Casa de Novo de Buckethead
At some point in the next few weeks, Casa de Buckethead will undergo a change in venue. The current CdB is a modest but comfortable split-level suburban home south of Alexandria, with a nice big yard and a friendly neighborhood. It has been a pleasant place to live these last three years. While my parents have been extraordinarily kind to let us live there (the house was once the home of my stepgrandfather) they need the money that the house represents to more fully retire. Mrs. Buckethead and I considered purchasing the house ourselves – not least because it would mean dodging a move – but as we pondered what it is, exactly, that we want – we realized that in most respects suburban life is deeply unsatisfying to us.
Suburban life is at best an awkward compromise. You have most of the crowding of living in a city, yet none of the convenience of being able to walk to restaurants, shops and, dare I say, cultural activities. A big yard may be nice, but if you’re going to have to drive everywhere anyway, why not live in the country and have a really, really big yard? City life is fast-paced, exciting, and even mildly dangerous. I’ve done that, and liked it, even if it was a relatively small Midwestern city. Yet now, I have a wife, two kids, a dog and between one and three cats. I am arguably in my mid thirties, but just barely. I have little desire to live in the city myself, and none whatsoever to subject my children to that.
One of the biggest objections to the country is the commute if you still work in the city. But for the last year, I have found myself in the ridiculous position of commuting over an hour completely across the Washington Metro area twice a day. Since my commute is that long, why not use that hour to get out into the country? Further, I’ve been able to work at home more and more, which would ease the commuting burden.
So, the country. Having made the decision to get out of the city, and not to buy another suburban house, we were still left with many questions to answer. How far out? What kind of house? And then Mrs. Buckethead asked one more question. A Zen kind of question, the sort that when answered rearranges your whole outlook. She asked, “You know that dream house you’ve talked about – is there anyway we can build it?”
My dream house has been for almost two decades now a colonial style fieldstone house. (My first dream house was a very large castle with secret passages. Earlier, it was an orbital space fortress with secret passages. Then it was a Dr. No-style evil lair, with secret passages. I haven’t given up on the secret passages.) We typed “Build your own stone house” into the magical google search field, and lo, we found this.
It is, apparently, a relatively simple if labor intensive process to build your own fieldstone house. Especially if you eschew the traditional method of stone masonry and adopt a hybrid method called “Slipform Stone Masonry.” Essentially, you have wooden forms, and you line the inside of the forms with fieldstone. In the middle, you place rebar and then pour in concrete. The concrete holds the stones together, and the rebar holds the concrete together. What you end up with is a reinforced concrete wall that looks like a traditional stone house. (There are many variations that take into account insulation, passive solar, interior construction, etc.)
The advantages of this method are many. First, the resultant wall is immensely strong. Second, it requires very little skill to create one. Third, and most important, it is stupendously cheap compared to most other methods of construction more advanced than a mud hut. In the country, in rural farming areas, there are typically large piles of fieldstone that farmers have removed from their fields. They are, we are told, eager to get rid of them. Concrete is inexpensive, as is rebar in the quantities we’re talking about. So, the main component of the house, the load-bearing walls, is essentially free.
After a few moments to convince myself that these hippies weren’t on the pipe when they wrote that, I became very excited. I almost smiled, even. For the rest of the weekend, and most of the next week, the Missus and I could talk or think about little else. We scoured the web for more information, and tried to assemble it into a coherent plan. We calmed down a little, and let the ideas percolate in the background. A couple weeks later, we hauled them back out, and they still looked good. We gave new orders to our real estate agent, and began looking for properties that fit the plan. Last weekend, we found what we think is a suitable property, and tomorrow we will return to examine it further. We know that it has gorgeous views of the Shenandoah Valley. It is twenty acres, which means more than adequate acreage to split the property. And best of all, it includes a very large pile of fieldstone. If the interior of the house is acceptable, and a tour of the lot passes the test, we’ll make an offer.
