A Few Firsts

We spent our first night under our roof. I need to upload the picture of our tent sitting right inside the newly installed french doors that open up from our kitchen/dining area to the patio. Because it was a pretty funny sight. We needed the tent to contain the dogs. Even with all three exterior doors installed Saturday, and most of the windows in too, the three biggest and lowest windows in the great room haven't been put in so the dogs could easily get out. Those three windows arrived with the wrong orientation - the sliders open from the side rather than top to bottom - their error so new ones have been ordered. Speaking of errors, our contractor Shawn framed in the patio door wrong, so it took 4 guys over 4 hours of brute force and multiple saws to remove the framing and redo it. The door finally did get put in right before dark. Shawn also incorrectly framed in multiple windows, slowing down our other contractors. He hasn't responded to Curt's calls so we are still stewing on how to resolve that. But in spite of some headaches, we had a really fun weekend up there with 4 guys, me and the dogs. Finished the firepit and had a nice warm fire in a light rain, grilled some burgers, drank some beer. Laying in the tent, surrounded by power tools and sawdust, snuggled up with two exhausted and filthy puppies, listening to the rain, but staying warm and dry was great. It was a night I'll remember for a long time. Doubt I'll sleep in the dining room ever again, but who knows! It was almost a year to the day from the first time we saw the house.

We also got to walk in the front door for the first time. The deck has been started and though the stairs aren't built, we could climb a ladder up and walk through our front door as well as walk along the entire side of the house. It was exciting. The door from our bedroom out to the deck is also in, as well as a few windows, and it looks awesome. We stained a ton of siding again last Saturday and Sunday, and next Monday when we drive home from Aspen we will stop at the house and drop off a rented lift so the guys can get high enough to install the upper windows and siding. We stained some cedar shake shingles that go at the peak on the front of the house, should look pretty cool! We towed up the 4-wheeler in our trailer and Curt drove it around our lot on Sunday. Our plumbing looked like it passed our "test" test Sunday, but it failed again yesterday. Something different this time - we need to add a vent for the tub and put more dirt around the pipes. At least nothing is leaking! When we stop by Monday, we need to play around with it some more because we can't pour our concrete in the basement until it's finished - and we can't put in the garage doors either. Once those doors are in, our house can be locked up and we can start storing stuff there.Trying to avoid a 2-week delay on all of that since we won't be there this weekend. Crossing my fingers. The fact that Curt has laid out plumbing by himself for an entire bathroom using nothing but a sheet of paper with a conceptual layout, then re-done it four or five times with different locations of everything based on different tests and feedback and issues and sizing and rules, and managed to get it right enough that we will pour concrete over it soon, essentially making it unfixable, and linked it to a septic system outside the house, just blows my mind.

I took another hundred photos but still haven't uploaded them here. These are from our contractor Todd who emailed them to us last night. They're making great progress and doing work we're happy with. Sending us photos is just icing on the cake. The rock wall is complete and looks super cool. When we go back in two weeks, I think the siding and windows will be 100% finished, meaning from the outside, our house will look completely normal. The neighbors that have driven by seem very excited with how far we've come with removing this eyesore from their area. I'm glad they're happy, and we have worked as fast as we can, but it has been expensive - spending our $100k in less than three months. I can sum that up by saying holy sh!t. Luckily, the bulk of the expensive work has been done, as well as the work we've subbed out to contractors. We're about to take over full time with no more paid help. But with power, and the ability to plug in lamps, heaters, an electric blanket, etc...we will definitely be comfortably spending the night up there on an air mattress most weekends in Sept/Oct to do plumbing and electrical. Then insulation and walls! Hopefully we can get insulated before serious snow hits, but it is going to be extremely close.

This is the back corner of the deck off our master bedroom door. Eventually we will add stairs to the backyard, but they aren't in the current plans and we aren't going through the hassle of adding them until we are fully inspected, have passed and gotten our certificate of occupancy - and the county will be off our backs. I love the chunky posts and the see-through sides. Exactly what I envisioned. We're going to plant aspens on this side as well as the other side off the patio to block the view of the neighbors' houses.

