Circle B Ranch: WE HAVE MAIL!

Howdy Y'all!

It is pretty hard to believe, but this is our 50th blog post! We can't believe we had that much to say, but better yet, we can't believe y'all have stuck around all this time! Hopefully we only have a few more posts left as this project starts to wind down in the next couple of weeks.

As you can see by the headline, we finally have a mailbox, and our mail will be delivered to the new address effective June 1st! As soon as it is official, we'll post the new address to all of you. (Don't want to jinx anything right now.)

The story on our mailbox was that we were going to delay building it, but the builder came up with a credit on Thursday (imagine that!) and we elected to build it while the stone masons were still on site. They had it poured, paved and set in 1.5 days! (I think that is a record for anything related to stone in our house.)

Mailbox in its formative state.

The completed version minus the address numbers.

Another major milestone in the house, and one which has really held up finishing the cabinet set and final painting, is the construction of the Great Room stone wall. We're not sure why this was done so late in the process, but we have to assume there was a method to the builder's madness. In any case, it is now complete sans the wall cleanup. We can now move forward to getting the Great Room cabinets set in place.

Watching stone dry. (Grates will be painted.)

Meanwhile, back at the pool, the Tile Guys arrived to set the final course of tile along the rim of the "beach". We've been told that the Pool Guys and Plaster Guys will be out this week to set the pool equipment up, and start the final plaster coat. Quite possibly, we could have water in the pool by the end of this week!

Caesar and Jose prepping the mortar base for the tile.

All that work for this.

Pumping out the last of the nasty water.

Jan and Cindy testing out the pool depth.

Not to be outdone, the Concrete Guys showed up to pour the second front walkway, and the first 100 feet of the long driveway. Where this ends is where we will locate the front entry gate to the house. This section was poured in exposed aggregate, and the remainder of the 1000' of driveway will be in smooth cement making it easier to maintain and clean.

Prepping the road base and curbing.

We need to get one of these!

View from the house.

Delivering the goods. Game on!

Working the mud and getting it smooth.

End result. Entry gate will be located at this point.

Side walkway from the front door path to the driveway.

Out back on the patio, the stone masons were busy last week finishing up the outdoor kitchen area, and the Granite Guys arrived on Saturday with the granite pieces. This isn't yet complete, but these preliminary pics will give y'all an idea of what we had in mind. The design has room for the propane grill cooktop, a Big Green Egg, a sink, a sauté burner, and undercounter refrigerator. The other side of the cooktop is a raised bar since every one of our ranch neighbors seem to develop a powf'l thirst after a day in the sun :-). (Lest you get concerned, the 2x4 wood supports are there to level the bar top only.)

In addition to finishing out the BBQ area, the Stone Guys also completed the hearth seat on the patio fireplace. Another item off of the list!

Finally!

And lastly, there has been some activity inside the house as the plumbers attached most all of the sinks, faucets, toilets, etc. One doesn't appreciate how much time it takes to hook all of this stuff up (correctly) until you see a poor plumber contorted like a pretzel trying to connect two fittings. From what we can see, there are only a few items left to connect this week, and then we test!