DONE!

This is it. As far as I'm concerned, we're done. Will we have other projects pop up? Certainly yes, but we'll take those as we come. I love how the porch turned out. We'll probably try to seed some grass this fall around the construction zone, but my "punch list" is officially all checked off. Whew. Now we just need to have our friends and family join us out there for more fun week(end)s!

Finishing touches

(2 posts today!)

Well, we're just about done. As of July 4, we needed to add the porch rails, part of the ceiling on the porch, get the new septic system inspected, and a few finishing touches inside. The field is planted in barley and the deer are loving it. The first evening we saw at least 8 deer in the lower field!

Looking back up the driveway

The US-Canada border is about halfway up the hillside.

The field is planted in barley. The house is at the back of the field--you can just see the rooftop from the road as you drive up.

So one day Todd and Bret decided to see if they could get to American Flats.

They climbed down this cliff:

To get to this rock:

Here's Todd in the meadow:

And Bret, too:

But they weren't smart enough to be happy with the scrapes and scratches and bruises from one trip down--they had to go again the next day! They had seen a boundary marker and wanted to find it again, as well as "break a trail" down the cliff. Todd got a good cut above and below his eye (quote of the day: "I guess that's why we have orbital bones"), but they got their pictures!

Todd

Bret

4th of July

For the 4th of July, we took a couple of buddies and headed out for the Ranch. One more U-haul load--hopefully one of the last! To get to the ranch, we have to either go around and over a pass, or take the Keller Ferry. We decided the ferry sounded like a plan this time.

Parker, Ryan and me at the rails on the ferry. . . .

Two things happened when we got there the first day. Lots of playing in the sand and "surf" at the swimming hole, and lots of cleaning! The ranch is a giant dustbowl this time of year. Every time the door opened, every flat surface became completely covered in dust.
Todd caught me at my mopping best. : )

The next day, we went to the park at Curlew. The gang buried Parker (and pretty much everyone else over the course of the day!

We brought along some inner tubes (that's Parker checking to see how many tubes high he is).

Todd, Eric and Ryan had a great time floating around. Todd found an eddy in the middle of the river and did big lazy circles for a long time!

Then the rest of the Holmdahl/Boesel gang arrived! At our best, we had 18 people staying. The house was fantastic for the group--we cooked, slept and played a ton.

Christy and Jacey

The gang of kids--Carson, Shea, Quinn, Jordyn, Ryan, Nate, Mitchell, Parker & Eric.

More about the house and the property in the next blog. . . .

Woody Woodpecker - argh

We're getting ready to head over for the 4th of July, but in the meantime, we're dealing with major woodpecker (or flicker or something like that) issues. They are pecking all sorts of holes in the siding. There do not appear to be bugs; we think that they are trying to nest.

Christy took an owl-on-a-stick and some mylar strips out when they visited for Jordyn's birthday last weekend. I've sent a bunch more "scare" materials and some sort of spray for the house. The spray is supposed to taste like cayenne pepper to the birds. Our contractor is going to put some of it up for us. We have about a 90% chance of getting rid of the birds with these means. If it doesn't work, we may have to put netting around the entire house!

Inside is done, porch roof is on

It's amazing how so much comes together at the end! Here is the last bit of trim work and the new pocket door. The little room behind the door, off of the kitchen, was the laundry room. We bumped into the enclosed porch and stole some space where we could and turned it into a laundry/bathroom.

That's it for work on the inside of the house. We head over there for Memorial Day weekend--dragging a U-Haul--and I will get as much set up as I can. I have ordered curtains, but I'm not sure if they'll make it in time. Plenty of other stuff to do, though!


The third-to-last project is the porch (roof & septic left to go). KC said this was the most complicated hip roof he's ever done. He and the local inspector spent a bunch of time trying to figure this all out so the front of the porch roof would tie into the main roof, but not cover up the upstairs windows on the side.

Turned out really cool.


And we were able to keep the tree for some privacy and shade.

Roof goes on this week. Can't believe we're almost done.

**note** - two blog posts today, so make sure to see them both!

Since we left, KC has been doing all of the finishing-up. As of mid-May, the inside is 99% DONE. A few little details left and a major cleaning, but all we can say is WOW.

The ceiling beams are now wrapped. We had to add the beams because when you stood on the floor upstairs, the entire kitchen and dining room ceiling bowed!!! ack!!! can you imagine a bunch of kids jumping around upstairs??!! KC did an amazing job of matching all of this trim. Because much of the house was added on in fits and starts over the last 80 years, there was all kinds of crazy, mis-matched trim. We used all of the original fir first, then KC spent HOURS playing around with stains to try to match (much less expensive) pine to the original fir.

Got the micro cabinet in!

We decided not to spend the money to refinish the stair treads, so KC planed and routed them, put a few coats of clearcoat on them, and they turned out super.

We also added the skirtboards to the stairs. That angled wall was full height when we started. It's a lot nicer with it open to the downstairs.

Below is the enclosed porch off the kitchen. We had a really hard time deciding what to put down for flooring. We finally decided to use the porch material, and it turned out great. Now there's a place for muddy boots!
And work has begun on the last big outside projects. We decided to add a new septic system. We got stuck waiting until spring to make the decision because of the weather. The design is complete and if the health department gets back to us in the next couple of days, we'll get it all done before our trip out for Memorial Day weekend. PLEASE let it be done!!!!

As the contractors started to frame the front porch, they had all sorts of problems getting the new frame to stick to the old concrete. They tried epoxy, screws and everything else they could think of. They realized that the concrete was just crumbling, and gave it a few whacks with a sledge hammer. Turned out to be easier (read faster and cheaper) to get rid of the old concrete and start over!

The last post is now set. Whew.

Last project is the roof. If the weather holds, it will be done by the time we get there next week.

More pictures when we get back. Now I need to go rent the U-Haul so we can take over some furniture!

Super-fast April trip

Long time, no blog! In April, we made a quick trip (leaving Seattle Saturday at 5 p.m. after basketball games, returning Sunday by 9 p.m.--and remember there's about 12 hours of round-trip driving + a night of sleeping in there!). We wanted to get out to the property before the final work was done on the house, check in with the contractor, and drop off the first load of "stuff"!

This is the living room. Cool story about this - there are dark lines in the newly-refinished floor. We asked about it, and it turns out that this room was the ENTIRE original house. The back bedroom (door on the far right) was the porch. The lines on the floor are from the original walls, separating the living area from the bedrooms! History right there on the floor in front of us!

Here is the main bathroom.

Love the tile?

It's the leftovers from our master bath remodel we just finished at our home in Redmond!

And now, the piece de resistance - the new kitchen! It was about 95% finished when we got there. We had a problem with the microwave cabinet, so that was on order, and none of the drawer pulls or knobs were on. Todd's comment when we walked in: "Wow. This is nicer than our kitchen at home!"