The back of the house - master bedroom to the right, guest bedroom to the left. Actually the guest bedroom isn't even visible, the entire back of the house is practically all our master suite. The tiny window to the left is a window in our closet. The middle double windows sit above where our tub will be. The sliding barn door between the bathroom and bedroom will be between those and the next window to the right, which is in our bedoom corner. To the right of that window is the fireplace nook. We picked out a good fireplace on craigslist and need to get our gas guy out to do the lines from the street into our house.

Our bedroom doors/windows with partial siding. We'll put stairs down where that ladder is eventually. This is way off, but I want to build an outdoor padded sectional along that back corner using plans from Ana White's site. Basically all I can think about is opening those doors in the morning and walking out into the cold mountain air to soak up some sunshine and views. With my pups and a book and blanket and a hot drink. ALL I can think about...

Here, they are a little further along

Here, you can see the siding that's been started around the big windows - AND all our bedroom windows are now in! Those little trapezoids and the one above the door

Rock Wall

On Saturday, there was a huge pile of dirt, gravel and enormous rocks in our "driveway" that are for building the rock wall bracing the dirt at one side of our property. It's not the property line, but still necessary because of the slope. One row of rocks had already been placed along the side of it and yesterday another row appeared on top. Doing a rock wall like that ended up being cheaper than pouring concrete walls and having to faux tile veneer over top of them - both the labor and materials were more expensive to do that. And I like the big rocks anyway! Greta spent most of Saturday laying underneath that big yellow toy while it wasn't being used. Or crawling over and under the rocks like a goat. 

As you can see, the house never did get fully Tyvek'ed as promised. Our original contractor Shawn turned out to be kind of a pain, and was annoyed when we didn't use him for the siding or deck even though it wasn't in our contract with him. We got lower bids and he couldn't match them. He said he was going to finish the upper Tyvek as he was putting up the siding. So needless to say, he is done on our project, for many reasons. He never did finish some items in our original contract even though he was fully paid. Live and learn. We're really happy with the guys up there doing siding, windows and starting tomorrow, the deck. They get there early, they work on the weekends, they love Curt and his level of involvement and knowledge about everything. They're going to finally Tyvek it up as they start doing the upper siding, probably next week. That has been our primary goal since this whole project started.

What you can't see in this pic is all the stained siding that has been hung on the right/kitchen side of the house and the back side - both of which are closer to the sloped ground and easier to reach. Plus all those windows are in on those sides. Looks pretty awesome. I need to add those pics ASAP. The stain did end up being lighter than I thought, and pretty straight up tan (was hoping for a little more gray), but hopefully it will age/darken over time. I do like that it looks a bit different than the other homes up there. The cedar grain still shows through too. Curt went back up Sunday to tinker with the plumbing again and I think he got it straightened out yesterday. Hopefully we can get it inspected this week so we can schedule the concrete pour for the basement.

The doors came in early and we're having a little work/camping party with friends this weekend to install those as well as keep moving on staining the siding. Burgers, beers, boys and then I guess me. Now that Penny has calmed down a little bit and doesn't cross the street as much, and now that Greta calmed down a bit and realized we weren't going anywhere when we disappear on the other side of the house, it's getting easier to be more productive with them there. Penny stays close to Curt, no matter what he's doing or which loud power tool he's operating. Curt saw a group of deer walk right through our lot while he was there last weekend. Can't wait to be there for that and hope the dogs don't go craaaaazy.

Bargain Hunter

While Curt was in the mountains all weekend, I cooked, baked, pickled and thrifted my little heart out. Goodwill was having a 50%-off sale which is why I got such good deals on most of this stuff, though I went to a different thrift store afterward and still found a few things I "needed" ;) None of my friends share this hobby with me unfortunately! My mom is my best thrift store partner, even though we often look for the same stuff. Curt generally complains when we enter a Goodwill, and sets a time limit, then ends up finding a whole cart worth of stuff. But I have plenty of fun and plenty of luck when I'm by myself.

Scored this huge, brand new 100% wool Target rug Curt and I have been eyeing for a couple of years for just $30 ($349 online and in stores!). Cool with our orange walls.

And this cute little trio of vintage yellow ceramic measuring cups for $2

And this vintage metal two-drawer filing cabinet for $1.50. Inside I found a nickel, dime, 5 pennies, 29-cent and 32-cent stamps, a matchbook and a bunch of screws, paper clips and safety pins. I consider that breaking even. Last week I actually browsed online for retro metal breadboxes and I've seen this style of cabinet used for the purpose. I'll probably paint it. The drawers are the perfect size for a loaf of bread.

