Posts tagged: house

It’s been a while since we posted, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been slacking off. Routine things like trimming the horses hooves, making trips to get hay, taking care of the ducks, etc. keep us pretty busy. We also try to make sure we take a little time off once in a while to eat out or take a road trip to enjoy this country that we live in. We’re also getting to know some of our neighbors more and are enjoying occasional meals with them and helping them out with some of their projects. Laurie has even found a Scrabble partner and gets together with her about once a week to “Scrabble around”.

After functioning quite well with our temporary kitchen, we’re finally getting around to making the custom kitchen that we have envisioned for so long. Before that could begin, however, I had to get my workshop in good working order. This included adding heat so I could work regardless of the weather, purchasing some vitally needed tools for making the cabinets (yes, they really were necessary) and spending some time implementing good dust collection. There is a lot of sawdust generated in woodworking and now is not the time to ignore good health and safety practices. So, now that the shop is in pretty good shape … let the cabinet making begin!

We spent hours and hours investigating and designing the cabinets in SketchUp. I spend a lot of time creating the exact cabinets with precise dimensions. That way I can take the design out to the wood shop (yes, I have a computer in my wood shop) and refer to it as I construct the cabinets.

Here is a shot of the kitchen after installing the upper cabinets. The rest is yet to come.

Here is a photo added after completing everything, including the backsplash tile.

(This post was edited after the project was completed.)

This photo, taken this morning, is what the property looks like now, just 2 years after we bought the property. We have really enjoyed our home and property, and are still amazed that we live HERE!

It’s been nice to “take it easy” a bit, and not feel so pressured to work on the house. We still have a lot of little things to do, but the major part of the work is behind us. We’ve had some visitors come enjoy the guest house (the RV), and feel like we know more people here in Guffey than we ever did in Wellington. We’ve enjoyed riding the horses with new friends as well as work with training, and yesterday we took time out to ride to the top of Black Mountain, which overlooks our house. It’s nice to be able to take off and ride, which we didn’t do much at all last year.

Last week Tim completed the first phase of fencing the property. The “South 20” is now fenced and the horses are enjoying much more area to roam and graze. Eventually we will get the north side fenced as well, and will be able to alternate pastures or let them roam the full 40, with the exception of the area around the house.

This photo looks south from the same hill I stood on to take the view in the previous photo. We only wish we could see through the hill to see the horses when they’re on the other side!

The inside of the house is mostly done, and entirely live-able. This panorama looks south, over the living area & tv room to the view out the big picture windows.

This panorama shows the back half of the house, including the kitchen and bedroom.

The kitchen is still in its temporary state, with a make-shift counter and temporary shelves & cabinet. Tim will be building cabinetry in the fall & winter, but until then it is completely functional. Our plans for the bedroom area include custom-made desks and a murphy bed that will become a sofa when not in use as a bed. The bathroom and utility room are behind the kitchen wall.

Goldie has been a great addition to the household. She enjoys being out on the deck, watches everything, and alerts us when anything strange enters the picture, like these deer. She’s learned to heel nicely, has learned to stay near us when off-leash on the property, and to come when called. It’s nice to see her run and play like a dog should! She loves to play ball, and has learned to get the ball out of the container where it’s kept. On hotter days she stays quietly in her shady pen below the deck and when we leave home she can stay there out of the rain.

All in all, we’re happy and healthy and glad to be here.

WE DID IT!!!!

We got our final inspection and received our CO (Certificate of Occupancy)! There is still lots of inside finish work to do, but we will be sleeping in our new Happy House from now on.

Here’s a pic with our friendly neighborhood Park County Inspector (Kim Hall) handing us our final inspection approval:

This weekend we start putting down the hardwood floor. But, there’s a real sense of accomplishment and relief to hit this milestone.

One of the very unique features about our round house (think “yurt” but not made out of canvas) is the peaked ceiling with the sky dome at the top. It really adds something unique to the feel of the house. It’s hard to describe until you experience it.

I finally finished all the woodwork on the compression ring (on which the sky dome sits), all the tongue and groove pine and the finish trim between the ceiling segments 8′ down from the top. The rest of the ceiling trim has to wait until the wall trim is installed as the ceiling trim butts to the wall trim.The compression ring and trim between ceiling sections is blue stain pine (also known as beetle kill). The tongue and groove is #2 white pine.

A while back, I had a post called “All Decked Out”. This showed the completion of the deck. However, the railing was not up. So, here’s “All Decked Out” – Part II.

We had a few days of nice weather, so I moved back outside and put up the railing on the deck. There are code requirements to meet, but we wanted the railing to be as minimally obstructive to our view as possible. We think we succeeded.

