Progress!

 

 

 

This will be the studio for Phil and I to share.  Taken from "his" end of the room, which--admittedly--is not huge.  But he only wanted a small space for his leather table and tools, so it works out.  GREAT lighting--four lights with three aim-able fixtures each, and a light in each closet.  Plus three four-by-four windows on the south and west sides.  I already love this room.  The floor is a deep sunflower yellow.  I can't wear yellow, or I look like I died and nobody told me.  But I find it to be a color that stimulates my creativity, so there ya go.   

Bathroom floors!  I did this.  It was scary, and I had a couple Lucille Ball moments in there (crawling around in Patch & Smooth on my hands and knees, scooping handfuls of cement muck into the bucket, because I didn't know how to mix or use it.)  But it's Vinyl Composite Tile--that old grade-school linoleum--so it'll last forever.  Once I figured out the process, it went pretty fast.  I love it.  Bonus; you can ease the cutting of this stuff with a heat gun.  Hubby bought me a good one, and I am embarrassed by how much I like using the thing!  Call me Pyro Jan--I had soooo much fun.

 

 

Here is Phil, figuring out the cabinet layout (with Gypsy's help, of course).  That mess in the middle of the room is where our dining table will go, once we're in.We bought unfinished Home Depot cabinets, and I painted for almost two weeks.  Never thought I'd get tired of painting, but now I know;

 it's possible.

 

 

I call this the Coffee Bar, and Phil said, "But you don't drink coffee anymore."  So he named it The Hutch.  So, Hutch it is.  The tall green pantry will be an appliance garage.  Don't mind the plywood countertops--we're making do until our custom ones come in late in January (painted toe-kicks asap).  I'll be cussing myself when I have to get a step stool for the stuff in the top of those 36" cabinets, but that'll all be "seldom used" stuff, and I'll need the exercise anyway.

You can see the laundry room off to the right side there.  

It's 21 x 6, so it's all business.  The vinyl plank flooring goes throughout the house, with the exception of the bathrooms, the studio, and our master bedroom which will get carpet for Phil's tootsies.  

 

 

I love this flooring!  It's got enough texture that Gypsy doesn't slide everywhere, it's tough and doesn't show her scuff marks even though she gets the crazy-zoomies on it all the time.  It doesn't show dirt because of all the pattern variation, and it's super easy to maintain.  What more could you want in a floor?

 

 

We had three snows before December!  I discovered something about my husband.  I always knew he wasn't a fan of severe or windy cold (who is?), but his real problem with rain and snow: the messy ground.  My Arizona Desert Rat grew up never having to contend with muddy boots, and it really annoys him!

  

We still have to finish the decks and railings, and a few plumbing fixtures.  We did one toilet yesterday, so YAY!!! No more 20 degree trips to the porta-john.  It's not like I didn't know I was spoiled, but dang.  We'll have to wait til spring and warmer weather to finish exterior painting of the cinderblock foundation walls, and a couple other things (chicken coop!!!), but it'll keep. The front door will be barn red.

There's a county thing called the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy that we must get, and in order to get it, we have to have; a functional kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, as well as all electrical fixtures in place, and the finished decks with railings.  We're getting there, and it gets more fun every day.  Once we're in, we'll work on baseboards and window trim, built-ins and shelving.  Every day I discover how right this floor plan is for us, and that the rooms are really going to "live" bigger than I thought when we designed it.  

Looking to be by Christmas.  What a great present!

I did it. And it is wonderful.

 I just deleted my Facebook account.  Feels like a hundred pounds has rolled off my chest.  The MeWe thing will take a while to get off the ground, but it'll be worth it in the end, and quite a few folk have already switched, so there are friends there I know. 

It will also take a while to get any kind of presence established there regarding the folk art, but that's okay, too.  I hope to do more locally, as this town is very touristy, with fairs and carnivals throughout the summer.  Well, once the diaper-face hysterics let up.  At any rate, it's been amazing how much of a time-suck it was, how often I checked it, and how much I depended on online communications (even if they made me mad) as opposed to real people who matter, in person.  What did we do before Facebook?  We had phone calls, we wrote letters, we sent photos to the kids and got them in return.  We lived a real life instead of a virtual one.  I'm looking forward to that. 

The house is coming along, though we still won't be in til almost Christmas.  We get interior doors delivered tomorrow, along with decking materials.  Flooring guy will be there Monday, and we're hoping to have at least the lower cabinets installed before then--I've been painting cabinets for a week!  But it's already beginning to feel like home.  Yesterday morning when I went out there to start the day painting, I saw elk along one edge of the acre, and turkeys roosting in the trees behind the house.  Moving in will be a wonderful Christmas present. 

Happy Thanksgiving if I don't hear from y'all in the meantime. 

Almost in the dry...

I promised photos in the last post, so here are some.  The guys are framing even in light rain, trying so hard to get it all covered.  There are only three of them, so it's taking longer than we'd hoped, but it's getting done, at least.  We see changes every time we're out there, and loving it. 

Have a great weekend.  (Not sure why the hubs only got these shots of the back, but I'll get more.)

It's me agin, Margret.

I brought yew a live chickin & some peach preserves!  (I always loved Ray Stevens.) 

So alas, I do not have a live chicken, but I do have chicken fever.  Again.  And again waaaay too soon for me to do anything about it but study.  And I can see how chickens are a "gateway animal".  Because now I want a milk goat, some ducks, maybe some turkeys for the freezer...this could get bad.

The good news is that the builder is to the framing point, finally, so we might even have roof decking up there in a week or so! 

