Things are heating up!

Things are so busy and moving along at a really good pace.  The weather has been scorchingly hot!  So hot, in fact, that Mike had to put little scrap wood tents over the nail guns because they were too hot to handle!  It's supposed to cool down into the 90l's this week, which will certainly be a relief.

I got a little ribbing after my last entry for referring to Pat and Donna's place as "the neighbors".   So funny!  I think I just assume everyone knows that they will be our neighbors and how thrilled we are at that prospect.  I also sometimes just refer to them as P and D. It's just a shortcut, folks...my fingers get tired of typing out the whole "Pat and Donna's house" every time I refer to them.  

And speaking of P and D's house, and as promised last time..here are some pics of their house in the dry wall, tape and texture phase.

This is such a great idea..a dog room off of the garage.

This week their finish carpenters came and knocked that job out in two days.  Then the painters have been working all through the weekend and it looks awesome!  Donna had some creative finish work done...shiplap, wood slat designs on the bedrooms wall, and some beautiful crown molding. 

Over at our place, the finish carpenters have been uhm...finishing up.

Vern the finish carpenter with Mike.  They are checking the new two panel doors.

Just a morning traffic jam in our driveway..we love to see this..things are getting done!

The roofers came out one day and worked for awhile.  They told Mike they'd found a hole up on the roof where it looked like someone put their foot through.  Mike said he'd fix it and up on the roof he went to get it fixed, so they could continue working.   

Fixing the hole in the roof

They haven't been back for a few days, so either it's too hot to work or they are waiting for the metal roofing we picked out to come in. 

Please excuse the proud wifey moment here, but can I just say my guy works so hard.  He really does have a real life full time job, but by burning the candle at both ends for the last two months (with only one day off for his brothers' birthday motorcycle ride) he has managed to work on the house every single day.  He does it all and never complains. I won't mention age here, but he keeps saying he's not twenty anymore, then laughs and says he's not forty anymore.  He's my own version of the energizer bunny and my hero.

This week he's been putting up the reclaimed barn wood siding.  It's a SLOW process.

There's so much blocking, measuring and cutting not to mention the installing.  His framer friend, Alan, came to help a couple of mornings. They decided to do a reverse batt technique and it looks so good!  I originally thought I'd like the boards to butt up next to each other without a gap.  Mike liked this look better and since he's the one putting it up, we went with it and did I mention, it looks so good!?

Ed came out to both of our places to clear out the russian olive trees and other bushes.  We can now get a pretty good look at how we'll want to landscape there.  A few strategically placed trees so we don't see that house across the river from us, some grass, a fire pit on a sandy little beach and it will be perfect!

One last little bit of excitement out at the Chuckwagon homestead this week...

A big "Thanks" to our local volunteer fire crews for getting out here quickly and knocking this down before it got to Ed's equipment.  Like I said...it's scorching hot and just a spark from metal hitting a rock can start a little grass fire. No damage done, just a little bit of charred grass.

Mike, the fire chief and Ed.