Progress here has been in very small, incremental steps these days. With life going on, and boxes everywhere, and head colds and family visits, and… well, we’re lucky we know where the toothbrushes are on any given day.

Still, we’ve managed to continue to do some painting, and are slowly putting away the things we packed last summer, and even took a big load of cardboard boxes to the recycling center on Saturday.

The biggest observable change is that a Lucky’s driver came on Friday and took away one of the two storage containers we’ve been renting:

I also tried to get a picture of it on the truck, driving away, but just then the camera battery ran out. We’re all charged up now and ready for number two to be taken away, sometime in the next couple of days.

Also today, Eric (tile guy) is due back to finish tile on one (or both?) of the tubs and to put the brick facing on the chimneys. It’s a busy day around here because the stove folks are also due to come install both wood stoves. They delivered the Morso a week or two ago, but didn’t have the pipe we needed, so promised to visit again.

The electrician was in last week fixing this and that and getting more things off the list.

I should take a picture for you of the “lawn” as it is today. The snow has melted and it’s a real mess out there. Construction debris, remnants of a fire pit that the crew was using, rocks, garbage, mud. Signs of spring, eh?!

As promised in the last post, some of the pictures I owe you.

I’ll work from upstairs to downstairs.

First, here is the shower, with grout and fixture and shower curtain:

and the cherry edging around the vanity (plus toothbrushes and other evidence that we’re actually using the room now):

Next door is Hyla’s room, which now has her bed, a desk, a dresser, and some bookcases:

This view of her desk also shows that the Dragon Fruit wall has a layer of magnetic paint behind it, so that Hyla can put light-weight magnets on the wall (“Magnetic Poetry” type magnets work well, but heavy fridge magnets don’t work):

And her light fixture has little flowers that glow in the dark:

Really, what else in the world could a kid want in a bedroom?

Here’s our room, looking a little bit more like someone lives in it (painting still needs to be finished, though):

and our light fixture, just for completeness:

Downstairs, here’s the light fixture over the dining room table:

The pendants are actually supposed to be twice as long as they are shown. For some reason, the electrician installed only the first set of rods, so will have to put the second set in when he returns.

Here’s a view of the outside wall of the kitchen, with all the parts in place. It certainly looks lived in, now, eh?

Here’s the prep sink, which is in the corner (to the right of the range top):

I love this sink. I love being able to fill a kettle or glass of water while someone else is at the main sink doing the dishes (I also like that someone else is doing the dishes, but that’s another story).

Finally, here’s the Jotul wood stove, in place on the tile/marble hearth:

Tomorrow, the stove folks are coming by to install the Morso stove in the new living room, and to finish the installation of the Jotul so that we can actually start using them before winter is over.

Ok, time to catch up on some photos. I’ll start with the earliest as-yet-unposted things and work toward the current.

First, the kitchen. It’s basically all now complete, except the electrician still needs to install the lighting fixture over the sink. But the sink itself is there, installed on its cupboard, and with its beefy new faucet:

This picture was taken before we moved in. Where the orange juice bottle is sitting is now a nice strip of wood (maple?) along the time. The sink has butcher board counter tops on either side.

Here’s a picture of some of that counter top, over a corner cupboard by the back door:

The last time you saw the kitchen, the range top was on temporary legs so that it could be installed in time for the appraisal. Later that day, its real cupboard was delivered and installed:

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the cupboard has two wide drawers in it, to hold pots and pans. Our old baking table (also with a butcher block top) is now in the place where you see a ladder, so we have continuous counter space from the range top to the corner cupboard that I showed you (to the left of the range top).

I just realized I don’t have a picture of the counter top to the right of the range top, which shows that the prep sink and faucet are installed and working, so I’ll have to take that picture today and post it tomorrow to give you the full picture of the kitchen.

Now for the downstairs bathroom. When we moved in, the toilet was working, and that’s it. As of yesterday, the sink is hooked up and working, and the faucet on the soaking tub is installed. Here’s that faucet:

and the tile that’s being installed (not yet complete) around it:

The tile for the upstairs tub is due in sometime in the next week or so, and then the tile guy will return to finish both tubs. Until then, we’re a shower-only family. Speaking of which, here’s how the tile in the shower turned out:

Actually, this is how it looked before the grout was done and the fixture was installed. The finished shower is another picture I owe you for tomorrow (so much to look forward to!).

In the above picture, though, you can see the nifty little shelves in the corner that Eric (tile guy) made for us. We didn’t want a standard soap dish installed into the wall, and, for some reason, creating a niche built into the wall to hold soap bottles and such wouldn’t work, so Eric came up with this idea. The shelves are made from leftover black VT slate, which is what we used to tile the vanity top in that room. It ended up looking really nice.

