something in less than two hours and be done with it and feel satisfied. Who knows if that sunflower class I was going to teach would have been a success. It wasn't posted in a way that any customers were aware of it, so it didn't happen.

It sure would make sense for me to get a class going. If I could get just a few students, the return would be very worthwhile.

I've been putting more hours in and may work full time (yuck) so I can get health insurance. They would have to make it a management position, though, and while they are interested in giving me such a position, it's not currently available.

Ironically, the more time I spend there, the less time I have to develop any art plan or my own skills. In an effort to push myself, I recently played with pastels, making crude animals inspired by cave art. It's fun.

I do have one student...a riding student!
liasch
5 years ago
Yes that’s the catch 22 about working full-time. Then you don’t have the time for creative things. Teaching is paying fairly well for me, $25 an hour although that does not include the time it takes to plan. However it’s not really what you would call even a part-time job.

Stryker...my suggestion would be rather than try to design single classes that are a one off, find a situation where you could teach a series.

I’m not sure what the set up is in the USA but you might have a local community college or city recreation department that offers evening classes. Or weekends...whatever works for you.

My classes are each two hours and I run them in 6 to 8 week blocks.

You might also be able to run classes out of your home if you’re accessible to a wider population and have space. I have a friend who is extremely successful teaching young children in classes of 10 to 15. She is always very booked and she charges over $100 for each student.

The advantage to doing a series is you can devote a bit more time to developing the students’ techniques, versus just creating a product. You can still have a product in mind, but you can do some introductory colour mixing and brush work and lay the foundation. Based on looking at your work I would say that you would be quite capable of doing an introductory acrylics class. If you have worked from photographs yourself, you can put the onus on the student to bring in a photograph that they could work from.

The fun thing about doing a series like that is that you brush up on your own skills and figure out some new tricks at the same time.
stryker thanked liasch
rredpenn
5 years ago
I wanna see your cave art!! :) It sounds fun!

I'm wishing I was your student. I'd pay 100/hr to pick your brain-- professionally, that is. LOL I'm trying to learn how to doodle from a book. Not the best, but I am giving it a 6-week chance.

And yay I am happy to hear about the riding student! I was one of those, too, once upon a time... So nice to have a one to one relationship with a student that way... how cool for the student to have private riding lessons. I hope that can keep going for you. That sounds like a good way to keep your horse involved in life, and help w her boarding too.

My horse was a former school/trail horse. He was awesome w little kiddos, but could be a tur d with me. I liked that about him. He was a good boy but still had some spirit, too.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement, licksch. I guess confidence is the lacking element. There never seems to be enough time to better plan my time, either. This divorce stuff is still grinding away. Once some of that is settled I might be able to get my act together.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
What was your horse's name again, rred? Was it Fred?

We'll see about my student. She's inclined to Western stuff and my horse and my experience are more into dressage and jumping. The basics are the same, though, so we've got a lot of ground to cover for a while.

Picture of cave art coming up.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago

I think I'll go back and fill in where the paper shows through. The pic makes it more obvious.
liasch
5 years ago
I really like the idea of cave art. A whole category in and of itself. You may have invented a new genre! Drawings capture that primal quality about horses and animals in general.
rredpenn
5 years ago
Love it! I agree w Licksch. What a fun direction to go w your art.

My horse's name was Phil. Say it with a German accent..."Feel." That was how it was pronounced... they guy who I got him from, and boarded him with, was German, and had a thick accent. LOL I called him Felipé or Phillip or Filthy Phil or Flip... depending on the day, his mood or the condition of his coat. LOL Flip was really the best name for him... LOL He had an ornery streak, but was a big ole lug of sweetness too.
happyleg
5 years ago
Beautiful horse.
stryker thanked happyleg
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
Phil! That's right.

Cave art's fun. Takes the pressure off and I like primal stuff. I think I'll do some more tomorrow night. Maybe I'll graduate to Egyptian after that.
glschisler
5 years ago
:))
liasch
5 years ago
When I did my talk at the library I brought in some portfolio pieces that I didn’t have space for in the exhibit.I discovered a small bit of cave art. Mixed in with everything else. This was done with oil pastels and of course the colour isn’t cave art at all. It’s too bright for that. It’s more the style of the figure and the outlining.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
There are several interesting primal things going on in that piece. In addition to the animal and the journey, I see a uterus and umbilical cords.
happyleg
5 years ago
A pink cat ^^
fissfiss
5 years ago
One of the things that drove my kitchen update last summer was getting the sink and dishwasher off the outside wall...they had frozen up last winter....(because we had run out of heating oil, as did many people, the demand was so high, they just could not keep up.) my brother’s old farmhouse has laundry pipes that get slushy. We have a little space heater for him to run when the temps get below zero....the electric bill suggests that he runs it ALL the time.
Spray foam insulation is sold in a can for the homeowner...any chance to stick the nozzle down the hole and aim it to a useful place?
fissfiss
5 years ago
Whoops, wrong thread!
happyleg
5 years ago
It happens & is ok fiss.
stryker thanked happyleg
rredpenn
5 years ago
Stryker, at my haircut on Friday, my stylist and I were discussing her chickens out in their coop, all shivery and fluffed up, and her drafty "new" house out in the country (it's not new, LOL), and my addition progress (getting tile in last two bedrooms.) The conversation just led us naturally to cold floors... and electric warming pads for chickens... and getting more new rugs for my bedrooms.

