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!




. . . .

The bad news:

It is cold.  Very cold.  The windows are not finished being framed in yet so all the warmth from the house pours out from around the windows on one side of the house, being replaced by cold pouring in from the opposite side of the house.  Most of the doors have big gaps where cold air screams through, too.

So basically, we're cold.  Very cold.

The shower pipes froze last night.

By turning off the pump in order to address the frozen pipes issue, we have discovered that the steady trickle of water coming into the basement is not ground water seeping in but rather is water being pulled up the pipe by the pump and spilling out through a crack in said pipe somewhere between the house and the well.  Luckily for us this discovery was made After the ground was frozen and there is 2 feet of snow on top of it.  Good Times.

The good news:

Bryan was NOT killed by a stupid driver who pulled out right in front of him this morning on his way to work.  (That pretty much trumps all that other bad news up there.  I'm unbelievably thankful for that.)

The upstairs bathroom now looks like these photos and actually is a little bit warmish.  Bry is actively working on getting the shower installed upstairs ASAP.  The downstairs shower is no longer a viable option because, obviously, it freezes too easily.

There is now a drier in the upstairs bathroom.  (Thank you, Neighbors Tabors!)







P.S.  Sorry that these photos are a bit sea-sick.  The lighting is really weird up there and I was being quick with the camera.










. . . .

We've been a bit overwhelmed lately.  I don't even have time to spell it all out - suffice it to say that it is getting cold and we Still haven't had time to finish the soffits and fascia on the new roof or get the new windows framed in and insulated.  Rather uncomfortable, really.

BUT.  The Ft. Jackson house has sold.  Woo Hoo!  We're not going to make any money on it but a family has moved in - he is a construction contractor and she loves the house so all is well there. 

We have re-thought our color scheme for downstairs - again.  One thing we have learned is that you NEVER buy paint until the very end.

(Does anyone want to buy two huge buckets of pale blue paint?)

Because our plan for the layout of the downstairs has changed slightly and because the cabinets we had priced and planned for last winter are no longer available, we have had to re-think our whole plan for the downstairs.  I'll tell all in another post once I've got caught up with the mess in this house (it is truly amazing how much volume the cabinets in the Ft.Jackson house were hiding!) but in the meantime - here is a short overview of our color scheme:

Kitchen walls - Dark teal (yes, really)

Living Room walls - that dusty pink and/or the chocolate brown - tile work with will be done in that faux aged stone tile with a few decorative tiles thrown in.

Cabinetry and Built-ins in both rooms - pale mustard yellow with that dark formica flecked with gold and teal for the counter tops.

Ceilings - the paler yellow

Paprika Curtains in the LR, teal throw pillows and other accents, something lightweight and cream or kitchen curtains.

We hope to have at least some of it done before Christmas!

O.K.  Time for some real life work.  (The color chips look so much better in real life - I've played with the color balance but digital cameras just don't manage blues against reds very well.)

Trenton is unimpressed.

A washing machine.

No power for it yet but the water lines are ready to go behind the big plastic curtain. 

Perhaps I will do some laundry tonight.

But I still lack a drier so I guess I will be scrounging around for some clothespins.

Sigh.

On this corner.

I swear.  This is as good as it is going to get.  I'm priming tomorrow and painting this weekend.  If anyone wants to kneel down next to my toilet and complain that I didn't do a good enough job on this corner, I'll flush their head for them.











Maxx has been perfecting his pirate fashion for weeks months now.  He can hardly wait for Friday when he gets to be a PIRATE at SCHOOL!

He had a blast helping design his spooky little pumpkin last night, too.  He generally likes creepy things.

Since we have been so busy all year and had no construction $$ to work on the house this weekend and because we all spent the first part of the weekend being miserable and sick and because we wanted to celebrate our Temple Anniversary, we took a trip up to the Adirondacks on Monday.  We drove up the Whiteface Veteran's Memorial Highway.  That drive is pretty much my limit for heights, switchbacks and drop-offs.  And then we played with my other borderline phobia and walked through the tunnel to the elevator that would take us the rest of the way through the mountain to the top.

Maxx had a blast jumping around on the rocks at the top of the mountain.  But not too close to the edge.

Then we took the kids to the covered bridge in Jay.  Molly Bryn didn't remember ever seeing it before.  Bry and I realized that we have been negligent about taking her around to our ancestral stomping grounds.

We also spent a little time wandering around in Downtown Lake Placid before heading home.  I was pretty disappointed with the shops this time around.  I remember there being several small, charming little shops with unique items but this time I there seemed to be only high end, pretentious outlets and small touristy shops.  Even "Where'd You Get That Hat?"  felt stale, trEndy and commercial.

Alas.

The mountain was great though - 80 mile visibility and not freezing at the top.














......