Sunday, June 22, 2008

The Pinkness

Yes, I know... we missed a week! Chris and Karen were out of town last week, and despite the best of intentions, didn't get a chance to put up a post. Hopefully everything tonight will make up for lost time.

We've had a busy couple weeks, so I'll try to catch up with everything that has gone on. So first off: we can now end sentences with prepositions. Yep. It's all good. Second, we have started priming the ship lap siding, in preparation for it's final color and eventual installation. It's a pretty gruesome shade of pink right now, and really, it looks terrible. The house will be red, so the primer is a mix of white and 1/3 color. This should make the final coat go on well.

Ethan and Eli found a house of their own inside our unit of ship lap.

Ethan is hard at work with the pepto-bismol. Ethan's favorite color is pink, so we may have one unhappy fellow when we start changing it all to red. Speaking of which, we found a Behr paint they call "Cranberry Zing" that we all like. That may be the one.
Eli doesn't have a hard hat like Ethan, but you can't argue with his game face. He is seriously focused. Besides, he's superman!
The backyard is a mess - it's become a staging area for priming the siding. One set of pallets for the original stack, another set for the primed boards, and two painting areas in between. The brown tarp sticking up is covering a planer that we bought last week. We'll use it to build the kitchen cabinets. We also bought a band saw and a jointer, so we're feeling more and more prepared to tackle the cabinet work. A router is on the shopping list, a good blade for the table saw, and that may just about do it.
I don't think the house has changed much from this view, but here you go anyway. We really ought to get those doors put up.
Chris had fun playing with insulation tangrams, fitting pieces together for the final peak on the South side. Where the fit isn't perfect, we'll use spray foam to fill the cracks.
All the insulation is up now. That peak is a looong way off the ground. Technically, we have a few more strips of insulation to do along the bases of the egress windows. But they're straight and at ground level, and we'll get to those right before we put the windows in.
Our plumber has been busy this week, too. He likes to play Sinatra while he's working, which we think is pretty cool. This is the middle bay in the basement, and is just about finished. There are two full baths down here, along with a laundry hookup and an extra sink.

We used the chainsaw for a bit this week also. These are two that Andy took down yesterday. We'll work on some more this coming week. We have a large pile of logs we've saved from the clearing process that we'd like to have milled. A nearby mill has quoted $.25/board foot, which seems pretty reasonable for around here. They charge a pick-up fee, so once we have all the trees down that we had planned to mill, we'll give them a call and arrange the work.
This "stack" is mostly pine and hemlock, and will make a lot of something one day. It will take a year or two to dry, depending on how thick we have it milled . Natural drying takes about a year for every inch of thickness.

4 comments:

Jenn said...

Alright, I must confess, when you said "pepto" pink I had my doubts, but I stand corrected!!!! I'll never question you again! LOL

Chad and Oléa Gough Family said...

Lookin' good! It was so good to see you guys! I hate that we live so far away from each other! Well, we love you and were so glad we at least got a day to spend together!! (I'd love to have some of our pictures. hint, hint)

The Wests. said...

That was a really great time... Chris really enjoyed riding around with AJ and Smeagol. Oh, and as for pictures? Chris doesn't know how to use the intarweb, and says you'll need to come pick up the pictures in person. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Chad and Oléa Gough Family said...

Thanks for the pics! They did turn out well. I'm glad you figured out how to work the interweb. :)