Questioning Myself

Sometimes i wonder what the heck i am doing. Yeah I said heck.. what can i say i'm from Utah. If i stop to think about this project I have in WY it's a little overwhelming. Its about 2 hrs form home so working on it requires planning. For 2 yrs now I have owned the place and other than the foundation repair (which honestly is a huge improvement) mostly all I have done is tear things apart. To be fair, my daughter went through another round of chemo and a bone marrow transplant when cancer came back - that pretty much put a halt to any plans whatsoever. I really need to start getting into the rebuilding stage so that sometime soon I can actually use this place that I am paying for.

Getting Warmer

It finally arrived - Our Morso 2040 Stove. This stove has been discontinued but they happened to have just a few left so I snagged one at a deep discount. Discounts are always good. Just need to get my pipe prepped for the new stove, lay a bit of tile or masonry of some kind for it to sit on and we'll be good to go.

Quick Trip

Yesterday I took a quick trip up to WY to check on the progress of the place and meet up with Phil, the contractor helping me out with this part of the project. He was up earlier in the week and touched up the grade around the home. It had settled quite a bit from the recent foundation replacement so it needed some work. Looks great now and he is now hooking up the power, sewer and water lines.

We're considering installing a valve to flush the water out after use so that in the winter months we won't have any water in the home at all. I have a shut off valve up by the well and another by the home just before it enters the house. Hopefully this will eliminate any potential water damage.

I'm about done with the deck design and hopefully next week we'll get some deck footing holes dug and the framing of the two small additions will begin.

August

Finally some progress on the place. We removed all of the old seventies cabinets with wallpapered insides. They are still usable, we just don't want to use them. I plan to run an ad in the paper in the local community to see if anyone can use them. There are several cabinets that might be nice to use in the garage for misc tools and such so I may bring some home.

While removing the cabinets we found why the previous owner had a water problem in the kitchen. The water line for the dishwasher had been severed and to plug it up, someone had jambed some wood in the end of the tube and wrapped it with electrical tape. Not the right fix for a water line that has water in it.

We also have removed the old woodburning stove which my contractor has found a home for. Good to see some of the old stuff being used. The stove is actually in near new condition, but it's very large and does not coordinate with the style we're shooting for.

Finally: Some Progress

It's been a long time since any work was done on the Wyoming House. Last fall the house movers lowered the home but would not remove their 60' beams for fear of rolling their equipment on the steep grade since the ground was covered in a bit of snow and muddy. Unfortunately, if we framed up the additions, the house movers would not have enough room to get the beams at the right angle to pull them out on the slope. So, much to our dismay we had to just cover the additions to keep the snow and critters out and leave it until spring.

This spring was incredibly wet [lots of rain for weeks] which delayed things even more. I stopped by in June and there was still about 12" of snow at the gate. and all the rain made it very muddy and not great conditions for heavy equipment. Finally we have had a dry spell and I was able to get the house movers back this Saturday to retreive their large beams. They scarred a couple of trees getting them out, but with so many there to work around I'm just pleased they didn't have to cut any down to get them out of the way.

Now, if we can get the framing done, plumbing and electrical hooked back up and a fireplace installed we'll at least be able to keep the place heated and work on it through the fall as it starts to get cold.

Stain or not to Stain

Been talking to my brother about building some custom doors for this wyoming house. Thinking about going with alder or maybe a harder wood and staining them. I'm just wondering where to draw the line. If i stain the doors, do i stain the jambs? If I stain the jambs then I probably should stain the trim. And then if I stain the doors, jambs, trim and have hardwood throughout the place, maybe I'm getting too much stained wood. I'm leaning towards staining the doors and painting all the trim.

Sping anytime soon?

Thought I'd post some pics of the wyoming house from this weekend. Still a ton of snow up there. We had to snowshoe in, and as you can see the snow banks are pretty high. Hopefully it will warm up here soon so we can get in the drive and start work again.

Spring is slow.

Just snowshoed into the house today. Still quite a bit of snow - maybe 3 feet on the drive in. Took some measurements for doors. My brother offered to custom build some doors for me so I figured I'd figure out what I need. Love the views up there. Somedays I wish I could just move there full time...

winter blues

gosh i miss this place. Winter set in and covered everything up. I was able to make it up in February to shovel off the snow accumulation on the roof but have not been back since. I'm anxious to get working on it again and finish up the remodel. Hopefully by fall we'll have a functional, finished home in Wyo. I've had the remodel on my mind for some time. I don't like have such a big project unfinished.

Before I mentioned possibly using some square door knobs on this project, but I'm now debating some clean and simple door levers. Check these out:

Pretty cool looking lever for a modern style home. I'm hoping to get this home out of the 70's and give it some modern coolness. We'll see how it turns out.

house back down.

Just in the nick of time the home was set back on it's foundation this fall. The snow hit and has been coming down ever since. Unfortunately, the house movers didn;t want to remove their 60' steel beams so we are unable to finish framing up the small addition - if we do, they won't be able to get the beams out. Sounds like setting the house back down was pretty uneventful. I was able to stop by soon after, but it was dark and I wasn't able to see much. I asked my brother to take a couple of pics on his way home and this is what he sent.