September 2006

Not much happened in September. The permit for the house was still not approved until late in the month. The garage was a dry place to start to stage things and a place to store the Speedster for the winter.

August 2006

In August, Chris took 3 weeks off from work, and framed up the garage. See the pictures of building the garage.

July 2006

In the middle of July, Chris and Andrew framed up the forms for the monolitic slab in a couple of days, and then the following Monday, several others helped with the concrete pour.

June 2006

Temporary power was hooked up so that progress on the garage could be made. Water was also hooked up at this point. Excavation for the garage was also done.

May 2006

Major clearing of the site was done in the middle to end of May. Orcas Excavators came out and in a short time, cleared all the major trees in the house and garage sites. Pictures.

Winter 2005

Most of winter and early spring was done planning, working on the house design, and getting the garage permit.

Fall 2005

We hired Ben Trogdon Architects to help us design our house. We researched several different prefab type options, but due to the site location, topography, and the road going up to the property, nothing panned out.

Spring/Summer 2005

During the spring and summer after purchasing the property, Chris spent lots of time clearing brush and opening up the top part of the property. Sea Spray or "Hardhack" brush was everywhere.

February 2005

For quite a while we knew we wanted to move out of Seattle, so that Sam and Arla could grow up in a smaller town, and were we could be more involved in the local community and school. We looked around Whidbey, Bellingham, and several other area, but finally decided on Orcas Island.

After a couple months of looking around on the island, we finally found a 2.2 acre parcel on the top of Pioneer Hill, that had a Doe Bay Water membership, and a 3 bedroom drainfield already installed. It was very overgrown, but we thought it had a lot of potential, and the price was reasonable. We took the plunge with the goal of moving to Orcas when Arla started Kindergarden, in September of 2007.