Saturday, May 30, 2009

Mess














We really are getting close to moving in. The kids and I have driven many van loads of stuff over and unloaded it--including all the doors! I have bruses on my arms, each side, just where the big boxes of books hit-- as if David has grabbed me and forcibly restrained me.(so I tease him about abuse.) The fridge and cooker, standing in the middle of the room, are our kitchen-- pretty scary if you ask me.(We still need a sink before we move in.) James has taken over our sittingroom with his Rokenbok. He loves the space! Claire demonstrates the size of the windows in that room by stretching out. She is at least five foot two now. The big stack of boxes are in the basement where we plan to live when we first move in. It will be really messy, dusty, and we will live in boxes for ages! But we will be on site to actually get the work done.

Mud


This is a small portion of the mud we have to deal with. This is what I find the most daunting in the whole building project. This is clay--nothing will grow on it. (It is brought up from the geothermal work, the septic tank and the foundation.) I need to bring in top soil at further expense and plant it up with native growth which will only be swallowed by bramble out here. sigh! To avoid the bramble you need shade from huge trees or grass that you constantly mow.

Insulation



This is the ongoing insulation work that David has heroically taken on. The bottom picture is the tenting that he has done over the f--ing sprinkler system that cost $6,000 PLUS $2,000 in DDES inspection fees-- that we don't want in the first place! The second picture is the insulation in the upstairs walls.

Tile Work









For some reason these pictures have gone every other one. The dark tiles are the slate(with a lot of lovely red iron ore in them) on the deck and the lighter tiles are the bathroom.
The bathroom tiles are small travertine-- cream and coffee coloured. We had to put them in before we could put in the toilet. We have half a toilet at the moment, because I was trying to put in antique toilets from the salvage shop. (two reasons-- they are nicer toilets and they use more water.) This is not an environmental issue in our neck of the woods. We haven't solved the issue of the pipe from the wall hanging cistrene to the toilet bowl. So to use this toilet, at the moment-- you have to fill a bucket of water and pour it down the bowl when you are finished. We hope this is not a permanant solution, but even half a toilet is a great improvement on no toilet!
It took me a little more than a week to tile the bathroom and more that three weeks to do the deck. It was either raining or so blaring hot that I had to kneel on cardboard to work on the black surface of the deck. I still have to seal the tiles on the deck.