This green plastic spinning lazy Susan (or lazy Bob as my dad says - hate to be sexist!) was something we needed for our spice cabinet, $1.50

These textured silk covered, down filled 16" pillows from Crate & Barrel were $1 each - the down inserts alone are $10 apiece at C&B so even if I have to replace the covers if they don't hold up after a wash, still a score

This green ceramic hanging planter from Pier 1 for $5, with the tag still on saying $35 (matches those curtains that came with our house)

Also snagged a marble cheese plate with glass dome lid for $3, brand new lined wool plaid pants for work from Ann Taylor for $2.50, a bag of 9 quilted glass 4 oz Ball jelly jars for $1.50, a few white serving dishes from World Market for a buck each, a Mason "drinking" jar with a handle for a quarter, a few new waffle thermals from Gap and J.Crew for $1.75 (winter layers for the mountain house) and a new Broncos sweatshirt for Curt for $2.50. Pretty good scores and I passed up a TON of other great things. Still thinking about the brand new set of 6 Pottery Barn green placements with matching napkins I left behind that match my green PB dishes...if only there were 8! Or 4, either way I talked myself out of them. I'm still waiting for my tv show where I outfit people's homes from start to finish, every single room, purely from thrift stores...

New Favorite Fireplace

We have looked at fireplaces before and not found what we wanted or at the prices we want to pay. The bigger, more modern types seem to start at $4k and up, which is twice what we paid for our triple-sided glass model. But I found the fireplace photo below on houzz.com and it's totally something I love. The fireplace itself is small, so it would be less expensive (we found something similar on CL for $500 a couple years ago), but it still has a modern flush face and linear flame like we had in our last house. Curt thinks we need a big fireplace because the wall is so big and tall with vaulted ceilings, but I think this photo proves that the focal point need not be just the fireplace. I love the reclaimed wood surround, and could see us doing this simply and cheaply with pine beetle kill in our living room. Or Curt had the great idea to do this for the fireplace in our bedroom, and we could make the sliding "barn" door we want to hang as the entrance to our bathroom match it. That's why I pay him the big bucks! ;)

Weekend Action

Curt was a busy man over the weekend, being able to spend part of three days in a row at the house. He's exhausted today, it makes getting up early and going to work on Mondays all the more annoying and painful. More windows and siding are going up today, but our basement plumbing still isn't quite right. I think this weekend we need to get that straightened out and finish staining the siding. Here are a few pics (I have no idea who any of the people are):

The roof is finally fully shingled! That's the kitchen corner and the covered patio off the dining room. Here's hoping the snow-plower doesn't put all the neighbor's snow on our patio like they did last year...

This is the leach field for our septic system. Curt assures me this isn't smack in the middle of our "backyard" but I have my doubts. Sounds like it's my view outside the master bedroom. Lucky!

This is our septic tank being out in the ground

Windows being put in! That's one of our kitchen windows, I think it cranks open. The street and driveway is to the far left, so this window looks out toward our neighbors (diagonally opposite our master bedroom). It's the same window you can see in the first pic above, before the window went in.



Progress

Something came in early, for once! Our windows came in Wednesday, over a week early, and they are being installed as we speak. They might be done by next weekend - all 40ish of them. Pretty exciting to have that $20k purchase (one of the biggest in total) in our hot little hands. Curt is up there today and will be there all weekend - partially to work on the house and partially for a bachelor party that happens to be in Breck. He needs to tweak a few things with the plumbing in the basement again, as well as get a friend started with staining our siding. I'll be up next weekend to help tackle that as well. We picked out the siding stain last Friday night. I've never had to look at little color sample chips at Home Depot and actually translate that into an entire humongous house. We took barely 2 minutes to pick it out, so hopefully things look okay when it's finished... Unlike our painting experiences indoors, where we've had to redo things when they looked way off from what we expected, it won't be quite that easy to fix. We picked a taupe-y gray color that I think will look darker on a larger surface, more grayish brown. My only real preference was that we didn't get anything red or orange-toned like every other cabin we see up there. I hope the texture and grain of the cedar will still show through, just not the color. We ordered the garage doors which will be gray metal. Our windows have beige/almond trim on the exterior rather than white and in my head this all looks fine together - lodge-y but not "loggy" - in reality, who knows! What a weird process! So far, nothing I've picked out or had a say in has appeared on the structure. But all that stuff we've picked out over the last few months is about to arrive and be installed/applied/whatever. Soon we won't just be looking at plywood sheeting and framing. I swear this weekend I will put up pics even though by now they are two weeks out of date.

