The Lake House: Mill Creek Const. Builds a House

There was the land, then there was the foundation, and then...this. It's a framed-up house, like magic. But...as you might imagine, what we saw as slow, steady magic involved mind melding, back breaking, soaking, freezing, pure skill challenging grunt. And not an adjective in that bunch referred to a thing we did.

For that story we turn toward James Schouten and his Mill Creek Construction, Inc. There is James, our contractor, and now, along with his delightful wife Sherrie, our friend. James also designed this house. (Shar refers to it as the Lodge, while I like to call it the Cabin. James almost certainly prefers "The Lodge.") He took our beginnings of a design, broke it down, applied his vision, kneaded it, grew it, molded it, and gave us what we have today. That is, James the designer conceived this beautiful place. Then, James the contractor, flipping dozens of levers and pulling scores of strings, even in the choking cloud of a pandemic, made sure we got what we have today. But, lest James get all of the credit, the folks who built it, whose backs, skills, and endless ingenuity framed and did the finishing work for this house were the Mill Creek crew.

That is Jim Lawrence on the left, Chad Smith in the middle, and Tom Timm on the right. There were eventually dozens of subcontractors from one trade or another, and we appreciate them all (as the two previous Lake House posts lays clear) but this house doesn't get built, not a stick of it, without Jimmy, Chad, and Tom. They took those beautiful, sometimes seemingly impossible plans (see the post about the beams coming up soon), measured, cut, lifted, nailed, drilled, screwed, pounded, sheeted, worried over how to make things happened, then worried, sometimes willed, things into place, used tools I've never heard of with such skill that we were often left speechless. And just the pure physical labor of it all; amazing.

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When the foundation footers and walls were done, and the site looked like this, Mill Creek pulled in that trailer of theirs filled with practically everything, and they did this.

They laid out the floor one single joist at a time. Again, none of this is news to contractors or builders or folks who have a clue. But this was new to us, amazing and beautiful, the way long rows of Kansas corn are beautiful.

There's Shar watching Jimmy as he's draped over the plans which are draped over joists, hollering back and forth with Chad about some puzzle or another.

And Tom nailing cross pieces into what feels like a sea of the joists. I would've looked up from where he is here, eyeballed the ocean of beams ahead of me, and maybe not so politely excused myself.

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And There Was The Weather!!!

There is rain here. Lots of it. And sometimes there is snow, which can look like this; isn't that just beautiful? That was the two feet that dropped, I think it was, January, 2020. The guys couldn't work for a couple of days, couldn't even get down to the site.

And when they did , this is what they faced.

But they just came in and worked. This shot below of Jimmy doing whatever he is doing rivals some of the photos of the ill fated Shackleton Endurance expedition to Antartica for looking just plain miserable. What the heck was I doing out there to take the photo? Must have been nuts.

I don't know how Tom kept from falling as he froze or freezing as he fell, or how Chad could focus, calculate, and measure, cut, and nail hangers and joists for the second floor. I doubt that I could have even managed to get the scaffolding set up, even if it is just a platform between two ladders.

And then there were the rains. Holy cow there can be a ton of water. The work just continued, of course. And looked like this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And we get some wind. This may have been the biggest weather related insult of all. Putting up with rain, snow, and cold, that's one thing (or three things) but when Mother Nature knocks the crapper out from under you...dang, now you're talking just plain heartless.

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Weather or no weather, the guys covered the joists with sheets of floor decking;

crawled under the pop up canopy for lunch out of the drizzle or gully washer or snow;

strapped the belts back on and headed back out to bang walls together, raise them, set them, frame windows, and try to figure out how to configure that next artistic angle of Schouten's design.

The walls kept on rising,

It was a big deal when the trusses showed up. I have to say, the Conestoga loved hanging out with all of the big equipment, although some of it was just plain intimidating. As long as he stayed out of the way of the excavators, delivery trucks with cranes, cement trucks, and those huge, arrogant dump trucks, he did fine.

Once they set the garage trusses and got it decked and papered, it became the sanctuary from the weather as the rest of the place became a house.

Above, the trusses have been set over the master bedroom. Below, the roofs for the rooms upstairs begin taking shaped and are finally decked, there in the middle, along with the great room. On the right, the multiple angled ceiling of the bunk room, its anticipated final configuration a mystery to Sharlene and me. (I believe to this day that it was as much of a riddle to everyone involved in the construction.) During its gestation, that ceiling looked as if no one had any idea what was connected where and why. But, as with everything, it turned out to be beautiful and interesting. Here it looks like studs just going every which way, because there were studs going every which way.

And then there were rooms; framed, roofed, dried in, and ready for insulation, windows, and everything else.

That's Chad and Jimmy putting in the windows and setting the doors. Shar opening the front entry door for the first time was a mighty big deal. As with so many of the design choices, she'd suffered over the possibilities. The final decision on the entry door ended up being easy when, after looking at the only two remaining options, our son Conor pointed to the other possibility and said "If you choose this door you might as well just go ahead and leave the house to Katharine (his sister)." Too bad for Kat that we were already leaning toward the door that didn't disgust her brother. And we have loved this one.

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This is looking out of the great room, still so much for the carpenters to do. Not that I had any idea. I like this picture because Jim is out there with his lunch cooler looking out at the lake, and, you'll notice, Boo is parked right behind him. It took a year for that irritatingly jumpy dog to warm up to Chad, Jimmy, and James. It didn't hurt that Chad and Jimmy would drop him pieces of their meals, but it still took forever, so this is part of that story. And that the guys got to know the lake: the little raccoon hiding in the top of the big, leaning fir, the beaver cutting a wide V through the water's edge, the Falls Creek waterfall on the hillside across the way, and sometimes clumsy acrobatics of the eagles. Jimmy kept his binoculars and fishing pole handy. Tom brought in his kayak and a fishing float. I don't know when they ever used those things, because the house just kept growing, and they were the ones growing it.

Until it looked like this and beyond.

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It is possible that, when they see this, Chad, Jim, and Tom will be...well, maybe "embarrassed" won't be the word but... they do this year in and year out; they've done it for decades, up here on the Peninsula, where there is weather like this, where everyone who builds houses or does any work outside deals with these elements, and these loads, so maybe the guys will feel a little sheepish about us going on about it. But for this job, all of their work, effort, and suffering the elements was for us. So it's worth every bit accolade we can give them. Them and, of course, James. The whole Mill Creek bunch.

Next: The Unbelievable Beams