La Casa de Tyvek

Finally started getting the siding up! Board and batten is right for this house...

Equinox/Spring is Springing

It's easy to fall in love with the mountains when there's forsythia, apple and cherry blossoms, dogwood, and all kinds of beauty blooming. We finally finished the shower (the tub was fine, but I need a shower to really wake up) - Jackie's the queen of tiling - and now we are focusing on the outside work, like the siding (hemlock boards stacked in photo), and making our plant beds. We are excited about our neighbors getting ready for their goats, and we are going in together on a chicken coop. Lots of planning!
I had to take a day off when it was in the 70's to hike - the closest Blue Ridge Parkway area is Craggy Gardens. I thought I saw a shortcut on the map, but DeLorme lied. I just parked and walked from where the road was closed. It was a gorgeous trail, although I never made it all the way to the top. I had to include my hat in one of the photos to show I was really there. All these rhododendrons will be blossoming in the next couple of months.
We had a nice surprise when we saw crocuses (croci?) in front of the house, left from someone who lived in a trailer on this land years ago.

Jackie and I think we have crossed a line - we are thrilled to drive home with huge, stinky bags of compost (aka garbage) from the juice bar at our favorite local natural food store, and from a local vegetarian caterer. Already looking forward to next year's compost.

Mucho Mulch

We got a beautiful pile of mulch (we've got a lot of mud to cover!) from the C & M Sawmill, where we ordered hemlock to do our siding. We're going to do board and batten siding - vertical boards, also called barn siding. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there's a lot of hemlock that's been cut down because of the pest the woolly adelgid. It turned out to be the most economical option for us, and we think we'll like it better than the other choices we had considered, stucco or hardiplank.

We've been working on the office and Jackie's studio - we had a ladder/stairway built to get up to the loft.

And Deco supervises from her doggie bed!

Happy Chaos

We are slowly and gratefully making our way through boxes and bags (why can we find all kinds of useless chachkes but not the important paperwork we need), and settling into our new home. Can't remember what day it is, but it's starting to feel like we were always here. We spend time talking with neighbors about compost and squash bores (take a guess), and are loving our comfortably warm radiant floor heat on the colder days. This weekend, temps go back up into the 60's. We think it's hilarious that 2 inches of snow brings everything to a halt, but altitude does matter - we are at the cutoff, it seems, so we don't get the big snow and ice. Lotsa mud, though!

We painted with Sherwin Williams low voc brands - Harmony and Duration. Definitely less fume-y, but there are types with no voc's - harder to clean, we hear, and more expensive.

We've got a nice pile of firewood, some seasoned and the rest getting there. Getting ready to make some raised beds and start some seeds inside.

We couldn't have gotten here without the fabulous support of friends and family! Thank you all a million times - we really do wish you were here, and hope you will be eventually!

No place like om...

So we didn't pass our house inspection ("missed it by that much"), but the problems are easily fixable, and we are hoping to get it Monday! We are still being tested, apparently, so we continue to roll that primer on the walls, clean the floors yet again, and exercise our zen muscles. The good stuff - we have a boiler (Monitor, on demand hot water for both domestic and radiant floor heat - Jackie complains that the stuff that's hidden in the basement costs the most, but no one sees it), and check out this genuine plastic rock covering our well (everyone has them here for insulation) that costs only $87. Really.

As I use my nifty sixteen foot extension pole, here's the song looping in my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KLZCVFDQI

Home/is where I want to be/but I guess I'm already there!

Happy Boxing Day

On solstice, I was walking in the woods close to our house listening to the hoot owls, and in the middle of nowhere, lying in the leaves was this angel. I felt sorry for her, with her bad Farrah Fawcett 70’s hairdo, so I had to pick her up and bring her home. The dove in her hands came off on the way, which I hope isn’t a bad omen. I was going to give her away, but Jackie thinks we are supposed to keep her.

We are enjoying St. Augustine for a few days. Deirdre's enjoying the 80 degree weather, and Jackie can't believe she's turning on air conditioning the day after Christmas.

Here's how we left the house. Hope it's different when we get back.

(Not Quite) Home for the Holidays

People try to warn you about things, but who really listens. For example, building a house will cost more and take longer than you think. A lot. Here’s the formula: imagine more money than you would ever want to be in debt for, add about 1/3 of what would give you a major anxiety attack in the middle of the night, and figure in a major recession/global financial catastrophe. That’s what it costs. And to figure out how long it will take: multiply by two the number of months that you think you could live out of a suitcase without tearing your hair out, and it will be longer than that by several weeks.
So we carry on, putting together our little Ikea projects and observing the amazing (not in a good way) mud that the grader tells us is only in our area of the county, and he knows mud. On the positive side, the electrical is in, the plumbing’s almost done, the basement ceiling was insulated, and the boiler could possibly, maybe, if there is a Christmas miracle, be installed early next week. We don’t hold our breath anymore.What’s great is the wood stove, which we have seasoned over the past few days (the temperatures have gone from 60’s to 30’s, so just in time). We sat in front of it Sunday and dreamed of living here and having our wonderful friends come visit us!