So here’s the plan. Mrs. Buckethead came up with the initial idea of building our own house. I came up with an idea that might make this not only affordable, but even profitable.
Step 1: buy a large plot of land in the country, one that has a decent house on it, and – this is key – is sub-dividable.
Step 2: build a new house on the other side of the property from the existing house.
Step 3: move into the new house, and sell the pre-existing house.
Now, we have fine-tuned the details a bit. Originally, we thought we would build a garage using all the techniques that we’d be using in the house. This would serve the dual purpose of training us in the methods without any significant risk, on a smaller project; and assuring that we could work happily together on a project like this. Both of us like working like this – I turned to IT at least in part because manual labor pays fuck-all. But the Missus came up with a better idea – practice by building an addition to the existing structure, which would also increase the value of that house when we go to sell it.
For the next several months – until Spring – we will be researching and planning. Researching all the legal restrictions, permits, codes, and whatnot. (And there are a shitload of them. Enough to make you want to become a wild-eyed Libertarian Anarchist or something. What is this country coming to?) Researching the building methods, suppliers, and design. Designing the addition and the house, and converting those designs into working drawings, bills of materials, and making timetables and schedules. And as soon as it gets warm, we’ll start building.
We hope in two years to have built our house, and sold the original. With the addition, we hope that the sale will at least cover the amount of the mortgage, leaving us with our dream house (with secret passages) free and clear. The beauty of this plan is that selling the existing house makes the land on which we build our new house effectively free. And if we sell it for enough, it might even cover construction costs. But at a minimum, it will sell for enough to cover a huge chunk of the mortgage.
Over the course of that time, I also plan to blog about the project, in what will for some be nauseating detail. I’ll be posting the details of the planning, and later the construction. But in the meantime, here are some views of the Blue Ridge from the front of what I hope will be my new house:
Those views, and the next one, all are looking out over the valley. This next one also includes the garage, which is a bit deeper than the average garage, and will make a wonderful construction workshop. The land we'd actually build on is to the right of the garage, out of the picture and across the street, but would have the same views of the mountains. (Well, mountains for east of the Mississippi, anyway.)
[wik] Addendum, writing in the year of Our Lord 2025:
So with an excess of mulish stubbornness and delusions of adequacy, this is still the plan. For the last almost exactly nineteen years, I have been working toward the fulfillment of this plan. It's kind of bittersweet reading this optimistic effusion from my two decades younger self. My son is now an adult, and now not even my only son. So much time has passed to little account - at least regarding what has remained my goal no matter what insanity has raged outside the shutters.
Not to sound maudlin, because in most regards life has been very good. But damn, the dark forces have been persistent in their alignment against the plan.
So, we never got that property. We got another property that cost a bit more and was a bit less suitable for the plan. But it seemed like we could make it work. Then, our mortgage was sold to a company that turned out to be a tad unethical. Criminal in point of fact. That, and dislocations following from my improvident choice to be working as a consultant at Freddie Mac as the 2008 financial crisis hit, led to a two year waking nightmare as the mortgage company repeatedly put the house up for sale as leverage in a quite successful attempt to suck as much money as possible out of my wallet.
We ended up just walking away from the house in 2010. Though I was fully aware of the hit I'd take to my credit score, I have never felt more relief than I did driving down the dirt road away from the house the last time.
So then there was a decade spent wandering in the rental wilderness. Occasional layoffs, constant relocations thanks to fickle landlords, seeming to always have half my belongings in boxes - this was our lot. But the more important things - Mrs. Buckethead and the Buckethead gens were always there, healthy and for the most part happy.
In 2019, we began to see light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, housing prices were creeping up, but I was advancing in salary and the bad credit had finally begun to rotate off the ass-end of my credit report. The savings account was, if not fat, certainly a bit svelte. Time to once again pull the trigger on the plan. I was looking at properties on zillow, and generally feeling a pleasant anticipatory buzz. The Buckethead clan home improvement steering committee believed that sometime in the Spring of the new year, we could get our property.
