The Week in Review

Wow. After a very productive week, we're all exhausted and enjoying a night off with our feet up. In review, we can summarize the week this way:
8 bandaids
12 hour work days
15 hours of car time
936 miles for supplies
too much money to admit too, and finally,
9,600 mg of Motrin
All these numbers add up to one thing... lots of laughs, great memories and significant progress at the house!

Here's a few of the shots from our last couple days:The craft room has walls, ceiling, trim and even a character log!
Emory taking a snack break.
Durrell at work insulating his 'office'.
Durrell helps with the master shower tile.The master shower is nearing completion.
What a mess!
Emory plays with his new power tools.Sunshine's bathroom takes shape.
We have a mantle!

Pocket doors with hardware.Greg says 'See Ya' and heads to Mexico.

Other Highlights from our Workday

We have doors! Above is Sunshine's room. Below is the temporary guest room/Durrell's office/'nanny' room.
Movin' on up... the shower walls.Here comes the tub...
Here comes the tub...Here comes the tub....Easy... easy... DON'T DROP IT!OK, now that we got it in, how do we turn it on?
Time to start thinking 'tile' in Sunshine's bathroom. First step, backer board for the shower walls.
The craft room ceiling! Almost complete. By the end of the week this room will be trimmed out (including baseboards), sealed and top coated with acrylic.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Remember all those logs we split yesterday? Well, these are our new mantle piece. Pictured above is the actual mantle. Below are the two side supports that will bear the weight of the mantle. These were peeled, cut to size (length), trimmed up, sanded and finally painted with a coat of urethane satin sealer. Tomorrow afternoon a final coat of finish will be applied then on Thursday it's Mantle Installation 101.

All work and no play...

...NO WAY!!!!
Emory checks the thickness of the ice on Sunshine Lake with the chainsaw. 6" thick... that's safe for playing with the 4-wheelers.
After a few warm up laps, Emory is ready for the sled on a rope.The view from the sled... max speed, 35mph across the ice. Wha-hoo!
A little video of D. Emory (as in D for Daredevil)....

A new week begins

Both Emory and Rooster made it down this week for some hard work on the house project. It's great to have such competent and willing volunteers for such a daunting task. Greg is still in town too so that makes 4 of us plus our Amish neighbors working on getting this house inhabitable.
Rooster... we have a problem! What's all that water there on the floor? Oh, you 'forgot' to hook up the drain? Silly plumber.
Deep into the installation of Sunshine's jacuzzi tub.
Anyone recognize this plumber? Look ma, no crack!


Greg spent his day inhaling wood sealer and acrylic fumes. No wonder why his eyes seemed glassed over tonight at dinner. He sealed all 19 interior doors.

Emory and Syndy working on tiling the walls in the master shower this afternoon. Here's Emory cutting some serious details out of a large piece.
Working our way up the walls of the shower. Had to add a little extra artwork to the recessed shelving. Looks really cool!

Log Splitting

Today was a great day with log splitting! A special bandsaw was brought in to the farm this morning to split all the red cedar logs for our staircase and fireplace mantle. Loren Stover made quick work of the job averaging 50 seconds per log. It took longer to set up the logs than it did to split them. Here's Loren tackling a peeled log.Greg and Emory work to cut one log down to size for our mantle.
This is our mantle peice being trimmed to size on the top, bottom and back sides.
A beautiful peice of art for our staircase.
Action shot of Loren 'riding' the saw.
Check out this video....

Now that's the way to split a log!