It's a Colorful Life

Well, it's been a while since our last post, but things are moving quickly now, just not as visibly as before.  All the construction is done, inside and out, and everything that remains is the fun stuff, as far as I'm concerned.  I'm talking about paint, cabinets, counter tops, flooring, fireplaces, and all the trim and other interior details.  The deck still has to be built too, and then the landscraping (sic) begins.

For the interior details, we had to develop two very complicated spreadsheets to keep it all organized.  Well, to keep it manageable, really.  We have two different granite types, a beautiful marble for both bath counters, marble tile for the bathrooms, entry, and fireplace hearth, and tile for the laundry room and mud room.  And colors?  OMG.  Bruce has remained quite calm through this process, considering that most people know that I'm not afraid of wild colors.  And now that he has seen the colors actually on the walls, he's still calm, but just a little unsettled.  Bear in mind that the color he chose for his office is named "Dorian Gray."  I rest my case.

Reclaiming the South Forty

Farm jobs can start out seeming rather small, like an afternoon "project" for two people to finish completely.  But no-o-o, this is such wrong thinking and I don't understand why we don't seem to learn!  Just one example, from last weekend, was the simple trimming of some tree limbs that had grown over the "orchard" (trust me, it WILL be an orchard some day!).  Armed with two chain saws, we thought it would be a breeze.  So, we took time to admire the farm life, the ducks and the visiting pair of geese (noisy fellows!), and all the little trees that will produce tons of delicious fruit, hopefully within our lifetimes.

Visiting Honkers

Baby Steps

WOW!  Three weeks since I last posted.  Much activity but a lot of it was behind the scenes.  Working with my contractor to change my deck material from clear cedar to a tropical hardwood.  Cost is an issue but I think we have worked out a good compromise.  But before I go any further I wanted to post

Mi Casa Es Mi Casa...

Well, as you can see by some of the earlier posts, the house is looking more and more like a house, and there are now about a million little details of inside finish work to worry about.  Most of the big stuff has been chosen, like granite and marble, flooring, doorknobs, sinks and faucets... but trying to ponder interior colors is making me nuts.  We have too many woods, too many stone surfaces, too many windows, and almost no walls at all, so I'm going to just think about something else until the last minute.  Something will suggest itself!

It's spring now (rumor has it) and planting season is well upon us... We're really late, actually.  No seedlings are started yet, and the bare root trees that we bought a month ago are begging to put their feet into a permanent home.  We got several of them planted on Sunday, and that was about all we could get done in a weekend.  Doesn't sound like much, but it took all both of us had in us to get even that much done!

But the project I'm eager to get back to is the sweet little cottage.  And the old garden shed hasn't fallen down yet, so Bruce has agreed to let it be for another season... and by then I hope to have a new clear "sun roof" on it, and maybe a couple of braces to help it stand up for a while longer.  But back to the cottage:  This is my project, with a little help from Bruce, and eventually it will become a little artist's retreat and/or guest cottage.  It needs everything done to it... new interior, new exterior, new roof, gutters... new window at the back, new little powder room, new French doors on the front...  And the exterior soil level has to be lowered also, plus a backhoe job to pull old ivy and blackberry roots.

So, without boring you with the written details of this job, let me bore you with a video about it...  This is the first installation of many, as I get started with the major stuff...  I'm loving this work, actually.  It's really fun to be utterly destructive in such a constructive way!  Totally therapeutic.  Enjoy the film.  It's about two and a half minutes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLLlv-UIKyQ.

It's not all about the house

Much interior work getting done.  The HVAC guy has done his thing.  The monster heat exchanger is not set yet but all the interior stuff is done including mounting the air-handler under the house in the crawl space.  Ducting is done as well.  Electricians have been in there for the last 10 or 12 days.  All the ceiling cans, fan mounts, vent fans (there are 5 in the house for some reason), outlets and switches, main panel, sub panel, all that stuff is in.  Exterior boxes to mount the door lights, floods, hot tub outlet, and probably 10 other things I can't think of right now are in.  But it is not all about the house.  Dee and I spent the weekend prepping the

Where have I been?

I have been derelict in my blogging responsibilities.  There has been much progress in the two weeks since I last updated the blog but as I said earlier once the structure is up  and enclosed, progress is less visible.  Nonetheless our crew has completed the siding, roofing, most of the trim

A roof over our heads

In a previous episode we saw that the roof membrane was installed.  This helped keep the rain out of the house to a point but it is not a finished roof.  This week the standing seam sheet metal roof material arrived and