The garage project has begun, and on Wednesday the concrete will be poured. A whole lot of work has gone into getting the form created and ready for concrete.
Lots of boards and rebar and heavy plastic for under the concrete.
They used a laser level to get everything nice and flat. Very exciting seeing it at this point in its existence.
Once the concrete is cured, they will remove the boards and back-fill around the exterior of the foundation, and start building walls. The curing period is 10 days to 2 weeks.
We also got the new roofing installed!
It’s a pretty dark grey that changes how it appears depending on the light conditions.
Also we finally got the Starlink satellite dish up on the side of the roof so it is no longer sitting out in the yard. This seems like a big accomplishment! We couldn’t get that done until the roof was completed. Remodeling is like this. You want to accomplish (A) but have to do (B) and (C) and oh-we-forgot about (D) first.
While the work outside was going on, I made cornmeal, peach and cinnamon, and blueberry and cinnamon muffins.
I had plans on doing a bunch of other baking but I ran out of flour. Clever. Also known as good planning. Oh well, more flour will be delivered late in the week (hurray for Amazon!) and then I’ll be able to make the rest of the things I have on my list.
Well, almost done. Still have a lot of little projects like staining and varnishing the top of the window seat, and making a cushion. Fortunately neither is time sensitive.
This is all the furniture we’re going to be adding to the room, and it all fits!
At some point there will be a rug but probably a month away from that. The ingredients for the cushion on the window seat are sitting on the sewing machine and under the loom.
Looking the other direction.
Also went up the road to take a picture from the upper corner of our property to see how visible the new addition is. Not very.
You can see the window on the addition, but that’s about it. It’s more apparent from the road before we turn into our driveway.
Tomorrow the next project begins, building a garage and attached storage area. They are bringing heavy equipment and will make a disaster area out of our existing driveway. In about three weeks, all things remaining equal, they will be done.
The contractors are done with their part. We have lots of our own little finishing project things to do like repainting areas in the new room where there are scuff marks on the wall made when they installed the flooring; finishing the wood inside and out in the window seat; painting the wall where the window was removed in the kitchen and around the door frame where the exterior door was removed and a smaller interior door was installed; and varnishing the interior door. But, except for all that stuff, it’s done!
This is the window on the west side of the room in relation to the window seat.Window seat and the inset pull for opening the seat to access the storage area.
I can’t really believe what a nice space it is for sitting! We bought some four inch thick foam, and fabric, with which to make several cushions for this space, one to sit on and two smaller cushions to lean against. The windowsill is the perfect height and width for a cup of tea. This is going to be a favorite spot to read and do embroidery on the window seat cushions. The sound of the creek is a very nice and soothing sound when the window is open.
Lots of cleaning and some sanding and fill work on the handle area to do before I can varnish it. Need to get some stain which means a trip to the store.
I thought about lining the box with aromatic eastern red cedar tongue and grove boards but for now just going to varnish and stain it instead. This is where we can store the pillows and bedding for the couch bed.
Windows and door looking to the east. We’ll put our antique wood table against the wall under the windows.We moved some furniture into the new space. This couch doubles as a queen size bed when folded out.
There are three more bookshelves to move from our bedroom into this new living space. Two will sit on each side of the room, across from each other. The 8-harness table loom will sit at the east end of the room next to the treadle sewing machine. And I’ll set the other two spinning wheels on the other side of the window seat. It will be awesome to be able to use these things without having to re-arrange a bunch of other things in order to do so.
Having space to move things out of our living room meant we could re-arrange things in this room as well.
You can see the exterior wall through the window above the chair. Dan still needs to re-install the exterior light next to the door. Add that to the list!
Will get around to hanging more pictures once the painting is all done. We have ordered two rugs , one for the new room and one to replace the rug in the living room, which will not be delivered until sometime in mid July at the earliest.
Mishkin spent a lot of the evening wandering around the house wondering “Why??” Cats spend a lot of their lives wondering that exact same question but only when they’re awake. He did find his toys which are still under the chair where I put them. He is apparently happy with that because he pulled a lot of them out overnight, to play with them.
Our new room feels like a part of the house, already. We opened the two windows in the new room, and the windows in our living room yesterday evening. The cross ventilation is excellent! We’re going to really enjoy that in the summer evenings when the cool air flows down the mountain, following the creek.
As told from the perspective of one member of the house.
Ahhh, all is quiet. Just my two servants ready to do my bidding at a moment’s notice. And a sunbeam. Life is good.Good sunbeam! Stretching out a bit. Getting comfy. Checking schedule… no, don’t need a servant at the moment. Snooze….Oh?? Did I hear something? Please say it ain’t so. My ears are fooling me, right?Oh?? Did I see an interloper on my porch? I’ve got to have a discussion with my servants about what they allow to happen when I’m taking my first morning nap.And now I have to think. I hate thinking. It’s so hard!!! Considering options….Bug in a rug. Sigh.
Well poor little guy is hiding in the bed waiting for the interlopers to leave and things to get back to what he perceives as “normal.”
Changing perspective to a different member of the household.
There is good progress.
