Moving Forward

Sorry Folks, but I took a break for a while after I lost Lovely. The blog sort of lost its interest for a bit.

But life moves on, and so will I. She will always have a piece of my heart, but its a large heart so there is room for more life in there.

In the meantime, the house has kept going. Walls are up, mud is on and paint is applied. It's a bit hard to show exciting pictures of electrical wiring, but I'll try and put some life in here.


We got the geothermal unit housed and blended in with the rest of the house



We also got all the lights and ceiling fans up on the porch. I've already got chairs and a rocker out there. It's wonderful.




And I got some steps installed along the porch. Haven't got the ones at the front entrance done yet, but they will come with time.



I'll get busy this week and take pictures of the walls. Paint is starting to go up and it's going to look fabulous, Dahlings. I may actually get to move in yet!!!

Remembering Lovely 2003-2010

Life sort of got put on hold last Thursday when a light in my life got extinguished. I lost Lovely, my beloved Border Collie/Black Lab mix to a vehicle. She was a bit of a klutz as dogs go, so its not totally surprising, but so very sad. She will be missed more than I can say.

She was different from any dog I've ever had. It's easy to say that as all dogs have their own personalities, but she truely was different. She was a free spirit with a mind of her own and a great sense of joy in the world.

I got her when she was about five and a half months old. She was up for adoption from the Save A Life Foundation in Savannah, Georgia. She looked like a bowling ball with legs. Round and tubby she had been fed too much and all she wanted to do was sleep. But mainly she wanted to sleep in my lap. I told myself I didn't need a new dog. I even walked away and left her that day I first saw her. But she had touched my heart in just the few moments I had seen her and a week later, she came home with me for a forever home.

As she settled in, I fell in love. Even two weeks later when she ate all the Christmas ornaments off the bottom two feet of the tree, I couldn't help but laugh. I think she pooped sparkles for a week.

She had a personality that was all out. She went with me to the beach and thought getting blasted by waves was the greatest thing. When I moved to Colorado, she loved romping in the snow and thought it was the greatest thing. She enjoyed going camping with me, and thought sitting by the campfire was the greatest thing. She was having a blast playing with her cousins, and running loose on the farm and thought it was the greatest thing. I had taken her up to the new house and shown her the windows she could lay in front of and see everything out of and she thought it was the greatest thing. Her love of the moment was an endearing quality and a great thing to experience.

She enjoyed barking at my friend's cats and went riding happily in another friend's convertible with the top down, fur blowing in the breeze. She loved her baby sister Baby fiercely and protected her from her best friend Keno the Boxer, even though Baby was bigger than she. She showed unwaivering loyalty to those around her and picked a fight with no one.

She didn't suffer and for that I am grateful, but oh how she will be missed.

Trees, Sheetrock and Falling in Love

Once again I've fallen behind on my posting. My only excuse is that it's been a busy, busy, busy week.

Last week was a week of outside work. The inside of the house was waiting on sheetrockers and they weren't coming until later in the week, so we moved outside to take care of things. We did yard work, and tackled the trees.

Tree #1 Up




Tree #1 Down




Trimmed and Stacked




Tree #2 Up




Tree #2 Down




Firewood




Then we replanted the shrubs we had dug up in the fall at the beginning of this adventure. Even though they had been sitting by the fence with a small root ball and with roots exposed in freezing weather, all of them budded out and show no signs of stopping.





Friday finally showed and so did the sheetrockers. They went straight to work, hanging boards and screwing them into place. They soon had enough up to tell what it's going to look like. I've looked at studs and insulation for so long that it seems strange to actually be seeing walls in place.




The man who is doing the mudding and sanding is suppose to start tomorrow. The hangers had to come back on Saturday to finish up. Builder came and kept an eye on them while Sister and I went to the Chicken and Egg Festival.

I have to admit I fell in love there. And even worse, it was strictly his looks that I fell in love with. His attributes had nothing to do with it. It breaks my heart that it was a chance encounter and I'll probably never see him again.



So things continue on. The guys are finishing up things on the outside. Since I don't/can't be around all the sheetrock dust, I think I'll work in the garden. What a neat idea!

Another Month Along

Wow! I can't believe it's April already. Where did the time go? It's been over a year now that Mama had her heart surgery that sent me on this wild adventure. She's doing great. This house may be the death of me.

Actually we are getting there. It seems like it's taken forever, but in the grand scheme of things, not really.

This has been a very active week. We've gotten so much done that it's amazing. The tile man has been there every day working on the bathroom and now we only like putting the grout in. Once that is done, I can start putting in the fixtures, and you know what that means..........Home!

Since he was inside, the rest of us decided to move outside and work. The weather has been more than cooperative this week with temps in the 70s and even 80s and glorious, beautiful sunshine.

The guys went to work getting the siding in place.



They still have some to do, but the big patches are up. It's looking really good too.

While they were doing that, Builder was getting ready to switch my electrical service over to the new box. We avoided punching a hole in my new roof by going underground from the box to the house. So much nicer. The guys trenched a hole from the house to the pole, which doesn't sound like much until you realize they had to do it through a brush pile, a fence line and red clay. Once that was done, they laid pipe, ran a pull-through cord and called the power company.

Wonder of wonders, the power company was there early the next day. Within two hours they had set the pole, connect the box and installed a transformer. I was back in business power wise.






