A few sunny days...

Brent and I have been enjoying the free heat that a few days of sunshine provided and learning a lot about how our passive solar house performs. As the temperatures plummeted after Christmas the sun came out. Other than the glare, there is little to complain about in a home like this one. Each sunny day raised the temperature in the house 10 degrees.

Our mornings would start at about 65 degrees and by around 2:00 p.m. the temperature inside would be over 75. We resisted the urge to open windows on those days, knowing that heat would carry us through the night. On sunny days the only heat that runs is the hydronic floor heat. And that comes on only when the temperature in the house falls below 70 in the pre-dawn hours. And so, the lower level of the house stays a consistent temperature while the upper (above grade) level fluctuates.

We are learning new things daily. And Doogle (our beagle-ish dog) is enjoying his favorite thing…napping in the sun. Okay, it's really his second-favorite thing to do. His first is eating :-)

Doogle snoozing in the sun on our heated floor.

Posted with my Christmas present...

Christmas was all about "new" this year. We celebrated in a new place, welcomed new people, and cooked in a new kitchen. We had decided not to do presents (just stockings for the boys). But there were a lot of gifts, just not many under the tree.

Brent and Jeremy cheated and gave me some unexpected presents: a kick spindle (for faster spinning) and a new LED flashlight. But, otherwise, we mostly had a ton of candy.

Our first Christmas being warmed with sunshine.

One big gift was the long awaited appearance of the sun. We learned that passive solar is amazingly effective and decided to regulate the temperature by opening windows. It was a windy 50 outdoors and a toasty 73 inside with some strategic open windows.

Family was our greatest gift by far. All our boys joined us Christmas morning. Then we hosted dinner for my family in the evening. My parents came bringing my aunt Evie and her husband Dick. I stood up with Evie in their wedding on the 20th. He was our "new" person. We were also very fortunate to have my brother and his family. In all, 15 people celebrated this first Christmas with us.

Me with the nieces and nephew.

All these loved ones helped us discover the gift of cozy spaces in our new home.

The boys testing out the family room.

We are definitely blessed to have all these gifts - not the least of which is the smart phone I'm using to write this post.

I sure hope I get better at typing on this tiny keyboard. This took forever!

Quick note...

We are in!

The Happy Apple's Farm mailbox

It is a continuing monumental effort to get the house finished to the point that the bank will be satisfied that it's done, but Brent, Jeremy, and I are living at the house. Doogle is now a farm dog (only he still spends most of his time sleeping on the couch).

We love being there everyday. And we love getting to know our new home.

Oh, I almost forgot. We have no internet. So the posts will be fewer and limited to the times when I run to the Shawnee house to pick things up.

I will keep updates coming.

Merry Christmas!

So, so close...

Well, the last two weekends have been like most - busy. Brent and I have worked hard to put everything in place to (drumroll, please) MOVE IN :-)

I am incredibly excited to spend the night at our new place - and actually sleep in a bed, not in a tent or on the floor in a sleeping bag. And being able to know that our little herd of alpacas had a good night because I am there with them will be a relief, too.

The two weekends after Thanksgiving were full of cleaning floors for me. The pictures would have been super boring, so I didn't take any. But it made a big difference in how livable the place feels. I even swept and vacuumed the garage. It was full of sawdust. That really reduced the footprints that we were leaving all over the new flooring. (I'm going to get really good at cleaning floors, I think.)

We also installed some mirrors in the bathrooms. Being a woman, that seemed to be a big deal for me. Although, the older I get the less I seem to want to look - or, maybe, the more shocked I am at what I see!

One really important job that Brent worked on during these last couple of weeks is the railings. We have a few spots in this house (the top of the stairwell near the entry and the top of the sun space) where stepping off would be a disaster.

Brent finishing the stair railing.

Brent has actually installed 4 sections of rails and that should be enough to satisfy finishing the house for the bank. The railing for the stairs was the toughest. These "ready made" railings are pretty difficult to put together and Brent added some extra reinforcement in the stairwell and at the top of the sun space to make them really sturdy. And now they are exactly that, sturdy and safe, and they look pretty, too.

We also purchased all of the door knobs. Those are really expensive when you are buying for a whole house! I've only got 8 more to install but I'm getting pretty good at it. The interior knobs only take about 10-15 minutes to finish now. I have several external doors with deadbolts left to do. I'm sure those will take me a little longer.

Pantry and coat closet with knobs - and another of the railing sections.

Probably the biggest thing that happened, though, is the carpet in the master bedroom. My step-dad, Pete Hoover, has been a carpet layer for about 50 years. So he was nice enough to spend his Saturday installing our carpet. He made it look easy, but we know that's only because he knows what he's doing. The carpet is super-comfortable and looks awesome. Thanks Pete!

Carpet and pad for our Master Bedroom.
This is a handy van to have (it also moved our alpacas).  Pete's a pretty awesome step-dad.

Pete (right) installing the tack strip. Brent measuring for the closet shelving.
This is the last view of paint and sheetrock mud-splattered construction mess.

Carpet installed!

We had to spend a little time walking around on this soft stuff as soon as it was vacuumed for the first time. I am so happy to have all the messy construction stuff covered up. It looks like a home now.

The only other finishing touches were the shades for the master and Jeremy's room and the shower curtain in the lower level bath. The shower curtain and bar were easy and I installed those yesterday. I found some shades on CraigsList that were the perfect size and installed them yesterday, too. Those were super inexpensive. Nice to have an easy job for once.

