ready for inspection

Dad has been busy the last week getting the house ready for Franco to come and inspect the wiring and plumbing. All our insulation is sitting in piles just waiting to turn the house from an icebox into a cozy little home. Dad moves so fast...all the little loose ends that were driving me crazy are just DONE. Awesome. It has snowed about 10 inches in the last few days (according to Matt) and everything is blanketed. Quite the winter wonderland compared to a week ago.

yes, we do live in volcano country.

This picture is from the eruption in 1990, but it seems that we may soon experience a repeat. Pretty dramatic, eh? Our house is, fortunately, buttoned up so the ash fall shouldn't cause too many problems. It is a nasty business though and I hope the winds are cooperative and blow the mess far away from us.

HRV-ing a great time!

hee-hee. Want to look at some duct-work? Isn't it cute? Does it make your toes curl?

Killing time...

Happy as I am with our new plan, I must admit that it leaves me antsy to do something. So I've killed the last half hour musing about interior doors, one interior door specifically that leads from the entry into the main house. I took advantage of a Home Depot sale and ordered a Feather River door that has five panels of obscured tempered glass. It will let in a lovely amount of light into the hall area and the bottom of the stairs and also be a nice detail to the open living space. It's primed pine, so we plan to paint it and this evening my musings have turned to what color would be nice; a bright pop of color that contrasts the walls? (ahem, we don't have walls to paint yet); a nice brown to complement the floors? (yeah, no floors yet either...); or perhaps a soft pastel color just a shade or two darker, but in the same scheme as the interior colors? (well, we do have an interior at least). What do you think?

New Year, New Plan!

We have our internet back finally and are able to use it from the comfort of our apartment again. Life has shifted yet again and with a new year comes a new plan of action. My mother has continued to be affected by the rheumatoid arthritis and over the past few months has lost a lot of movement and is confined to her chair because of the pain. She's been receiving a real minimum of care as everyone works full days and she was being left alone for much of the time. This disease is so terrible and part of what makes it so frustrating is that there is this hope that it will just suddenly go into remission and she will just jump up and do a tap dance across the living room one day. But trying to operate daily in a state of optimism and hope about tomorrow, was leading us all to ignore important decisions about how to make today better and more comfortable. Just after Christmas I had a "DUH!" moment and realized that everyone would be better served if I could just stay home and take care of her. My dad could finish our house himself knowing that my mom was getting the excellent care she deserves. Once I let go of the idea of building our house all by myself from beginning to end (and it really only took about 10 minutes to do so), I was at total peace with the decision and actually very excited to get to do something real and concrete that would make everyone happier and less stressed out. So for about two and a half weeks I've been home with my mom; shopping and cooking her meals, answering the phone, nagging her about drinking enough liquids and helping her get to appointments and keep up with her real estate work. Bea continues to go to her preschool and I do childcare swaps so that she's out of the house for three full days a week. On the two days she's home with me and mum (her Nana) she really works on her skills as a nurse. She's very empathetic and gentle with mum and helps give healing touches and massages to her knees. I'm glad that I'm able to spend this time with both Bea and my Mum and I know that my Dad will build us a beautiful house. I'll keep posting as progress is made and I'm sure I'll get up there on occasion to lend a hammer.

PS. After two weeks of -10 and below tempuratures we've had a thaw and today is sunny and warm...in January! WTH?

Happy Solstice!

Well our internet is still out and we've been too busy to try to figure out how to fix it. This makes posting much more difficult but really is not a good excuse for letting more than a month go by! There's been much news on the Homer-front; Matt has gotten a full time job working for the Seldovia Village Tribe's Medical Center. It's a great job working with a fantastic organization, plus it's indoors! Poor guy has to shave and wear shirts for the buttons while I "get" to continue to freeze my toes off building our house. However, I have been taking a few weeks off from our house to help dad finish up the other house on Forest Glen. It's nice and cozy warm working on interior trim and installing toilets, I'm getting spoiled. Once that house is done we'll be able to both move up the hill and move fast to get ours done. We've got big bags of insulation sitting in our living room waiting to be installed, the wiring and plumbing is done and the HRV is done except for a few little odds and ends. We managed to string the power line up across the road so that the snow plow won't bother it and so our permanent-temporary power is set until spring. I've been dreaming lately about refrigerators lately. It may be silly with all the work to be done yet (ahem, insulated walls maybe?), but all I can think about is this refrigerator. It's the one I'm determined to get, even if I have to sell a kidney to pay for it by the time the house is done. Isn't it beautiful? Our current refrigerator is about thirty years old and if you even THINK about opening the door the motor will start to run like a jet engine. It is so loud that when we watch a movie we have to continue to adjust the volume to compensate for it. Our electric bill is a good $35 more a month because of it! I want a new refriderator!!!!
And speaking of carts before horses, here are the kitchen cabinets that are waiting for us as Spenards(it will be another month minimum before we get to pick them up) I got a good deal on them and love that I was able to get full ceiling height upper cabinets. Classy, eh?

Finally, an update!

Phew! Our internet connection has been out of order, and I have to write from my mom's computer. We've made great progress lately. The plumber has come and is nearly finished doing all the plumbing rough-in. We've recieved the parts for all the HRV (Heat recovery ventilation)unit and I've been running the ductwork myself. A bit of a learning curve, but there aren't any prizes for perfection, so...whatever.
We've finished the tyvek, and all the exterior trim and corner boards save a few little bits. It has been so so so cold lately, ugh. It's hard to imagine it ever thawing out enough to stain the siding, I'm not sure what we'll do about that...we may have to bring it inside to stain it once it we've insulated. Anyway, it still sits in a huge pile outside. Also, some bad news on the HEA front...they finally arrived last week with the big machinery and started to dig the trench across the road to lay the power line from the transformer to the house. Well, within a few minutes they determined that the ground was too frozen to dig and we'd have to wait to spring. I was initially freaked out, but we've figured out that we can run a temporary line up a pole to go across the road and that it won't affect our mortgage. Phew!