Drywall!

We're really getting there! We now have the propane all hooked up and have a new furnace and water heater (above). And look--DRYWALL!

As the contractor says, drywallers get all the love. This is one of the upstairs bedrooms--check out all of the snow in the yard. It's still definitely winter in Ferry County!

This week, they textured and primed the walls, and paint goes on tomorrow!! I can hardly wait for those pictures!!

The hardwood floor guy arrives on Friday. All of the downstairs hardwoods will be sanded and refinished; we're not sure what we'll do upstairs yet. Either refinish the old (and in some cases broken or chipped) pine, or maybe slap down some Pergo so we don't have splinters/rough spots.

They're hoping to do the roof while the floors are being done - the roofer showed up a few weeks ago, whined about the weather, the location, etc. and KC-the-contractor kicked him off the property. KC and his guys ripped off the old junk and put down new tar paper and are just waiting for decent weather so they can finish. No leaks so far, so all is well.

Next steps: kitchen cabinets and all the "trim" work (baseboards, window trim, bathroom tile & flooring, etc.). We're hoping to make it out in mid-April for our first real visit!!

American Flats update

Quick update on our 400+ acres in the American Flats (see post from 1/10). Remember, this piece is virtually inaccessible as it is surrounded on 3 sides in the US by cliffs (minimum 500' high, straight down to the meadow) and the 4th side is the Canadian border. The only way to get there is to hike through forest service land or fly in by helicopter. It's a beautiful piece of land, but unless we can figure out a way to blast a road in--through forest service land--it's fairly unusable.

So a few weeks ago, we got a phone call from a gentleman who wanted to purchase the American Flats piece. He made an offer, we countered, he came back slightly higher, and we finally told him that he'd have to make us an offer we just couldn't refuse as we really weren't planning to sell.

He made an offer we couldn't refuse.

He has until May 31 to do feasibility studies (is the land buildable, can he get permission to fly in/build an airstrip, can he put in a septic system, is there potable water, etc.). If he gets the answers he needs, we close on June 1. We're giving it about a 50-50 chance of actually closing.

Bizarre. What does he want the land for? We're not sure--and he's not really telling. Cult headquarters? Retreat for Hollywood mega-star? A-Rod's new drug manufacturing facility?

Snow, snow and more snow!

As if we didn't have enough snow in Redmond over the holidays (18"!), it snowed buckets in Eastern Washington, too. The property didn't get hit as hard as Spokane, but when the contractor finally got a plow out so he could get to the house, there was 27" on the ground.

This is the pumphouse where the well lives. Isn't it cute? Glad we decided to re-insulate the lid. It's darn cold out there.

Looks all cozy with the lights on and the snow all around. . . .

Here are the guys removing some of the snow from the roof. The roofer should be out this week to put the new shingles on.

Once the roof is on, it's time to drywall! Finally, the insides will start looking finished. After drywalling is the floor refinishing, then the trim work, kitchen and bathrooms, paint, etc. We're getting there!!

American Flats

The property is actually two separate pieces. One half (with the house) is accessed from highway 21. The other half is due east, but there is a small piece of forest service land between the two pieces. The eastern piece, known as American Flats, is surrounded on 3 sides by steep cliffs and has Canada as it's northern boundary. We hired a forester to evaluate the property and create our Forest Management Plan (which was just approved by the county! yea!). These are some of her photos.
American Flats - the view from the top of the cliff. The straight line at the left of the photo is the US-Canada border. The property to the right (meadow & trees, partway up the cliff) is all ours!

American Flats from the meadow.

Nice cliffs, huh? We're working to determine how to best get access to this property. Right now, it's hiking only. Before 9/11, the previous owners were able to go up into Canada and access the property from the north. After 9/11, that became impossible. So, the field has sat fallow since then--the trees are starting to take over again.

Here's an idea of the kitchen layout. The window you can see is south-facing. There is another window on the west wall, and a door to the front porch on the far side of the island. The main door into the kitchen is on the east wall, and opens facing the end of the main wall of cabinets.

There's always something going on!

The house is just about all "buttoned up". The new windows are in and all of the exterior work is done--except for some painting of the trim which may have to wait until May as it's too cold to paint. Yesterday it was 6 degrees at 8:00 in the morning! This picture shows the stairs going from the dining room up to the 3 upstairs rooms. We removed the old suspended ceiling and the wall that enclosed the staircase. Doesn't look like much yet, but it's getting there!

Great news on the flooring front--we've found someone who can refinish the floors and save the original fir! So the only new flooring in the house will be in the two bathroom areas.

The latest obstacle: a building moratorium. Apparently the previous owners did some logging a couple of years ago. When you log, you have to apply for a permit which includes placing a 6-year moratorium on building--presumably so that the area can be reforested. When they applied for their permit, instead of carefully calling out the area that would be logged, they called out the ENTIRE 400+ acre parcel--which includes the house! It was not a problem up until now because the county has not required permits for our basic remodeling. But we may have to put in a new septic system and our porch addition requires a permit. So now we have to jump through some more hoops to get 5 acres pulled out of the moratorium. Never a dull moment!!

Interiors

We've been making lots of decisions about the interior of the house. One of the best things is that we were able to create a second full bath out of the laundry room. We took all of our leftover travertine from our recent home bathroom remodel over and it should be enough to tile the shower in the original (really really teeny tiny) bathroom. The lovely blue tile is what it looked like "before". Can't wait to see the "after"!
We're also working on a major kitchen overhaul. We tore out everything, including the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. The chimney runs straight through the middle of the house, so we're building an island around it. Here's the wall "before" and the island layout "in between". I'm ordering cabinets sometime in the next week from Huntwood (http://www.huntwood.com/ - we're doing Shaker style, cherry, sable color). When we get that all in, we'll have an "after". Still have to pick countertops, backsplashes, etc. We're waiting to hear whether we can save the original fir floors in the kitchen/dining room--there was some kind of 1950's flooring glued down, and the glue residue is pretty nasty.