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.
The stair rail going down.
We are so close to moving in. We need the stove pipe! 
Finishing touches like shelves in the walk-in closet...
Completed to the flue...
View from top of stairs...
One hot air furnace and instant hot water on demand...We met a great new friend by the name of Charlie who installed this baby. And he has become our furnace guru for eternity!
This is a free hand drawing done by Lee...He presented it to us about 10 days ago. Lee's the artist responsible for Pluto and Goofy (those cartoon drawings from back in June on our logs)
This one is at the bottom of the stairs. We think it's really neat...and very appropriate for the cabin.
This was a special Christmas present from my sister about 5 years ago.
Downstairs hallway
It's operated by remote control... 
This was a "do-over" fixture. Mike installed the original almost a month ago. But, without the glass portion because he wanted to protect the glass from breakage during the cabinet installation.
Rick spent the better part of 3 days installing these handles and latches.
This pic gives you an idea of the size of the porch.
This is the finished chimney... Mike spent most of the day spreading the grout.
