Adding a Room Upstairs

We had originally thought that a open air feeling via cathedral ceiling over our living room would add of a roomy feel to our small house. It was one of the few splurges we spent our efforts on while building our house. We had hoped to build an addition on to the side of the house this last summer but we didnt get it done. We were still in need of more space before we could get the addition done next summer. So we decided to make some more room another way. We decided to put a floor in, spanning across the beams of our cathedral ceiling. and to take out the Bannister and build a full wall around the stair case. We had to take the stove pipe out from the wood stove and bring the insulated pipe (metal Bestos) down past the new floor for safety reasons. So we did this project, while we were putting in the new stove. While we had things taken apart any ways.

We put 2X8’s crossing our 10.5×10.5” beams. They worked nicely. We covered them with 4×8 sheets of OSB (oriented strand board) that was a little cheaper in price than regular ply wood. This works nicely to displace weight across more than 2×8 at a time and does not let dust and light, filtrate between and fall below.

Judah Zachariah has been a big help on many of our projects. He loves to help as do all the children! He is getting really good at driving nails, getting tools and supplies and help holding stuff. He has his own tape measure and many other tools. We truly thank the Lord for him and his willingness to help. We have been sneaking math in to our projects with him. It helps to have a practical reason for why you are doing a math problem a certain way. Homeschooling never ends as we strive to make life our lesson book.

Judah practicing his nailing

It has turned out to be a nice solid floor. We are using some of our new found space to put in our family closet. We built a traditional closet with a main closet rod and half of it has a second rod for shorter stuff. We are putting all the rest of the families dressers and clothes together there. This will make putting laundry away for all of us much easier. We will do an article on a family closet latter as we get ours working. Until then you can do a web search on google for family closet.

New Wood Stove

We had a challenging time with controlling our old wood stove last winter. We bought it for $50.00 out of someones back yard. It was in worse shape than we thought. But we did make it through the winter using it. So we did get our money out of it. However we lost a bit of sleep with it blazing out of control. That brings us to this year. We were determind to find something better. After some searching, we opted to get a stove made by a local person.

Our new stove looks like a barrel stove. It is made from a piece of 24” diameter pipe 1/2” thick. It is pipe left over from the “Alaska Pipeline.” It is 33” long and has a brakedrum from a pickup welded up to make the door. It is an amazing monster of a stove.

We brought home our new stove on the back of a trailor. Ater unloading it we had to put several coats of stove black on it. It cleaned it up and conditioned it. Then we had to cook the stove HOT outside to set the blackening coat on, and cook off all the odors.

We had a forklift (Squirt boom) come out to the house and fork the old stove out and the new one in the front door. If someone fell off the stairs and a stove fell on them, it would have been awful. So the little extra money for the forklift was more than justifiable.
Sorry, I missed a great photo opportunity when the forklift was here.

The new stove is in place now and we have been using it for about 3 weeks now. The hardest part is we tend to burn it too cool, trying to keep from cooking us out of the house. So we are getting too much creasote. But we are getting a little better at controlling it at the temperature we need.

5 Feb 2007

Here is the update from the 5th of Feb 2007.

Greetings to all again,
Just wanted to let you know we made some headway. Will
keep this short in length in light of our recent
post. We are warming up to a rite nice -5 to 25 above this
last week or so. That is a welcomed change. It must have
warmed up, because it knew we hooked up the toilet to
the plumbing drains. Yes we are now in the “high
Society” of the alaskan bucket flush club. Water goes
from under the kitchen sink or extra snow we melt on
the wood stove, to flush with. We hope to have the
water pumping into the house in a little over a week
from now. However It will only be to a gate valve at
the presure tank for a time untill we get it lined in
to all the fixtures around the house. But at least we
are heading in the right direction.
Here is a picture of the kids as they head out to play.

Also we now have a bathroom door, Kitchen light that
turns on with a switch (wow), We went through boxes
upstairs and repacked it better, and unpacked some. We
got the kitchen stove hooked up too. Some one gave us
some fish, so we had a nice trout dinner last night.
It was nice to be cooking on the kitchen stove once
again.
Today we will be off to town to get some water and
check the mail! We will see what is going on in the
“big city”.

God bless,
Jason Anna Judah Serenity Mercy & Destiny

30 January 2007

This was our second letter to every body. 30 Jan 2007

Hello Friends and Family,
Today we celebrated being in our new house with some
sparklers and some fireworks.
Thank you Jesus! It was fun and was pretty seeing the colors reflect off the snow. Summer fireworks are not the same here, because the midnight sun
is as bright as noon time. So saving them for winter is the perfect thing to do.

The Floor downstairs in the house is done. We have
some vinyl in the bathroom area and Jason finnished
the Laminate flooring, from the kitchen through to the
front door. Destiny likes being able to have freedom
to crawl around and as we keep unpacking boxes and
making room there is more and more place for her and
the other kids to play.
We put our area rugs down, and now Destiny has some
traction to try to climb up on, and is almost standing
up with the couches help.
She is very adventurest scurrying all over the floor.