View of the two new windows which were installed on Monday, and siding. All the white splotches are to cover nails and seams, preparation necessary for painting which will be tomorrow.West wall and window.North wall and window seat, including a window!More north wall, and a corner of the deck on the porch.
The concrete board needs to be cleaned off as there is tons of dust on it from cutting the siding boards.
Inside it is a dusty mess with sanding the first coat of sheet-rock mud and then more mud being applied to the walls.It’s a very dusty mess at the moment. The window which used to be behind Oro’s cage is gone forever. No sanding has been done inside yet. Can’t wait. So excited to have dust to play with inside the house where we live!!! Ok, so that’s not precisely accurate.Baking results
The other day I felt like baking so I made a batch of peach and cinnamon muffins, a batch of cheese cushions, and a batch of chocolate chip cookies. All were deposited into the freeze for instant snacks. Lots more baking needs to be done as we had eaten everything I made a little while ago.
It’s good distraction from having contractors in the house, and much better than hiding my head in a blankie like somebody else I know.
Well a couple of weeks now, but still it seems quick!
So far, so good. No drama has been created by our friends working on our repairs to the back of our house and in fact they solved a bit of drama we had been worried about for several years.
So the first thing we had to do is clear away all the clutter that we had stored in an outside room that we didn’t use once last year.
The boards are uneven and in need of replacement which was going to be a major undertaking, so fixing the whole thing was in order.
Then the fun began. After a very short amount of time the roof-line had been supported and the old funky framing, bad foundation and boards were all removed.
The next part was the one that everybody was most concerned about, digging holes for the new highly upgraded foundation piers. We had no idea if this was going to be a major pain with boulders interfering with the placement of the foundation piers. Yay! It was not an issue. We were so relieved!!
All gone now. Out with the bad and in with the new.Much improved foundation piers.
We discovered that at some point in the past a family of Snowshoe Hares had lived under the porch. The prior residents had dogs and no doubt that is the reason we no longer see hares on the property. Who knows, they may come back as we see them about 200 yards up the road on the hillside.
Rabbit evidence. Lots and lots of rabbit evidence.
The piers were created and left to dry for a couple of days, and then the replacement floor joists were installed properly, this time with things like joist hangers. Who knew such things existed? Apparently not the guys who built it in the first place. Then closed cell foam insulation was installed and an expanding spray foam insulation to securely hold them in place was used. After that insulation and plywood and voila! A new strong floor that doesn’t bounce and cause the house and roof to flex. Whew!
All clean and solid and no access for rodents or insects.
Framing went very quickly and it was awesome to see the room begin to take shape.
First wall in place, to stabilize the roof. And our interior door arrived and is sitting on the new floor.The window seat all framed in.View from the window seat.
They removed the window on the north wall and installed blocking and plywood. It will find its new home on the west wall in the very near future.
Like magic, a whole in the wall.Now there were two walls, sheathing in place. This was actually taken prior to the window being removed. So these pictures are out of order and I’m being too lazy to fix it.
Sheathing the framing further stabilizes the roof and they were able to remove the supports supporting the roof, which had been installed initially. And the window was put in place. The other windows arrived much earlier than we had expected and will be going in today!
A home was built for the door and two smaller picture windows.
Next step was to install the electric circuit and then insulation. That was when we were able to fix an electric gremlin created by the idiot who did the electric in the house in the first place. To say we were relieved to have that problem solved is such an understatement.
Insulation and electric wiring installations in process.
The exterior door was removed, the new interior door was installed and the exterior door was relocated to its new home on the east wall. Once the windows are installed we will have a dried in room which we will be able to heat.
This is good because the next step is mud and tape on the drywall, a several day process as it needs to dry between each stage.
West wall and the short wall which is the outside support for the window seat are all covered up.Doors in place.View from the interior of the room.
In a few days we will be able to paint inside. And they can finish installing the siding on the outside and do the exterior painting.
Then the last piece of this puzzle is installing a new roof which is what caused this whole thing to happen, a leaking roof on the outside of the house on the north side which was caused by the poor foundation and wobbly room.
The snow is mostly gone now and the yard looks like the beginning April, not the end of January! This is so weird. Some snow remnants remain on shaded north facing slopes under trees, or where piled up by snow plows or a shovel.
Our remaining patch of snow in front of the house, easily covered by a small dinner plate. It will be gone today.
The garden has no snow left at all!! We just hope that it doesn’t get really cold at some point in February with no snow cover. Some of the strawberry plants will not be amused.
Clouds are low and the sky is gray, covering the mountain peaks. It looks like there was fresh snow last night at higher elevations, from what we can see of the mountains.
We can go take a walk now on our other property. The ground is still very frozen so it will be easy to move around. Maybe we’ll be that energetic today and get over there. Might bake something instead. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.
Some of the bushes are showing signs of spring color.
It’s been an easy year for the deer! The ones we see frolicking through the yard aren’t looking the least bit skinny.
A meeting of the minds. The big male turkeys are hanging around together in a loose flock and they spend a lot of time trying to intimidate each other.
