expirationdates

Ok Ok OK

It's not much of a post since I have not been out to the house since last Thursday.  My folks have taken off on a road trip vacation so I am staying in Shoreline getting all packed up and ready to move.  It's also close for me to get to work.

Saturday Bruce came over and helped Dave put in the french doors to our loft.  This picture is from Dave's phone, it's not that great but at least you can get an idea of what we had in mind.

There is plastic on the glass so it will be much clearer once that is pulled off.  Eventually I will put curtains there so we can have some privacy if we want it.

Sunday was Bruce's going away party.  That boy has had more going away parties than anyone I know.  He was up here for the summer doing some work for his company.  Now he is headed back to Arizona.  It was great to see you Bruce, hope you get to come back next summer.  It was also nice to meet Nikki.  I'll bet she will be glad to have you back home.

His party was at friends that boasted seven ways to cook outdoors the last time we were there for his going away party.  I have always aspired to that.  I love to cook outdoors.  The last time we were there they had plans to build an outdoor wood fired pizza oven.

It looks just great!  I had Dave take some picture so he has something to go by when he builds my outdoor wood fired pizza oven :-)

Tomorrow we take another load to the property.  I am trying to get all the stuff out that the real estate agent wants out before she puts the house on the market. 

It's Official

It's ours!  We spent an hour and a half yesterday at Western States Mortgage signing papers with our broker, Hafiz Lalji.  If you are thinking of getting a mortgage or refinancing your house I urge you to check them out.  He can be reached at loansquick@yahoo.com They really did a great job for us in a short amont of time, especially since we had a challenging situation. They were great to work with and were very creative with their solution.

The payment is higher than we wanted but we are getting the construction loan paid off and that was going to expire on August 31st.  Now we have to hustle to finish up the details in the next two months, sell the duplex and refinance at a lower rate and a lower payment. 

We celebrated with a nice dinner at Claim Jumpers and a concert at the Chateau St. Michelle.  We saw Ben Folds.  He was great.  Unfortunately he was opening for Rufus Wainwright.  We had never heard of him and didn't really care for him so we ended up leaving early and heading to the bowling alley for some pinball. 

Now the push is on to get this duplex sold.  While my folks are on vacation I'll be spending the next few weeks getting it cleaned up, empty and ready for sale.  Investment property seems to sell pretty fast in this area and that's what we are hoping for.  Dave will be working on the deck roof and odds and ends that need to be done so we can get that bamboo floor in the main room.  That is the one big thing left before we can get moving on a refinance.

Ta Da!

That's it, just Ta Da!

It took me 12 hours with one half hour break for lunch and one half hour break for chicken care.

It's 11pm and I'm beat.  It was harder than I thought it was going to be but I am very pleased.  One more project done!  I'm going to bed.

Sunday

We have a bedroom!  We actually have a bedroom.

The floor is done, the trim is done, the curtains are hung and our new bed from IKEA arrived today. 

I can hardly wait till it's time to go to bed.

The boys were out Saturday night for an overnight.  They helped us reorganize the stones for the fireplace.  I think it will be much easier to find the piece you need now.

Sunday morning we had birthday pancakes and gave Marshall his gifts.  I found some cool toys from the movie Robots.  He seemed to really enjoy them. If we manage to track down that chess set I'll save it for Christmas.

Shortly after breakfast the boys wanted to go swimming so Dave took them down.

Howard found a frog.

It was still a little too early in the day for swimming and it was a little cool but the boys had a great time.

He was a very patient frog and let the boys play with him for a while and as soon as they were off swimming he took off for the bank.

The chickens are still happy and the little guys are actually sneaking into the other coop and laying their eggs.  They sleep in the greenhouse though.

All in all a pretty productive and fun weekend. 

Three Hours Later.....

While this is a great DIY project it is harder than it looks.

It probably doesn't help that we choose a style without grout.  Finding just the right stone to stack on top of the other without space is challenging.

It's quite the puzzle without a box top to work from.

We mixed half a bag of mortar and started putting the stone up around 3pm today.  We used up the mortar by 6pm and decided to start again tomorrow.  It's looking good.

Friday

Today was Dave's last Friday off.  He has been working longer hours four days a week to get every other Friday off this past year and a half while we built this house.  He has also used up just about every bit of vacation.  It's been a little hard on him having to get up so early, work long and then come home and build a house.  He is glad to be getting back to normal hours. 

We were trying to sign our loan papers yesterday but the underwriters are just so backed up that it is going to be next Wednesday.  We had planned to run some errands South after we signed but since we were not signing we decided to stay home and get some more work done.

I laid out the stones for the fireplace.  They say to lay them all out and not to think to much when you put them up or you will end up with a pattern. You want it to be random, like nature did it.

Next, you have to put on a scratch coat of mortar so the stones have something to stick to when you put them up. 

Our style is a stacking stone so there will be no mortar between the stones.

When mixing the mortar it is important to wear a mask.

I hate those papery masks as they get hot and it's hard to breath in them.

Dave bought this one at Lowe's

I really like it.  It doesn't  touch your mouth or nose, it just rests around them so it is really easy to breath and it does not get hot.  You can change the canisters on the side for what ever it is you don't want to breath.  The dogs think it's pretty funny and bark at me when I'm wearing it.

The other thing you have to do is wear rubber gloves.  Nothing sucks the moisture out of your hands like concrete.

I mixed the mortar in a plastic tub and started pushing it in the cups of the metal lathe. 

I thought one bag was going to be enough but I ran out with just the bits I couldn't reach undone.

Dave got home just in time to reach them.