Then the Kung Flu Grippe dropped on the world like a very large heavy thing hitting a very soft and squishy thing. The company that signed my paychecks had foolishly build a successful enterprise managing logistics for large medical conferences. I was building a web registration system for them. And suddenly, large medical conferences disappeared in a puff of poorly thought out epidemiological policy making. And with that, so also my paychecks.
Mad scrambling ensued, but despite the economic dislocations we were little affected by the upheavals. We homeschooled, we didn't hang out with people. Before too long, I found employment again. But housing prices had spiked insanely and my credit took a minor hit with the new job and needed some recovery time. Our landlords decided that this was the perfect time to sell the house we were living in and cash in on the price spike. Looking at the new mid-covid rental landscape, we were frankly horrified. So we bought a camper and took a trip around the country thanks to my new full-time remote job and the miracle of Starlink internet. Saved up more money...
Finally, in 2024... we were once more property owners. 100 acres of forested hills in wild, wonderful, West Virginia of all places✶Virginia, our former home state, was simply out of our price range for any significant acreage. We've spent the last year clearing out the accumulated detritus of the former owners, and settled in, and got some chickens and turkeys. Life feels good.
At long last, I can consider once more pulling the trigger on the plan.
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I am already wishing you much
I am already wishing you much success! Did you know that the method of stone/rebar/cement block bulding you are discussing was used by Frank Lloyd Wright at his home in Scottsdale, Taliesin West? I know the effect you're looking for is not the same, but check it out.
I have a neighbor who used a tilt-up concrete wall construction on his house. While the walls are tremendously strong, they have constant humidity problems indoors. They have a series (okay - two) very powerful dehumidifiers in the house. I've heard of humidity problems in houses of concrete construction in our region. Just something to note down.
As you get further along into the process give me a call. I know a number of good masons who might be able to help you out a little on this type of work.
And don't forget that when
And don't forget that when the giant space robots come, the concrete house will make a nice shelter.
What's your thinking
What's your thinking regarding secret passages again? Seems with all that rebar and whatnot you'd have a problem.
Or you could go subterranean. Why walk to the edge of your property and step into a national forest, if you could slip your tunnel and emerge there?
But I don't think the tunnels should be a deal-breaker. I think this can really work - everyone concerned is highly motivated, Sir John the Underemployed is probably old enough to do some light masonry.
JohnL, don't think for a
JohnL, don't think for a moment that the sturdiness and bulletproofness of this sort of construction was ever far from my mind.
ML, there will be no cement blocks here, just reinforced concrete and stone. Though, my mom (a FLR fan) did point out the connection - she just visited that Taliesin up by Chicago. The humidity problems are known - we plan on integrating insulation into the wall - which, we have been told, largely solves that problem. The stone and concrete inside the insulation then becomes a thermal mass for storing heat inside, and not a conduit of cold from the outside, which then causes condensation and such. And of course, I would be glad of any help whatsoever.
GL, if I told you how and where I'm building secret passages, they wouldn't really be secret anymore, would they?
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
I like that you have clear fields of fire out to mebbe 300m or so- hard to tell in the pix. And is there a bit of a slope in the 2d and 3d pics, dropping off before the treeline?
They look like they might not be covered by direct fire. You might consider Claymores to cover those slopes.
Or budget a stone tower high enough to see down those hills.
From the top of the house,
From the top of the house, there are clear fields of fire out at least 200yds in every direction except the back, where there are woods maybe 50yds up the slope. That, however, is the national forest, so I can't clear them out.
The slope is even, there isn't much in the way gullies and the like, so not much cover for attackers. There is one line of trees that runs radially from about 150 yds to 200yds directly downslope from the house, but that could be cleared as well. The only substantive cover is a big pile of fieldstone running in a across the bottom of the field downhill from the house about 300 yds away. However, we will be using that stone for construction, so it won't be there for long.
I wanted to build a tower keep, but Mrs. Buckethead nixed that idea.
