Projects with Life Changes

I have been posting some of the housebuilding progress and life changes during the time I wasn't updating the blog. Hopefully I can stay more current through the rest of 2011.

We wanted a breakfast bar on the pony wall between the Kitchen and Nook, so I started with a cardboard mock up and Lynna approved. We worked with Dieter's cabinet shop to find a good piece of Cherry, which was cut into 3 pieces, then edge glued into a nice bar. I mounted it the same way I had done all our previous bars.(I used 1/4" angle iron that could handle some dunderhead trying to sit on it!) . Once the bar was up, I was able to install the appliance garage cabinet Lynna wanted.

One of life's great inequities is the short lifespan of our canine companions. Our jolly old dog Sunny was a character. A Border Collie/Pointer mix, & a dog genius, always examining the world around him, learning as he went. He could open doors & unscrew bottle caps. Like many herding dogs, he would bare his front teeth in a smile. Last Summer, Sunny was nearly 15 y.o. & well stricken by age. He could no longer race about but still enjoyed walking with Lynna & would poke around the yard while she gardened. He spent evenings sleeping at my feet in the study. We were unprepared when he passed away June 15th, 2010. We both missed him greatly & our other dog, Peaches was lost without her buddy. She got very clingy & refused to go out in the yard unless I came along. She would lean on me while we walked the yard. Within a week we were at the Humane Society Pound & rescued a 4 y.o. male German Shorthaired Pointer.

This friendly bundle of energy had been spoiled by two successive families who gave him little training or exercise, let him free feed into a typical obese pet, then dumped him at the pound when he became "to rambunctious". A female Shorthair was part of our family back in the 60's & 70's. This guy was amiable & seemed trainable, so we added daily work sessions, walks & obedience class to our busy lives.

Nearly a year later, Gunther (we call him Gunny) has made great strides, with diet & exercise his weight came down from 80 to 55 pounds, his behaviour is much improved with only a few things chewed along the way. He sticks to me closer than a shadow, likes to hang out in my workshop(where he eats sawdust & chews scraps at every opportunity), Peaches is back to her old self again, & the cat has accepted Gunny into the pack.

More Catching Up ++

(More of what happened since June 2009)

The heating system was finished quickly & the fillup/first run was uneventful with no leaks or problems. Lynna worked constantly getting in the landscaping and only called on me for occaisional muscle or tractor work. Our naturalistic landscape is filling in nicely and we got a lot of vegetables from my 20'X30' garden.

I got a big pile of Cedar decking from John's brother but when I built our deck, we ran out of wood & had to go back for more. Unfortunately, I neglected to note the thickness of the original stock & the new boards were about 1/8" thicker. I laid out the planks to cover the holes & eventually borrowed Jeremy's planer one hot day. Lynna caught while I fed the 12' & 14' boards. Then I completed the deck and built some stairs for Lynna, next we went through the color selection process. Once we had agreement, everything was stained and the railing painted, it looked pretty nice.

The Summer heat bothered us enough that we mounted an air conditioner in a dining nook window. It comes out in the Fall & is stored downstairs in my shop over the Winter.

We had lots of time with our grand kids and took in the sheepdog trials in Scio. Those are some smart dogs! One of the best dogs sat near us & intently studied the other dogs performance while he waited his turn.

After I got all the doors hung, I wrapped the windows with Fir then (as time allowed) re-sawed & ripped the door & window trim down from my big stash. Everytime I produced a big pile, out came the tarps & I would put on the Danish oil finish. When it dried, I would put up trim door by door & window by window until I ran out of finished wood. Then repeat the process. I expect to finish the last of the trim tomorrow. I saved the 3 arched windows for last due to their large size, the difficulty resulting from the arches and the fact that I have reached an age where working 12' up on a step ladder is out of my comfort zone. I'm quite pleased with how the dining room and Entry windows turned out. The Den, not so much and I may re-do its arch at some point. For now, I'll live with it.

Our Master Bath called for an oversize shower and we had trouble finding someone to install the glass surround. I offered the job to several contractors but was surprised when they begged off as I knew they needed the work. Eventually, I took it on myself. After all, how hard could it be?........Pretty difficult actually but relying on my "pig headed" gene, I soldiered on & got er done!

In September of 2009, we moved Lynna's mom down here from Whidby Island, WA. Originally, she was going to live with us but she really wanted her own place, so she settled for one of the cottages at the Lakeside Assisted Living center just down the hill from us. getting her moved & settled took about a month and I decided to leave the West bedrooms & bathroom unfinished until the house was more complete. (This was to change later)

Catching Up

It has been a very long time since my last post. I let the "Tyranny of the Urgent" take over and just went from one day to the next. With the passage of time, much progress has been made & I am going to try to briefly bring the Blog up to date.

My June 2009 post shows the installation of our built in vacuum system. I had installed the outlets during framing but still had to hang the vacuum in the garage then get under the house to assemble the piping manifold system & connect up the low voltage wiring.

The next project was to install & plumb the baseboard radiators for our hot water heating system. We passed our final inspection with only the Jotul & Vermont Castings gas stoves for heat & only had the boiler operating for the indirect hot water heater. I had designed a good main system & wanted everything in & operating before Fall.

I cleared some space in my basement workshop & setup an assembly line to prep for installation through the flooring. After all the radiators were in place, I went back under the house & soldered up the copper pipe. My system design included separate zones for the Main Living space, Master Bedroom, West Bedrooms & Upstairs Bonus Room.

For some reason, the "add photo" option isn't operating, so I'll add photos later

More Landscaping Pictures

The first bath went well, but I may need to add some kind of back splash. This dog bath was a half price bargain. It had some flaws showing on the outside but our dogs don't seem to care. It is intended to be portable for outside use with a hose but we did a permanent installation in the garage.