It's Going To Be That High?

It was now the second week of August and summer was going by quickly.  It was obvious that our hope of having the rough construction complete by early autumn was totally out of the question with the delays from the foundation.

Pine Building's crews had completed the foundation and back-filled along the outside walls.  It was at that point that we realized, "Hey, when they add the floor joists, we are going to need oxygen because we will be up so high."  This was based on our insistence that the top of the foundation be above ground level on the street side.  The dirt road had been built up by the road commission adding gravel over many decades... so much so that the water drained off the road toward our old cottage.  The higher foundation would ensure that water drained away from the new house.

The floor level would be roughly at the top of the fence between our new place and the neighbor.  We might need a slide to get out of the lake side door.

The filled-in "crawl space" had almost become a "Michigan basement."  It would be low and the floor would be gravel, but it could be navigated in an upright (slouching) manner with a hard hat (which I have).  Then it dawned on me: how would anyone get in and out of the crawl space?  The original plan called for a small opening about 2' x 2-1/2' for someone to actually crawl into the crawl space.  As a pointed out to Lou, that seemed to mean diving in head first to the floor 4' or so below the opening.

Lou agreed... not a good idea.  So he proposed having an opening from the inside where a person could go down a ladder or steep set of stairs to gain access.  That seemed like a good alternative, so we began to think where that might be placed.

Meanwhile, the floor joists were being put in place.

It was now the Labor Day weekend.