The light.

After a brutal winter that would not end, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

This winter we turned on the heat and it was nice and cozy inside. The radiant floor works great thanks to Johnny the plumber.

The sheet rockers spent six weeks getting the drywall up. Working around all the timbers, it came out pretty good.

Then Roger the painter came in and did the whole house at a pretty reasonable price. He sanded the burrs off the raw timbers, post and beams, and gave them a coat of Watco Natural. And yes, that is the natural color due to weathering as I had the timbers stockpiled outside for maybe two years.

My 85 year old electrician Gordon and his son are back doing the finishing wiring. I am helping out on the weekends when I get a chance, but mowing and firewood processing consumes a lot of time as well.

Jeremy begins laying the flooring upstairs next week. We are going with plank flooring, 8" Southern Yellow Pine, that I will then distress. After that, the wood grain tile flooring will be laid downstairs over the radiant heat slab.

Happy Holidays and to a great 2011!

Open publication - Free publishing - More rozell

The view from here.

View from the window that I built, as described in previous post. I built the road, cleared the land, shaped the timbers, and now the windows are in. Drywall is next. The entryway is complete.

I carved the "2010" over the doorway. I milled all the moldings in the workshop and spent 2 weeks building it.

...Just in time for the first day o' school.

Year 3 begins.

I have built several (fixed) windows in the workshop.

Here are some recent photos of work on the post and beam addition.

Happy Holidays 2009. Have a great 2010!

Eight degrees, wind 30 mph, but on the money.

We got a new guy Jeremy and his crew working on the Shack. On days when most crews would bang in, he arrived before daylight to hustle and move and get us closed in. We are framing in the walls 20" OC with 2x8" commons. Shortly she'll be wrapped, and the window order is going in today. Two days ago when this was taken it was 8 degrees and wind whipping at 30-40 mph., so wind chills well below zero. It's a good thing I'm on site because every other hour there is a good Q that arises that I have to take a reading on and give an answer to before proceeding.

It's amazing what some new blood can do for your attitude and for your project. I was getting tired of looking at an ark on stilts.

It's October.

October is here. 55 degrees in the workshop. The old furnace bit the dust on August 22nd.

The new furnace arrived yesterday. Ten thousand dollars. And the accessories an additional 2400 dollars. (The piping alone was nearly $1800 for 85 feet of it.) Add $231 for the concrete pad I poured Monday, which my wife wanted to inscribe "patient woman" into.

The guy who delivered the furnace asked me if I was restoring an old barn. I guess that is a compliment.

Finished staining the soffits and fascia and now to install gutters before breaking down the catwalk staging for the winter. Would like to do it today but am going to a luncheon in my honor later. It will have to wait, like everything else. My help is long gone and we are about out of money.

At least Mary has a good place to ride her bike, which she mastered last weekend. That's what is really important.