Deck progress and challenges

Finally, the timber framing for the deck is finished! Husband got the last beam in place earlier this week.

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Unfortunately, then he came down with something — a cold or allergies, who knows which? And that knocked him out for a few days.

But Friday evening he was feeling better, so he went to Menards to pick up a few supplies he needed. Today he started working to put up the joists.

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It’s crazy windy today. In the picture of Husband on the ladder, check out the red strap hanging on the orange scaffolding. See how it’s blowing? (NWS says we’ve got wind speeds of 33mph with gusts up to 55 mph!) That’s made it challenging, but since we’re not getting as much rain as we expected and the weather is warm, he decided to do as much as he can.

However, the wind did blow the roof off of one of our bee hives, AND it has blown our soffit around. Husband put the lid back on the bees, but the soffit is something he’ll have to deal with later.

Still, we were thinking how if we were still in our old house, we’d feel the whole house shaking, plus there would be shingles coming off all day long. We’re thankful to be in a sturdier domicile.

October Happenings

Ever have that feeling that you’re really super busy but you don’t have much to show for it? Yeah, that’s me right now.

Husband has been working on building the deck, but it has been slow. It gets dark earlier and earlier, plus he is milling the beams he’s using, which takes time. Once he has the framing done, I think the rest will go much more quickly.

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We were able to get away for a few days to go camping in southern Indiana.

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The weather around home has been pretty beautiful, too.

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Turning to Autumn

Wednesday was still summer according to both the calendar and the weather. It was 90 degrees! Thursday turned to fall, both as the official first day of autumn and as the high temperature was just in the 60s. It’s a nice change.

This weekend, I started cleaning up the garden. There were a few things that never grew (my pumpkins and butternut squashes, and I’m very sad about it) and a few things that were done (beans and broccoli), so I pulled those things out and put away the trellises. I pulled some beets (a couple of which were huge!) and a sweet potato that I might have pulled too early, but I’ve never grown sweet potatoes before, so I didn’t know how to tell when it was ready. Probably should have done more research. I hope to grow more sweet potatoes next year. Also, while I was moving some rocks, I found a little Dekay’s brownsnake.

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I picked more apples (pretty much the last of them) and cooked them in the slow cooker. After they cool, I’ll make my third batch of applesauce. I also have a ton of herbs, and I want to dry as many as I can before the frost kills them. Today I have the dehydrator filled with sage.

Meanwhile, the deck is coming along slowly but surely.

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Also, my internet was ridiculously slow today, and the photos took forever to load. That is the one drawback of living in a rural area. Starlink is supposed to be available here next year, so we’ll see if we can get better connections then.

Aside from that, this is a pretty perfect place to live.

Lighting, painting, trim, cabinetry

Now that the ceiling is done and the painting has been started, the lighting fixtures are going into place. The center chandelier makes the house look quite dramatic from the outside at night!

In addition to the chandelier, the great room also has up-lighting in the great room, which will serve as soft ambient light, a dining table light, and light at the front door. There is a light over the island, too (you’ll kind of see that in a later photo.)

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There’s still a lot of painting to do, though. The great room walls are finished, but most of the rest of the rooms still needed color. Two friends from church–Generous Joe and the Painting Pastor–came at different times this week to paint. I’m so thankful that we know people who are experienced painters who actually enjoy doing it. GJ worked on the master bath, and PP finished the sunroom and took care of the timber room, the hallway, and the laundry room.

Father-in-law cut in color on the accent wall in the master bedroom (and my reading nook!) so that he could install lighting fixtures.

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I did some work this week, too. The trench for the well line had not been completely filled in yet, so I did that on Friday. It was good to do some unskilled manual labor to get myself out of my own head for a while.

Husband has been putting trim on the windows and along the ceiling. He needs to get all the high work done before he has to return the lift later this month.

And, Brother-in-law (with help from Nephew) started installing kitchen cabinets on Saturday.

To answer the perpetually-asked question, we hope to be able to move in by Christmas. If you’d like to help make that dream a reality, swing by and lend a hand! (:

Ceiling, priming and showers

Husband did a little bit more work on the tongue-and-groove ceiling this week. He was up there with his sander, smoothing it all out and making it prettier. (I thought it looked good already, but I don’t have much of an eye for detail.)

Father-in-law came with his paint sprayer and applied primer to all the walls.

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Husband installed the showers in both bathrooms. This is where he hit some difficulties. In the master bathroom, he discovered that he had made the nook for the shower just a little too small. I forget what he said, but I think it was that he measured for it but didn’t figure in the thickness of the drywall. The guest bathroom had a similar problem. In that one, he thought the shower was direct-to-stud installation, but it wasn’t, so the space was again too small. There, he had to remove drywall that had been installed. It seemed discouraging to me, but Husband’s attitude seemed to be, “Oh well. Now I know.” He jokes about how the next time he builds a house, he won’t make any mistakes.

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I’m a little sad that we didn’t choose the same shower style for the guest bathroom as we did for the master. I think what we have is fine, but the master shower looks quite a bit nicer in my opinion; plus, I think the darker color will not show as much of the rust that’s in our water. But Husband had to make decisions, and I have felt brain-dead for the last three months so I’ve not been a lot of help. Plus, the shower we got for the guest bath was less expensive than the other one.

