Inch...by...Inch...

Yes, we are still.... moving.... in.....  forever.....

This is the slowest, most painful moving process I've ever done!  And I've moved 11 times.   We have most (half? a lot) of our stuff out at Its Royal Logness, but we're still eating and sleeping at the house in town.  As we approach Christmas, I am singing a constant refrain:

All I want for Christmas is to be In Logs, to be In Logs, to be In Logs - 

Gee if I could only be in my Log House, then I could wish you a Merry Christmas!  

(apologies to Don Gardner) 

And now you will too.  You're welcome.  Heh.

We are both furiously, frustratingly packing and moving boxes, as well as finishing up details that need to be done before we can finally move in!  You know - sexy stuff, like outlet covers, CO detectors, and stair railings.

Here's a temporary solution to our need for a balcony railing while we craft the permanent, lovely, log and bent twig one:

Let's hope "temporary" = less than 5 years.  

This weekend, we hope to make a big push and move the rest of our (seemingly never-ending) parade of boxes.   And MAYBE even beds and clothes?

*fingers crossed*

Roasty toasty 2

Long-time log devotees will remember that we are heating The Log House with wood in a gassification wood boiler.  Which, if you allow it to get cold, needs some coaxing to be roasty-toasty again.   Fortunately, The Husband loves this kind of nonsense   -- er...   necessary work.

Theeeere she goes

I love radiant floor heat.  It is SO! WARM!   Except, I have a sneaking suspicion that The Hubs will make me learn how to feed the boiler soon.  Ugh.  Sounds like work.  

Bathroom door

Nothin' like a good night's sleep and the sympathy of friends to help clear away the snares of self-pity.  Life is good and we have a bathroom door!

First floor bathroom door, leading into the hall

Too many things

I discovered today that there are too many things left to do to move in to The Log House.  We're never moving in.  

Well, at least that's the way it feels today. 

Too much left to pack.  Too much left to clean.  Too much left to build/finish/paint.

I spent HOURS just vacuuming the first floor log walls and the rest of the dining room and kitchen ceilings and cleaning windows of accumulated grime and adhesive from those manufacturer stickers that we just never took off before.

But I am digging those double-hung windows!  

I might actually clean those windows again within the coming decade.  

Bob and his father built a temporary railing on the balcony.  Eventually it will be made of log and bent twig, but for now, it'll keep me from falling off the edge.  Temporary, but sturdy.  

But there's still so much left to do:  

• clean out the arctic entry
• prime and paint the arctic entry
• select, purchase and install flooring in the arctic entry
• install hooks for coats and hats and bins for gloves and tuques
• move all the construction materials to the basement or to the shop
• clean the upstairs -- floors, walls, ceilings
• prime and paint the master bedroom walls
• install the board ceiling in the master bedroom
• let's not even talk about the master bathroom
• install bedroom and bathroom doors on the first floor
• put several coats of poly on the bedroom and bathroom doors
• stair treads and risers
• hearth and stone facing on the chimney
• exterior door face casings and filling in that empty spot over those doors
• laundry room wall and door

I'm not even listing things like exterior window casings, baseboard, closet doors, laundry chute doors, the whole closet in the master bedroom....      okay, well, I guess I did list them.  But there's more!  I'm just getting too depressed thinking of them all. 

It doesn't all have to be done before we move our schtuff out of the house in town and out to The Lake and start sleeping in logness and telling the post office to deliver our bills out there....   but a good bit of it does.   And now that I can see the move on the horizon, I feel impatient.  

There's the real problem:  I am impatient.  I want to live in my hand-crafted, lovely, perfect, beautiful log home NOW and I don't want to have to vacuum more sawdust to do it.  What an ungrateful whiner I am.  But, there you have it.  Warts and all.  

It's a work in progress, but I suppose so am I.  And if this house doesn't kill me, I sure will love living there.   *grumble*   You know:  in three more years.  

Just kidding.  

Not really.  

*Harumph*

The end.

First the floor, next: the world!

I feel a bit like I'm Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic with the wind in my hair!   Except... not just before a disaster and a frozen iceberg death.  Just the happy exhilaration part.  Yeah, that.   Maybe I need to rethink my simile here..

