Thursday, December 25, 2008

The stair rail...

The stair rail going down.
Richard had built the railing...

Installed it for size and fit...then took it down again.


The railing going up! While Mike was laying the chimney stone the railing came down and up a few times checking for fit with the stones.

It's ours !!!


Richard, Mike and Lee had just walked out the door and told us they were finished! This is the first pic taken where it's all ours!!!
Next thing we did was start to vacuum! This was the afternoon of Dec. 4th.
Our first visitor arrived not more than an hour later! Bearing gifts of Champagne, fluted glasses and a big smile. It was Laurie (Richard's wife) coming to congratulate us on the new home (and I think grateful to have her husband back just in time for the holidays). Thankyou Laurie!

Almost there...

We are so close to moving in. We need the stove pipe!


That's Mike walking up the stairs checking the stone along the way.


Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family...

Mike finishing up the chimney...







Pics from Thanksgiving and early December...

Finishing touches like shelves in the walk-in closet...

And still plenty of space to hang...

We stained and gym sparred the floors...


It's called red oak stain...


Monday, December 22, 2008

We are still here...we are still unpacking...it is still snowing...
"The Beast" (which is what we call our plow truck) is getting a daily workout.
The Schrader wood stove is running 24/7 and providing great heat.
We've managed to clear one bay in the garage so my car is snug and snow free. Rick's car is not that lucky yet.
And, (as of yesterday) my Grandfather Clock is back up and chiming away like always. I worried so much about that clock making the journey, and was so happy to have it back.
Life is good!!! (but hectic and busy)

Monday, December 15, 2008

We are all moved in...!
My apologies to all who have been faithfully checking the blog and have begun to wonder just where we are and what's going on.
The actual move went wonderfully. Our furniture all arrived on Friday December 5th and we spent that first night here in the LOG CABIN with just our beds and an overnight bag. Oh yes, and our pots and pans which Rick could not wait to hang on the pot rack.
The following day our Schrader Family arrived with all our boxes, clothes, and the rest of our possessions. (A seriously big THANK YOU to all who helped). By the time all those boxes arrived here there was no room left to walk anywhere in the house and the unpacking began. And here we are 10 days later and the unpacking continues.
It's been an interesting week. Starting with a week ago Saturday and the 3 AM smoke alarms that refused to shut off no matter how many times we pushed the "silent" button! Rick eventually disconnected them all (hard wired into the house electric) but not without a trip to the garage to get the 12 foot ladder as 2 of the detectors were at the peak of the upstairs cathedral ceilings. Yep, not much sleep that night! But, they are all working again now. Mike was here the next day to troubleshoot and reinstall them all! We won't get into the fact that Rick could have just unplugged each one instead of disconnecting the wires, but come on...it was 4:30 AM by this time...and there was no way to see the plugs until you got the detectors down!
The only other interesting glitch was the washing machine that had no power. It was never plugged in. Sounds simple enough just find the cord and plug it in...right?...but trust me it wasn't that simple. Seems the washing drum is locked in with bolts for transport and as a precaution to make sure the bolts are freed before use the power cord is wound around those bolts INSIDE the back of the machine. Now that machine was a heavy sucker and raised on a pedestal and getting behind it to free the bolts required some contortionist moves on both our parts. Not to mention the fact that I hadn't done any laundry before moving and we were out of clean clothes! We went to Sears first thing the next day and found the answers and fixed the problem and I must say I really love the new machine (now)!!! But...I will admit to thinking several horrible thoughts about whoever wrote the installation instructions because we never found a word about those bolts anywhere in the instructions!
So here we are...all moved and living in our new log home and loving every minute of it. We unpack a little more each day. And Rick has been cleaning up the basement so he can move all the maple floor boards out of the garage and into the basement in order to start the planing so we can (hopefully) begin installing the downstairs flooring around March.
It snowed 5 out of the first 7 days we were here. We also had serious sub-zero temps and wind chills to minus 30. We still can't get the cars into the garage until we get lots more boxes unpacked. Right now we are just moving the boxes around to get at what we need and the cars are still sitting outside and only complaining a little when we go to start them in the morning. We have to make "dump runs" frequently as there is no garbage collection here and we are generating huge piles of empty boxes! We fill the porch with garbage...then pile it all on our utility trailer and bring it to the transfer station!
So, all of the above is the reason I've been neglecting the blog. I hope to be back with more pics soon.