The Witches & Wenches of The Hut...

Happy Halloween!... Twas a beautiful evening for a little frolic and mischief. All the families of the block got together for a party in celebration of the fall frightfest. Highlights included scary decorations, a great array of food and drink, a giant movie screen showing among other things Sponge Bob square pants, a blazing fire and two costume contests including one for the kiddies and one for the adults. A few of us snuck away for a brief jaunt to the Manhut. We raised a pint or two and returned to the gala before anyone missed us.
BOOOO!

Lets Get Busy….

With a supply list and plan in hand me and the Weave hit the Depot for supplies. Wood, nails, cement… The one unknown; how we were going to drill holes for the rebar for the pilings into solid rock. These holes need to go in six inches before we can pour the concrete footings and build the pressure treated support structure. I had a bad feeling about that part from the first time it was mentioned. We knew we had a heavy duty hammer drill but what kind of bit would do the trick. We found a 10 inch long 5/8 inch diamond encrusted carbide tipped drill bit (around $20). We brought all the supplies up to the site, Dave brought up his generator for the drill power, and the rest of us including Lou and Bob would supply the labor….. We figured we’d be done with the whole support project before the end of the day. This was way too optimistic on my part (even with fast drying cement). It took hour upon hour just to drill the holes. Lou went to the store and picked up two more bits just so we could get done. We took turns one after the other leaning and pressing on the drill. By the end of the day we were exhausted and ended up with exactly two footings…. Didn’t look like much for a whole day of work. But the good news is that the hard work is done. Next weekend we should be able to finish up with the reinforcement project and begin to start enjoying the Manhut without fear of sliding off the mountain…... Yay!

We Have A Plan….

I showed pictures of Manhut to my pal Dave at work today. Dave is an Architect and leads our Companies construction department. Dave nearly barfed when he saw how precariously Manhut was perched on its unstable foundation. He said we should rename it the ManSled since it would probably be sliding down the hill at the first sign of frost. In any case, Dave the ever concerned friend was kind enough to propose a remedial plan for the ManHut fix (see image). The idea is to create concrete piers with uprights which would then support two 2”x12”’s on either side and below the floor joists. A weekend project for the guys no doubt.

Manhut Lives!!! :

Well Manhut has risen! Was worth the wait. In the end Shed Guy did a nice job. He was right though, I did build it in the most inconvenient place possible. I think he was just happy to get it built without it falling down the mountain. Truth is, after he left last night me and the guys reworked the stone and cement block footings to get them more stable and flat… Was probably worth doing since he had propped it up with wood wedges and pebbles. Next step is to come up with an idea for reinforcement. As you can tell from the photo, right now it’s just sitting on two unstable pivot points. It needs to be reinforced before we can enjoy it.

A few shots during construction...

A few photographs on construction day as Manhut takes shape.

What a F***ing Day! :

I woke up pretty darn psyched, I could hardly sleep; Today’s the day the Manhut gets built!... I’m up and outside by 10:00am, Bob comes up the driveway a few minutes later on his awesome 1986 Honda FourTrax 350 Quad (a machine so cool I had to buy the same exact year and model). A couple of smokes and some coffee later and we decide to bring up the mountain a bunch of the materials from the front lawn left by Shed Guy last night. We hangout for a while longer but by noon we decide it may be best if we both go to our homes and take a little nap since we don’t know if he’s coming and he’s not answering his cel phone (as usual). By 12:30 I’m out like a light.

It’s 3:00 and the dog starts barking, waking me up. There’s a truck in the driveway, three Mexicans are in the driveway meandering about. I find my boots and coat and make it outside as fast as I can. “Where’s Ed?” I ask. They point up the mountain. I go to the garage get my 1986 Honda FourTrax 350 Quad and go up the hill. When I get there Shed Guy is just staring into space. “What took you so long?” I ask. “It’s been a tough day " he says "and it’s just about to get a lot tougher"……

At this point it's best if I skip most of the conversation detail cause it got pretty ugly (I have cleaned it up). In summary it has to do with me being mentally unstable for wishing to build a Manhut on the most inconvenient of all possible places and how I might need to be more fiscally amiable since I would be imposing such hardship on Shed Guy and his band of merry Mexican laborers. I retort with the fact that he should have come earlier to take a look at the site which I invited him to do no less than three times while trying to explain the project as best I could, and, that when we first spoke he said and I quote; “I can build anywhere I can get my truck”…. In the end we shake hands and they begin to build.