Not to piss on anyone's
Not to piss on anyone's parade, but I think you two are misunderanalyzing the risk factors here.
All defenses so-far discussed seem to ignore the fact that it's highly unlikely that the Giant Space Robots are going to be approaching on foot.
Well, a house, no matter how
Well, a house, no matter how sturdily constructed, is not going to be much defense against the Giant Space Robots. However, zombies, brigands, and pirates likely would attack on foot.
Patton,
Patton,
I smell what you're steppin' in, but I'm thinking that effective defense against the titanium overlords will be little more than hiding as deep as you can and hope they just miss you until they either die off or go away. It worked for prehistoric mice, and I think it'll have to do for us.
I mean, B's a smart dude but I don't think home-based hyperadvanced air-defenses are in his future.
But in terms of defense against zombies, drugthugs, or post-apocalyptic cannibalistic biker dudes, I think B is on the right track. So long as he includes an escape route in his defense plan, I think he's in good shape.
Too bad about the keep- that would've been flippin' badass. I know where you coulda got a sweet bell for it, too.
Agreed, agreed - you've gotta
Agreed, agreed - you've gotta protect against what you can protect, and not sweat that which you cannot.
On a side note, I can think of few things just now that would be more fun than calmly plinking multiple cannibalistic bikers, drugthugs, and other intruders. Head shots, all.
Admittedly, that's probably just because I need another cup of coffee.
I discovered that there are
I discovered that there are zoning limitations on building tower keeps, as well. On land that is zoned A-1, agricultural, you cannot build a structure more than 35' high. That doesn't include chimneys or antennae. A thirty-five foot high keep is a relatively small one, though against brigands and pirates and the shambling undead, likely more than adequate.
B,
B,
But the keep would be for the children. Didn't you give Ms B the "for the children" rap?
Or did she nod and say something like, "well it's definitely for the child- the big one I married", and thereby veto the whole enterprise?
So in this "tower keep"/house
So in this "tower keep"/house there will be no ground level windows? (Or at least very small windows positioned high on the wall?) This would be a wise choice when protecting against brigands, pirates, and zombies. If you do get a 35 ft tower you might try arrow/machine gun slits as high up as you can. You will need supressing fire (as well as the aforementioned claymore mines) on the National Forest side and clear placed shots on the others.
Have you considered back up power generators, fuel supplies, and night-vision equipment?
B,
B,
And carrying through on The Maximum Leader's thinking, some seismic sensors might be nice, as might a few good dogs just in case.
What about horses? You'll have the land for them. Not much better transport in terrain your truck can't go, and greater range too- we should assume fuel will be nonexistent in the Afterworld.
B,
B,
Something to tuck away too is that there may be tax implications regarding your abutment of protected/preserve land.
In MA, you can get a tax break on your property taxes (to a small extent no doubt, but still) if you allow conditions such that people can traverse your (private) land to access the protected land.
In practice, that might amount to little more than keeping a half-decent trail cleared through your back 40 and not putting up wire.
I'm not in a position to do it, but I met a couple who do, who explained it to me.
Good sense had nothing
Good sense had nothing directly to do with it: Like everything else good in life for the last 15 or so years, I blame my wife.
Indirectly, however, I showed good sense, by tricking my wife into marrying me, so there's that.
Oh good Lord. Patton is a
Oh good Lord. Patton is a breeder. Watch out! At least he had the good sense to have a girl.
Range? Well, no offense guys, but I've watched backyard projects go not so well the first time around. I'm sure we can test things out on his 20 acres and then rebuild and compete in DE for the REAL competition. There will be plenty of time if we do our first planning meeting in mid-December. ;-)
CODEWORD: cause
As in,"'Cause I said so!"
Well, airfares may or may not
Well, airfares may or may not be cheap, but I'd do all I could to jump at the chance to let my daughter see the city where I was birthed. Not because my birth was anything special, or even that she knows I entered this world at Georgetown University Hospital, but because she claims to really want to see DC, right soon.
