Something approaching the Road that leads to the Homestretch September 18, 2009

The nice Fedex Lady brought the new door hardware yesterday -- it's pretty!

Many large bundles of insulation arrived at 8am this morning, accompanied by very tall men carting it into the house. Where will it all go? I was overflowing the living room. All the remaining lath came out of the walls yesterday to make way for the insulation. Boy. There is a LOT of lath. It’s such nice wood, I’m hanging onto it for now, but its storage will prove to be an issue.

We're gonna need A LOT of crafts projects to get thru all this

Insulation in the house

7 More Weeks! Can we make it? September 14, 2009

Wow. A little hard to imagine. Never give up hope for the miraculous.

Roof is on. Getting the doors in. Waiting on plumbing rough-in inspection.

New roof is looking good

new back door not unveiled in its true glory until the plastic comes off the glass

love the wide deck steps

Roofers in the HOUSE! September 4, 2009

Roofers started around 6:30am. This was the scene I awoke to: front section of tear-off already done.

by lunch time-- looking good.

construction zone by moonlight September 3, 2009

It’s starting to heat up! It’s starting to look good! I’m starting to feel it!

Or it may just have been the almost full moon acting on me. I went over to the house to look around inside tonight, and you know, you can’t see much in the dark. But I checked out the moon from the new bedroom windows–nice. Also the breeze with them open–nice as well.

But the real treat was (once my eyes had adjusted) seeing the newly framed opening from the living room into the kitchen–it’s big! It looks awesome! 4 feet is so much bigger than–whatever it was before! Although it makes the living room feel a bit smaller, and I now realize how open and vulnerable the kitchen will feel with respect to the front door (bare bottoms at the kitchen sink will be a risky business), it opens things up tremendously! It’s sort of a revelation. Nice.

Roofing tiles chosen (finally). Weathered Wood. On sale at Home Depot. Which is a good thing, because my rather pricey toilet arrived today. I’m a little shamed to say what it cost, although god knows I could have spent oodles more. (I could for example, have purchased one with a built-in bidet, an automatic lid, hands-free flushing, and a programmable night light for a mere $5200) But I figure, like a mattress, the toilet is not very glamorous and easily taken for granted, but think how much use you get out of it–how much you rely upon it, how much its proper function and quality can impact your life!
This is not something you should skimp on if you can help it.
So. I got a Toto Ultramax II.  A low-flow (water saving) toilet that supposedly actually works. (This seems to be a complaint about the high efficiency (Water Sense certified) toilets: they don’t flush so good. There is a wealth of entertaining euphemisms, (and not so euphemistic language) out there online discussing this, with phrases such as:

“Does the job!”
“Who needs a plunger?”
“miso paste testing” (eeeewww!)
“no need for a second flush!”
“If you position your butt so that …”
and the ever-popular… “fecal smears.”

🙂

House Tour, bonus neighborhood tour! September 1, 2009

Thank god! Bob has agreed to work on this project and choose the colors and assist with some design ideas. Bob chose the colors for my last house, and that has cured me of thinking this is something I should do on my own. It is SOooo worth the money to have it done right.  And while you may not be choosing them yourself, you get the added fun of being surprised by colors you never would have thought of, plus the bonus that they all end up going together, and all you have to do is head to the paint store with a list!

I made these videos for Bob so he could start to get a sense of the house since he will be working remotely, so I though I would share it here as well. If you have the time to kill and would groove on listening to me geek out on house minutiae, knock yourself out.