As the foundation begins to take shape and some of the other guys show up after work I realize that I must be mentally unstable for wishing to build a Manhut on the most inconvenient of all possible places… Before the first nail is hammered we all realize that the footing for this structure just aint gonna cut it and we had better come up with a reinforcement strategy or Manhut is gonna slide off its granite perch down the mountain and into the Weave's pool.

By 6:00pm the base is built and all the wood is cut for tomorrow’s construction…

Shed Guy is a “No Show” :

So Shed Guy (SG) is a no-show on Monday, so we arrange for Tuesday. So about 9:00 on Monday night SG calls and asks if, “I’m gonna be up for a while”. I tell him sure. About 11:00 SG shows up and dumps another load of wood on my front lawn. He says he’ll be here at around 10:00 am in the morning cause he’s got to finish shingling a roof that wasn’t done today. I’m getting a bad feeling about SG.

Tomorrow Manhut Gets Built :

Crisp October morning, Sunday the 19th. Tomorrow Manhut gets erected, the excitement is in the air. So after much discussion and debate the final plan for the Manhut has become pretty straightforward. The structure will be a one level, 12’ x 12’ square (any fancy decks or overhangs will have to be added later). We all got together this morning to decide the final building details; positioning, door and window placement, foundation support, etc… It’s got to get built and weather tight before hunting season begins and the weather gets too cold. With any luck we’ll be in business by next weekend…. If all goes as planned.

Got Some Good Wood :

It’s Here!... My first sign of real progress! The first trailer load of wood. An ecologically friendly mix of rough-cut white pine, recycled telephone poles and other reclaimed odds and ends…. The next step will be to get this pile transferred to a pickup truck and up the mountain, a chore that makes my back ache just thinking about. If all goes as planned it will be on top by the weekend with help from the other “men of the Hut”.

Going Garbage Picking :

I saw these driving home from work; two 48"x54" thermal pane windows sitting on the curb Thursday, trash day. They were in front of a fairly new house in the area but nobody I knew. There they were leaning against an old broken desk among other junk. WOW I thought....Perfect for the Manhut!.... And for FREE! I rushed home, got The Weave and took off in his pickup. I was kind of nervous thinking that in the 15 minutes since I left the scene that someone else might have had the same idea. But happily when we got back to the scene of the trash they were still there. We tossed them in the truck and and snuck away like theives in the night.

My First Sketch :

My first sketch doodled on the corner of a napkin at lunch. Very Beverly "Hillbillies" if you know what I mean.

The Idea :

I was recently on a business trip overseas. One evening while sitting around a table with some colleagues, one of the guys mentioned that he would never be able to "do this at home". "Do what?" I said. "Do this, sit around with a bunch of guys, be loud, smoke cigars, drink a bunch and talk too much. My wife would kill me!" he said.... That seemed to be the sentiment of everyone at the table.... Especially the cigar smoking part. So I shared a conversation that I just had a week earlier with some of my guy neighbors. It was this idea of a place that guys can go to (close to home) and just hang out with the other guys. A place to smoke a cigar without criticism (and without freezing our asses off out in the garage). A place to hang out with a few creature comforts; like a couch, a stove, a cooler, a poker table, a roll of toilet paper. A place in a nice setting, without pressure, without chores and no responsibilities. Something rustic and primal with walls and a roof and not much more.....We called this place ManHut.
As each person thought about my story in their mind, the more the idea grew. "A fire pit, you've got to have a fire pit!". "Build a deck around it", "You've got to have a bar", "Need some water barrels if you’re gonna have a fire pit".... And so it went for a good part of the night.
By the end of that evening, I realized that there was something pretty universal about the idea of Manhut and that I needed to build one.

- Manhut is a place. Man Hut is a state of mind. Man Hut is freedom, friends and good times.