They were doing the old “I’m taller than you are” routine before I went out on the porch to take their picture. I was apparently more interesting and they all watched to see if I might do something important, like giving them seeds. That didn’t happen, and they’re back to chasing each other in a circle and one is hopping up and down trying to kick his compatriot. The one being kicked-at isn’t terribly impressed. We may see some tail fanning any moment now.
Recent visitor to our bird feeder. A Pygmy Owl sitting in the top of the ornamental plum tree, waiting for everybody to forget he’s there.
These little guys are such fierce predators. Between the Sharp-shinned Hawk, Merlin, and Pygmy Owl, our chickadees, nuthatches and sparrows have to pay attention.
We need to get out to the garden and snip off the tops of the asparagus plants pretty soon. Those spears should be coming up any day now. And we’ll look for signs of life in the rhubarb plant. We’re afraid it didn’t get anywhere near the water it needed last year, and is probably deceased. Boo.
This qualifies as brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, on January 13th. The lowest temperature was on this morning; the other morning it was a more moderate -12F, -10F, -6F, and another -10F. Heat waves!January 6th it turned white again. Yay!Frosting on the trees and ground, just a few inches but the transformation of the world is always dramatic when it turns white.
Fortunately for us, we had gotten these few inches of snow before the bottom dropped out of the temperatures and we are hopeful the strawberry plants had enough cover that this low temperature didn’t kill the plants. We will know for sure in a few months, right about the beginning of April.
We also had frozen water pipes during the cold spell which made for very unhappy people and critters who couldn’t have cared less (parrot and cat). On the contrary, Mish has been delighted in the current turn of events as we have had to leave the door open in the bedroom and so he can come in and keep us company as the mood takes him. Fortunately for us, the living room is much warmer and like all cats Mish gravitates towards the heat, leaving us in peace to sleep until morning when it’s time to feed the cat.
Then it warmed up a bit and on the 17th we got some more snow, about six inches of the lovely fluffy stuff.
As usual when it’s snowing, the mountains to the east no longer exist. The world looks soft and fuzzy when it snows. Love it! The smell of fresh snow is refreshing.
We got our driveway plowed after these six inches were added to the several from the week before. Then it snowed again. Yay! This much snow down where we are means lots of it up high in the mountains where it needs to be.
Lots of big snowflakes and during the day too, so we could enjoy watching the weather doing its thing.Our outdoor bird buddies are delighted with the seeds and suet, especially in these conditions.
We are seeing a couple of Song Sparrows hanging around this winter. They look like a ball with a head and tail stuck on the ends, they are so fluffed.
Shoveling the path from the front door, we now have a good foot of snow on the ground, and all the raised beds in the garden are gone from view.
Monday the 15th we had a really beautiful sunset.
The whole world was pink and purple for several minutes. A sliver of a moon glowed in the sky, high overhead.
Keeping myself entertained means lots of baking stuff recently; sweet rolls, chocolate chip cookies, cheese cushions, and bread. And I finally got around to drawing an owl which has been in my head for a while.
A Great Grey Owl.
We saw these in Alaska and up on White Mountain. They are one of our most favorite owls, next to Snowy Owls.
Today is more baking, though I haven’t decided what yet, and working on my next drawing, a Gyrfalcon.
We got a little bit of snow in December, which promptly melted. Then it snowed again. Then it melted again. Since the weather has been a little boring we’ve been keeping up with that theme and not doing much.
December 13th was one of our snowy days.The world feels smaller with no mountains.
The trees are so beautiful with their frosting of snowflakes. Because the temperature was just barely below freezing, it felt like spring more than a week before the Winter Solstice. It didn’t last as the temperatures went near 40F and everything melted again. It’s been a very easy winter for the deer and other animals. Food has been much easier to come by.
Chickadees are loving the location of the bird feeder. They use the lilac bush in front of our porch as a convenient party place.
The buds on the lilac are already much bigger than previous years. I hope they have a sense of humor as the temperatures predicted in a few days are -6F. We hope our strawberry plants also have a sense of humor! They will have no protective blanket of snow.
Some perl cotton embroidery thread in various pale colors, for more bead knitted purselets.
Then I had fun with knitting.
This one is all about the blues.This one was to commemorate the volcano in Iceland. There is a strap on the finished purse but I didn’t take a picture of it.My friend Cassandra calls this one peppermint.Three that didn’t get named.Pale lavender yarn and some amethyst beads, and crystals.
So I got that out of my system for the moment. And I ran out of beads and haven’t gone shopping. So on to a new larger project.
First pattern repeat for the bottom border. I’m up to 12 border repeats so far, out of 34. Not exactly blazing fast as it is too boring and puts me to sleep almost immediately.
It’s amazing how huge the size 1 US needles feel after all the bead knitted purses which were made using size 0000 US steel needles.
Yesterday we had to run an errand in town and I thought a picture of our snow around the house might be interesting.
It’s pretty amazing! We’ve never seen the snow this low around here. The mountains around us are also extremely low on snow pack, which means this next summer could be “interesting” in terms of forest fires unless a miracle happens.