I still need to take the pictures from camera to file, but I'll have them soon.  Yesterday (Sunday) we went out there, took our lawn chairs and a towel for Gypsy to lay on, and just...sat.  Enjoyed the shade, the peace and quiet, and the excitement of seeing progress. 

The floor is up, and most of the wall framing (no wall board yet), and it's shocking how high the south end is!  We didn't realize, until they put up the stem walls, how much the lot sloped.  It's very flat, but not nearly as level as we'd thought.  That's actually okay with me--when I designed the house/plans, I understood it might look like a long skinny mobile home with porches.  Because we didn't want a bunch of cute little nooks and angles and fancy roof lines.  We wanted something we could afford to build.  But no WAY is this going to look like a mobile home.

So that's my news--we're making progress.  And the funny thing is, now it's harder to wait and be patient than it was when we just had footers and stem walls.  It's time to get busy clarifying and condensing all my lists.  The electrician and plumber will both need to go over everything with us once the framing is done, to nail down exact positions of outlets, switches, lights, sink plumbing, etc.  It feels good to have something to DO. 

In the meantime, I have chicken fever, so the graph paper is out, along with lots of eraser dust, while I design chicken coops for WAY more chickens than we need.
 
Have a lovely week!  (The last photo is of the south end.  With those deep floor joists and decking up there, it's now exactly even with the top of my head.)

And...cue August.

Well, according to the locals and/or regular visitors, we're having an abnormally hot summer.  I suppose that's good in a way--break us in like boot camp. 

I have run out of things to design, redesign, move around on the plans.  All the window sizes are decided, paint colors, cabinets, flooring, doors, hardware for doors.  Bathrooms top to bottom the same.  I even have the towel rods already. 

We're still a week out from starting any framing, and it must be said this is TORTURE!  But I'll get over myself soon--promise. 

Pictures soon as I get some. 

In the meantime, have a fabulous weekend.

Seriously? February was the last post???

Hmph.  Well, I'll give myself a break on it--we've had a LOT going on. 

I'll try to keep it short.

Throughout January and February, I tackled the job of dismantling and packing up the studio, and getting the house "HGTV-Ready" for its realty listing.  We did list it...and a week later the Covid mess hit.  Luckily, we found a buyer in that first week!

We had to get a rental here in the mountains while we build on our lot.  Tricky, as this is a vacation town, and verrrrry few landlords accept pets.  But we did it, and with TWO Uhaul loads up & down the mountains, we got moved to the rent house, the end of April. 

Of course, then it's time to establish all that "stuff" you have to set up--a family doc, eye doc, dentist, a place to get oil changes, a new pet-vet, all the while we're getting house plans finalized, and a contract with the builder underway.  (We had to fire the first one, but this second is a jewel!)

Now we're already in June, and I find myself with a lot of time on my hands.  Our rent house is a tiny thing, so no room to set up a studio.  In one room I do have my sewing machine set up, and a few projects saved out to save my sanity...but I confess I'm not inspired to do any of them yet.  Maybe I need to get more desperate.  Ha!

I am, however, getting lots of exercise.  The first two weeks I could hardly believe the degree to which this elevation affected me--we're only a couple thousand feet higher than we were!  Two things happened, due to the thinner air here: my dreams went haywire, and my caffeine headaches did too. 

Apparently some people are greatly affected during REM sleep at higher altitudes, which is why I felt like I was dreaming--all night, every night.  I still call my husband The Bear Whisperer because of one of those weird dreams.  And the 1/2-life of caffeine (time it takes to clear your system) is twice as short as it is at a lower elevation.  So my morning cups of half-caff wore off by noon, leaving me with a pounding java-withdrawal headache!  I wrestled with this a bit, but in the end, I knew what I had to do.

So I bit the bullet and quit the coffee.  Herbal tea anyone?  The dreaming has gone back to my average levels--I've always been a vivid dreamer--and that's okay.  The elevation doesn't make me need to sit down during walks with the dog like it did, but I still suck wind on the hills, lemme tell ya!

The house building project is taking waaaay longer than I want it to, of course.  But permits are under way, and our guy has cleared trees for the house.  I guess that's where we are now. 

Hope summer is treating y'all right. 

Vacuuming sucks.

Admittedly, it's supposed to, but still.  I vacuum now to avoid a live burial under dog hair.  But I'll never be one of those truly avid tidy people.  You know them--maybe are one and if so, no judgement here!  Y'all come to my house and we have to move furniture?  Yeah, there will dust bunnies with fangs, eating the lost cat toys. 

And here's a bit of Friday Philosophy: We live on in how people remember us.   I'm thinking "She always had a spotless house." is not how I want to go out.  Not buried under a hoarder's avalanche, either, of course...

My high school friends and I lost one of our own a week ago; sorry for the burial theme.  I am not old yet, but I am approaching an age when having friends die is no longer rare.  Say what you mean while you have 'em around to say it, is all I can recommend. 

His name was Bryan Skinner.  A north Texas version of the dopey Surfer Dude.  If he had been a dog, he would have been a Golden Retriever / Great Dane mutt.  Loved everyone, would help anyone.  Several of the guys had a garage band called Purple Haze--my mom painted their Logo on their base drum.  Skinner played the guitar, a blonde blue-eyed heart throb.  And though he sounded dumb as a bag of hammers half the time, he was smart as a whip--that creepy math kind of smart.  He was also a good guy, who loved his many friends.  His funeral is today in our home town, and I can't be there. 

Well at any rate, it is Friday and I do have to vacuum.  And do bathrooms, inventory fridge, and dust.  Some time ago I discovered that doing the housework on Friday is like school letting out on the weekend.  After I finish the housework, I'll take my dog to the dog park. 

Y'all have a good weekend. And hug all the people you love today.