Trimming it out

So much for keeping this up to date.....I have been traveling and Mike has been working his tail off. While I 've been gone- the kitchen cabinets came in, thirteen doors arrived and the furniture is ready. Of course Mike had to go pick up everything himself, get it off the trailer and up the stairs. We had picked up all of the appliances before I left for Boston and they are all in the garage.

I don't have any updated pictures but so far Mike has laid all of the stone flooring and trimmed out the windows and doors. What a job! He is really glad to be done with that part of the interior work as it was all sore knees and rough hands work.

Mike has been busy this week getting the base cabinets attached to the walls, upper cabinet hung and lining it all up. By the time I get home- the kitchen will be ready for countertops.....I'm feeling a bit guilty with all the work he is doing without me around. But with me gone.....I am not around to complicate decisions and projects. He can do his own thing and get alot done when I'm not around!

We are moved!!!

The painting is done and it looks great! All corners are touched up and finished. One final nap before we started on the clean up the rest of the flooring. Lily and I got a few quick winks on a sunny afternoon.

We moved last weekend October 6/7th! The laundry room, bathroom and bedroom are 90% complete. Just the baseboard trim has to be finished. Mike has been busy getting the kitchen and great room floor tiles laid. This is quite a large job. With the help of Arlene mixing mud and cleaning up- he has made some fast progress. Since I have been traveling- I can't be there to assist until the weekends. We have hung all the closet shelves but all the doors are on order, so it will be awhile before the closets have doors.

The office and safes have been moved into place. Thank goodness for neighbors with forklifts! That tool made it easier to move the big stuff.

The office is moved and organized with a view outside.

Golden coins

Arlene told me that I would know when fall arrived. She said the wind would blow for half a day and then the trees would turn. Sure enough that day came and went...the wind blew and I waited. As you can see the leaves have turned and the ground looks like it is littered with round golden coins. Funny- the things you forget- it has been so long since I had heard the leaves falling. It is so quiet- you can hear them fall to the ground. Since we rarely have wind- the leaves do not have to compete with the howl of the wind (unlike Iowa and South Dakota). They just float through the air to the ground- slowly- almost like snow flakes. I guess the leaves are just letting me get used to the motion of things falling from the sky (snow is in my future).

Fuel has been delivered, the boiler is keeping the house warm and we are happy. Now we also have propane to fuel the grill and the future kitchen cooktop. Kitchen cabinets and appliances will arrive in early November so we will be camping out at the house with microwave and grill.

Mike and I have been extremely busy. No sleep and long days have kept us from this blog. We are trying to get into the house in the next two weeks. We have made alot of progress considering we are not electricians, painters or general contractors. I know we have really driven Casey crazy with our phone calls that go like this: "Casey- which wires do we hook up to what post and OUCH! that shocked me! No I don't have any red wires- I just have blue, white and black."....and that's how it goes with us....lots of phone calls and instruction over the phone on how to wire up 3 way switches and fan kits. Thank goodness Casey is more patient than his father- I'd hang up on Mike as ouchy as he can get. But regardless Mike has been busy getting all of the switches and plugs operational and now has them all working.

Once the sheetrocking work was complete- Mike sprayed all of the interior with primer, then paint. That was quite a job considering he had to be on a ladder to spray the ceiling. He'd come home all white from head to toe with eyelashes tipped in paint.

On the weekends- have been busy trimming (painting) out all of the walls, installing light fixtures and working at my real job during the week. I don't know whose idea it was to have the ceiling one color, the walls another and then for "interest" another color in the house! So we have white ceilings, tan walls and "focus" walls (green or burgundy). That equals alot of trimming out on the ladder since all of the walls are at least 10-14 feet high. The house looks great and will look even better once the windows are trimmed out and the floor installed. So below you are looking at the master bath, bedroom and kitchen lights.

I love ladders and they love me!

