Amazing House Blog

Yep, it’s strong enough!

Lots of progress this weekend!

Kaia and I seeded the yard. We put red clover everywhere, field peas in front of the house, oats behind the house, and wildflowers in the front field area. If they all grow, we will have lots of herbs and medicine, along with a beautiful yard!
We found a great vanity at an antiques warehouse. I only measured for the size of the sink and forgot that I needed to leave room for the faucets, and after buying it realized that it wasn’t deep enough. So we attached some pine boards to the side and stained them the same color as the original vanity.

Then we took a 2 inch slab of oak that Toby’s brother gave to us, cut it and framed it for the top of the vanity. I need to add a strip of wood to the front, and we’ll cut the hole in it for the sink and faucets once the glue dries.

A lot of the little finish carpentry details are getting done too. Here, on the cordwood side of the house, where the concrete slab meets the foundation there is 2 inches of insulation.

So, that has been covered by a boxed out baseboard. We’ll probably run a little strip of wood along the bottom to close up that gap and I’ll finish it all with the Earthpaint oil.

And you may have noticed that the cordwood looks much cleaner and lighter in the above picture. Here is what that same spot looked like before:

To clean it up, we first sprayed it down lightly with bleach. We got this suggestion from Clarke Snell and it worked like a charm to lighten the wood ends. Then we took a metal putty knife and scraped the extra mortar off of the log ends. Then we used a hard bristle bathroom scrub brush to give the logs a final cleaning. We will scrub the outside logs, but not bleach them… they will weather anyway. But lightening the inside ends really brightens up the room!

And last, but absolutely not least, we have a kitchen!! A good friend of ours, Bruce, who is Toby’s computer business partner, also happens to be a carpenter. So he came over on Sat. to help install the cabinets. (You know, I don’t think I’ve ever posted a picture where you can actually see Toby’s face… it’s always the back of his head as he works on something

These cabinets are fully installed. The dish washer and fridge will go along the wall to the right, along with upper shelves that we will build.

Here are the cabinets to the left. We haven’t secured these in yet, ’cause we have to build a bookshelf in the corner first. For the counter top we are using the marble and granite that we got (for free!) 1 1/2 years ago from a stone cutter who was moving his shop.

Why is it that when people come out to visit they feel as if they have to tell us how much longer it will take to build the house? “Oh, ya’ll will never be done next month!” “Whew, this is gonna take you guys a while to finish up, isn’t it?” Ahh! I feel like saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all!”

Anyway, this past week we made a lot of progress on the cordwood. The two walls in the kitchen are completely done, inside and out! I just need to clean up the kitchen floor and we will be ready for cabinets this week!

We also worked on the walls by the front door, and we put our fishy in!!! Isn’t it awesome??!! So, we have 2 walls completely done, 4 walls that just need a small amount of interior work, and 2 walls to finish 1/2 or less in wood. Maybe 3 or 4 more days or cordwooding!! Wooohooo!!

While we worked this weekend, Kaiaflower entertained herself by opening up a Chocolate Lounge and making us all pies!

We found a great serving hutch (use to be used for silverware) that we are going to use as our vanity in the lower bathroom. We are going to put a 2 inch slab of oak on top and set the sink in it. Hope to work on that this week… I’ll post pictures.
We also redid the chicken coop. We took all the trashy chicken wire down and put up 5 foot fencing, made a great little gate, and clipped the chickens wings. Hopefully this will keep them in long enough for me to get some clover seed growing in the field. (I also have some oats to seed so I can harvest them for medicine)

Our little home was featured in two articles in the New Life Journal this month! This one about cordwood and this one which was an interview. Cool!

We are attempting to finish the cordwood in the kitchen today and clean it well. The kitchen cabinets are scheduled to arrive on Wed! Woohooo!

I cleaned and oiled the sink today. What do you think about the sink and the tile??? Do they go together??

Then I cleaned up the master bedroom, touched up any paint, and wiped down the wall and floor. So guess where we are sleeping tonight!!

Woo hoo!! I moved Kaia’s mattress from storage and put the air mattress next to it. I even put another litter box in there so Max could join us.

I need some creative thoughts here…

We are wanting to carve a blessing into the piece of wood that we put above our front door, on the inside. Any advice… It needs to be a fairly short blessing to fit on the wood. Two that I have thought of so far are:

May this home be a place of happiness & health. May those who visit & those who live here know only blessings and peace.

Bless this home and all who enter.

But I know there are more out there…. Let’s hear em!

Today’s weather was perfect for cordwood! Finally! We worked all day trying to finish up the kitchen area so we can put the cabinets in soon. We didn’t finish, but we got very close, thanks to some friends who showed up to help!

You can see here all that we did today… the darker colored mortar was from today. It will dry to the same white color. (YES, I do wear the same clothes in every picture! These are my ‘going to get really dirty working on the house’ clothes. And YES, I do wash them. )

Here is what it looks like from the outside! Nice, eh? The opening in the middle is for the stove’s exhaust fan. Everything to the left of the window on the left we did last week. So, the kitchen area is almost complete! The cabinets will probably arrive in the next 7-10 days, so we should be good.

So, we’ve been doing lots of work, but not much of it is really picture worthy… you know, painting a door, latches for the windows, more trim…

But, we did build the vanity for the sink in the master bedroom.

I’ve put in and grouted the tile and trimmed the vanity.

Tomorrow I’ll wipe it down and seal it, then take off the masking tape and oil the wood. The sink will sit on top. It’s gonna be perty! The pipe underneath will have to be extended for us to put in the access door. We will probably have a rolling basket or something underneath instead of closing it in with doors and shelves and stuff.

We’ve also insulated in between the rafters and are closing them in with a board of wood. The cordwood will come up to and meet the board to close in the house.

We are all feeling pretty much over it! These gazillions little last details are draining! We’ve had some good weather so we hope to finish the cordwood soon!! Most everything that needs to be done depends on that. Once the cordwood is done we can install the kitchen cabinets, do the finish plumbing, electrical, and gas, and put the dirt on the roof. SOooooo ready to be done! This April will be 2 years on the land, and in our cabin!

So, I got a call today from a tv production company in NY that is looking to do a documentary show on young people (under 30 or so) who live off the grid! She is hoping to get some contact names for people who live (or have lived) off the grid and have a story to share. She would love to get some people who are pioneering it without running water or electricity and such, but is also open to hearing from people who have the amenities, but are ‘off the grid’. SO, if you are such a person, send me an email and I can pass on her contact information. (Too bad they didn’t do the show last year, before we had electricity! That week we had the 60 MPH winds and our fridge blew off the porch and our outhouse blew over would have made a great show :-))

I love how that sounds… “The Master Suite”

We have completely finished Kaia’s room, so we are trying to get our room done. It makes it feel like more progress to do one room at a time.

This past week I did lots of painting, oiling, trim work, and put the apron in front of the tub.

Here is the before picture:

And after:

The stove pipe has to be enclosed according to building code. But, there is still lots of space in the room, even though it looks crowded from the angle of this picture.
Here’s a better view of the tub:

And the pocket door to the bedroom (I LOVE the pocket doors! They are just so sneaky! Now it’s here… now it’s gone!):

We hope to build the vanity for this room this weekend.

And, here we are having some fishing downtime at the pond:

The frogs have started hatching and are singing loud, wonderful music on the warm days! Check out some of the eggs that are still to hatch! This is one of the smaller bunches: