Jim Bahoosh Builder, 95 Main Street, Box 192, Unity, ME (2026)

09/22/2022

Goodness I've missed you!
I opted to put the rebuild of the big beauty on hold, and have recently started a new build in Belfast. It's in a lovely spot, close to trails, town, a tidal river, woods and fields. The variety of bird life is superb. Listening to the fluting of a hermit thrush while Osprey and Bald Eagles cruise by is pretty sweet. The house will be a single floor, two bedroom, one bath, and I hope it will be every bit as lovely as the spot.
This weekend marks the return of The Common Ground Fair. It's so nice to have The Fair back. I'll be giving a talk on designing and building small house's Sunday at 2 in the Shelter and Energy tent. Stop by and say hello!

I recently reassembled a building I took to The Fair about six years ago. It measures 12 by 12 and is available.

01/23/2022

Well, it certainly has been a while.
Here's what I've learned since we last touched base; The Beast, my current restoration, is in truth The Beauty, and The Beauty is The Beast. It's quite satisfying to see the transformation, which is good, since there's still a long way to go. I started with the porch supports and framing. This allowed me a level base for the staging. The house was moved to the site, previously used as a stone and rubble dump, somewhere around 1900. Digging for posts was a challenge. Working from the top down, I've replaced all the windows, repaired, replaced, or rebuilt all window trim and siding. Everything has been scraped down, refastened, primed and top coated. The porch, which wraps three sides of the house, is framed. A few days ago I put in the new kitchen door. March First is my personal deadline for deciding if I'll continue the project, or put it on hold while I build a new, and considerably smaller, house.

05/31/2021

New Plan
Did you know that the price of framing lumber is currently three times what it was a year ago? It's thrilling in a macabre sort of way. There's this wonderful camaraderie built around sticker shock and crisis bonding. That bonding has been nice but I've opted not to build a new house this year.
Rather than new construction I'll be turning my attention to a restoration. I anticipate spending the next four, OK maybe six months working on the exterior. The exterior is labor intensive but relatively light on the materials that have skyrocketed in price. Replacing the porch that wraps three sides of the house is the exception. At 864 square feet the porch is larger than most of my recent houses.

03/13/2021

You know what? I think I'm done.

My goal with the current build was to create a relatively simple yet lovely one bedroom house. Single floor living with the potential of expansion into the attic. Bright and crisp. I'm feeling good about the result. The house is just under 600 square feet. It has a good size entry with plenty of room to take off your shoes and hang up your coat. A dedicated utility room and closet for a stack washer and dryer. Large closets in the bathroom and bedroom. A good working kitchen with storage. In floor radiant heat.

The house is under contract. I'm happy to show it if you'd like to put in a back up offer or are just curious. Give me a call to arrange a time. (207) 460-0553

02/21/2021

I have an active yet mundane dream life.

At times it's difficult for me to discern if something took place during a dream or while awake. I had an e-mail a few weeks back saying we were ready to close on the land. Land? I had a dream like recollection of expecting to purchase a lot back in August. It's a great lot. If it proves to be waking life real I'll build there next. If it's dream life real, well, I'll build there next. It's a win win.

Also in the winning category is the current build. It's coming together quite nicely. If you need a sweet and efficient one bedroom house in Belfast this may be perfect. I'll have details and interior pictures here late next week.

12/21/2020

An eleven day challenge.

This past Friday, while in a run of frigid weather, the heating system was started up. By Saturday morning the house went from oh no to oh yes. Life is much more pleasant.

To celebrate here's a goal. Currently all the interior ceilings and most of the walls are up. By New Year's Day I'd like to have the bedroom and bath done. That means final walls up in bath, fan connected, backer board up around the tub and tiled. Linen closet built, vanity base and light in. Bedroom closet built, doors for closet, linen closet, bath and bedroom built and hung. Windows trimmed. Baseboard trim in. Painting done. Two coats on knots, one or two coats of primer, one or two of topcoat. I'll need to get the attic insulated prior to painting, plus all the other stuff I'm forgetting.

To keep me fueled, here's a portion of a Muhammad Ali quote I'll keep in mind. "Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."

12/13/2020

Sweetness

Like most of the world, I've been struggling with life during Covid. The isolation has been difficult. About a month ago I needed to start actively working on improving my mental state. In part I've been keeping my eyes open for all things beautiful, kind, or goofy. It's been a great help. I heartily recommend it.

Here's something I saw this morning when driving by the thrift store here in Unity. It's the kind of sweet that just fills you with delight for people. Later this morning friends and neighbors to my current build delivered blueberry pancakes complete with a container of maple syrup. That's the kind of sweet that makes me want to whoop for joy.

I promise a house update before the end of next week. It's pretty sweet too.

10/17/2020

Classic

You know it's been a while since your last post when you have to revert to "Classic Facebook" to navigate with any sense of familiarity. So here we go. Classic Jim.

You may recall that my current project went from rebuild to new build lickety split. The existing structure was gone by the first week of July. By the third week of July I had the house planned, site prepped, and foundation poured. One thing about starting a project in summer with 16 hours of good working light a day, a pandemic that shuts down all social options and a drought. There's plenty of time to focus. I'm pushing to complete the exterior while temperatures still allow the topcoats to cure.

