December

Tiles around the front door.  We will "mud" them in when the glue is dry.

Throughout this process of building our strawbale house, some things seem to just take forever.  That's how December has been.  It just seemed to drag on, and then BAM!  Progress is made.

The stove in front of the rock wall.

We hired a "mud" guy (sheet rock mud, that is) to finish the drywall taping, texturing, etc.  He finished all of the texture today.  He did it by hand, because for one thing, it was easy for him.  For another thing, if we had sprayed on the texture, we would have had to cover everything.  And I mean everything.  Walls, floors, and even our beautiful ceiling.  It would have taken twice as long to cover everything as it did for this guy, Manuel, to walk around on his stilts and give us our fine texture by hand.  He really hated doing the skylights, but c'est la vie, huh?

We have our full first coat of cement on the insides of the walls now, too.  Tomorrow they will start on the second coat, then finally gypsum plaster.

We should be able to start painting the sheet rock next week.

And, we finished our rock wall today.  Got everything all cleaned and trimmed out, then we put in the wood stove.  It looks wonderful.  We even started a little fire today.  We put the tiles around the front door this week, too.  When the lights are all hung, it will look stunning.  (To me anyway.)

Success!!!

I'm so happy that progress is happening.  Les lugged some of the granite we had behind the garage over to the house so that I can start my window sill project.  I took a good part of today breaking the pieces for my mosaic.  It's going to look lovely.  And the back splash I have planned for the kitchen will be one of a kind.  Les isn't sold on it yet, but he just can't see what's in my head.  After the kitchen is installed, I can lay it all out for him so he can see what I mean.  It will be so unique and beautiful!

The granite pieces I will use for the window sills and back splash.

Our beautiful home.

Progress

David finished the last part under the west porch today.

Little by little, day by day, progress is being made.  The stucco guy, David, finished the outside of the house today.  I really like the color of the wet stucco, not so much the dry.  But I will get used to it in time.  It's still beautiful, though lighter and not as rich as the wet.  I just love saturated colors.  None of those wimpy pastels for me!

Then it's time for him to start on the inside.

Need to grout in between the rocks

We started on the mud and tape for the sheetrock on Saturday.  Kent worked with Chuck on that, while Les and I put the rest of the rocks up on the wall behind the wood stove.  I started on the grout and, "YIKES!" wrong color completely.  So, another trip to Pueblo is in order to return what we never opened and get another color.

Pueblo, being 80 miles away, is our nearest Home Depot and Lowe's.  We have a local "builder's supply" store, Trinidad Builder's Supply.  But if you need soffit vents, they only have 7 of them instead of the 30 that I need.  Or, the other day I needed bullnose for the arches and I needed mortar mix.  The bullnose they had, the mortar mix, they didn't.

In Raton, (in New Mexico and about 20 miles away) there is a really good builder's supply.  Raton Builder's Supply has supplied most of the materials for the house.  But still, being in a small town, their choice of grout colors may not be all that big.  And, they're not open Sundays.  So, it's off to Pueblo we go.

We get shipments nearly every day via UPS.  Friday, they delivered the granite counter top and sink for the guest bath.  Today, they picked up the broken counter top and sink for the guest bath.  Amazon will have another one delivered.  I've become best friends with Amazon, Signature Hardware, Build.com, Lowe's.com and Home Depot.com.  You know me... love to shop online.

It's a boy!

Work

It's coming together.  Fortunately, and unfortunately, my business has been slow November and now December.  This gives me time to work on the house.  And it's coming together.

Hoar frost
 

Chuck hired a new helper.  His name is Jared, he's just out of prison after 10 years for shooting 2 people (gangs!)  The kid is 24 years old.  But he seems honest and hard working.  He has bright, intelligent eyes when you talk to him.  I like him.  We invited him to Thanksgiving dinner, now that both of our boys are in Utah.  It would have been just the two of us.  Kind of a bummer.  Jared accepted, and came exactly on time for dinner, wolfed down 2 heaping plates of food, said thank you very much and left 35 minutes later.  I couldn't expect an unrelated 24 year old to hang around 2 old farts like us, though.  So we packed up the leftovers, did dishes, then went about our normal routine.  I was still glad he came.  He definitely brought his appetite!

The view from my living room window

Quite a bit of the drywall is up now.  The showers all have their cement board on them.  Les and I started to put the rocks on the wall behind where the wood stove is going.  But as the day got colder, the mortar wouldn't stick.  So we quit that for now.  But it's going to look spectacular.  Our neighbor, Cindy, gave us all of the leftover rocks she had for her project.  She put them on the outside of her house. 

Friday I sealed the ceilings in the mud room, the powder room and the laundry room.  Jared did 1/2 of the ceiling in the living/dining/kitchen area.  I'm glad I'm not doing that room.  The peak of that ceiling is 14' tall.  Too much for me.  Three steps up on a ladder and that's just about how high I'll go. 

Les working on the master shower

The past several days have seen frigid weather.  For several days, it didn't get out of the teens during the day.  There was an icy wind blowing.   There was a lot of fog, which caused ice crystals to form on everything.  That's a hoar frost.  But there was a phenomenon I've never seen before. There were very swift, low lying clouds for the past 3 days.  There were blue skies above these scattered clouds, but the moisture in the air was crystallizing and caused a glitter effect.  What a magical effect, although none that I could photograph.  But these little crystal glitters floated in the air for 2 full days.  Just gorgeous. 

Can't wait to live in my new house!

Looking toward the kitchen with skylight.



The rocks coming together - wood stove will be in front.

Nature

The house is coming along really well.  We got most of the ceiling up, and are now onto drywall.  It's really exciting to see the rooms take shape.  Things that I hadn't noticed before, like a sconce being in the (horribly) wrong place are now easy to see.  Les promised to have Tom come out to fix that light.  But everything else is absolutely wonderful.

We saw a bald eagle fly over the house on Friday.  I am taking it as a very, very good omen.  This is the first bald eagle I've seen (in the wild) since a trip to northern Wisconsin many, many years ago.  I know they're very common in the Northwest, but it's rare to see one here.  I didn't think to grab my camera, but I did think to grab my hubby.  I ran back into the house and yelled for Les to come quick!  Both he and Chuck rushed out to see the magical sight.

Our neighbors had a visitor

We had snow early last week.  And our neighbors had a visitor.  This truly gives testimony to the fact that we are in God's territory.  What a wonder.  I know I wouldn't like to come face to face with this critter without shelter keeping me safe, but they're sure beautiful.  It looks like this one is a little female.  It's the adolescent males you really have to watch out for, but I'm sure this girl could do quite a lot of damage if she were so inclined, too.

Slinking away into the snow.

See that sconce connection to the right of the door?  NOT OK!

We have purchased just about everything needed for our home.  We have the remaining payments to go to the plumber, cabinet maker, and granite dealer.  Chuck still has a lot of work to do, but we seem to be running out of money again.  We had to extend our initial loan once already.  That's what happens when you do the contracting yourself.  You have no guidance as to the cost of things.  Chuck has been a God-send.  And I have been watching every penny and shopping til my eyes are sore for the best bargains.  I'm proud of myself for getting some really great bargains, too.  But still.  There is only so much money to go around.  I figure this build will wind up costing us about $105 per square foot.  And for what we will have as our finished product, that is a bargain!