Construction Diary

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Hi there! I'm Merry, married to Husband for 43 years, 2 grown daughters, 5-1/2 cats (one's feral), 1 dog, living on a little acreage in the Midwest. I am a Christian and like writing Inspirational Christian romance (I have several books out) travel, reading, history, archaeology, sewing, quilting, and writing.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

More gravel...

When we first started construction of the house I ordered gravel to keep the mud at a minimum. In this area, gravel sinks into the soil after a while. We knew we'd have to order more eventually. I finally did it last week. 17.4 tons of one inch road gravel to cover the bare spots. The driver dumped it in 3 increments around the property.



Dumping near the porch to re-gravel the driveway turn and around the concrete stoop.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Tile in the kitchen...

The tile guy and began his last job - tiling the kitchen. Richard and I cleaned out the garage and I found some more kitchen stuff. In one box was a Teissedre tile I bought in Arizona 22 years ago. As an afterthought, I was thinking that tile would look pretty good somewhere in the kitchen. Here's the story of Teissedre Tile Designs:



So I ran the idea past Richard and he loved it. This tile is representative of the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano.



The tile guy did this unique cutting to make the corners on the shelf above the stove.



Here is the finished shelf with the stove and spices in place.

We're pretty happy. The grout has already dried to a lighter color than the pictures show. The tile guy also caulked with a beige colored caulk.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Laundry cabinets...

We've been doing little things that aren't readily visible on the house. Richard has finished staining, cutting and installing the baseboards for the living area. He stained all the doors a light honey maple. He burned lots of boxes. He made dinner. LOL

We also finally went through some of the garage. We emptied out the front area and the side mezzanine shelving, then sorted through it. I found the crystal, the pots (I already had the lids), the wooden trays, the rice china, and my cookbooks. I also found more boxes of fabric and quilting materials. All of this made it into the house to be put away. We haven't done that yet, though. LOL.

One thing I found previously I'd forgotten about. I have a large, antique Mr. Peanuts jar. I broke the lid a gazillion years ago and have been unable to find a replacement. Pa made me a new one out of lovely swirly-grained walnut. Now I owe him cookies. Chocolate cookies, of course. Here's the photo:



We went to Lowes and bought stock cupboards for the laundry room. I wanted storage in there for the towels and bedding, since I don't have room for a linen closet elsewhere. We are very pleased because the laundry room now has a more finished look with the units.



Today, Lonnie is here tiling the kitchen backsplash. While digging through the boxes I found the Tessidere tile I'd bought in Arizona many years ago. The colors are very similar to the Venetian Stone tile we chose for the kitchen. So Richard and I decided that Lonnie can implement the Tessidere tile into the wall of the backsplash.

Nathan came yesterday and took measurements for the new bathroom cabinet. The sink/toilet issue IS code, but we've decided we want a little more room in there. I really hate giving up the pedestal sink, but the comfort zone outweighs the look of it. In this case, form follows function in a big way.

I am still sold on an outdoor shower area for bathing dogs and washing up when doing outside work, so we think we can utilize the sink in that future project.