Here's the takeaway:   Squeeeeeeeee!!!!!   The floor is done!  Time to move in!

Bob, FIL Jim and friend Dave install the last few rows of flooring in the dining room

The Boy and his Grandpa, working on the edge of the floor in the living room today.

I vacuumed up years' worth of accumulated sawdust from window sills, walls and ceilings today.  And I'm not even close to being done.  Whose idea were those exposed log joists anyway?  Too many dusty surfaces!

  

That strip of bare floor is where the half-wall will be built, separating the living room and dining room.  Squint your eyes and turn your head *like this* and imagine the wall for now.  

The Hubs at the end of the work day today, pondering the great mysteries of our age.  

And noticing how dirty the windows are.... in our dining room with a new floor!!   Wooo!!  

Sorry.

Just for some perspective, here's a picture from June 2012 side-by-side with one from Saturday:

Time to get packing in earnest!

More! Floor!

Look at all the floor that has gone in the last few days!

That full-length poster of Chris Hemsworth to cover up that door is on order...

Thanks to a generous helping of... help by FIL Jim and friend Dave, Bob has been able to lay down a ton of flooring yesterday and today.  I'm so grateful, I had to clap a hand over my mouth to stop from gushing so effusively as to send Dave running for the door.  

But, I may have squealed very loudly at one point accidentally.  

Their poor knees took a beating as they measured and cut and laid floor boards all day today.  

note the snowy trees outside the window...   

My role today was twofold:  clean the construction materials out of the first floor (and vacuum up the piles of sawdust and dead bugs and cobwebs) and be a dead weight.  

I'm really good at holding the floor down. 

We're making progress!! 

A floor! A Thor?

 

Bob and FIL Jim are installing the floor in the hall, living room and dining room!

Yeah... I've got to do something about that door.  How about a life-size poster of Chris Hemsworth?   

I'm sorry... what were we talking about?    Floor!  Yes, heylookit!

It's totally happening

I am working hard these days.   Hard to keep in all the squealing!!  

As Bob finishes up the last few things required before we move in, we're packing up the stuff in our house in town and gradually carting it out to The Log House.

Every time we move, we groan about how much stuff we have that we don't need.  The most embarrassing part?  Those "Gov't Movers" boxes are from when we moved from housing on Andrews AFB into the first house we bought in Bowie, MD.  In 2001.  And by "boxes," I mean the whole thing-- box and contents.  Yep.  I know.

This trailer-load was just boxes being stored in our basement.  And, honestly, not all of them.  We have another load to go.  Moving piecemeal is agonizing, like the death of a thousand cuts.  I have plenty of time to reflect on why exactly I've chosen to keep kitchen wares and utensils that have lived in the same moving box for four moves.

But, who cares about moving too much stuff?  The real news here is that we're in the DOGGONE PROCESS OF MOVING IN!!!    Slowly, but surely, we clean out the construction materials, Bob finishes a project, and we move boxes in.

Example 1: Bob and FIL Jim are almost done building the laundry room in the basement.  

Example 2:  I spent several hours up The Log House this afternoon, wiping out the kitchen cabinets and unpacking the boxes of kitchen wares I can do without for a month...

like a waffle maker...

... and a microwaveable bundt pan and pie-carrier.  

Hey - I saw that!  Don't roll your eyes!  It's exciting to me.  After 8 years, this is some crazy awesome PROGRESS.  That silly bundt pan has finally come home.  

I'm a little jealous of the bundt pan, now.  

Love/Hate

Love it:

Not so much:

And this:

After I let Dr. Dentist McDreamy work on my teeth this afternoon, I ran out to the lake to see this here progress with mine own two eyes.

I may have caressed the new wall and whimpered a bit.  But you can't prove it.

The Hubs and I also hashed over the configuration of the basement laundry room... again, lamented a poor choice on our part in the kitchen, and discussed what the shelves built into the half-wall between living and dining rooms will be like.  Even at this late stage, we're still designing the house!   I have a feeling we'll be making design decisions until we die.  

In that house.

