Home Sweet..Construction Zone

And.....we made it!  We are in the new little river house and so happy!


Fist of all let me remind you, the house is not finished. It's still very much a work in progress.  I've been getting up at the crack of dawn to run down the hall to the one and only bathroom that has a working shower in it, to get ready for the day before the workers all start showing up. We still have a tile setter, painter, siders, HVAC, landscapers, plumbers, inspectors etc..all doing final touches.

Do you remember last time I teased you about a surprise from Pat and Donna...
Well it was pretty fantastic!

I was driving to the house a couple of weeks ago and they had the road blocked and were putting up the big iron gate that is like the one Pat and Donna had at their last place. 

 
It's big and heavy and of course it would make some great photos for the blog.  So I pulled over, got out and starting snapping a few pics.  Donna came out and tried to convince me I could go around the back of her house, no need to wait, it would be a long time until  the road was clear.  

No thanks, I said.  Just enjoying the view.  She finally said well darn, you just spoiled your surprise!  We wanted you to drive up and see it when it was all done!  

 
Then I saw they were hoisting up some initials for each side of the gate.  
M C on one side, P D on the other.  


Oh what a wonderful idea and so thoughtful of them to include us!   We all love it!


The one thing that's really holding us up is the tile setter.  When he's done, then the plumbers can finish up. The tile setter is very meticulous, which also means, slow.  We are going on six weeks to do two showers.  To his credit, the framers did a pretty poor job of making straight walls and so he's had to do a lot of prep work to make it all square and plumb.  The guest room shower is finished, just waiting on the glass door. We are hoping that he'll be done with the master bath walk in shower by the end of this week.  


We lived here for about a week with a construction door that didn't even have a handle on it.  I had to stuff grocery bags in the holes so the bugs wouldn't come in.  That fact alone made the arrival of the real front door a big event.  

Speaking of big, the front door is huge. Mike had me help him carry it from the garage to the front porch.  The glass panes made me very nervous and luckily the tiler offered to help hold the door and help Mike set it in place. 
 
It's an oversized, solid wood, knotty alder with six glass panes and it turned out just perfect.


In other news..

Ollie tried to swim in the river like his big friend, Simba.  He is loving being a river dog.


I cooked in the new blue oven

Mike and his friend starting building a big farm table for the dining nook.  They found some old wood that had been the high school bleachers from a small town in Idaho.  I think it will make a great table. 


We had a little get together with friends and family at our house.  Our friend, Cindy, brought dinner for everyone and the house really felt like home!



Last week we helped a little with Pat and Donna's landscaping. They had to get everything ready for her niece's wedding which took place next to the river at their place

A double rainbow over Pat and Donna's place

The boys finally got the mailboxes and the last road sign installed, so we are officially official. The work doesn't stop just because it's dark, you know!



And that gets you a little bit more updated on the goings on out here at the little river house(s).  Life is busy but wonderful.  Happy Trails until next time!

Nearing the Finish Line..

The finish line is approaching (although the work will continue forever) and I'm actually trying to throw a blog post together before I lose the use of my computer for a week.  We are moving to the new house starting today...eeek!  That's so exciting!! 

Our house on the left and Pat and Donna's on the right.

  Pat and Donna have moved in and become the first official residents of Chuckwagon Ln.!   They have a beautiful house, barn and a lot of pole fencing.  They are on speed mode because they have a wedding there in two weeks!

The many finishing touches have been happening all week.

Last weekend the granite guy showed up with most of the granite but he didn't bring the big island piece since he didn't have enough help to install it.  It was a holiday weekend and we were really lucky they could install any of it in the first place.  Mike told him, if he'd go back and get the island piece, he would have help here to carry it in and set it in place.  So he did!  


It was SO heavy!  Pat, Travis and Mike helped them and every few minutes I'd run out from where I was hiding because I just couldn't watch and take a picture. The installer said it was a really scary install job but the non expert helpers did great.  Whew!   Glad it's in and although it's pretty crazy granite, we really like it.

Once the granite was in, I went to work tiling the backsplash in the kitchen in a basic white subway tile with soft gray grout.  I made a few boo boos (what's new?) but overall I'm so happy with it.
  

Mike finished up the exterior barn wood siding on the front of the house.  We will have siders come and finish the rest in a traditional grey painted lap siding with batt and board in the gables.  There is a little more barn wood on the back of the house and on the barn for him to finish up.  

The blacktop has been poured and not only looks awesome, it's helping to keep some of the dust and dirt out of the house. 
He also finished installing all the LVP floors in the master and guest room baths.


The finish guys came and caulked all the baseboards, built the stair railing and the painter has been in doing touch up and stained the mantel. 