Master Bath

Master Bedroom

Kitchen Ceiling

Now that the painting is mostly completed- Mike has started to lay the stone floors. The radiant heat in the floors will heat the stone which in turn will keep us warm. So far the laundry room is completed, the bath and master bedroom are next to be laid. It is quite a process....Mike lays hardiboard floor underlayment, staples it into place, mixes mortar, tapes the seams in the area to be worked (only 9 sq feet at a time) and then lays the Slate tile. The Tile has such colors- it is really interesting and will work great with our paint colors and wood windows. Below you see the laundry room.

TODAY the the office is FINALLY sheetrocked and ready for paint. We had a different guy do this small job for us....just let me say....live and learn. Mike and I expect people to work like we do- no jabber breaks, no smoke breaks- just work until the work is done. At $25/ hour we figure we got about $10 worth of work per hour out of the guy. Expensive lesson learned- enough said.

Potatoes and carrots- While growing up in Iowa- we did not grow potatoes and carrots - I had never worked with them. So out of Arlene's garden, I pulled and dug until my hands were cold and I had mud up to my elbows. But what nice produce... the potatoes are sweet and baseball sized and the carrots are unlike any I have ever had.

MILESTONE: Mike has been anxious to take off the factory plastic that has been on our windows. Of course this couldn't be done until all the painting was completed. Finally he was able to tear it off and see outside. The real view to our seasonal pond and fall colors. He even got on the ladder to tear off the vault window plastic.

BIGGEST MOMENT: I guess the biggest moment this past week was when the neighbors told us that our "outdoor" lights light up the road. Wow- we had not really thought about that- as we leave before dark and don't return until the next morning. The lights are automatic so they turn on at dark. Sure enough those lights really shine....now it looks like somebody is home..... Soon....Yes we will be home soon.

Today was Electrifying!!!

Yes!!! Finally we have real electricity and power! After much hassle and many phone calls- I finally got someone to move off dead center and get the job done. The power line had been in the ground since August 24th but for some reason MEA could not get it together AGAIN! The story line went like this- I called MEA... the receptionist referred me to "Bob". Bob says "that's not my job" you need to call "Don". I call Don who says "that's not my job", you need to call "Kevin". I call Kevin who tells me the guy I have to speak to- "Sterling" is on vacation until next week. So the next week I call "Sterling" who says "that's not my job"- you need to call "BOB"!!!. So I call BOB and ask him if he knows what his job is.....he was out that afternoon to get the inspection completed that had been holding up our power for over two weeks. Boy was I mad.....these people at MEA are something else. You should see the call log I have been keeping. If it wasn't for the fact that they are the monopoly- I would go elesewhere to get power.

So the picture below are of real electricity and the boiler got fired up today. The house was 60 degrees and just four hours later the floors were warm. The house was 70 degrees.

Sometimes I really don't get the big picture and when it dawns on me.....well then it is really something. Since the telephone company put in the telephone pedestal- there has been a nice tall yellow stick. I thought this was so they could see it when the grass got tall. It occurred to me as it was raining cats and dogs that all of this rain was going to make some great snow when it got cold. THEN I GOT IT>>>>the yellow stick was to show where the pedestal was when the snow got that deep! When I told Mike of this great insight....he just grinned and smiled. I wonder just how high the snow will get on those 9' yellow sticks. As you see....they are attached to all of the services in the picture below!!! Maybe I will need a 9' yellow stick attached to me so I can be seen when it gets too deep around here!!

The sheetrock guys are finally finished. I say finally because it took 10- days timeframe to complete 4 days of actual work. They just spread it out like they have all the time in the world. I was really anxious to get the painting started. Now that I have started the priming- I wish it was completed. The roller is heavy, the ceilings are high and it takes time to do the first coat. Good News!!!! WE HAVE ELECTRICITY!!!

Drywall is Hung!

So the drywallers showed up on Wednesday morning at 10 am. They worked and worked until they finally had the upper level all hung. It was so interesting to watch them "puzzle" it together. Like a bunch of bees- they screwed all the sheetrock to the walls, then they finally left at 10pm. Thursday the sheetrockers cleaned up the mess they left, covered the floor with paper and got it ready for the next stage. Monday they will return to tape and mud the seams- then the rest of the week will be spent finishing the texture.