Because:  once I move in, I am NEVER EVER moving out.  Of my own accord.  I may never even leave.  Consider this my two-week notice.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

Here's a shot of The Lake to distract you from my obvious lack of sanity:

And The House wanted to play peek-a-boo:

I see you!

Hello, beauty

And This:

Stairs from first floor to the second floor.  The wall/railing/awesomeness is new!  

Eventually, we will add risers and permanent treads. 

Glass half full?

I am such a pessimist that I am hyper-sensitive to announcing an event before it comes to pass.   However.

Ahem.

We have started packing.  Yes, to move.  Into The Log House.  THAT Log House.  I. KNOW.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm hyperventilating.   Give me a moment, here.  

No, it won't be all finished before the move.  No, it won't even be close to being finished --  but it'll be habitable, and that's all I need, baby.  And, yes, I realize my standards have changed in the past 8 years.   Exactly.   Since we are only moving 9 miles away, we will be packing and moving in drips and drabs.  (The "drabs" mostly refers to my wardrobe.)   It will probably take us a month or two.  But, still!


Here are some photos of the little things around The House that The Hubs is finishing up in advance of the move:

That old steel door that used to be the front door?  It's now the back door.  Well, you can't win 'em all.  But it makes that hallway so much brighter!

The Girl takes advantage of the partially-assembled bunk beds to do some climbing.  

I will spare you the photos of me, with hair on end, sorting and packing up our (too) many belongings in the house in town.  You're welcome.

Stay tuned, faithful log-devotees!  Big thingz is afoot!

[insert door metaphor here]

Today is the start of fall.  Yes, I know that the weather is still as summery as yesterday.  AND that autumn doesn't technically start for weeks.   But for those of us whose employment follows the traditional American school year?   The first day back to school = fall.  The bairns don't return to the rigor of formal education until Thursday, but for me, it's today.   Sooooo...  I was going to whip up some sort of fab-O metaphor about portals to new....   this -- or doorways to the future.... blah.....   but it's 6:00am and I should actually be gathering myself to go to work, so cook it up yourself.

And furthermore, get off my lawn!

[ahem.  sorry.]

The good news is: we spent yesterday afternoon up at The Log House.  The BETTER news is that we put in the new front door.  YES WE DID!!   (and by "we," as always, I mean Bob and FIL Jim)

Sometimes, what makes it possible to build your own home ... er... freehand ...  is that you use "found" materials as you go along.  In this case, the found material is the front door we've been using for a few years.

Hey, it was free.

 
I asked The Hubs last night how we came to have a random extra old steel door lying around.  Apparently, a family friend got it from a store that was replacing it and gave it to my Father-in-Law Jim.  Thus -- free door.

But, rusty old free steel door NO MORE!   Okay, well, not on the front entrance.  It's just getting moved around to the rear entrance for the musicians and vagrants to use.   No, sorry.  That can't be right.  I mean for dashing out in the freezing cold winter to feed the wood boiler.   At least, it'll grace the back door until we can convince the children to give us all their lemonade stand earnings so we can afford another door.  Do you KNOW how expensive quality exterior doors are?   I nigh unto had a stroke when we priced them.  

But I digress.

Here's the old door gone:

Looking out

With a really handsome dude

Sorry, kids.  No college.  We got ourselves a nice front door.

So, usually, when there's work going on up at The Log House, I either hear about it after it's done and run up and take pictures, or take some before and after shots and in the meantime, go about my business.  

But in this case, I stayed for the whole thing.  Because -- well, how long can it take to put in a new door?

Hour ONE.

Apparently, I forgot that it was being installed in a hand-hewn log home.  AND that I have no concept of such things.  Because:  dang.

Four hours later, it's in.  Well, no casing.  And there's an area over the door that needs to be filled in....  but whatever.

Look who's being helpful!  That's right:  me.  

Nice door, eh?

The time we waited while the sausage was being made...  er... I mean, the door was being installed, wasn't entirely wasted though:

The Girl made good use of the new carpet.

Wanna come knock on our new door and pretend like we live there NOW?   'Cause I'm pretending that, too.  

Well, after I pretend that I'm ready for a new school year.  Yeah.  Pretending that too.