Sen, the plumber, and his brothers came and trimmed out the plumbing.  Such fun to have sinks on the dressers I bought months ago.  Mike had to do some special carpentry to make the drawers still work around the plumbing.  I've mentioned how talented and awesome he is, haven't I?


Unfortunately the plumbers will have to come back after we move in to install fixtures in the two tiled showers.  The tiler is still plugging along in there.  We actually have floors tiled in the showers and he thinks the walls will be done by the end of next week.  Patience.  Patience. Patience.
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And one of our favorite finds has finally found it's home in our master bathroom.  


This is the old 1921 Kohler claw foot tub that Mike tracked down from an ad on Craigslist.  He found it in a pasture being used as a water trough.  He had it cleaned up and powder coated. I sprayed the feet silver and whalaah!  It looks like it was meant to be there!  The funny thing is neither of us are "bath people", but this is so dang cute, I may convert!

I can't believe I didn't take any pics of the lights, or as my friend Dani calls them, the "jewelry".  The electricians have been out there for the last three days putting up the jewelry...love it!  You'll have to hold on until next time to see the pictures.

The metal roofers have put the last bits of metal roofing up and finally....


CARPET!!!!


With all of this going on the last week, plus all of the packing at the rental house, it may be a little surprising I have time to sit back on the front porch and take a photo like this of one of the beautiful vistas. It just can't be helped.  
Before I know it, I'm stopping to take a moment to take it all in and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and find a few minutes to sit quietly and express my gratitude for the blessing this experience has been.  Okay..time to get back to work!

Next time...a big surprise from P and D for M and C!  Here's a teaser...

I'm Floored!

It's been awhile since I've been able to sit down and edit pictures and create a blog post.  We have been busier than ever out at the house and there's literally been no time for updates.  I find myself with an hour or so this morning before I head out to the furniture stores in search of the elusive "perfect couch" for the great room.  Is there really such a thing?

Our grandson enjoying perfect evening at the little river house.

So let's catch up.   Last post, we were facing a big set back with setting the tile floors ourselves.  Taun, our tile setter who is doing the two showers, was able to chip away all the bad work we did and put a new underlayment down.  After he did that for us, we decided to press onward and do the rest ourselves.  There was a 15x15 utility room, a mudroom and a fairly large hall bathroom off of the mudroom that all had to be done.  

I started in the utility room and... oh my lanta! I was so sore, I really didn't think I could go another day.  Now I know tile setters earn every dollar they charge.  What back breaking, arthritic hand inducing, sweat dripping work it is.  But we kept at it.  Mike cut tiles and I mixed thinset and placed each and every tile.  We used a 4x8 porcelain tile that looks like old distressed brick. It's the Chicago Brick line and the color is Chelsea.

 

Mudroom

I really love the look and it will be so durable and easy to clean in the high traffic areas.

Ready to place the final two tiles

It took us four days to lay the tile and then little did I realize but the hard work began.  

The utility room

Grouting..ugh!  It was not hard, it just took a lot of wringing out of sponges and mixing small batches of grout, so it would't go off before we'd used it up and making sure it got into every crack. In total, it was a 5 full days to complete the project.  I'm glad that it's done and it's beautiful!  (PS- I never say never but I'll never lay that much tile again!)


Sons, Scott and Cade, popped in and out over the last few weeks.  Scott was in town to finish up his private pilots license and they met up to fly over to a business meeting in Seattle. It was so nice to have Scott around to help Mike with the barn wood siding and just nice to have him around!

Mike and Scott 

The stone mason, John, was able to get all of the rock done outside and also to completely finish the fireplace.  It looks just like we'd envisioned it.  He's a very talented guy.


Speaking of talented guys, our friend John and his son, Scott have completely custom built our cabinets in the kitchen, great room, utility room and master bedroom.  That's a lot of cabinets!  They have been setting them in place, adding the doors and trimming them out off and on all week.  

They are almost finished and they outdid themselves.  

We are so lucky to have good friends who are so talented.




With the finish carpenters wanting to come in this week and finish baseboards, we were really on a push to get not only the tile flooring done, but ALL of the flooring done. 
 
Mike and his brother, Pat have been doing the wood floors.  They are finally finished and Mike has just a few more planks of the LVP (luxury vinyl planks) to put down in our master bath.

We picked out two slabs of granite that will be installed at the end of the week.  I'm really nervous about how it will go with everything.  Pretty wild and crazy!


The tile work is continuing in the master shower and the guest shower.  Picture next time.
Also, the black top was poured for the circle driveway and over to the barn.  Picture next time.

And finally, we moved everything out of the storage unit thanks to the big muscles of this motley moving crew!  A big thanks to our wonderful family, some of who aren't in this picture, who always manage to come to the rescue when they get that urgent, last minute shout out for help.