Basement rooms!

Do you see what I see??

Just a little studly...

The Hubs teaching The Girl how to screw the wall stud in place

Very studly.

The wall pictured above will be between the utility area and The Boy's bedroom.  Miiiight have to move the saw and lumber at some point.

Ketchup

I'm still here!  Promise!

I realize that I never showed off the completed main staircase --   she still had a hockey smile when I last posted.  Well, she is mighty perty now.  See?

Of course, I've already managed to slip and dislocate a toe, but that's not the fault of the lovely stairs.  It was the ninjas that attacked me early in the morning before I was fully awake.  That's who I'm blaming.

Besides the stairs (which have been completed for months now), we've had a few new house-build developments, but they aren't as photogenic as those shiny new stairs.  The Bob relocated a copper water pipe that he'd inadvertently put in the way of a future wall in the basement, added an external faucet (he calls it a hydrant; whatever) for watering our nonexistent lawn or flowers, and he reinforced a support beam that had decided to twist a tiny bit.  Tots importante, but not photo-worthy, really.  Those basement bedrooms are on the horizon.  I can feel it.  And you can bet I'll photograph the flyin' heck out of that process.  It'll be just like the old days.

To tide you over until then, here's some spring/early summer photos of At Home In Logs Land:

The great rhubarb massacre of 2016. 

 My parents went on a 3 week (!) trip to the Canadian Maritimes and left me in charge of the garden.  Mostly, that just involved watering.  For. Hours.  But, asparagus & rhubarb were in season and I grabbed the ol' machete and went to town.  

I picked so much rhubarb that I ended up begging friends to take it off my hands.  They have three long beds of rhubarb, after all, and a girl can only freeze just so much.

ONE hacking -- er, picking -- yielded 24 cups of diced rhubarb.  THREE WEEKS OF THIS.

The Boy & The Girl enjoying the first full day of summer vacation 

June 30th shot of my father's garden.

4th of July revelry with the Utica cousins

I'm sure we have done other cool things...  actually, probably not.   Not YET.  I am still in the optimistic phase of summer when I think we'll follow through on planning and executing horizon-expanding trips and wacky memory-making fun.  This is the year!

It'll be great.  You'll see.

My new winter hobby

What, you ask, have I been up to this winter in my home of logs?   Welllll......

Mostly this:

And this:

And this:

And some of this:

Okay, some of this as well:

Aannnd, even some of this:

But mostly just sitting in front of the fire.  It is sublime.  If I had to pick a favorite part of this logaliciousness, it quite possibly would be that fireplace.  

I love it.  So.  Much.

You should come over and hang out with me in front of the fire.  It's super fun.   As long as you don't need me to pay attention to you.   And you don't mind my snoring. .

What?  I'm old.

More stairs

All but three steps are done! I've never appreciated how smooth and quiet nice stairs are!

Metaphor

I have one beautiful, lovely, gorgeous step:

 metaphors and aphorisms abound

Bob was trying out the durability of the construction adhesive on one stair tread/riser combination before he did the whole flight of stairs.  But it's the most pertyist step you ever did see!

Pretty soon I'll be walking up and down just to experience the pure staircase perfection.  Who needs exercise equipment?!   Okay, me, but that's not the point.

Stairs.  Well, stair.  But soon: stairs.

The End.

Beauty!

It's a beautiful day here in the North Country!  Blue sky, colorful leaves, warm breezes...   it's our last hurrah before the cold blows in and settles down for 5 months. But today... we are in heaven.

But the real thing of beauty around here?   

The arctic entry floor!   

SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!    

We have a few pieces in the corner that still need to be laid down, but it's so so SO beautiful!  

Come on over and gaze upon our Arctic Entry in all its glorious beauty.  You know you want to.   

Back steps

So last winter, after we moved into The Log House in December, the Hubs had to use the rickety temporary construction steps out the back door to feed the boiler.   In advance of the heating season this year, the menfolk decided to build a nice new sturdy set of steps.  I was expecting just simple little stairs, but I returned from work to this:

A wee little deck!   I *may* have squealed a little with joy.  

Over the following week, Bob - and an assortment of friends and family - completed the decking and the steps.  

No, the cat didn't help much.

Now I can grill on the deck like a real 'Merican and not in the woodshed.   And the Hubs won't fall to his death in a snowbank this winter.

Which would put a real damper in my plans for a new back door.  Heh.