And once one's flown to DC from Houston, the trip to BFE can't add much extra effort, I'd guess.
Oh, wait: would kids even be allowed? She's more mature than any of us, which could be a problem.
I'm sure that first gen
I'm sure that first gen Buckethead Trebuchets will have a limited range, until we figure out the secrets of their construction. Next year, we might have the opportunity to pelt the treehuggers. A lot of the land besides the national forest that adjoins the property is completely uninhabited - so we'd have room.
This may be premature, seeing as we don't have a loan or, indeed, the property - but I think a house warming party would be in order once we get there. Who's up for a mid december gathering in the hills?
GL, maybe you and Johno can carpool down from Mass - you'd have an easier trip since you could avoid 95 and come down 81. Patton, air fares are cheap now, right?
We should have a perfidious conclave followed by amusements.
Well, I see a problem right
Well, I see a problem right away with your otherwise-excellent suggestion, Maps:
He's only going to have 20 acres, and we'd surely want much more space than that to truly enjoy pumpkin tossing, no?
Unless, of course, the goal was to pelt either National Forest-goers or the trees in which they, uh, go.
Although nothing says
Although nothing says "welcome" like the muzzle of a ma deuce. Or even a trebuchet. Oh well.
I posted comment #23, above,
I posted comment #23, above, before reading GL's comment about my .50BMG-equipped personal Orthanc. Great minds do run in the same gutters.
OMG. We can totally build a
OMG. We can totally build a trebuchet and launch it on that property. Oh please please please, PLEEEEASE?!
Homemade Punkin' Chunkin' next year!!! AWWRIGHT!
So much better than a TV Party.
Brigands are land-based
Brigands are land-based pirates - robber gangs living in the wastes and preying upon honest folk. However, we are only a few miles from Virginia's inland port, so pirates aren't totally out of the question.
Mrs. B did not directly nix the tower keep, but she was iffy on the secret passages, and I don't think that a 35-ft tower keep will have the same resale value as a stone colonial. So, she nixed it. As did I, really, but that's beside the point.
Maybe I'll build the keep later.
Also, I've never claimed to be fluent, or even familiar with Spanish. You are no doubt correct, but I think my version sounds goofier, which was my intent anyway.
Maps,
Maps,
Flaming arrows. That's cute.
But Buckethead's personal Orthanc would be the spot not where he hurled flaming arrows or lightning bolts, but .50 BMGs.
oh yeah. One other thing. I'm
oh yeah. One other thing. I'm no Spanish speaker, but isn't the new thing the house and the Buckethead? So it's Nueva Casa de Buckethead because the gender has to be in agreement?
CODEWORD: miss
As in, 'She kind of misses the point of the comments.'
I never heard Miz B nix the
I never heard Miz B nix the tower keep. I think she'd look pretty fair standing atop one. But of course she'd have the crazy huge field glasses. (But man, we could shoot some cool flaming arrows from up there. That would be safe if we kept the kids in the house? How could she say no to that?!?!)
Pirates? Dude. You are so inland, I'm not sure where you'll get water from, except through snowmelt.
Brigands? Isn't that just another word for pirate?
CODEWORD: remember
"As in, I don't remember Miz B saying that."
Good plan, and color me
Good plan, and color me jealous.
Are you far enough out into BFE that the real DC Metro real estate prices (as opposed to those that average DC with everything Appalachian) aren't a polluting effect?
Pretty much. DC prices are,
Pretty much. DC prices are, by my Ohio standards, completely insane. This property is definitely BFE, which drives the price down. However, another factor drives it back up a bit - I forgot to mention that the property backs up against the George Washington National Forest. If I did a 180 from the views in the post above, I could walk to the edge of the property and then step into a national park.
Tomorrow, or sometime over
Tomorrow, or sometime over the weekend, I'll probably be posting the extended, blue-sky-big-money scheme that extends off the end of step three.
At least the three step plan isn't:
1. Build House
2. ???
3. Profit!