It's Looking Like a House

Here's a picture of the house with the plywood down the south side. It's really beginning to look like a house now! Next...windows!

setting trusses

Installation of the trusses. Today the trusses arrived and the set went very well, swinging over the electrical lines and under the high voltage lines no one got zapped.

Another Addition to the Family

Our granddaughter Jeanine Marie Stegman arrived on August 14, 2008. She weighed 7 lbs. and was 20" long. She's adorable and a wonderfully content baby. Her big brother Johnny is enjoying "petting" the baby!

It's raining up here in Washington, imagine that!

more framing and windows

We drove up to deliver the windows and most of the framing was complete. The trusses are scheduled to be installed on 8/20/08. Cliff will be up for the drop.
This is the view from the laundry room.

Window Arrival

Our windows were delivered to our home in Castro Valley last Friday. Cliff and the delivery man loaded the larger ones right onto his truck for transport up to the property. The rest will be loaded onto our trailer and towed. There are 21 windows, 2 skylights and a french door. The front door is ordered but hasn't arrived yet. For those of you who have been to our house in CV, the front door is the same as here. I decided that since I still love the door after having it for 6 years I'd be happy with the same one for the new house. (And yes, I order the same thing over and over at restaurants. Why mess with what you like?)

The framing is close to being done and Sam will start getting the plywood on the exterior this week. Once the plywood is up it will be time for installing the windows.

More pictures to come after the next trip!

Framing Frenzy

We spent another great weekend at the property checking out the progress of the framing and marveling that the Lord has made the building of this house possible. We were blessed with a couple of clear nights so we could see the Milky Way and stars galore. It's a rare sight for those of us who have grown up and lived in the city all our lives!

Our framing contractor Sam is a wonder to behold. I've titled this post Framing Frenzy for a reason! He's fast and extremely efficient. He framed our addition at our Castro Valley house so we knew his work. The neighbors up at the bluff are amazed at his speed and tell us that he's not one to stop and chat, which is good if you're the one paying the bills!

This first photo was taken from the garage looking in the door leading into the house, down the hallway and out into the greatroom.

This is the main floor. The framing below is the master bedroom and the area underneath the greatroom. We'll use that area for storage.

This one is of the master bedroom. The greatroom will be on top of it, and as you walk towards the garage there will be a bathroom, laundry room, bedroom and quilting studio.

Here's Billy checking out the view. We agree with him that it is spectacular.

On Saturday evening we watched the sunset from our living room for the first time. It was a bit drafty but with a coat and a quilt to wrap up in it was worth it. It will only be a few weeks until that draft will be stopped by walls and windows.

The Well-House

Here it is, our beautiful well-house. What do you think? Cliff and I are thrilled to have this structure near completion! It will be painted to match the house (green of course).

This is our copper louvre for ventilation, it's awfully pretty. We haven't gotten the bill for it yet so we'll see how pretty we think it is at that point! Of course, it won't be this shiny for long. The sea air will cause it to patina very quickly.

We've placed our generator inside the well-house. We'll need it fairly often because the storms wreak havoc on the power lines, what with trees falling and high winds. We've heard stories of the power being down for a week at a time. The generator will be set up to come on automatically when the electricity goes down.

We ordered our windows and doors yesterday. It was quite a process deciding what type of window to put where. Should it be operable, which way should it open, what type of opening (sliders, awning, casement)? After months of mulling it over it was finally time to just do it.

Jen, Ryan and the kids are visiting this week. We're having lots of fun. Cliff is giving motorcycle rides, Jake is shooting the pellet gun, Warren ran into a car down the street when he lost control of his bike and has a nice bruise on his head. All is well and very normal!