A Door!!

WE HAVE A DOOR! I can not tell you how wonderful this is. This was a job that I just could not visualize in my head properly. Our friend, Helmut, took us to Homedepot and showed us what the pieces look like and talked us through the procedure, but that was in July. We went online and looked at some sites too. New doors come with the door jam framed around them like a box and you just install the whole thing. These are our Walla Walla, Whitman college, 100 year old doors of all different sizes. (This is possibly far more sadistic than toilets!) It isn't an easy job and takes David a couple of days to do one door, but he can do it and do a good job. He does it differently from how the websites show you. They somehow have magic doors that stand on their own while you construct the whole jamb around them and then you install it. David found it much easier to install one piece of the jamb into the door frame first-- then add the door and then put the last two pieces of jamb in place.

Helmut introduced us to shims-- a wonderful thing made for hanging doors, that have multiple uses in building. Our old toilets are shimmed against the wall and at least one piece of sheetrock. If we are having trouble with something now we shout for someone to bring some shims.

Downstairs Loo

This is the downstairs loo. We are very excited to have a second loo. First, we tiled the floor. This is tumbled travertine from Mexico. I wanted a warm colour. I'd seen this other orange coloured marble or something at Homedepot, but they discontinued it (and when I saw the price, I wasn't surprised.) James says that the tile we got is really pink-- but I am calling it orange. This is our old toilet from the 30ties-- David guesses. We got this at a salvage place in Seattle. Our friend, Bob, says I am a total sadist to make David restore old toilets. I have to say though, he is getting VERY good at it. And Nutmeg the cat helps.

upstairs bathroom

This is the upstairs bathroom that is, sort of, finished-- no walls or sink yet, but a fabulous tiled floor and old bath and toilet. The first pictures shows David's insulating-- it does not capture the effort of that job! He insulated the whole of the upstairs ceiling and the walls where there is no ICF. We still have a few very high places like the cupola to insulate, but we just covered that with plastic this year. We have to figure out some scaffold system. The tiles are tumbled travertine mostly cream coloured with at Claire's suggestion, some coffee coloured ones.

sittingroom continued

This is a few more shots of the sittingroom panning around to some different corners. We are getting ready to rockface the fireplace. We are filling up this corner with washed rocks from the pile outside-- often there are rocks in the sink soaking-- even when it was the only sink.

Sittingroom

The first picture isn't our sittingroom. It is Claire with my brother's Christmas present-- Tosho, the Akita puppy. Claire loves to babysit him.

Thanksgiving day the kids spent the night with Lee and Delores at Grandma Phyllis's. We slept in and thought,"no kids! We can get a project done." We had just started sorting the schoolroom shelves and I thought, I bet, we can put our big shelf up. We had all the pieces even the screws (and it was neatly labeled.) David made this beautiful shelf for me years ago from old church floor, wood we bought in Sussex. We thought, a couple of hours this shelf will be bolted to the wall and we can go to Phyllis's for Thanksgiving dinner. (My pies were done, because I had no functional oven and made them at Sean's earlier in the week.) That wretched shelf took all weekend! It was THE holiday project. I have never seen David be so frustrated at something engineered square-- the new house walls are actually straight. Yeah! The bookshelf wasn't. It was made to fit a Victorian house wall that sloped slightly and then modified to fit the curve of the Oasthouse! Of course, we added to the problem by switching the sides around so the little shelf was on the left and the big on the right-- just opposite of how David originally designed it.

Unpacking EVERY box of books, was like Christmas! We had not unpacked our boxes since moving-- just the kid's books. David says the house looks much more cozy in these pictures then in reality, so I have to point out the styrofoam walls, the unfinished gypcrete floors, and the wires everywhere.

Inside the house--

This is the kitchen and the homeschool room.

The kitchen has our one functional sink from June 2009 to Feb 2010! In the project as it progresses, we are learning to really appreciate the simple things in life-- a sink with running water or a sink with a mirror over it so you can see to shave! We reached a melt-down point with all the boxes. Claire NEEDED a dictionary and I could not think which box it was in. ( I could not stop to help her, because I was in the middle of a tiling batch with fast drying goop.) We had tears of frustration, so we decided walls or no walls we could not stand the 40 plus boxes of books any more. We set up all the shelves-- even found another one for ten dollars in a junk shop. Now we have access to EVERY reference book we own without scrabbling through tons of boxes. We burned the pile of boxes in great celebration! (better than Guy Fawkes.)

outside: winter scenes-- the frozen creek and deck.

We've had a mild winter with one very cold spell early in the year. We had record cold and the creek actually partially froze. Claire took the camera down and made some great shots.