Here’s a pic looking at the house from where the horse paddock is:

Well no, we’re not actually “moving in” just yet. But we are continually making progress. It’s been an entire month since our last post, and during this time Tim has put up the drywall, and we’ve begun preparation to get it textured and painted soon. Here is (left to right) front door, kitchen (showing back side of counter, where the sink will be), hallway (utility room window at the end), bathroom door, and the edge of our closet.

We’ve begun covering the ceiling with pine from a local sawmill. We like using local and/or “green” products as much as possible, and have found a sawmill where we’ve ordered all the wood for the interior: ceiling, trim & flooring. We found a tung oil product that uses a natural citrus solvent, and is “zero-VOC”, meaning: it smells nice and won’t give off dangerous pollutants. (see Real Milk Paint) The vertexes of the ceiling and walls, and the compression ring under the dome will be blue-stain, or “beetle-kill” pine for a nice contrast. We plan to build our kitchen cabinets with the blue stain pine as well. We will be attending a class in January to get tips on building the cabinets, and I plan to help and learn as much as I can about the process.

We took advantage of some holiday sales and ordered some appliances through amazon.com**, and received them a couple of weeks ago; a range, microwave & “combo washer/dryer”, which washes & dries in the same unit. A nice space-saver, we have a smaller one in the RV and have grown to like it. It’s ventless, so we won’t have to vent it out, and it runs on just 110, so is also an energy saver. Tim has the washer set up, so I’ve begun to use it in the utility room–it is nice to be doing larger loads! 

We enjoy being inside working where it’s warm. Our gas stove does a nice job of keeping the place toasty. We are coming along nicely, and think we may be able to move in within a couple of months. Only time will tell.

We had a nice brunch on Christmas Day at a neighbors’ home. It was a cold, snowy day, and nice to travel just a quarter mile for some neighborly fun.

**We’ve become real fans of amazon.com and Amazon Prime, here in our rural location! We can order all kinds of stuff and get it in two days, which means fewer trips to Canon City or Colorado Springs.

We have developed a fun tradition with our dear friend Trisha (in North Carolina). Whether we’re together or apart, if we have some good news to share we celebrate with a toast. We call it a “clink” (think of glasses clinking together). Any drink will do, ice tea, water, wine, fruit juice. it’s all fun. And if we’re not together a “virtual clink” over the phone is just as good.

We called Trisha the other night to report a Triple Clink. We passed the electrical rough inspection, plumbing rough inspection and framing inspection all within a few days of each other. It was a stressful but rewarding week.

Here’s a pic of the crawl space with the electrical and plumbing ready for inspection:

This pic shows the interior walls all framed up. You can see the plumbing and electrical in the walls. 

I did all the plumbing and gas pipe myself. We sub contracted out the electrical work.

The framing inspection passed with flying colors. This is where the inspector has a last chance to look at all the structural components of the house before you’re allowed to cover anything up. Once again, he complimented us on our work.

Now we’re ready to start finishing the interior. I started putting up drywall today. The floors, ceiling, kitchen, bathroom, trim, etc. are all on the agenda and we’ll be working on those things over the upcoming weeks. The timing couldn’t be better. It got pretty cold outside and started snowing today, but that’s OK because we can now work inside out of the weather!

We bought our gas heating stove. The brand (Jotul) is Norwegian; I’m half Norwegian, so that’s a good fit 🙂  Here’s a pic from the brochure:

We’re getting the propane tank delivered on Monday. Then we should be able to fire up the stove and keep the house nice and toasty while we’re working inside.

We’re truly amazed at how much progress there has been. We looked back and determined that we broke ground on June 29th, and here we are working on the finishing phase of the house. What an adventure!

OK, ok, really bad phonetic pun, but I couldn’t resist. We have a little over half of the house sided now and we’re truly excited about how it looks. The siding is fiber-cement, and should be pretty much maintenance-free and fireproof.

I did all sides of the house where it had a deck. I will have to put up the remaining siding from a ladder.

First, we put on the house wrap:

This shows a view from the deck:

Here’s a view from the pasture:

We have to still put up railing around the deck, but that will come later.

The weather is getting colder, so I have fewer hours in the day where I can get out and work. Oh well, I work outside when I can. In bad weather, I’ll be able to work on the inside putting up interior walls, roughing in plumbing and electrical, etc.

We’re really amazed at the progress to date. Not bad for a couple of amateurs.

• Note from Laurie: Last night Tim called some neighbors to ask a question, and when the wife handed the phone over to the husband, we heard her say, “It’s the round house people!” I guess that’s how we’ll be known around here!  By the way, I think Tim does great work, eh?