Ready or not!

Bry took a personal/sick day on Friday so that he could make it to a doctor's appt. for his wrist and knee and get some extra work done on the house.  So we had a long weekend, including a nice relaxing Sabbath being iced in.

Here's what we (well, Bryan, really) accomplished last week and this weekend :

He ripped out the shower downstairs (it froze last week when the temp got down to a shivery 0 degrees)  that space will now become more studio storage.  Yay!   Then he spent several hours replacing insulation that was moved out of the way during wiring and pluming projects and spraying several cans of Great Stuff in holes, cracks and gaps.  This raised the overall temperature in the South Studio by 10 or 15 degrees and made the upstairs and living room noticeably warmer.  Hooray!

He finished the insulation in the Living Room and got most of the wallboard up and the outlets for the Living Room wired.  So now we can put in a Christmas tree and hang lights and stuff.   The tree will go in the corner near the big window.  The ugly TV will go upstairs for the season.

He also got the space for our gas fireplace framed up with backer board in place and ready for tile.  Our oil company is coming on Tuesday to install a new gas line and hook it up.  It will be a wonderful addition to the house, making the living room very cozy when we want to cuddle and read or watch a movie there and it will be a big help when we need to let the big woodstove go out so that we can empty the coals - usually once every week & a half or two weeks.  Eventually Bry will build a nice mantle around and above the fireplace which will include a place to hang stockings, shelves for books, movies and/or trinkets and (someday when we can afford it) a flat screen TV hidden behind a mirror.

He got a good start on the installation for the upstairs shower.  (We're currently on sponge baths or charity showers at Mom & Dad's or Jonathan & Nichelle's!)   Hopefully later this week we will have either the shower or the bathtub ready to use in the upstairs bathroom.  Oh - one other little piece of wonderful news - the Upstairs Bathroom is the most comfortable room in the house in terms of warmth.  You can get warm fast in front of the Fisher Stove down here in the studio but it is a rotisserie style of warmth - you need to keep turning to get warm everywhere!  But the bathroom has a nice, cozy and even ambient temperature.

Molly has been making these wonderful 20 point Moravian Stars (see top photo) all weekend out of some gorgeous card stock I bought a while back.  You can find instructions on how to make these stars in several places - we found ours on Jenny Harada's blog.  She advises using old Christmas cards but Molly wanted to make lots and have them be look like they belonged together so a packet of color & pattern coordinated card stock is perfect.  I buy that stuff to use as background for me bead and jewelry photos so I only need one of each nice sheet, the packets usually have 3-4 of each pattern so everyone wins!
And yesterday we took a wander out back and cut our tree.  That was fun - there was lots of slush under the snow under the layer of ice.

Check in later this week for more decorations.  It's still rough in here but I'm sure the kids will make it festive!




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