One of the the things I wish I would have taken better care about was taking out the staples that were in when I put the lathe in wrong.  I just pulled it out and many of the staples stayed in with their pointed bits sticking out.  Never thought ahead to how they were going to feel when I was spreading the mortar on.

I have several pokes and scrapes on my right hand that are very sore today.

Now, this has to set for a day before we can put the stone on.

We finished this around 3pm and decided to run our errands anyway.  We wanted to go to the international district to get a chess set for Marshall that he saw in the window of a little gift shop there.  He is going to be 7 and is quite the chess player. 

Traffic was horrible.  It took us two hours to get there.  We arrived one minute past closing.  I knocked on the door and someone finally came and let me in.  It seems they are closing and have sold most of their clearance merchandise to another store!  That included the dragon chess set.  The shop gal was very nice and said she would try to track it down and get it for me Monday.  Whew!  Hope she can find it as we were really hoping to get this for his birthday.

After that we headed to Renton to visit IKEA for a new bed.  After laying on all the mattresses we found one we liked best.  They are actually going to deliver it on Sunday! 

I also picked out all the shelving for my kitchen.  Very exciting! 

I spent some of the morning trying to figure out what to do about the chickens.  I finally found the perfect size for a chicken yard for eight chickens.  They are all having a grand time picking and scratching and getting along just fine.

Tomorrow we work on trim and rocking the fireplace and getting up my new shelving for the kitchen. 

I Almost Forgot

I get so caught up in coming and going and working on this house that I forget sometimes what's outside,

Here are four young American Mergansers preening right out in front of the house.

It is so magical living by a river since it is just a little bit different every day and there is just so much wildlife.

In the background you can see the edge of a beaver dam.  We usually only see him in the evening. 

There are eagles, hawks, sandpipers, kingfishers and just a ton of songbirds. 

There are deer roaming about in the mornings and the river is so clear you can see the salmon and trout as they swim by.

Pretty special, I feel really lucky to be living here.

Kirby and the boys came by last night and were a big help getting the main floor cleared.

Thanks guys, you did a great job. 

Best Laid Plans

The loft floor did get completely done and it looks great but we didn't manage the great room.

I sent Dave to Lowe's for a toilet seat and he came back with this one that looks like raindrops.  Very snazzy Dave.

We started clearing the great room.  There is so much crap in there still from all the building that it is taking a few days to clear it all.

Since the fireplace needs to be rocked we decided to start with that. 

The first thing I did was watch the installation video for the

Eldorado Stone . It was here that I found out that I put the lathe on upside down.  So that all had to come off.

When it was off Dave installed the mantle.  We are using some old dock wood that we pulled out of some water down in Oregon.  It's pretty cool but irregular shapes.  Dave first made a board to match that he could secure to the wall with bolts.

We put four lag bolts in so it will be secure.  Dave is sure that I am going to stack heavy brass nick nack on it. 

He also installed some pretty heavy duty L brackets underneath too so I'm sure that whatever I decide to set on it will be fine.

Then I reinstalled the lathe and started laying out the stone.

We ran out of time so I we will finish this project when I get back there on Wednesday.

Meanwhile the eating bar is done and just waiting for a few outlets before we can finish up the trim.

I realized yesterday that the only thing holding up the furniture delivery is the fireplace and the floor.

We are getting there, slowly but surly, we are getting there.

Who's Laughing Now?

I started on the floor at about 9:30 after the mandatory trip to Lowe's.

I quickly got tired of getting up and down so I brought up the furniture mover and put my tools on it and used it to wheel my self back and forth.  I only had to get up to cut the end piece on each row.  That saved on my energy.

I took a break to make dinner and worked until 8:30.  Dave helped me rip the last three boards.

I am really pleased with the way it looks.

I got all the way to the shower but still have five short rows left to do in the morning.

It was good practice and I'll be glad to get it done tomorrow. It was different than installing a pergo floor.  The pergo snaps into place and there is no glue.

The bamboo has a tongue and groove and you have to put a bead of glue on the tongue.  It slides into place with a little coaxing using the tap block.

I think when we tackle the great room it will be helpful to have three people.  One to cut, one person on the floor and a runner to bring boards and fetch tools.

All in all it will have taken me about 20 hours to lay 350 sq ft of flooring.  The great room, quilt room and guest room is about 1300 sq ft.

  Yeah, it's gonna take more than one person if we hope to get it done before Christmas.  Perhaps I was a little optimistic to say we will get it done this weekend especially since Dave has a Boeing golf day on Saturday.  I'll set a goal that it will be done by the end of next weekend.

Wednesday

I worked all day getting ready to lay the bamboo floor.  When Dave got home from work we started it.

It looks amazing and goes down pretty fast.  We went ahead and started in the loft for practice even though we keep saying we are not doing the loft until later.

The plan is for me to finish it tomorrow and prepare the main floor so we can start laying it in the evening and finish up this weekend.

I think I hear Dave laughing but hey, you gotta have goals.

I laid out the counter and it turned out I was 10 tiles short so I ordered them today and they will be in Monday.

Dave is in the command center of the home theater room doing some sound tests.

Once the rack is in and the wires are contained there is a panel that goes over all that.

All the audio/video equipment will be in that room as well as the main computer and wireless router.  Very high tech, Dave is in high heaven.

Here is a picture of the screen.

I left the lights on so you could see the carpet and colors.

I still have to paint the grills for the speakers there in the wall and I have curtains for the sides.

On the chicken front, I used some chicken wire to expand the yard by quite a bit. 

I clipped the wings of the little guys and let them out there today.

It was a blast to watch them run around and peck and scratch.

I wanted them to get some confidence and a little territory of their own.  Tomorrow I will let the big guys out with them.  It's a big enough area that they should be fine.