Hang your hat

That arctic entry is almost ready for prime time!   And even this manual labor-phobic blogger has been pitching in.  I helped shellac the vertical wall boards and sanded and shellacked and polyurethaned the horizontal cherry boards that the coat hooks will be mounted on!  Yes, I did!  I can prove it:

Me, shellacking the wall boards.  

Me, sanding the cherry coat rack boards

Okay, this one is The Husband, removing the loose bark from the edges of the coat rack boards.

Well, that doesn't really prove I helped.  But it's hard to take a selfie AND actually do some real work.  I tried.  No can do.  So, you get my weird-looking hands and the opportunity to trust me on this.  You're welcome.   

This is the before picture of the cherry coat rack boards:  

  

This is the after:

Yes, it looks like bacon to me, too.  I ain't got noooo problem with that!

I imagine we'll discover at some point that we'll need more than one hook.

Summer 2015

It's a hot, hazy mid-summer day in Northern New York!  We don't get too many, comparatively speaking, and so we love to hate these days.  The Hubs has been picking away at this and that on The Log House, completing little tasks, but his father is intent on finishing that arctic entry! 

He has started to put the hand-milled boards up on the walls:

 

It's hard to get a good angle for a picture

 

The FIL is itching to get the flooring down in there and for me to decide what I want to do with that end wall and whether to continue the boards all the way around.   Advice?  You know I'm not going to take it, what with being so contrary and all, but I do like to *hear* others' opinions.  Heh.

Since it's summer, and that means hosting many friends and family, not much work on The House gets done, but it's an embarrassment of riches of a kind, so we aren't upset!  We do, however, get the largess of my father's garden.  Which is getting largess-ter each year. 

The Girl wandering the garden looking for something to munch on in early July

Our little spinach thief

With the great blessing of living in the woods all hermit-style comes the trial of limited internet access.   *sigh*   SUCH a first-world problem, eh?   So, that has made my blogging even more haphazard.  And we all know it was straight-up iffy at the best of times.  

So, see you in...  what?  November?    

Heh.   You know I'm only half joking. 

It's May Already?

May?  It's approaching the middle of MAY?  Seems like just yesterday we moved into The Log House, but it's been 4 1/2 months already.   And yet, I'm still as goofy happy about it as ever. 

The progress on the house is now just a bunch of little finish work.  Well, I say "little", but every new door knob sends me into a squealing squealer of squealingness.  We have doors on the downstairs bathroom and the kids' room/spare 'oom and the artic entry is in process of having its walls and ceiling finished.... see?

 

That brown is just the primer, but it's a lovely chocolate color in person, and I don't mind lookin' at it while waiting for the boards to be applied!

 

 

What else have we been up to this last wee while?   Well, a little of this:

 

 

Bob and Jim enveloped in a cloud of sweet steam from the evaporator, boiling down sap into maple syrup.

 

 

 and a little of that....

 



The menfolk splitting wood for next winter.  Already.

and cuteness....

 

  KITTENS!!!  Yes, we have two sweet kittens now -- who love to climb The Boy like he's there just for that reason.  And he loves it.

I can't get a very good angle of the arctic entry to show you the work as it goes on, but I'll squish myself into a corner and try to get some good shots as the board walls go up and the floor goes down.

*Sigh* At Long Last

I have been a blissfully contented woman this week.  Because?  I have come home to a crackling, flickering, toe-warming fire in the fireplace each day!   It is soul-soothingly lovely.


We waited until both sets of parents could be present for the first fire, since they have been such a big part of the building of this house.  So, since Bob's folks FINALLY returned home from that wicked parent-stealing Florida last week, we all gathered 'round on Easter Sunday to ceremonially light the lights, so to speak.

 

If you'll recall, we have not yet faced the chimney... or laid a properly pretty hearth... or purchased an adequately-sized screen.  But, who needs 'em?!

  
*Sigh*  A thing of beauty.  

Getting a *handle* on this thing

Three full months in the new house and I'm still just as excited about the whole thing!  Okay, I'm a little naggy about baseboards and such, but no less enthralled by the sheer logaliciousness of it all.

We are slowly doing the finish work (see previous reference to baseboards), which includes putting grain sealer on the raw pine doors:


and then adding doorknobs, etc:

  Hey - I know it's not the most exciting thing on earth, but *I'm* excited about the doorknob.  And, frankly, if you'd come to use the bathroom before the doorknob, etc was installed, you would be a little happy about it too.

Stay tuned for door casings and curtains!