I came across this charming couple of pictures taken in our Lahaska garden way back when this house of ours was just an ephemeral dream. Apparently Chris wanted to get a sense of scale from his early drawings for the "great room" peak. I can't say how close it is to reality, but it is a (almost quaint) fun memory.
Back to the present ... Evan lays tiles in the mud room and I follow hot on his heels with my special handy dandy sealing skills. We now have a lovely and super efficient stainless hood over the stove, it's got a three speed fan, lights and heat lamps even.
Remember the wall Chris was building in the last blog? Well, it got finished and we really have enjoyed basking in the fact that it is done. The left over stones were piled back on pallets and we were able to sell them. Our resident cows as you know are quite curious creatures and we were not surprised when they came early one morning to check out the new stone walls.
Did I say we are really pleased with the latest stone wall? It is very nice to sit and drink hot chocolate upon for instance. Never idle for long, Chris changed hats and became a ditch digger. Ditches were needed on the front side of the house for rain gutter drainage ( just like on the back side).
Bo and Becky came with their machinery and did the heavy moving. We are super impressed with their delicate touch, if one can put it that way, in the earth moving department. Two layers of stone needed rolling, first a coarse layer then a finer layer mixed with clay so it would pack really hard.
The ditching and trenching and laying of pipe took a good long while so it deserved some more pictures.
Here's an alternate point of view ... it seemed a darn shame to dig up the whole area when it had been graded so nicely just a few days previously. Meanwhile, I tried out my new oven and unearthed a great bread recipe from my friend Karin in Hälsingland. I was a bit astonished at how vigorously it rose.
Lest you miss the fine details of this driveway/turn around technology I thought it prudent to show the two grades of material we are using to make sure we have no problem with mushy mud and ruts during the melt season ever again. Chris became very familiar with that roller machine.
It isn't all work and more work ... nope, here Lisa and I are taking it easy on the sun porch while Chris and his brother John are off fishing. They didn't catch anything but reported having a great time not working.
We took off another day and went up to Leadville for a train ride. It's an historic old track from back in the silver mining days ... and it was very cold so we wrapped up appropriately. A local lady bought the whole operation some years ago for $10 and still runs the train for tourists. How cool is that? We liked it so much we agreed to ride the rails again in the fall when the leaves turn on their colors.
I'd be remiss if I did't also share that we took our sibling visitors up to the top of Monarch Mountain to check out the crystal clear continental divide views ... it was breathtaking as always.
The interior work continues. I bought a bunch of shelving units from Ikea and Evan had the brilliant idea that if he tied them together with screws and ran a solid board across the top which I can then paint with our trim color, they'd look almost built in. So that's what is going on here.
We are getting so we can add some of the nice finishing touches to make it feel homey, like the Swedish candelabra on the beam post. We put in a different love seat in the sun room so now four persons can actually sit comfortably and chat together at the same time. We have no idea what sort of lamp we want over the dining room table, so as a place holder we got a really cheap halfway decent lamp at Ikea to just give us some illumination in the meantime.
Abby is working her way through all the windows and doors of the house and giving the bare wood the polyurethane treatment. It really makes a big difference.
I do my little bit too, here and there ... back to sealing again ... here the kitchen backsplash tiles. AND a really significant event took place this past week. We finally emptied one of our storage units of all our household goods and swept it out spic and span so it is ready for the next occupant. I wish I could say the same for the other storage unit which houses all of Chris' shop machinery ... but that day will come eventually too.
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