I have another weekend to myself, sort of a luxury, and I will probably do the same things I did last weekend: yoga, dog walking/snuggling, errands, cooking (pasta primavera full of veggies, and enchiladas Sunday for Curt when he gets home - stuffed with langostines and cheese and covered in homemade tomatillo salsa), baking (banana-zucchini muffins and a peach-strawberry crumble), farmers' markets, reading and going to bed super early like the quiet, boring senior citizen I am. All of my favorite things! Hoping to find some pickling cucumbers at the market so I can make a big batch of pickles too. We have a few cucumbers from our plants that I can use but the others are all too small. Yesterday I also spotted two tiny little zucchini on one of our plants! Our first ever. We've been enjoying fresh warm tomatoes each night though, more than we've ever had. I made some really ridiculously amazing BLTs for dinner Monday and Tuesday while Curt was in Chicago for work. I also need to do a big hack job on our basil so we can get another big harvest in before it gets too cool. We spent a lot less money this year on our gardening ventures than we ever have, mostly due to having much less space and no real yard, but have picked more of everything already than probably all three previous years combined. So I guess that's a lesson. Goodwill stores in our area are having a 50% off sale tomorrow so I will check that out since I already need to drop off a small bag of donations. We both finally took the initiative to put some old clothes up on eBay and those are all selling so I need to box them up for shipping. Pretty domestic all around.

Construction Update

It's been interesting to try to capture what's happening up in Breck. Each weekend I take over a hundred photos. Granted, many of them are of the dogs crawling in mud or laying under the car to find shade or crawling inside the truck, covered in dirt. I think they're HILARIOUS. But many of the other photos look the same. It's just lots and lots of wood right now, inside and out, everwhere. It's hard to stay current - before and after type photos show so much more change when they are of something small, like an interior of a room. Or when you refinish a piece of furniture. This house is so big, and the changes are happening in so many places, yet the photos don't seem to look THAT different from week to week. Unless you are really good at detecting "hey, they put a bunch more wood over that already all wood structure!" It's hard to capture things in their entirety where one shot shows everything. But I think that's about to change.

The roof is almost fully shingled and complete (in spite of a truck mishap with our roofer and a slight delay). Our front deck is going to get underway soon which means we will have a way to access the front, main entrance to our home. The front door! The back deck is now covered and roofed. Everything is Tyvek'ed and some eaves have started to jut out over a few windows. The window holes have been cut open in the basement, garages and front upstairs bedrooms. The plumbing we did two weeks ago needed some tweaking and hopefully it passes the next inspection so concrete can be poured. Our septic area was improperly staked out previously by the surveyor, so Curt fixed that last weekend and someone's up there working on it right now. We're going to pick out our siding stain finally so that tedious, time consuming process can be started next week. Curt is going up tomorrow to meet a friend and do some more heavy labor. Last weekend I spent my time again wrangling the dogs and picking up hundreds more rusty nails and trash, but he will get a lot more done without me there worrying about everyone getting a sunburn and bug bites, and if the dogs are getting enough water. My task this weekend is to post pictures. And enjoy our AC which finally came back on yesterday, perfectly timed with a big drop in temperature in Denver. Also timed with $1300 being removed from my bank account. I guess that's pocket change compared to our other recent expenditures so I can't complain.