Master bedroom with shades installed.

Next step - move in!

(Okay, I know there's still a bunch to do - like shelving and bars in the closets - but we will be there!)

I'm calling U-Haul today :-)

Thankful in 2014

This year there are so many things to be thankful for that finding the "important" ones to fit into a blog post would diminish them all. So I will only take this space to discuss those in the last 2 weeks.

Brent (probably my all-time favorite person to be thankful for) has finished all of the interior plumbing (which is probably the necessity I am most thankful for). Most significantly, he completed the plumbing in the kitchen. The kitchen even has a dishwasher - just need to move one of our refrigerators in and we're set. Of course, this time of year outside is, pretty much, all the refrigerator we need.

Our kitchen sink!

Our brand new dishwasher.

I'm glad Brent could figure out this plumbing.
The black valve allows us to divert the water for irrigation use in the summer.

Those diverter valves are placed only on the kitchen sink and the master bath sinks and shower. As our summers here get pretty dry, having these valves will allow me to use this "grey" water to develop some gardens with edibles and natives that require more moisture around the east and west sides of the house.

I am also thankful for our boys. Every parent dreams of seeing their children become contributors - and when they give back to you, well, that's really special.

Blaine installing our new locks.

Logan and Jeremy painting the last bedroom.

You can see from these photos that everyone (even Skylr who isn't in the photos) has been helping.

Since Rick (our builder) is about done with the final fixes to the trim, he has also installed our front door. Previously, we only had the final sidelight installed since the "real" door is full glass and might have been broken by the construction.

Our front door. We even have a door mat :-)

Brent and I spent so many days dreaming of the view from that door - and now it's a reality. And, yes, it brings to mind how fortunate I am to experience dreams come true. And this is just one of many.

And how can I end my Thanksgiving post without acknowledging these guys? They are so obviously thankful everyday for their feed. Of course, I pretend like it's me that they are so happy to see - so I get daily gratitude and alpaca smiles.

Mr. T eating his feed. He eats with his mouth open; they all do :-)

Okay, so these are a few events from our recent weeks that I thought to record with visuals. There are so many more and I could go on and on.

In short, life is good - amazing, in fact - and I am sincerely thankful.

Plywood flooring and our first hot meal

Last weekend our floor was finished. Brent has been working, pretty much, non-stop since Friday morning to apply the finish. And it is beautiful!

Flooring on the main level

This project began with the discovery of a plywood waste product. Brent discovered that the waste from a manufacturing process contained a regular dimension of lumber that could make a beautiful flooring. One of the things I admire about Brent is the ability to see possibilities like this and not be discouraged at the insane amount of work it will require. He milled, cut 12-ish slots for joiners in each plank, joined and glued, filled, sanded, sanded again, stained, and applied the finish. It was "only" 130+ planks :-) Wow!

Most of this floor finishing occurred during a super-cold November that has unveiled the fabulous ability of our house to stay warm - even with windows open and fans running to exhaust the fumes. The radiant heat in the floors is unbelievable. Even though the surface of the floor doesn't feel warm, the heat can be felt on the bottoms of your feed through your shoes. With temperates outside in the teens and twenties, the house never got below 68 degrees. I can't wait to see how nice it will be when all the door knobs are installed and the windows are closed.

Brent will apply the finish on the stairs and landings next.  

A few minor fixes were made to our kitchen cabinets last week and we were able to enjoy our first hot meal at the house. It was only leftovers heated in the microwave, but still! It was nice to have something  homemade (not Sonic, Subway, or McDonalds).

Brent warming our lunch in the microwave.

We are almost home!

Front porch, closets and floor (that's a lot!)

What a big weekend!

Brent's brother Bryan came to help again this weekend. This time, rather than painting, he shared another of his wonderful skills - carpentry. He finished out one of the closets in the downstairs bedrooms.

Bryan and Brent with the closet in Skylr's room-to-be. Dang, they're a good-looking couple of men :-)

Meanwhile, another something really wonderful happened; the front porch appeared and we can now use our front door! After all those pictures of this spot, we can finally walk up to the door. And the view from the door is incredible - just like we dreamed.

The front porch

And, even better, we got to uncover Brent's salvaged plywood floor and see how our stain pick ties in with everything.

Uncovered, sanded floor.

Brent applying stain. What a big job!

Here's a look at the beautiful grain in the plywood.

Brent spent his entire day working on the stain prep and application. We had windows and doors open but the fumes were pretty intense. We were thrilled, though. The color of the floor really ties in with the dark lighting fixtures and sets off the warm brown of the kitchen cabinets. The mass walls will be a very dark brown that will coordinate with the floor color. It's pretty wonderful to see an idea come to life. Brent made this bunch of manufacturing scrap into a floor that anyone would love - and there isn't another one like it anywhere!

The next step is the urethane. That should intensify the grain and deep brown tones and protect the floor from damage. It will take 2 days.

Unfortunately, we were unaware of the scheduled return of the cabinet maker to repair the gap in the island countertop and the microwave cabinet tomorrow. So we will be covering the floor back up in the morning. We will do everything we can with RamBoard to protect it. Then we will cross our fingers and hope that nothing gets scraped or scuffed too badly as they work.

The urethane seal will happen as soon as they are done. We will repair any damage that happens tomorrow then seal this beautiful finish for good.

Wow! Nice job mio marito :-)