We’ve purchased the paint. I have a little bit of buyer’s remorse on that too because I think we could have limited our color choices. We have six colors, and while I like them all, I think if I’d spent more time on it, I could have brought it down to four. Alas.

Father-in-law is coming Monday to spray the large areas. I think a crew of friends will come on Wednesday to work on the accent walls.

Drywall and ceiling

The drywall finisher is nearly done. We think he’ll have a short day of mudding on Monday, and then sanding on Tuesday. The Amazing Father-in-Law has a paint sprayer, and he has offered to do all the paint priming if we get it masked off. It would be great if he could start that on Wednesday, but we’ll see.

Meanwhile, Husband has been working on the ceiling. The peak was a bit of a conundrum. It was impossible to get the tongue and groove to fit just right, plus the electrical boxes for the fans and the chandelier were set too high to get the fixtures installed. Brother-in-law came over to deliver kitchen cabinetry, and he and Husband had a talk about it. I’m not sure if Husband took his advice (Husband is the older brother after all) but he did work out something that looks pretty darn good.

He is renting a scissor lift again because working at that peak was a bit dicey on scaffolding. Plus, Father-in-law wants it for the priming, and I’m sure it will be very helpful for the painting and upper trim work as well.

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Drywall and window wall

Thankfully, the drywall finisher is much more reliable than the drywall hangers were.

Husband, with a little help from the finisher, hung the rest of the drywall this past week. Then the finisher began his work. He says it’s about an eleven-day process. He started on Tuesday or Wednesday, so my guess is that he’ll be done the end of next week or the beginning of Thanksgiving week.

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Now that the stacks of drywall are out of the way, Husband was able to finish putting the wood on the window wall. (It’s very hard to get a good photo of that wall during the day due to the backlight. I need to go out after dark to get a picture, but I keep forgetting. I’ll try for next week so you can see it better!)

We also have most of the thermostats installed. (It’s warmer in the new house than it is in the old house right now! Yay for good insulation and good windows. I can’t wait to step onto warm floors when I wake up in the morning!)

Husband will soon get back to the ceiling to get that finished up.

After that will be priming and painting, and then kitchen cabinets.

Hanging Drywall

Last week, the drywall hangers quit. Just walked out. We were quite upset about their lack of professionalism. If they didn’t want the job, we wished they had just said so a month ago.

The drywall finisher who had lined up the hangers for us came over a couple of days and helped Husband with some of the hanging, especially getting drywall on the ceilings. The rest of it Husband has been doing. Now that he’s nearing the end of it, he’s getting pretty fast at it.

One or two rooms still need to be hung, but he’s pretty close to being done. The finisher is supposed to come tomorrow (Monday) to start the mudding.

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Top to bottom: kitchen, sun room, master bathroom. Right: Husband working in the small bathroom.

A whole lot of not much

You may recall that Husband was out of town this week, helping a friend put up his pole barn in exchange for the work the friend gave us when Husband broke his shoulder. So we were hoping other people would be here getting things done.

Remember the drywall guys who were supposed to come this week? Well, they didn’t come Monday when they said they were going to. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday or Friday, either. They finally arrived Saturday morning, stayed for, oh, maybe a couple of hours and got the timber room mostly done and the hallway partly done. And now it’s mid-afternoon and they are gone already.

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Husband asked the contractor if we could get a different crew and the contractor said, “The other crews are worse.” Husband says he may end up hanging the drywall himself. He doesn’t want to do it, but it has to be done, and this crew does not seem reliable. Sigh.

Father-in-Law was over for a few days this week filling the radiant floor heating lines with water and testing the system. He said he was having a few problems (a pump running backwards? Could that be right?) but he’s one of the smartest people I know, and I’m certain he will get it figured out.

Finishing well & septic, starting drywall & ceiling

The well and septic are now done! Husband finished hooking up the well in the middle of the week. We had been waiting on the septic for at least two weeks with our front yard a mess because the septic company had to get the inspector to come check their work. Finally, when I got home from work on Friday, I saw that they had smoothed the dirt over the tanks and fingers. It will need to settle a while, but at least it looks better than it did.

The drywall hangers finally came on Sunday morning. They worked from about 9:30 to 2:30. They came back Monday at 6:00 pm and worked for a couple of hours. Then they weren’t here all week until Saturday morning at 10:45. They are out there working as I’m writing this.

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Basically, they have way overbooked themselves, and everyone is mad and yelling at them because they aren’t getting the work done fast enough. They are bouncing around from job to job doing little bits at a time instead of finishing each job all in one go. We haven’t started yelling at them yet, but we are (I am, at least) a little frustrated. It’s getting done, but not as quickly as I’d like.

Since Husband couldn’t finish the wood planking on the window wall because of the stacks of drywall being in the way, he decided to work on the tongue-and-groove ceiling. While doing that, he also installed a few of the LED lights in the loft.

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Additionally, he put in some access connections for the propane line in the canning kitchen.

Husband is going to be out of town for much of the next week. One of his friends who helped back in the spring after Husband had broken his shoulder is now putting up his own pole barn, so Husband is going to help with that. I’m hopeful that the drywall will get hung this week, though. Fingers crossed!