Finally

This weekend, we were able (at long last) to watch a monarch butterfly come out of its chrysalis. First the sea green chrysalis became transparent, and then all of a sudden, it burst open and the little guy s-l-o-w-l-y crawled out. The first picture was taken just a few seconds after he got all the way out, and the last about 2 hours after his emergence.





As promised, here is a pic of one of JP's projects. He installed this solar powered lamp post near the turn in our driveway between my parents house and ours. The auger broke again, while trying to dig a hole to pour concrete for the base...too rocky in that area! I couldn't help but do some more dry stacking of stones around the base.

The Sky Came Down

It was a humid evening, with light showers all afternoon. We were anxious to see the kitchen cabinets, so planned a picnic dinner out at the house. We have been doing that at least once a week for the past month or two. The mist was heavy in the valley. This picture was taken just down the road from our place.

The kitchen cabinets were all still in boxes, so unfortunately they remain a mystery.

Most of the light fixtures and smoke alarms have been installed. I spent an hour on line last night and approximately $500, ordering compact fluorescent lamps for all of the light fixtures! This is the fan in the library.

Several of the window sills and trim have been installed too. They look really sharp.

This wood on the back porch is for the window trim in the Great Room.

All of the interior doors were delivered today as well. A bunch of them are in storage in the Master Bed Room.

These ones have been painted and are out on the porch.

The wood ceiling in the Kitchen/Dining Room is nearly completed. The builder was there late finishing the solatube. Even at 7:45 PM on a cloudy evening, it was generating a lot of light.

We put the girls to work filling their little red wagon with scraps of wood and taking it to the burn pile. They had fun, but got very muddy (as did the wagon) in the process.

Memorial Day Weekend Madness

Whew! We just blew through a 3 day weekend in a blink of an eye! The girls are exhausted, as am I, but we are ready to enter our last week of school...yee haw! We had several late nights and a picnic with a bunch of friends today, so I am about partied out. I need to get MC's mojito recipe...

The house is now entirely painted on the interior. I intended to paint the Master Bath in left-over paint from our last house, but apparently it froze in the garage this winter. It was solid in the can. After a quick trip to Lowe's (I am getting utterly tired of quick trips to Lowe's), I got paint and covered the walls on Sunday.

Then returned this afternoon to do a faux treatment in a ragging technique. It took a long time, but looks nice. I did it in our last bathroom, which was much smaller and consequently did not take nearly as long to complete!

We were pleasantly surprised to see the crew out on a holiday up on the scaffolding.

They have finished the ceilings in the Great Room. Isn't it gorgeous? Now we just need our chandelier. The crew were offering me various stuffed and mounted animal heads to put on the walls...a very kind gesture, but I think I'll pass.

The girls' walls are quite bright. I'm hoping they are able to sleep in this room!

The yellow looks good in the Mud Room and Bathrooms.

Siding is up above the hip roof on the entrance side of the house...

...around the breezeway door and under the garage eaves in front.

The kitchen cabinets are scheduled for delivery on Wednesday, and they plan to start putting in some of the lighting this week.

Perhaps a Prescription?

I've gone from getting extremely anxious to getting seriously spastic every time I visit the house these days. Things are getting SO close to being done, and I am SO tired of living in this apartment (and while we are on the subject of being SO tired of things, I'll mention that I'm SO tired of being J's cyber school teacher...she's tired of me too). I pace. I jump around. I growl. For some reason, none of these things seem to make things happen any faster. We have 5 more days of school, and 3 more weeks of apartment living. I wonder if JP could put me in a medically induced coma until then?

Lots of guys working out at the house today!

Today they are priming the walls. The primer is tinted, so the colors are similar to the final thing. Our "weeping willow" is very nice, although lighter than I anticipated. They didn't have the girl's room primed yet, so I still don't know what the "lemon mint" will look like. Through some miscommunication, the builder thought I wanted the mud/utility/T's Own Private Room to be "butter". After I thought about it, I thought it might be quite stimulating, so we're going with it! This is a shot...sorry it's so dark...of the green color in the library.

They have nearly finished the siding on the entrance side of the house, including soffit over the door. There should still be some cedar detailing over the front door.

The last green door for the breezeway is in. There will be one more door on the other side of the breezeway, and then the house will be closed up!

Here is the cork flooring that we picked up in Pittsburgh yesterday. It will go in the library. I love the way it looks!

The well man finished putting in the rain water cistern. It's not exactly what we were anticipating, but he hit bedrock one foot too shallow, and we told him not to jack-hammer. He also found another spring, which is why the hole was full of water in my last post.

I counted nearly 100 light bulbs that we will need for the house. That's a small fortune when you are considering compact fluorescent bulbs throughout. Anyone know where you can buy light bulbs in bulk?

No more walking through walls

Our builder wanted to meet with us this morning to be sure that everything is where we want it before they start putting up dry wall on Monday. I don't believe we made any changes this time!

The water inspection occurred last week, but a leak was discovered in the grey water system. This is the water coming from sinks, showers, washer and dishwasher. We intend to divert it to a lagoon, filter it and perhaps stock it with fish(?). The final point of this project will occur when my Dad is here full time. After cutting about 5 holes through the concrete floor in the girls' room, the problem was found and corrected.

We gave the builder our tile and carpet choices today...2 more things to check off the list. Now we just have to work on paint.

I finally got the lighting order together. We still need to order the chandelier for the great room, and I have to wait until Monday to order the bathroom fixtures. I'm happy with these outdoor sconces for beside the doors.

All of the walls, and most of the ceilings are filled with insulation. The house has lost most of that echo-ey sound of an empty construction site. I have also lost the ability to walk through the walls.

Due to a rainy week, the roofers only got about a quarter of the shingles up. These are on the back porch roof. I just learned that May is supposed to be the wettest month in this part of PA. What happened to April showers and May flowers?

The breezeway between mud room and garage is framed out. The open door in this picture is the garage. Sorry about the busy picture. L wanted to eat her pancakes on the porch!

We watched "Marley & Me" last night, and it brought renewed grief over the loss of Zach to all of us. J had to visit his grave today with a bouquet.