These pictures were taken about a week ago. We have even more snow now! Will we ever be able to get the roof on?

The house is starting to keep us very busy. And it's soooooo cold!

Roofing and siding are our next major projects.

This picture shows our part of our great room. It is taken from the living room, and you can see the dining room on the left, and the kitchen on the right. The half-wall will be a bar.

Our stair and half-bath. There will be a closet under the stair.

We have had so much rain and snow and freezing temperatures, it is crazy! Well, our house is very clean, I guess. It's been washed thoroughly many times!

Timberline Lodge with Charis

Lisa and her sister Charis at Timberline Lodge during Christmas break. Charis had never been up on the mountain, so we took her up for some fun in the snow and hot chocolate in the lodge.

Friends visit...

Mark and Kimberly came out to see our house today. So did Seth Chase and Tony Whipps but they were a little camera shy and were more focused on summiting Mt. Pietzold and figuring out a new name for the house. These were the three original Dudes at the Dude Ranch where we came up with the name "Dude Ranch" for the last house.

Trusses have arrived...

Well another week has gone by and a little bit more has been built on the house. Friday the trusses were delivered after a huge wind storm that came down the side of Mt. Pietzold on Thursday. Once again the ice and snow came back to our building site making everything just a little white and slick.

This is the view of our bonus room. This room has a look you will not find in any ordinary home. The whole ceiling is one big skylight. We figure this will help us save money on roofing materials and lights. At night we will have the street lights that will shine in to give us light.

North Gresham Choir Sings at Zoo Lights

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006. Lisa's after-school choir sang at the Washington Park Zoo, "Zoo Lights." The weather was perfect--cold but not too cold, and very little rain. We rode on the zoo train (after waiting in line for probably 45 minutes), visited the sleepy monkeys, and watched three of the elephants eat their dinner--indoors. The lights were beautiful, and it was a fun evening for both of us.

34 choir kids came with their families, and everyone had a great time.

Walls and first floor

Here in America we like to put walls up on our houses. It's not to keep people out but to give us something to paint. I personally don't like to paint but my brother does work for Miller Paint so we decided to put our walls up just to make sure he will still have a job. If you think about it every one you know that has a wall has paint on it. Even the Caveman painted his walls. But the people that don't have walls they don't paint theirs. Deep Thoughts by Jeremy Pietzold

Flooring

Here is picture of Lisa and my Dad as they cleaned up the job site. The photo was taken from the summit of Mt. Pietzold using a Sony Cyber-Shot with 4.0 Mega Pixels model number DSC-P9. The lens had a 6x zoom on it so even with that the people still look like ants from atop Mt. Pietzold.

Snow Snow Snow Snow....

Here are a few pictures of our house a few days after Thanksgiving as it snowed.

We were going to take a trip over Mt. Pietzold but the pass got snowed in and a truck full of pallets and scrap wood lost its load blocking it for days.

Baby Madison

Welcome Baby Madison Pietzold!!!

Our niece was born to Jacob and Jamie on October 25th, 2006.

She is now three weeks old and is busy growing. ...and eating, and crying, and sleeping, and sleeping, mostly sleeping ...A very cute healthy Baby!

Post and Beam

Well on Tuesday this week we had our post and beam done. As you can see, our sunken living room in the front of the picture and off in the distance you can see Pietzold Mountain. The wind has been blowing so hard that I have had to put the plastic back on the mountain three times now. The last time we added gravel bags tied down with rope and the wind still blew it off. I have now climbed Pietzold Mountain several times and now offer guided tours. We have great views of other parts of Sandy from there that you would never see at the base of the mountain, like way down the street and over the fence into our neighbors yard. I am waiting for a clear night because the stars are so much brighter when your that much farther up in elevation.

We had to drain our lake and pool because we were afraid the kids would sneak down and jump off of Pietzold Mountain and it really wasn't that deep. So no more playing in the free pool.

modern day jousting

This is how the modern day jousting is done. You go to Home Depot and pick up eight 20ft. 3 inch ABS pipe and strap it to your vehicle. This didn't work so good with the MR2 I had last year so I upgraded to a truck. The pipe must then stick at least 5ft in front of the vehicle. You then just drive around and just talk about modern day jousting like its the new in thing with any one you stop and talk to. Its a great conversation piece.

Lake Front home

Well we have always wanted to live at the base a mountain. And that is where we are building our house at the base of Pietzold Mountain. I am covering it so people won't line up to ski on it while we are away at work.

We have always also wanted a Lake side house and it looks like God brought us that as well. Be careful what you pray for. :)

And one more thing we have always wanted was an indoor swimming pool, and it looks like we have that as well.

Well as you can see we have had a very wet November. We hope that changes soon.

Foundation

Here is the footing after it was poured. This is just great weather we had for doing this.

















Now the foundation walls go up on to the foundation. They set the walls on top of the footing














This was the friendly pump trunk that pumped the cement way up in the air and over to our forms for us.
















Here is the final product the next day. The start of our new home.

Footing

From the top of Pietzold Mountain the cars look like toys.


You always need a good footing in any house so here are some pictures of our houses footing.

I always wanted a Giant Slip-N-Slide

Well it started to rain today so we had to cover our new mountain of dirt with plastic. It was all I could do not to slide down the side.

Dig out pictures

Just getting started, Friday morning, Oct. 13

Blueprints--Front of house (will face South, facing Dubarko)




Blueprints--Side of house (will face East, facing Davis St.)

Blue Prints

Blueprints--first floor & second floor:

Breaking Ground

Friday, October 13, 2006 It's the day we've been waiting for! Finally we broke ground! It's not necessarily according to the time-line of our original plans, and yes, we're getting started on our project at exactly the wrong time of year. But hey, it's been nice all week, so who's to say that it won't continue to be beautiful weather until we finish, right?

We were so excited earlier this week when Tim the excavator agreed to do our digout. Tim grew up with Jeremy, and did his digout for the Miller St. house. We really wanted Tim to do it, and Tim really wanted to do it, too. However, he's incredibly busy right now and originally said he wouldn't be able to do our digout until December, or even January. When we reluctantly asked who else he could recommend to do it for us, he hesitated, and said, "Let me come out tonight and have a look, maybe I can squeeze it in tomorrow." So that night we visited the sight to make sure all the posts were accurate and everything was good to go, and now, just a couple of days later, the digout is just about done! Tim the excavator is really really good at what he does, and we definitely feel blessed that he was willing to carve out time for us.

The property has a slight slope to it, which becomes even more obvious with the digging. We now have to decide whether to dig down a bit for the garage, or to have several steps on the front up to our front door. In addition, we've decided it would be smart to build our retaining walls in the back yard now, rather than wait until after the house is built.

The Pietzold's at Timberline Lodge