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!