SNAIL'S PACE

Howdy Y'all!

Another week has almost gone by since our last post, and we continue to make some headway, although when you look at it on a daily basis it hardly seems to move. (Can you tell the depth of our desire to get out of this apartment yet?)

James and Buddy (aka The Trim Guys) finished assembling the Great Room beams this week, and finished the trim around the three small windows at the top of the ceiling. Their next project will be to build a custom vent hood for the cooktop since Jan and I elected not to go with a stone unit (too expensive and too heavy). More on that next week. The pics below are the final steps in the Great Room before the lights and fans are installed.

Great Room beam assembly.

The Tile Guys have also been back after a couple of days absence, and started work on the Guest Room bathrooms. Jan and I have gotten an education on the differences between tile and stone, particularly in the uniformity (or lack thereof) in stone and its color consistency. 

Master Bath shower wall (completed).

Master Bath tile floor.

Guest Bath #2.

Guest Bath #1.

Master shower interior.

This week also marked the beginning of the 'faux' painting that Jan has decided for a number of the room ceilings. Shelley Rodrigues is the artist that we've contracted to complete the ceiling work, and it looks like she will be at the house for a number of days 'looking up'. As she explained to us, faux ceiling work is a process of applying a number of different color and texture layers over one another to get the right look and texture to create an 'old world' look. So, if she gets this right, the ceilings will look like early turn-of-the-century :-).

Applying the base coat to the Dining Room groin vault ceiling.

Cutting in the edges.

A sample of the end result.

Moving along, The Cabinet Guys have installed the Prep Kitchen cabinets, which will be painted, and eventually antiqued by Shelley. They finished all of the cabinet crown moulding today (not shown in the first pic; see second pic), which will allow the painters to prep the cabinets for primer and paint over the next couple of days.

Prep Room cabinets set in place for primer coat and paint.

Crown moulding applied.

And, of course, the most important room in the house (:-D) is finally underway. The mahogany cabinets arrived yesterday and are partially installed in the Wine Room.

Can't get this room finished fast enough!

Moving to the exterior of the house, progress has slowed somewhat. We still have the case of the missing Stone Guys, but the Roof Guys arrived to complete another portion of the roof. Unfortunately, until the Stone Guys complete the patio fireplace, the roof cannot be completed. Of course, that holds up the Gutter Guys, and that creates a delay for the Water Collection Guys, etc., etc. Welcome to the world of subcontractors!

Working on finishing the roof over the back patio.

Completing the front entrance roof.

That's all for now. See ya later!

- Jan and John - 

FROM GREEN TO BROWN

Howdy Y'all!

It has been a week since we last posted a blog update, and yes, we spent all day last Monday basking in the sunshine of the Seattle Seahawk's Super Bowl win! What a great game (somewhat of a surprise re the score!). But, a win is a win. Now for 2015!

Back at the ranch, we are still having yo-yo weather between really cold days, and days where we are wearing shorts; what a crazy winter this has been so far. But, little things continue to happen pulling progress along. 

The stone masons (aka The Stone Guys) continue to show up, chipping and laying stone in 40 degree weather (I wouldn't!), converting the green walls to brown stone; we are thankful for their persistence. Stone by stone, yard by yard, they continue to make progress. Since we are at the house most of the time, we've gotten to know each wall of the house intimately as they begin and finish a section. The front of the house is almost done, but a wrong sized lintel over the front arch has slowed the finish there, and we are waiting for a new one. (We do remember our lesson in "lintels", right?)

Front of the house (almost done!).

Master Bedroom main window.

Master Bedroom and Utility Room walls.

Master Bedroom second window and walkway.

The stone masons have finally moved underneath the patio cover to start the window arches. (Once these are done, that only leaves six more arches!!) These aren't exactly time-lapse photos, but they show the progression of change over a week's time.

Setting up the wooden window arch templates on patio.

Finishing the 'eyebrow' treatment on the windows.

Starting the Breakfast Area window stone.

Finishing the walls behind the outdoor kitchen area.

Moving inside, the Tile Guys have started work in the Master Suite bath, with the first tile on the bathroom floor, and one wall tiled in the master shower area. There is quite bit of tile work in this room, so we think they'll be here for awhile.

The center platform is where the master tub will sit (recessed in) once it arrives and is installed. (I tried to convince Jan it would be a cool throne stand for me, but she wasn't buying any of it.)

Floor tile without the accent pieces.

Master shower faucet wall tile.

Master shower back wall.

Beginning of the shower/bathtub wall tile.

The finish carpenters (James and Buddy) have been busy working on small, but important, aspects of the house. The beams were finally completed in the master bedroom and now await The Paint Guy to apply a final stain finish.

Beams in the Master Bedroom. 
(No, they aren't bent. Weird camera angle.)

Additionally, the beams in the Great Room ceiling are waiting to be stained first before being raised to the ceiling. Because of the height of the ceiling, and already painted walls, the builder elected to stain the beam material first, then build the beams. Smart move.

While they wait for the staining to be completed, the carpenters are creating the arched frames for the three windows at the top of the Great Room. This again requires building the arches from individual strands of wet alder wood, gluing, forming, nailing, and sanding the arch around a mould. Unfortunately, one mould can't be used for all three because the windows are not absolutely and exactly alike, even though they are very close in absolute measurements (my head hurts thinking about this arch stuff again). 

Building each window mould separately.

We are starting to see some preliminary cleanup taking place - mostly removing excess concrete, and leveling the dirt berms from the pool dig. We can now actually see over the edge of the pool from the house without having to view a bunch of dirt mounds.

View from the rear field.

But Wait, There's More!
Our ranch neighbors, Jerry and Cindy, have some friends visiting this weekend and joined us for a visit to the house and, a romp around the neighborhood.

Cindy (left), Connie (aka, The Friend), and Jerry.

Herding cattle the modern way.

Feeding Firecracker some "candy" alfalfa cubes. 

That's all for now. See ya later!
- Jan and John -