Building Green on Orcas - Part 2

Just like with any new home there was lots of prep work prior to getting the houses to Orcas. We needed plans for the additions, approval from the county, excavation for the foundation, clearing of the land, putting in the foundations, building driveways. Throughout all of this, we made our best effort to save the biggest and best of the trees, using the existing clearings for the building sites. We stacked the logs from the trees we did cut down and later milled them for lumber, using some of it on the houses. We chipped rather than burnt in response to Al Gore's movie; An Inconvenient Truth.

Ah, remember the house on the barge in the previous post with Mount Rainier in the background? Well, for us in January, it was a tad different. For one thing it was pitch black and 4:30 in the morning. That was when the tide was high for unloading the barge.

In the dark, we waited for our new houses.

Soon they were here and being unloaded!

It was a gray day after about 10 days of rain. 

It seemed rather precarious while unloading!

Then there they were, at the end of North Beach Road on Orcas Island!

Now the fun began! We needed to get the houses down North Beach Road, under trees, while moving electrical lines, and in the process not destroy anyone's property. Then there was a 90 degree turn to go down Bartell Road. Slowly we proceeded! One house at a time!

 That's me in front of the blue twin house, which we named the English Cottage.

Want to know more about bringing a home to Orcas Island via barge?
Give us a ring! Wonder which piece of land would work best? I'd say we are the experts on this topic.
So, drop us a line at OrcasDreams-Island Properties
or email: kate@orcasdreams.com

to be continued in a later post....