Post 30: Grandpa, Mom, the Holidays, and such.

I know it's been a while since I posted any updates on the blog, but it's been an event-filled couple months.  I hope everyone reading this has had a wonderful thanksgiving and Christmas, ours was a little rough this year.

Here's what has been going on:

• Grandpa (James "Jim" Mattison) passed away on 11/11/13.  That was my last living grandparent.
• Heather had a weird week that she looked like the Elephant Girl due to horrible facial swelling (she got better after a week, but they still don't know what caused it)
• Mom had major surgery on 12/11, had a mild heart attack after the surgery, and is still in the hospital for complications.

So, between all that and the holidays, not too much has gotten done on the house so I don't have many house updates to show you.  PLEASE keep my mom in your prayers, she's still not better yet.

I did manage to get a few pictures during the down time, so I'll share a couple of those with you now, in no particular order:

Here's mom, feeling a little better that day.  There have been complications with the surgery, and if there's not an improvement within the next couple days they're probably going to do surgery again to fix.  This obviously concerns us because she didn't do so good after the last surgery.  Please keep her in your prayers.

I don't remember if I've put this up, but lots of people have asked (and continue to ask) about the "hole in the floor".  Currently, until we're ready to finalize, this is what I've done...

Awe inspiring sunset.

Wild Turkey in the front yard

First Snow

The Elephant Girl.  Many hilarious domestic violence jokes followed, but we still don't know the cause (she is all better now!).

First broccolli I've ever grown...

Deer out the bedroom window on mountain

Lots of deer in front yard

Post 29- It's a wrap(ped)!

Greetings once again to those of you reading this! Either you're really into this sort of thing or just don't have anything better to do right now, but either way i'm glad you stopped by.

This weekend was a busy weekend again, but very productive.  Dad, Kenny, and Mom all came up and helped.  The electrical is pretty much run and waiting on inspection (later this week, Lord willing and the cows come home).  We've got a nifty little "bench" built into the shower now that's pretty cool, and we've also got the house wrapped up in the Tyvek (the white plastic wrap looking stuff you see on new construction).

I know, you're probably thinking "blah blah blah, where's the pix?".  Well, having proactively anticipated that very request, and without further ado or dissembling..... PIX!

 Le Breaker Box.

Shower Bench! (sideways...)-->

Misty Morning

Sunny Morning

 Squirrel!!!

A variety of shots from a variety of angles, showing our newly wrapped up house.

Well, that's all for now, but there'll be more to come soon!

Thanks for reading!
Jj

Post 27- Before, and After.

I've just found all the pictures (that didn't make it onto the blog) from last year and have been going through them, and it really is remarkable to see how much progress we've made.  It really feels like it's going very slowly to me, but that's probably just because I'm impatient for it to be done.  When you get a chance to look at "before and after" it's pretty enlightening, and you can really gauge how much you've actually done, and how much you didn't do.

I'm also going to post up a "sequential pix", from date before purchase to current.

Yesterday morning, when I got home from work, there was a lovely mist sitting over the whole mountain.  I went around and took a bunch of pictures of the flowers out there, and I may put some of those up here too if they're especially nice.

Without further ado, here are pictures!

1- The Mudpit.  Septic is installed, slab is poured, and walls are put up at this point, but no roof yet.  This would put it around mid to late April of last year.

2.  Hay and seed.  I leveled those giant ruts you see above (by hand, I might add), spread seed around the whole yard, and covered it up with hay.

3.  A beautiful yard!  I've tried to take these pictures from the same angle so you can get a good "apples to apples" comparison.

4.  Here's that yard this morning.

I think it looks pretty good.  Here are a few other pix from this morning as well, in no particular order:

Neat vine flower, don't know what kind, but pretty :)

Wild Persimmons!  I have many.  

How many, you ask?  More than this many... (shown is about 1/8th of 1 tree, I have 2 older persimmon trees).

Here's an interesting factoid: Deer love persimmons.  Apparently, when they fall, they ferment where they lay.  Then, deer come by and get liquored up on persimmon shots.    I have it on good authority (although haven't witnessed it myself) that the deer are hilarious when they get drunk off the persimmons.  I'm hoping to have some hilarious footage to back that up, once the persimmons hit about 60 proof.

Pretty flowers (or weeds, depending on your view.  I think they're pretty.)

Here are a few of the house, this is a good picture of the driveway, with some house pix to follow:


 

 And, here are a couple of the mountain.  The top one is kind of behind the fruit grove, the bottom one is just to the right of the house, looking north.

Post 27- Minor Improvements

I spent yesterday cleaning the house a bit, installing some new stuff, and then put a little coffee table together out of scrap.

I've got 2 hanging lamps put up that look very nice, and reorganized the kitchenette area.  This won't be a big post, but here's a couple pix of the table and reorganized kitchen area.  Oh, you can't see it really in these pix, but I've got my pots hanging on a rack on the left side of the counter.  I tested this out for functionality last night when I cooked and I like it! 

More importantly, Heather likes it too I think.

A few things about the table.  It's (intentionally) the same exact height as the benches, so depending on the configuration you desire, it's pretty easy to set up a guest bed, a recliner, or giant footstool/table (currently shown).  It's also got a built in shelf for storage, either baskets or what have you.  You just kind of slide it around to the position you want, and voila.  

It's a bit of a custom length (and width and height), but it interacts with the benches wonderfully.  By design, even.  As Kenny says, "this looks so good, it looks like someone else did it...".  Anyhoo, here's the table in all it's unstained glory.

I'm pleased with how it turned out.  I put the table together with recycled bits of wood from the wood pile, the top of it is the 2x12 we used for the form on the foundation, the legs are re-purposed wall braces, and the slats on the bottom for storage are from furring strips prettied up a bit.  A little stain and a touch of the router should add the final touches.

More to come later, thanks for reading!

J

Post 26- Raise the Roof, woop and then also woop, part deux

It's a good day.

My roofer came through, and I now have a shiny new green tin roof, which is nice:  we had the thick tar paper on top but that stuff is notorious for "drying up" within a moderately short time (and then leaking) when exposed to direct sunlight and we were kind of pushing the time limits on how long we could go without covering it up (and still not getting wet when it rains).

Anyhoo, it's on now, which is a good thing.  I've just got something resembling an almost human schedule at work too, so I'm pretty stoked about that too.

Without further ado, here's a bunch of pictures I took of the place the other morning.  The yard is looking great, if you don't believe me, flip back a few months and look at the giant mud pit that was the front yard, and compare to the below.

Pix, so it did happen:

Here's a closeup (below) of the little wall down at the split in the driveway.  Those are big giant chunks of raw marble, the biggest blocks were too big to even drag, I mean...heavy duty.  

From a bit further back.... (below)

We went to Ikea, and among other things, we picked up some curtains (on the cheap!) for the windows.  I've got the rods for them too, but I've put them on a temporary clothesline for now since I don't want to take off the rods and then reinstall them when we put up the drywall.

And, a few more gratuitous shots of the house and yard.

We're off to church, have a great day, thanks for reading !

:)