Amazing House Blog

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:

Hey! Sorry to be so long since the last post. We’ve been trying to get through some rough patches. We had a miscarriage, Kaia had tonsillitis with very high fevers and delirium, and we’ve been trying to get on our feet again.  The house continues slowly. All the doors and trim has been hung, and lots of little carpentry details are getting checked off the list. We’ve ordered a Caroma Sydney 305 Elongated Dual Flush toilet for the downstairs bathroom. It’s a toilet that has two flush options, .8gal and 1.6 gal (depending on if it’s #1 or #2). We were initially planning on just using composting bucket toilets, but you know… you have to think of the in-laws and other company that may be squeamish about the poo thing. I’ve also got the cabinets on order. We are getting some fancy schmancy stuff! We were going to build all the kitchen cabinets, but we decided it would be more worth the time and money to just purchase them. Well, we will actually be building upper shelves and be buying the lower cabinets. I’ll try to take some pictures this week…

We started putting the finish oil down on the floor and MAN!! is it gorgeous!!!

But first, here’s a picture of our new front yard! Kaia loves the running room (so does Suki and the chickens!)

For the floor, we sanded it down to 220 grit. The large floor sander only went to 120, so we went over it one last time with a hand sander. Then we wiped down the walls, vacuumed, and ragged off the floor. We used the One Coat oil and applied it with a lambs wool applicator for the first coat. Look at the color!!

Then Toby went over it with a buffer. It was pretty funny to watch him try to control that thing!

Then we wiped off any excess with a soft cloth. The wood feels very smooth!

My favorite part was the landing at the top of the stairs. We have all kinds of woods up there. #1 is our only piece of tropical wood in the floor. It’s Cocobolo. #2 I believe is Cherry. #3 are Black Walnut, and #4 is Spalted Maple.

And here is the landing once it has a coat of oil. Beautiful!!!

This piece really changed colors once the oil was applied. It’s very pink. I’m not sure what kind of wood it is. Any thoughts?

Tomorrow, we will put on another coat of oil. This time we will use the Biopoly for a harder finish. Buff and rag off and it’s done!!!

Yesterday was a busy day at the house. We started by cleaning up the mess made by 50 mph winds the night before. As you can see by the insulation on the roof, a good bit of our insulation was blown off the roof and strewn, in little pieces, around the yard! So the morning focus was to put it back on the roof. The top floor was finished with a layer of plastic, then a layer of drainage mat. We got some locust boards from a local guy and put those up in a ring around the edge as a way to hold down the layers, and hold in the dirt once that is put on. You can also see that we have some landscaping going on in this picture… leveling all the dirt piles that we made when digging out the foundation.

Here’s a better picture of the locust ring on the top floor.

And here is an in progress shot of the dirt moving. He will come back out tomorrow to finish, but it already looks amazing!!! We have a great yard for gardens and play!!

They should finish laying the floor tomorrow. It’s looking amazing!!! They used a piece of Black Walnut to delineate the entry way to the room and the closet. You can see it in the picture below.

Here’s another angle. I can’t wait until oil goes on… that will really bring out the colors!

The hardwood floors started going in today. Only the upstairs will be hardwood. The downstairs is concrete. We found some black oak, locust, and cherry to add to the walnut, maple, red and white oak. It’s going to look soooo amazing when it’s all finished!

They started in the closet:

Sorry for not posting about the house in a while… there’s just lots of little details getting done. But, here’s some pictures…

Kaia’s room is close to done. A little more painting, some oiling of the shelves and window frames, and cleaning of the floor (oh and the bookshelf and hanging the closet doors… then it’s done :-)) Toby’s mom came up and did some painting today… doesn’t the door look great??? this is one of the antique doors that we got from the Habitat Store for $2.50! it’s a pocket door that slides into the wall! Cool, eh? The floor to ceiling book shelves will go in the corner behind Doris. Oh, the there’s Kaia’s new magnetic chalkboard (that was definitely not non toxic paint). She said she thought it looked like a window looking out of her palace. We’ll probably put a wood shelf under it to hold chalk and erasers.

Here are the stairs. The oak treads and risers are down. I just need to give them a light sanding and finishing, and touch up the wall paint. But, I’ll wait to do that until after the handrail and spindles are in and the upstairs is finished.

Today, the guys worked on getting the upstairs subfloor ready for hardwood flooring. They went through 19 belt-sander belts trying to sand it down to a more even flooring!! Here’s the pile of the hardwood that we got from the local hardwood floor dumpster!! Mostly oak, but there’s some black walnut, red oak, maple, and a little wormy maple and a piece of curly maple in all kinds of widths! It’s going to be the coolest looking floor.

Progress on the house has been a little slow this past week. We got snowed in and no one could make it up our drive, and Kaia was ill this weekend. It’s also been bone chilling cold! But, I got out there and sealed and caulked the tub today. It looks fancy!!! All the window trim is up and the stairs will get finished this week (temporary steps come out, real treads and risers go in.) Then the upstairs floor and trim can be finished and the Master bedroom will be done!!! So, we could potentially move some stuff in there, just for a little extra elbow room.

Two of the stones in our new soapstone wood stove have cracked and I’m having a hell of a time getting them replaced. Our local stove store seems to have gotten stupid over night now that we want to replace something and not buy it. I’ve been trying to get one stone replaced since mid-dec. and the other stone broke this week. Anyone else have broken stones with soap stone stoves?