Monday, April 21st

Nancy came to visit (she wins the most-visit-award; I love it!). She was fascinated with the ladder in the great room, so all photos included the ladder. Unfortunately, my appreciation for Nancy's visits is not reflected in the quality of the photo I took:

But you get the idea. She took one of me (note our bottle of proseco...we are trying all brands, to find the desired "house" brand):

Easter Sunday

Mom came for lunch; correction...brought lunch so that I wouldn't have to cook. Wasn't that nice?

The Kitchen

Declaring the kitchen DONE!

I broke myself...

I worked so hard this weekend, opening boxes, placing stuff, going up and down the stairs...by Sunday mid-day, I was broken. I laid on Buffy's couch to recover, only getting up to walk the dogs (way too often, I my opinion!). Dave helped me take the truck-load of boxes down to the recycling center (hooray for Singers Glen to have its own recycling center...I must belong here!)

April 11, 2014

It is all coming together. The inside is pretty much finished except the gas guys have to come and hook up the stove. There are a few other things, and my instructions from Ray are to create a punch list. I'll get Moey to help me with that. The outside is coming along, too. While the grading and concrete still have to be done, the railings are on:

And the posts have their cladding (this photo shows Brent and Adam, getting ready to work on the sleeping porch posts; see above for the finished look):

And Glenn worked this afternoon, so the stonework is coming along:

The water was tested for bacteria; none present. Yeah! Next week I'm going to have the water tested for nitrates, magnesium and something else. If the nitrate level is above 3, I'll have an ro system installed (along with the water softener). If not, then I'll spend the money on something else! But I am definitely having a water softener because the water here in Rockingham County is hard, hard, hard. Am making head way on the boxes. Tomorrow I hope to tackle the garage....

Metal and Glass

The two front windows are pretty dramatic and large. I decided not to fill them completely with stained glass; seemed like that would make the room too churchy. Last year when Mary Ann and I were Asheville, we saw a metal and glass wall hanging. That seemed like a fun thing to try. When I asked around for a metal worker, the unanimous choice was Al McDorman. Although he is extremely busy, he agreed to take this on. He first told me to draw the design life-sized; here it is:

Al bent/forged the two large metal pieces for each window. Then he led me through making the ribbons, always making sure that I didn't grab the hot end or turn the torch on him. I enjoyed making the first two ribbons but was happy to have him make the second two, while I cleaned the right-hand sculpture. It appears that I am quite good at cleaning:

Today Al had me bring along one set of the glass pieces. (I fused the small pieces; since my bigger kiln is not yet hooked up, wonderful Heather at Trendy Beads fused the larger pieces. I am delighted that I had a reason to get to know her better.) I had drilled holes in the smaller pieces but needed to measure the larger ones against the metal:

A few other photos (don't you love Al's ingenuity in hanging the metal from the bucket of the tractor?):

Anyway, Al has a fabulous shop, which is so clean! He hopes to finish his part this week. Ray said that he and his guys would hang the pieces from the ceiling. Isn't this fun?

oops....

Pam visited this weekend. On Friday night, we toured the house and then got in the car to meet Buffy and Fred. But the car would not go forward because new gravel had been put down, but not tamped, that day. She backed up, to try to get a running start. Same thing, no forward progress. Backed up a little more, still no forward progress. When I tell the story, the car was three inches from one of the porch pilings; see:

We got out of Pam's car, and drove to town in my car. On Sunday the car was rescued with Fred on his tractor, Pete in the car and Buffy supervising:

We also did some work in the house, moving stuff out of the great room pile. We had to have a celebration each day:

On Sunday, all of us moved the glass storage boxes from Mom's. We also moved the porch patio furniture, and then had to inaugurate it with another bottle of Proseco (thank you Pam!). Dave decided that the porch will be a perfect corn hole pitch. Wish I had taken a photo of Moey's cartwheel!