Mike has been busy getting all of the electrical connections made in the utility room. Every heating zone has a thermostat and pump to get the heat to the right place at the right temperature. It looks like the engine room of the boat. Complex and yet not so much!

Let's see- Where are we now?

Thank goodness for family!

Without Arlene and Terry- this project would have been impossible to complete. Not only has Terry provided his earthmoving talents but they both have been sharing their home with us. Our spot is the front slanted roof portion of the house. Not only are we occupying their home but we are also taking up one side of their garage. All of our worldly possessions are in one stall of their garage. I am sure they will be glad to see us get into our own space. Hopefully by October we will be in the our new home.

We've been berry picking up on the Denali highway. Climbed up a steep hillside to find blueberries along the ground like strawberries. One hour later we had about 2 gallons of wild blueberries. It is a bit disconcerting when Mike straps on his "bear" gun. I guess we are all competing for the berries. This last weekend we picked cranberries at our own place. Once again we had a gallon of cranberries for future jelly and cranberry ketchup.

You all have to forgive me for not getting the updates on here as quickly as they should be. A lot of the work that is being completed until today was "small stuff" like outdoor lights, receptacles, oiling and wrapping plastic on all of the windows. The constant sweeping, cleaning and picking up also keeps us busy. Mike got our cradle built for the 500 gallon fuel tank. We picked the diesel tank up today and onto the cradle it went. I have tiled/grouted our Japanese soaking tub deck area as it had to be completed prior to the sheetrock installation. My other job has been caulking all the seams under the deck. I now have cedar colored caulk all over my painting bibs- not a pretty sight.

Plumber "Ritchie" is still working on the heating and plumbing system. I think this project was much bigger than he thought. A quick peek into the "boiler" room shows you all of the pipes and valves required to heat our house. Ritchie sits on that bucket everyday- putting pipes together to get it all routed to the right places.

Now today- things really started to move. Current River Electric moved all of the digging equipment in and started to lay in our cable for electricity. We got all of our transformers and cable and the power is now in sight. It seems like it has taken a long time to get to this point.
The great news is that we have red cable running down the side of the road- tomorrow it will be buried and connected to the transformers in the near future (hopefully next week).

The drywall people started hanging sheetrock and will be done with that today. They sent a crew of 6 to get it done quickly. It is amazing to watch them cut, lift, fit and screw all of the pieces like a gigantic jig saw puzzle. Tomorrow they will start to tape the seams. Then the mud, then paint, then flooring- Oh Boy!! We are getting closer!

Siding Completed & Blow up Insulation

The Siding guys- Dave & Dave are done with our upper siding and trim. It looks great and they got it done in record time. They worked great with Mike as he was their "cut guy" and cut all the siding to their liking. Many thanks for their help. They were great to work with and appreciated my attempts at cooking lunch for them. Yes- I am becoming chief cook and bottle washer since Mike is building this house. I haven't killed anyone off yet but it has been a real challenge for me to learn how to get everything on the table at one time.

This week the Insulation guys showed up. In drove two big trucks- one has a large generator with pumps in it and the other had misc supplies. This is a very interesting process- they spray a thin layer of soybean based insulation on the walls- then spray on the actuator. The first layer BLOOMS out from the wall and fills the gaps (like watching the cartoon the HULK). The material is like a styrofoam- soft and firm at the same time. After the spraying is all complete- they come in and trim it down to size with saws so the sheetrock can be attached to the studs. They will come back and do the lower level ceiling and above the ceiling sheetrock once the rock has been hung.

Spraying it on.

The Blooming insulation!

Trimmed out insulation on the floor and upper insulation that needs to be trimmed.

Next week the sheetrock guys show up and MEA (Electric company) gets started on getting power to our site. Good News- the kitchen windows are in and ready for pick up. Now the house will truly be ready for cold weather as it is water tight.