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 !

:)

Post 25- PASS!

We passed our framing and plumbing inspection friday morning...WOOT!  It's been quite a while since I've posted, but we've been a little busy, what with getting ready for the framing inspection and all.  Dad and Mom came up Wed afternoon, and we basically worked 12-14 hours a day until he had to leave Sat morning.  We got a LOT done.  I'd had some stuff done from before that I never posted too, so here's everything!

With notes...

If you look along the sides, you can see we've got joist hangers and the bird blocking up all around the perimeter.  Also (and more obviously), it's now much harder to do a stagedive involuntarily from the loft. Also, look at that well framed roof!

Here's the right side of the benches...with cat

Here's the left side of the benches, with the dog                                    and his boy (the cat had moved over there too)

And here (above) is the top view down.  Obviously, the benches are unfinished, but you can get an idea of what they'll look like when finished.  I have to wait for 2 more inspections before I can finish them out (they'll need to see underneath for some electrical and insulation).

Look at those posts!  Those things look like they're about 1/2" thick solid plate steel.  Dad fabricated these and brought them up, we installed them with giant lag bolts into the concrete and into the glue lam.  Those things weight like 200 lbs each, and are super solid.

Here's a view from the bench looking left-ish

Here's a view from the bench looking right-ish

Here's the hole in the middle of the floor.  Everyone keeps asking "Why did you put a hole in your floor?  What are you going to put in the hole?"  The actual answer is, "the bodies of people who make fun of the hole", but I'm telling everyone a water feature (fountain or some such) and some plants.   Shhh.  Also, check out that perfect matching angle on the framing.  That looks so good, it looks like someone else did it.  "Very Adequate", as Kenny says.

Washer hookup~!  Also, general plumbing/vents.  A washer is hooked up to that now and I'm here to tell you...Nothing will make you appreciate a washer like doing clothes by hand for a month or two.  

Point of Use hot water heater...perfect for us!

You can't really tell from this terrible picture (below), but this is my awesome shower floor.  I pretty much used the whole corner to the west of the toilet for shower, so it's pretty big.  It's a weird shape though, so I couldn't really buy a premade "shower kit" without losing a good couple feet in one of my weird angle corners.  Instead, we put down some thick rubber shower liner, then poured a little slab.  The highest point on the shower base is 5.5", and it drops down to about 3.5-4" at the drain.  The drain isn't in the direct center of the shower, but it's sloped nicely towards it so it drains great.  It's usable now, but I'll be tiling the floor and walls to have a fancy step in shower that should be pretty neat when done.  I'll be using the same tile for the kitchen counter.

Shower head... you know how these work.

Temporary walls to shower in (tile coming later)

Kitchen sink and back of the shower.  That opening you see to the right will be where the bathroom door goes.

Here's a closer look at Josh's room.  It's small, but not too uncomfortably so.  He came up with most of the design himself, he wanted a loft bed with desk and closet built in underneath.  The bed is framed, but I still have to do the fancy bits.  There's a yellow level hanging on the right side of his door opening and an HD antennae on the left.  The ladder will be built in and also serve as a guard rail.  Everything in the house needs to serve at least 2 purposes since we're in a small space.

Here's that same view (below), aiming a bit higher .  you can see the edge of the back door over to the right there, and the scaffolding disassembled.

Top of stairs and railing (East side)

Stub wall (West side) will be covered up for privacy

View of TV from middle bench

 Same shot, but taken a little bit further down

 This picture was too funny not to share.  I call this "Oh please please please".  Look closely outside the window...

Saturday we had 2 deer out in the front yard too.  Pretty neat stuff.  That's about it for now, but before I go, here's a picture of the dragon boat races that we participated in with Team Pilot.  Fun stuff!  In between races, I paddled out in my kayak and took some pix.  The first one is from land, the second one is from a kayak sitting off the finish line.  Fun stuff.

Well, that's all for now!  Thanks for reading!  I hope that your lives are as blessed as mine is.-Jj