So here's our next million dollar patent idea... heated (and stylish) electric rugs for the home. I thought about your downstairs areas too. So, are you in?
liasch
5 years ago
I am in...my kitchen floor is freezing. Always put two layers on in winter.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
I like that idea, rred! I bet they'd sell. Who wouldn't want a heated rug in the bathroom, or beside the bed when getting up on a cold morning, or in a drafty kitchen.
fissfiss
5 years ago
Until you can plug in Rred’s invention, what about a GelPro mat for the kitchen? We love them for standing on for long periods of time, but they would keep your feet off the cold floor, too.
liasch
5 years ago
I actually put wool rugs down on the floor, on top of the bamboo mats I have laid over the old linoleum tiles. I take the rugs up in the summer and leave the bamboo down, to protect the old floors from further wear and tear. Realistically the floor in the kitchen needs to be redone. I’m just a little nervous about spending my savings on the floor when other emergencies could come up. It would be easy enough to sink all my savings into improving this house and that wouldn’t be wise.
samoken
5 years ago
Printmaking was not my first choice and I don’t wake up especially excited on the days of class, but here is one of my first prints. I’m starting to appreciate the process.
Depo
5 years ago
Your print is awesome Sam! I really like it.
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks for sharing that, sam. You should frame it! How does this printmaking process work? The only thing I did along those lines was etching, where black ink is transferred from grooves when pressed with paper. If you were to make another print, would it be the same as this one? How is the pigment applied?
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
Here's an etching I did way back when.

It's hard to take of picure of it with those darn reflections.
liasch
5 years ago
Printmaking was my major when I went to the art college. There’s all different types, lithography,silk screen, etching, monoprints etc. Or carved, Lino and wood block.

So it depends on what kind you are doing. I did lithography and etching but I have done the other ones as well.
samoken
5 years ago
The print is a mono print. Oil ink was placed on a piece of plexiglass and then the plate was sent through the press. You can print twice with a plate but the second time through is much lighter and is called the ghost print. This is a ghost print. That being said the piece went through the press twice, both times as the ghost. The first time I did the background, then let the ink dry, cleaned the plate, and then created another plate to be printed on top of the first layer. It was a 2 day process. We are to dabble in many types of printmaking so I think we will get to etching as most everyone that is in printmaking II are doing etchings.
samoken
5 years ago
Love your etching Stryker.
stryker thanked samoken
rredpenn
5 years ago
I remember as a kid in jr high doing the linoleum tile carving kind of prints. Remember that kind? We carved into a kind of rubbery tile thingie with real sharp V-shaped tools, then slapped some ink on them somehow, and made wrapping paper or cards or something like that.

That is the extent of my art-making education, which ended in 7th grade art class. LOL
stryker
Original Author
5 years ago
It would be fun to try a linoleum cut. The weirdest part of these prints is that the finished product is backward from the way you draw it.
glschisler
5 years ago
RRed, my printing experience was exactly as your while I was in the 6th grade :))
ladma
5 years ago
We just used potatoes for prints.
printesa
5 years ago
Since you were talking about GelPro mats, I thought maybe someone wants one and they have a special. GMA deals and steals is running a special today so if you go through their link, the mat is 50% off Here is the link,,just browse down the page

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/shop/story/gma-deals-steals-big-savings-kitchen-winners-save-60730237
stryker thanked printesa
glschisler
5 years ago
Thank you Printesa, I just ordered 2! Light gray for the condo & wheat for the lake house. I have been saying for a few years that I wanted to buy them to use on those tile floors. :)
liasch
5 years ago
An interesting thing to do FYI is to take your monoprint or etching, as a base, and then draw into it. Particularly the more faded runs. Use that as the background and then draw on top of it. I’ve done that a lot and it’s quite a lot of fun. It’s interesting to see the number of different ways you can develop an image. I’m looking to see if I can find any photographs of etchings I have kicking around.

Well here’s one; based on a watercolour that I did. I wish now that I had done an edition of this one. It was a bit of a pain to print up as I had to wipe the colours on separately and I did sell a few of these. This is an oldie but goodie though done in the early 70s… So there you go. I love etching but I haven’t done much with it since I left the college as you need the equipment.
liasch
5 years ago
Stryker, left a comment for you, on my thread, about owls.
stryker thanked liasch
rredpenn
5 years ago
Thought of you Stryker, at the San Diego Zoo on Tuesday.

Came around a corner and saw this--Fake Cave Art! LOLOL
stryker thanked rredpenn