Last night for dinner, we ate a huge bowl of veggies mixed into a chopped salad: grilled corn, zucchini, green beans, red onion, bell peppers, tomato, basil and parsley. The latter three from our plants and the rest from the Vail Farmer's Market, brought to us by our weekday roommate Steve. Our tomatoes were plump, glossy red and still warm from the sun. There's nothing better! Miraculously, we have a bunch of teeny tiny cucumbers growing on one of our plants, and on another plant I spotted one ginourmous misshapen cuke. Not enough for a whole batch of pickle jars, but better than nothing. No action from the zucchini but our basil plants are positively out of control. Between that and the mint, our deck smells pretty good. One of the most fun parts of this summer has been meeting new people, and sharing some similar interests and activities. Now we have friends that are gardening, canning, pickling, cooking up a storm, composting, building furniture and a lot of the other stuff that kept us busy last summer. One of my coworkers even started making freezer jam last week after I told her I've had a lot of success with it recently. She told me I inspired her to quit Weight Watchers, start a garden and cook more of her own food - real food - rather than eat diet or low fat stuff out of a box or package. She goes to yoga with me at work, and now she's waaay more flexible than me! She just brought in homemade zucchini-banana muffins with chokecherry jam for our team to share. I've known her for over three and a half years and never saw her eat anything other than a frozen Lean Cuisine. Now we're both experimenting with some recipes from our vegan coworker. It's been cool.

How to Not Be Cranksters

Sunday afternoon when browsing some blogs on my iPhone, I noticed a theme. Sounds like August is one of those months where it seems like a good idea to challenge yourself. To be healthier, happier, more fit and to take advantage of the last full month of summer. The plentiful sunshine, long evenings, fresh foods and to me what always seems like the opportunity for a new beginning - the start of a new school year (even though I'm not in school anymore). I read about it here and here and even on Yelp, where a bunch of people are setting self-imposed fitness goals for the month (myself included - yoga 3x+/week - a big benefit to snowboarding season which is just around the corner). I love reminders to be happy and healthy, and even though I consider myself to be both of those most of the time, I stole and tweaked some ideas for my own list for the month. Actually I think this is a good list to strive for every month. Curiosity, cooking, cleaning, connecting and reflecting are always good for me.

1. Make a recipe from a fruit, vegetable or fish I’ve never cooked before
2. Visit the farmer’s market and inquire about the life of a farmer
3. Invite friends over for dinner or brunch using my tiny container garden's bounty
4. Send a handwritten note to both of my fabulous grandmothers
5. Go technology free for one full day
6. Remove/donate 5 things from my home that don’t make me feel happy, relaxed or calm
7. Invite someone I want to get to know to lunch
8. Pick a new-to-both-of-us location that we will plan a trip to in the next year (Austin, Santa Fe, Sonoma?)
9. Learn 5 new words in Spanish 
10. Bake my own kalamata olive bread
11. Ask more questions, listen more, write more and talk less
12. Take one small step that frightens me
13. Pay extra attention to my posture
14. Explore more meatless and vegan recipes and meals
15. Donate to my favorite charity
16. Schedule another volunteer session before 2011 ends
17. Give something broken a new life 
18. Put something handmade on a blank wall I see every day
19. Go out of my way to do something kind for a stranger
20. Take care of a nagging life admin item 
21. Read a biography of my favorite real life heroine (or maybe just Giada)
22. Research things that spark my curiosity (DIY/reuse, alpine gardening, how to compost in bear country)
23. Select three drawers or surfaces and organize/minimize them
24. Attempt my clipless pedals and bike shoes on the road, not just on a stationary bike
25. Celebrate the return of functioning AC - PLEASE let today be that day! :)

12 Months of Tunes

Long ago, I used to pride myself on my knowledge of music. I was up on current bands, always. But 7 years ago, I stopped driving to work and started taking the bus daily. Then 4 years ago, I stopped waking up to a radio alarm clock and started using my iPhone instead. Without any daily radio, and not much tv either, I lost my ear to anything new. I've never bought a song in iTunes, haven't bought a CD in maybe 10+ years and I don't even play my iPod that much (for shame!). I'm practically 3 years behind on my Rolling Stones mags, and mainly only read the political articles anyway these days since I don't know who half the bands are. I'm a little stuck in the past musically speaking. Luckily I have a lot of friends with good taste for current music or at least fun playlists. Every season seems to have a certain song that gets put on repeat, and here are a few of ours.  Working backwards...

Summer '11 - Foster the Kids (heard on the Denver Patio Ride in May and probably soon to be overplayed)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ

Spring '11 - Adele (Curt is just beyond obsessed)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw

Winter '11 - Cake (featured in a hilarious episode of Californication)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzoHe_Wq4g

Fall '10 - Mumford & Sons (soundtrack to our Oregon coast trip)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E

Summer '10 - Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (we were realllly late to the game with these guys, ha!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y