After that was done, the guys attacked the water lines for me. The plumbing in the house has been done for some time now, but I eventually want to do some serious gardening, so I wanted water near the garden. They ran a line from the main to the garden for me and installed a frost free faucet at the edge of the garden and another one at the end. It will be so wonderful not to have to haul miles of hoses and carry buckets full of water.




And while all this activity was occuring I took on the fence line. It was overgrown in shrubs and underbrush and needed a general tidying up. I realized the time was now or never because the snakes and other creepy crawly things would soon be making it their home. So I attacked it with vigor. It didn't take me long to realize that a hand saw and a pair of loppers just wasn't enough ammunition, so I brought out the big guns.....a chain saw. I sliced through vines, scrub and saplings with ease, and to be honest, it was a lot of fun. Mainly, it did the job. The fence line is clear and now I have to get rid of the waste. Thank God for lighter fluid and matches.




So the weekend is here and I'm stiff as a board. It's suppose to rain though so I can sit back and relax, and dream of perfect landscapes and finished houses.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Seems like everything is coming together at once as we enter the final stages here. It's been a busy, busy week.

Monday it snowed.



By Tuesday afternoon it was in the 60s and I had a bedroom door leading onto the porch.



While the weather was jumping around, the tile man came and started putting up the shower tile. It's going to have small colored cubes of tile where the black streaks are now.



And the porch decking got done and the siding started being applied.





Then this afternoon, a tornado headed right at it. That was......interesting. It went slightly south of us though, so everything is alright, and we had some beautiful sunset clouds.



Tomorrow, more siding and tile and no telling what else. Can't wait!

Plumbers and Porches, Mud and Jacks

My goodness what a busy few days it has been. The plumber showed up first thing on Tuesday. Well actually, the plumbers showed up. There were six of them. Never seen so many of them at one time in my life. Even my builder was amazed. We finally figured out from chatting with them, that they are usually spread out over several jobs, but with the economy being what it is, I was it for the morning. Anyway, they went right to work. One was working on the utility sink, one on the refrigerator, one on the kitchen island, two on the bathroom and one on the sewage drain. I walked into the house once, and only two of them were standing there. There were a bunch of muffled voices under the floor. I couldn't imagine that many people packed in that little bitty space.

I looked like I had a party going because I think every one of them drove his own vehicle. There were trucks everywhere. As I told my builder, it was what every woman needed. A house full of men, all doing her bidding.By the end of the day, the entire job was done..... Except for the 20 feet of pipe that he underestimated. A little bit irritated about that he was.

So yesterday, he was back and finished up first thing. It took hardly any time and only three showed up. I have plumbing in place. Yahoo!!!




In the meantime, Builder and company were staying out of the way by working outside. They put in a mini French drain under the porch.




And then finally got started on that decking for the porch.




I LOVE my porch.

Yesterday after the plumber had left, they went down under also. The original plumbers had chopped a joist in two places to achieve their goals, and it had to be replaced. Word of advice---if you have having plumbing done, and you see your plumber headed under your house with a saw, stop him.




Over time, the lack of support and the wide expanse of the beams had caused the floor to sag, so they jacked it up and put in a support beam. Now the thing is solid as a rock.




And in the afternoon, they finished off the floor in the bathroom and hallway for today the tile man cometh. Everything was cleaned within an inch of its life, swept and vacuumed, and then ¼ inch plywood was glued and screwed down. Let the mudding begin!




Today, while the tile man is mudding, the guys are going to be jacking up the kitchen floor, which is suffering from the same abuse as the bathroom floor. Too wide and bad plumbers. It has a definite dip in it that you can feel when you walk across it. Has to be fixed. It's gonna be a long day.

Slow Start, Big Finish

The devil is in the details.

It's been hard to post for the last week or so, not only because I've been busier than all get out away from the house, but also there aren't many pictures to post. Running five million errands in town is preventing me from getting a lot of pictures in a day, but to be honest, electrical wiring doesn't lend itself to a lot of action shots. And that's what the guys have been doing....wiring....lots and lots of wiring.

My dad was an electrical engineer and he taught me you can never have enough electrical outlets. That being the case I've got 'em everywhere. Where you think you would need one, I've put three and wished for four. But I will have power. As time goes on, I hope to add solar panels and generate some of my own, but that's for a future project. Right now, I just want to have a plug available when I need power.




So things may have been sluggish this week, but that is all about to change. The plumber is coming tomorrow and the tile man is coming on Thursday. Builder went and got the decking for the porch yesterday and he's dead set and determined that is going on like NOW! I ordered the flooring last week and it is suppose to be in this week and I am still running none stop, picking up supplies and parts. Throw in the fact that I've been taking my mom to the doctor and to get some lab tests done and grocery shopping and going to church and.....and.....and......Good Grief! No wonder I'm tired.

We had a scare in the geo-thermal department last week. We had a brown out that lasted about four hours back Saturday before this last. Nobody was at the house at the time to shut the system down and it went on the blink. The guys from the company came and set things right, but it was scarey to think that brand new system might have been fried. I know the procedures now, and it will be the first thing to be turned off in future power downs. I expect there to be a lot more as the weather warms up. Too many people on a decrepit old system is a sure bet.

So look for more soon. I'm expecting things to pick up rapidly.