The cordwood was the easy part

We are here to tell all of you intrepid folks who sweated along with us over the summer, mixing mortar by hand a wheelbarrowful at a time, cleaning logs, screening sand, and building cordwood masonry walls . . . that THAT was easy! Physically grueling, yes, but creative and satisfying. Getting the inside of the house livable has been another story.

Every task is a learning curve, and learning curves involve mistakes. Some of which can be rectified/redone, and some of which we will have to live with.

Take the plumbing. Somehow, when we were divvying up tasks, I got the plumbing. (I am still deeply suspicious about how this happened.) We have a simple graywater system, no blackwater or septic---how hard can that be? I guess I imagined that we could replicate camp setups from the old days and run black hose into a hole in the ground. However in organized townships there are plumbing inspectors who require schedule 40 traps and vent pipes and sanitary tees and cleanouts. But, for goodness sake, with a graywater system we're only allowed to have three drains. Two sinks and a bath; count 'em, THREE.

Jerry at the hardware store lent me his plumbing book, complete with plumbing diagrams and color photos of all of the parts. The plumbing inspector reviewed the system I drew out and said it was great. So I bought the parts, cut the pipe, and assembled everything (kind of like tinker toys with really stupid rules). I asked the plumbing inspector to come look at it before I glued the PVC. "This is fine," he said. "But what you could do," he said, looking at the ugly PVC running up, down, and across our walls, "is run those vent pipes under the floor next to the waste pipes."

"We're allowed to do that?," I screeched, wondering why on earth he hadn't mentioned this when he looked at my schematic.

So I dissassembled everything, bought new parts and started over. The under-the-floor parallel vent system was much harder. Everything was so rigid that the gluing was nearly impossible. You've got about ten seconds after applying the glue and joining the parts to get things aligned right. I hit my head on the sink about twenty times and knocked the pipe glue all over our newly oiled floor boards. I am not sure Joe had ever heard such a colorful combination of northern NJ and backwoods Maine. The plumbing inspector arrived to inspect our system just as our test bucket of water was leaking out of the trap connection.

I had also volunteered to build the kitchen counters, even though I had no clue how to do this. Two and a half weeks later, let's just say that that the sink only fits into the hole before you've screwed everything down; not after. And that I probably won't be finding any work as a carpenter.

Even Joe, who is proficient at just about everything, has had his share of issues. Just ask him how long it took, and how many specialized drill bits were consumed, to drill a hole through one of the logs for the propane connection (and why we weren't using the piece of PVC we'd laid into the wall for this purpose)? And what happened when he set the Bison water pump into its carefully prepared platform on the completed countertop (and why we don't have water yet)?

By the way, the plumbing inspector mentioned that when Maine adopts the uniform building code in 2012, a person won't be able to build a house like ours. "The average new home will require 8 to 10 inspections, and all home designs will have to be approved by an engineer," he said. Even without a mortgage, you won't be able to build what you want on your own land with your own money.