Here’s the vanity top, with the sink and faucet installed:

The vanity is now finished off with an edging of cherry around the three unfinished sides.

Eric also used that same tile on the little ledge/step from the shower down to the bathroom floor, as well as on the hearth pad downstairs for the Jotul stove:

The marble in the hearth is the old marble top from the table that David made for Michael (the table that is now converted into the upstairs bathroom vanity).

The Jotul stove is actually sitting on that hearth right now, though not properly installed yet (the stove pipe needs to be adjusted to provide more clearance between the pipe and the walls and beams). The stove guys are coming on Friday to install the other stove and fix this one, so I’ll post pictures of both of those after that happens.

On the roof, there are now three metal pipes coming out of the two chimneys:

The chimney on the left has the pipes for the furnace and the Jotul wood stove. The one on the right has the pipe for the Morso wood stove.

Just before we started to move in, Eric (the tile guy who is also a tree guy) did a little clearing for us to the North of the house, to help open up the valley view. This gives us a view of a hill that we never had before:

We’ll have Eric (or someone else) back to keep clearing to the right so that we can open it up even more.

Then moving day came, and the snow.

With four days of time, a Ryder moving truck, and some truly helpful friends, we managed to unload the entire contents of the two containers and the rental house back home. The first night we stayed home we noticed the house was very cold. We were in the middle of a cold snap, so we wondered if that was the problem. Michael finally came up with the answer: we’d just unloaded two containers’ worth of basically refrigerated goods into our house. Once the stuff warmed up, the house did, too…

Here’s what the new living room looked like after we’d moved some stuff in:

Thanks to Michael, this room is more organized now, and most of the walls are painted white, too.

We were hoping to have a lot of stuff put away by last weekend, but we still have plenty of painting to do and don’t want to put things away only to have to move them again, so we’ve been working on the painting first. First priority was to get Hyla’s room in shape so she could move in. Last night, for the first time in almost six months, she slept in her own room, bathed in the colors she chose: “Dragon Fruit” (pink) and “Hyper Blue”:

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, but, yes, we’re home and I’ll post pictures soon to prove it.

We started the actual move on Thursday, the 23rd of February. Of course, that’s when the snow started, too. We finished on Sunday, the 26th, with a house full of boxes and stuff, three happy but confused animals, two exhausted adults, and one bouncy 6-year-old.

We’re in. The essentials work. The place is a mess. It’s starting to feel like home.

More very soon.

I’ve been meaning to post an update for days now, but things are so busy right now (and I’m too sleepy at night!) that I haven’t gotten to it.

So, this one’s going to be a quick text update (pictures take a long time to add on my pokey Internet connection here) and then I will post new pictures as soon as I can.

The big news these days is that we have a move-in date! You heard right. We plan to be sleeping in that house by the night of Saturday, February 25.

As of last Friday, the full McKernon crew is no longer coming to the house. This week, we have a small crew doing some of the last details (kitchen counters, bathroom tile, installing electric fixtures, and other this and that).

By the end of this week, the downstairs floors will be finished (sanded and a covered with a final coat of varnish) and, with luck, the propane will be hooked up so that we can have hot water (cold water is running already!) and can cook on the range top.

We’ll start moving our stuff in sometime next week, and will move the pets and ourselves in by Saturday evening.

Of course, the story won’t end there, because there is a list of other interior details to finish (some for us and some for McKernon), and then there’s that little issue of the exterior work (landscaping, burying some connections to the septic, etc.), but this phase — the one where we don’t get to live at home — will soon be over.

Not soon enough, I can tell you.

First of all, for those who’ve been waiting patiently to see evidence of the painting we’re doing, here are a couple of shots.

Hyla’s room:

We’ve covered three walls and the ceiling fairly well; we need to finish patching the one remaining red wall and then that will be primed, too.

We’ve also primed the ceiling and some of the walls of our room, the ceiling and repaired walls of the guest room, the replastered wall in the old living room, much of the front hallway/mudroom walls, and the new bathroom walls, as shown here:

For those of you keeping track, that leaves the new living room, the rest of our bedroom, the office, the ceilings panels between the beams downstairs, and probably a few other little areas here and there. Plenty to keep us busy for a few more weekends. Maybe someday we’ll actually get around to putting a color over some of these white walls, but, for now, the white looks good to us.

The plumber was in yesterday, putting in some of the plumbing for the kitchen sink

and the prep sink

And Steve put together a temporary set of legs for the range top so that we can hook it up to the propane (supposed to happen today) and have things in working order for the appraiser on Friday:

The real cabinet that’s supposed to go under the range top hasn’t been delivered yet.