Currently I'm focused on the final side. This side has a porch. It's also where the electric service is attached. My electrician was kind enough to swing by and place the service drop while I had scaffolding up. Everything is easier with good access. Lacking a red carpet to show my appreciation I instead picked a bouquet of late season asters and clover and placed it on the scaffold. My electrician enjoyed the joke. When I went back up to finish top coating that section I was amazed at how lovely working next to a bouquet was. It made for a classy and sweet site. I need to pick flowers more often.

06/22/2020

Fledglings. Birds and Ideas.

My new project was, for about a minute, the rebuild of an early 60's Ranch. It was out of my norm but intriguing. We both, the Ranch and I, entered the world around the same time. We both could benefit from a makeover. Ten minutes into the project and the feelings of kinship were outweighed by the mold, crumbling foundation and overall awfulness of the space. I made the decision to tear it down and build new. Everyone else who had seen the house in the last ten years had already come to that conclusion. OK, so I was late to the party, but I made it. I gutted the interior and lined up an excavator to take down the rest. That's when I noticed that the nest in the garage wasn't abandoned, it was full of Phoebe's. I contacted the folks at Avian Haven in Freedom. They were great. I was wondering if I could successfully move the nest. They suggested I send them a picture and they would give me an idea of how long until they fledged. I delayed demolition, built and hung a nesting box. Once they fledged I moved the nest into the box. I thought my electrician was building bird houses too, but it was a house for temporary outlets.

Suddenly I needed to design a new house. It's not like I don't think about this all the time. The house needs to be a simple build, lovely, and small. It sounds easy. I was stumped, trapped in a circle of design logic. Recently I've been having conversations with my kids that revolve around thinking about things in a new light. Questioning assumptions. Assumptions so integral I never even thought of them as assumptions. My kids have been really patient with me. The discussions have been vibrant and the new ideas stunningly practical. I decided to apply the same skill of questioning to the new design. Good results came fast.

05/25/2020

Insulation Steeplechase

Blowing in attic insulation is a simple two person job. One person to feed the machine and one at the attic end of the hose. Efficient but dull. As a solo task it's more akin to an athletic event. "On my mark, ready, Go!". Load a half bale into the machine then head around the corner. Lead with your left foot up the 6' stepladder, over the rail with your right onto the bucket then deck. Into the house. Up the stairs, up the 8' step ladder and through the attic hatch. Crouch and dash through the attic to the business end of the hose. Turn machine on with the remote. Blow in the half bale. Machine off and back down through the hatch, down the 8, down the stairs, over the rail, down the 6, around the corner and load another half bale. I estimated needing 18 bales so had 26 on hand. It's a lot easier to return them than have to stop and head out to the lumberyard for more. So, less prep and wrap up, I was looking at 36 to 52 round trips. Very manageable. So much so that I decided to add a Burpee on the porch each return trip. I was a bit disappointed when the job only took 17 bales.

In one of the attic views you'll notice two vents. One is for plumbing. The other is a radon vent. It's easy to put a radon vent in during new construction. I recommend it. You may also notice foil faced insulation on the base of the ceiling joist, a gap and an additional joist. I do that for the air sealing value of the taped foam, build up for 20" of blown in, and still have a floor above.

05/17/2020

Kitchen of the United Nations
Every meal prepared here is an international event. The apron sink is from Mexico, faucet from China, the 1/4" plywood of the drawer bases and the 3/4" ply that make up the carcass of the base cabinets from Cambodia. The Pine 1 x 6 edge and center bead as well as the 1 x 8 of the walls grew in Maine and was milled a few towns away. The Southern Yellow Pine flooring is from farther south, in Georgia. The granite countertops were quarried in Northern India. The milled slabs then traveled the sea to Quebec, via Boston. Final fabrication took place in Quebec and that's where the installation crew traveled from.
A few weeks after the countertops were installed I noticed a tiny scratch on the backsplash. An extremely pleasant French Canadian gentlemen arrived March 11 to make the repair. When I mentioned how much I enjoyed traveling to the Saguenay Fjord he immediately pulled out his phone to show me other great places to go along the St Lawrence. I couldn't help but notice that his screen saver photo was of some bikini model. It turned out that she was his sweetie and lives in Cuba. He travels to see her once every three months. On a daily basis he sends flowers along with a love note. The flowers he sends are pictures he takes of bouquets in stores. He's fluent in French, English, and Spanish. His German and Greek weren't quite as strong. Not to brag, but when I shook his hand that day, March 11, it was the last physical contact with a fellow human being I've had.

05/13/2020

Surprising myself. In a good way.
I was sure from the very beginning of my current build that the interior stairs would have a stainless steel rail system. A few days ago I turned my attention to that task and decided to go a different direction. Thus surprise number one. I built the rail and balusters out of 5/4 poplar and 1 x 4 pine. The pictures show the sequence. I love projects like this. Taking a few simple ingredients and seeing what you can think up. I'm really happy with the results.
Here's surprise number two. There's always a stack of CD's on site. Currently about 100 in a box. I'll go to pick one out and am uninspired by the collection. Frequently I'll just play the same CD for days. Recently I started picking and putting CD's in without looking. It's been super fun. Today's random picks went like this. Jason Spooner, Paul Barrere, Charlie Haden, Break'n Bossa, Gipsy Kings, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Rodrigo y Gabriella. I'm hearing stuff I never knew I had.

Jim Bahoosh Builder

09/22/2022

01/23/2022

05/31/2021

03/13/2021

02/21/2021

12/21/2020

12/13/2020

10/17/2020

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