We now have a living/dinning area, and what can be
more, and more, called something resembling a kitchen.
We hope to put the bathroom door in soon. then we will
be more ready for the grand day we get drains to use
the toilet.
It was a warmer day today and the kids went out and
played on the swing set. We saw on the computere that
the temp was up into the lower 20’s (above!!!) wow it
was great and the kids played & played.
We are glad that so many of you enjoyed our last
letter.
God Bless
The Wilkinson Clan
<’><  <’><  <><  <><  <><  <><

Mennonite Minno’s

Contact to the Outside World

29 th of January we had our internet access hooked up and had our first contact with the outside world (via email….what else is there??? lol). We had our first chance to write our family and friends to let them know we had survived thus far. and we wrote this email that discribed much our living at that point… kind of fond memories of what was a tough time, at the time.
We wrote the following:

Greetings to one and all!
We hope you all are doing well. We have moved in to
our new home at long last. Out of 4 months of
building, we have spent over one month straight in
Fairbanks, working for the month of December. Also on
another occasion we spent over a week straight in
Fairbanks, also several other trips to Fairbanks
getting supplies and moving our stuff here.
Totaling another 2.5 weeks in Fairbanks. Leaving us
only 2.5 months of days here in Town, in which to
build. Some of those days slowed by bad weather (-45
is just a little to cold, so we lost 2 days) or car
problems. So we did ok, I guess with the time we had.
Working some of those days in -30 degree weather.
We moved in whether the house was ready or not, we
were ready.
We have our wood heat going. Jason chops our wood
every day while Anna and the Kids help carry it in the
house it is a great daily family project and good
exersize.
We do not have running water as of yet so we carry our
drinking water from town, and harvest snow in buckets
and melt it on the wood stove for extra water for
doing dishes. Draining our sink into the bucket under
the counter. (to eventually be used to flush the
toilet when it gets hooked up.) Its the Alaskan
recycling water program (also known as the bucket
flush).

No bathroom facilities yet so you learn to hope and
pray that the wind does’nt blow to hard when you go to
do “your business” outside getting snow in places it
don’t belong. BBBRRRRRRRR!
We now sport two lights in the house that don’t need
an extension cord!
We have found that if each person is responsible for
their own clothes washing at the time of their spit
bath the clothes can be washed with the same snow
water that was melted in the “big pot” used for
bathing. Then the clothes can be hung out to dry on
the clothes line. It helps to keep it, from being to much
hand washing of clothes for Anna all at once.
We have found that cooking on the wood stove can be a
lot of fun as long as you keep the stove hot enough
until your dinner is done. Also we have unpacked the
electric skillet and the crock pot and use the
microwave on occasion. Modern gadgets are nice but it
is amazing what you can do with out them. The power
went off today and we almost didn’t notice. but it came
back on before we could bunch up at the wood stove &
sing hymns. We do the kids school work while the light
is coming through the windows in the afternoon as to
not use more electricity than need be, as it cost
almost 2.5 times more than in fairbanks (around 36
cents a killowatt Hr)
Someone blessed us last week by bringing us dinner.
What a treat. We don’t have a refrigerator yet so we
have a Ice chest outside for our freezer, and as long
as it is cold enough, Anna is freezing little water
bottles on the back steps, to put in the other ice
chest in the kitchen for keeping food chilled for our
fridge.
We were blessed again to have our phone hooked up
again, as it is nice to know you can call some one in
an Emergency or stranded situation. Not having any
neighbors around. So once again we are connected to
the matrix. And anyone who is concerned about our well
being they can e-mail or call us anytime for a more
recent update.

May the Grace & Peace of God be with you,
Jason Anna Judah Serenity Mercy & Destiny

Finnished Shell

We were so glad to get the house dried in before the real snow fell!
Here is a picure from the back of the house “dried in” (a finnished shell but no plumbing, wiring, or insulation).

So we were of to fairbanks again for more supplies. Looking back at this point. We put up our batter boards and string to set the forms and foundation September 5 the day the well was finnished. We finnished Drying the house in at this point the 7th of October. One month and 2 days we built the core of our house with mainly Just the two of us. Jasons Dad did a lot of work too. He helped with a lot of the “high stuff” as jason drove the fork lift. and did a lot of lifting! Thanks Dad! His two friends from church came and helped with the roof and roofing. While Jason had fork lift duty. We still had a lot to do inside though. Insulation, electrical, and so on. We worked on it as it cooled to as much as 35 degrees below zero. Jason worked many hours as Anna and the kids stayed in the car keeping warm. We left on thanksgiving week to work untill Christmas in North Pole for Jasons former employer. We spent Christmas with Annas Family and had wondreful Holliday and a couple days of rest. Then we returnd to our unfinnished home New Year Eve. We worked untill the 14th of January and moved in finnished or not! More like Not! We had wood heat, one light, an electric skillet, and microwave; and no plumbing yet. We unpacked our beds and were never more glad to be HOME!!!

Here is a picture a few days after moving in!

Second Floor

It was so nice to see the second floor being finnished. The push was on to get the roof on before snow fell, that could have come at any time. If we didnt make it befor then we would probably have to live else where for the winter, and finnish in spring. But lots of people were praying and God was so good and we didn’t have snow untill late for the year.

Here is the second floor all framed!

Here is a pcture of the house with the metal roofing ready to go on!

The last piece of roofing!

Bear meat!

A friend of Jasons’ Dad shot this bear and brought it by to give to us and Jasons Mom and Dad for some extra meat for winter. He was a great taisting bear! Anna is standing next to it here in this picture.

Framing… Up we go!

We wanted to frame with a double 2×4 wall for added insulation. But time was running short and snow was not far away! We decided to frame with 2×8 and save some time. And hopefully have enough insulation to keep us nice and toasty in -60 degree weather.

First wall framed and up!

Putting beams in place with a forklift. We liked the idea of the look the beams would give our cathedral ceiling living room. But recently opted to floor over it to make more room. It was nice while it lasted.

Forms and Foundation

As soon as the well was done being drilled. We were able to put in batter boards and string to set our form. Then we poured our concrete and began framing our foundation walls for the crawl space. We didn’t want to pay the money for more dirt work, foam or concrete block walls cement and rebar, just to put the crawl space below ground. Building it above ground let us save several thousands of dollars. But it made our house higher off the ground and that made much of the later work hard to do as you will read later.

The forms our set

The first of many boards cut for our house!

Putting the finnishing touch on the foundational walls