With the oven and warming drawer at least placed in their cabinet, you can get a basic idea of what the kitchen will look like:

The best news yesterday, though, is that the oil company finally came to pump the heating oil they had pumped out in September (from the old oil tank) into the new oil tank.

At the same time, they hauled away the old oil tank, which has been sitting out in the yard since the house move:

With the oil pumped in, we can now start the furnace, which means the plumber can also connect the water all over the house and install sinks, toilets, washing machines…

The propane (for the range top and water heater) is due to be hooked up today. If that happens, all services should be up and running by the end of this week. All that’s left to do is the details. 🙂

Up until Thursday morning, this is what the floor of the new office in the basement looked like:

It was a nice, clean, smooth concrete floor, but a concrete floor nevertheless.

After five hours of labor, this is what the floor looks like now:

This is a “Click” style bamboo floor. Click is a non-glue laminate flooring. You “click” the boards together by matching their special tongue and groove edges and applying some pressure.

Underneath the floor is one layer of heavy plastic sheeting (a vapor barrier) and a felted pad (which also has one layer of plastic attached to one side). The pad gives the floor some warmth and some “give”.

This is the first major project I’ve done in the house and it was extremely satisfying. TREMENDOUS thanks go to all who helped me get this floor done, especially to Alix, my incredible friend who gave up a day to do the floor with me. I know I couldn’t have done it without her help. Also, thanks to Travis, Steve, and Stewart, who took turns cutting the boards for us (two at a time) through the day – and who didn’t laugh at us too much.

At the very same time that we began the floor, Michael was busy doing another very important task for the office: working with a local wireless Internet provider to set up the wireless antenna and wiring for the house. The antenna is communicating with a tower on a hill about a mile away (across the valley) and is pulling in a nice, strong signal. When we move back home, we will no longer be on a dial-up connection.

Here’s the antenna, installed at the apex of the valley-end of the house:

High-speed Internet access, at last. I won’t know what do to with all the time it saves me. 🙂

Last post, I said we were going to do some painting, and we did, but I somehow forgot to take a picture of that, so I’ll save that for the next post.

Instead, I’ll show you some of the many changes that have happened since last week.

In the new bedroom and living room, the floors have been varnished:

Upstairs, they’ve done two coats. Downstairs, they’ve done one over everything, and will do a second one over all the floors at some point. Yesterday, the guys were really cleaning the downstairs floors up of all sawdust and other stuff, so maybe the second coat will be going on today?

In the upstairs bathroom, the platform around the tub has been completed and the front has been plastered. When the tile comes in, they’ll be able to complete this and add the tub filler.

Also in that bathroom, our old marble-topped table (Michael’s baking table) has been resized so that it’s a standard height and installed as the base of the vanity:

The next step with this will be to tile the top with black Vermont slate tile and insert the white sink and the faucets. This is a wonderful way to reuse this great table. Michael’s friend David made it for him years ago, and topped it with a piece of marble from an old coffee table they had in their apartment. We’re reusing the marble, too, as part of the hearth for the Jotul wood stove.

The white PVC pipe you see will be painted so that it looks coppery.

In the kitchen, the range hood has been installed:

And our old sink has been placed in its spot on the cabinets (it’s not hooked up at all yet, however, just in place):

The hood still needs a vent pipe, and we’re talking to the appliance dealer about why it has some pre-made holes in it for heat lamps when we ordered the one without the lamps, but it’s nice to see it in the right spot.

The sink will get a new faucet (already onsite, along with most of the other faucets and plumbing fixtures we’ve ordered) and new strainer/drain baskets.

Two other little changes —

The old floor boards in front of the front door have been replace:

No more holes for little creatures (and the wind) to come through!

And, finally, the phone company came out to the house and completed the connection from the pole to our house, so we have phone service at the house (though no phone jacks yet, so no one will be taking any calls). Their box is on the electric panel in the basement:

I’ve been waiting for a moment when I had time to post new pictures and write about them, but I’m not finding that time. Since it’s been over a week since I last updated, though, I want to get something posted asap. This post will be mostly pictures, with brief text descriptions. I hope to be more wordy next time. 🙂

Basement stairway improvements: wallboard overhead and repairs to side walls:

Laundry chute door in downstairs bathroom (almost as cute as the upstairs door):

Plaster!

In the downstairs bathroom:

In the new bedroom (and this shot shows the installed blue floor, too):

In the new livingroom:

Around the back door (and Hyla):

Kitchen cupboards (placed approximately correctly, but not yet installed):

Water! (in the basement only – to be connected everywhere once the furnace if functioning):

More soon (including pictures of the rooms we started painting this weekend…).