Amazing House Blog

Howdy Folks! Just a quick note to let you know we passed our final inspection yesterday!!! The electricity and gas get hooked up today, the phone gets hooked up tomorrow!!! We still have a lot of little details (like shelving, cleaning, oiling the stairs…) before we will completely move in, but we are done with inspections!!!
Painting starts today, so I’ll post pictures later!

Sorry for the brief interruption in the site! We got hit by a porn hacker who was trying to download viruses onto peoples computers. But, we have cleansed ourselves of their porny ways and are back up and running!

SOOOOO! Here’s what’s happened in the one day that we were down…. WE passed electrical, mechanical, and plumbing final inspections!!!!!!! We have a few more things to do and then it’s on to the final final inspection before we can move in!!! Can you see me doing another dance????

So, here are some pictures from the last week:
Putting the plywood, and then the backerboard down for the marble countertops (with the help of our amazing carpenter cat)

We had to buy a special tool for cutting the granite and marble. We are doing a mosaic of the pieces that we have, but we still needed to make some cuts.

Here’s what the area around the sink looks like so far. We haven’t grouted it yet…

Installing the fan…

…from a precarious position

Fixtures going up!

The cordwood is done!!! I’m sorry, I don’t think you heard me loud enough…. IT’S DONE!!!! Yeah, I said it! It’s done!!! No more lime putty, no more sawdust insulation, no more holes in the walls!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!! You now have my permission to get up and do a little dance with me!!!

I’ve got some of it cleaned up, but I want to do a better cleaning before I publish an indoor picture, and I’m sure I will be posting lots of pictures after this next week!

The electricians, plumbers, gas guy, and painter (for the outside) are coming out to finish up in the next week and a half. We’re still trying to arrange a mulch blower truck to come and blow the soil on the roof (but the inspector said that he won’t require us to have the dirt on the roof for our final Certificate of Occupancy, so we don’t have to worry about the soil right now!)

We’ve got the bathroom vanity mostly done, started laying the marble on the kitchen counters, got the railing up on the stairs, put up all the battens outside, and a bunch of other things! I hope to take a bunch of pictures in the next few weeks for you all! We’re in the final stretch!!!!

Max has been staying with us in the upstairs bedroom, and seems to like it there. Today, while I was doing some more cordwood, I left the door to the bedroom open so Max could explore the rest of the house. He seemed to get a kick out of running up and down the stairs. The temp. got to 70 today, so I opened all the windows and doors, and Max decided to explore the roof.

I think he likes it out there!

Toby took the pics with his phone camera, so the quality isn’t too great, but can you see the smile?

We had a busy weekend doing things other than working on the house. But, 5 of the cordwood walls are now done inside and out, (WOOHOOO!) and I will hopefully finish them off early this week. A lot of the ‘big’ stuff that needs to be done so we can move in are things that we are waiting for others to do… like plumbing, electric, and gas finals, finishing the stairs, painting the house, and dirt on the roof. Oh, speaking of dirt on the roof… I may have found a way to get it up there that doesn’t involve us and a bunch of 5 gallon buckets full of dirt! I’m going to try to hire a mulch blower truck. They work well with dry, light dirt also and can blow it up on the roof! There is a long hose and someone stand at the end and directs the dirt exactly where we want it. Wouldn’t that be great!!!???

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!