Whoa, Slow Down

 Building piece meal like this means things not being done in the right order. Sometimes we need to slow down and make sure we are doing everything that needs to be done. The hallway will be finished before we do anything else. As we were getting ready to put the last of the ceiling panels up I asked Bill if there shouldn't be heat and air in the hallway and he got a look on his face that was really quite funny. He prides himself on doing things right the first time and usually he does. Wouldn't you know it in our things left over from building our last house 20 years ago we had the duct work we needed to put into the hall. Chuck, our HVAC will be pleased that he isn't having to crawl through the small ceiling space to run it. Whew, problem averted.

Fancy Smancy

If we have it in storage we will use it instead of buying something new. In the Storage/Workroom Bill wanted some extra lighting over what will be his work tables. He could have gone to the store and found nice shop lights but instead he went into the box of light fixtures we have and found a set of these beautiful lights. These were in our master bath at the old house that when we put it on the market we updated the fixtures. He says I can never tell him to dust them, they are work lights and not pretty lights any more. There will be a matching fixture on the left when he has time to put it up.

Rat's Nest

Was up in the house attic and started looking at the HVAC ducts. Surely there would have been a less messy way to do this?

Mish Mash

All the insulation we found in the attic is now up in the hallway. There are four different kinds in the walls and ceiling. There are different fluffiness, different colors, and of course different R values.They all insulate the same and we saved ourselves some money. We just put the lower R values on the interior walls and the good value on the outside wall and the ceiling.

Treasure

We love finding treasures. At the lake if someone hollers "Treasur"; the driver of the boat knows to slow down and go to where something is in the water. It can be someone's shoe, a buoy, or our favorite is when it is a noodle. The same thing goes for the building.

Treasure! Oh, look in the attic stuck all over the place are bales of insulation.

Just what we needed for the hallway.

Make Do

Who needs a ladder when you have a very nice desk just waiting to be used. We have to work around all of our stuff while building and it's easier to use it than move it. Piece of cardboard on the surface for protection and it's the perfect height for Bill to put in wiring for the sconces in the hallway.

No Rush

We are really taking our time with this build out. We are not putting pressure on ourselves with any self made schedules.It will get done when it is done that's our philosophy. So much so that when Bill goes out to do electrical.

He goes out in his houseshoes!

Baby Steps

We are moving slow in the building process because the garage isn't framed yet, Still Bill is taking baby steps that are making us very happy. He is added electrical to the hall and storage room in the West Wing. Next step for me is to get out and find the wall sconces that we want on either side of our South Beach art that goes into this hall. Once we know what we are using we can get the proper placement for those electric boxes and we can sheet rock.

Oh, look we have a solid wall! We are using the interior metal skin that we are taking down and replacing with sheet rock as the walls for the Storage/Work room.

The big shelves were already in place so we could organize and have an idea of where our tools are located. Unfortunately, we got excited about running electricity and ran the wires before we put the metal up. We should have been able to just slide it between the studs all the way down; a simple one step job .Oops, there's a wire in the way. So instead, we had step one, take sheet into the Storage/Work room, step 2 slide it down the left wall between the studs and the shelving, step 3 as Bill is sliding the sheet I am bending it around the corner, step 4 slide the sheet down the wall and into place. Luckily, we are people who do not get angry or upset about these missteps we just laugh and go on.

Now to screw the metal to the studs. Bill had to lay across the shelves to reach the wall and screw the wall into place. He's pretty agile for an old guy.

Love That Argon

Oklahoma and winter usually means ice if we are having cold weather. Ice coats your windows and you can have lots of cold air coming in through your windows. Last week we got one of those ice storms; days and days later we still have a half inch of ice everywhere. Bill was working in the West Wing over the weekend which is the only place we have a window as of now and noticed something wonderful.

Even with all that cold ice coating the glass there was no cold air. You could put your hand on the window and it was room temperature. Touch the metal, room temperature. Could tell there was no heat loss through the window because the ice was solid all the way to the edges of the panes. It is the Argo Gas between the panes that makes it so energy efficient. Just think the heating and cooling savings plus the tax incentive credit for buying efficient windows. Our last house was very efficient but this one could be even better. Woo Hoo!!

I Love It

The next to last part of the house that will be built is the kitchen but it is the first part that needs to be finalized so the rest of the house can be built around it. We happen to think the kitchen is the most important part of the house and that's where we and our family and friends spend most of our time.

We are designing the house ourselves but felt the kitchen needed a professional's input. Do not want any mistakes here and it is a large space so wanted to be sure it flowed the way it should. We met with Jo at Urban Kitchens and gave her our ideas, wants, needs, and desires.

 First thing she brought up when discussing our lifestyle was that we need a beverage center in the kitchen. We enjoy good coffee and Bill and the kids love his Soda Stream machine. I don't want anything sitting out on counters, I am weird that way but I don't want clutter so she told us in our one wall of floor to ceiling cabinets have one cabinet with a pull out shelf for our beverage center and it can be pushed back and closed up when not being used. LOVE IT! It will be right beside the inset computer desk so when I am Facebooking I can just reach around for my coffee.

Still a few little changes but here is my dream kitchen. It is 20x25 full of cabinets, counters, kid area, linen closet, baking center, ADA height counter in one spot in case it is ever needed,  everything I want. Our last house had a great kitchen and I think this one may be better. I didn't know if I would be able to have it but I even got my buffet counter under the front window; had one in the last house and used the dickens out of it. We did not follow the traditional kitchen triangle because that isn't how I cook.

One Step At a Time

We were hoping the garage would be finished by Christmas. Nope, it's still just the pad poured. None of the framers were willing to trust Bill's plans. Just because he is not an engineer or architect and we wanted a 1500 sq ft garage to not have any interior supports. So we went to Indaco Metal out of Shawnee to see what they could come up with for us. They designed and manufactured the metal for our deck roof at the lake so we knew to trust them. 3 weeks later they have given us a plan! Looks just like Bill's plan. It does look like it but they have it structured a little differently and we won't need to worry about snow weight on the roof which Bill had not taken into consideration. And the roof isn't as large as we thought it needed to be.

I think the house looks like a church from the back on an ariel view with the garage roof added on.

It wasn't until we had given everything to Indaco that we remembered we have a nephew who is getting his engineering degree; we probably should have gone to Justin first. We may have him look at other parts of the house plans before we go much further.

We are on the framers schedule and are his next job!

Alarm Alarm

Went with Tiffany and the grandkids to see Santa at the City of Edmond's Safety Village (our town has incredible things to do). While standing in line to build birdhouses, courtesy of Lowe's, the Firemen who were putting on this event passed around a sign up sheet if you want them to come out and check your smoke alarms. They will check for placement, age (they do have expiration dates), and batteries. It was  interesting to see that the people who bought our old house had signed up for the inspection.

This got me thinking, where are our alarms? Asked Bill when I got home and he remembered alarms being there on our inspection, sure enough on our report smoke alarms tested and working. He took the smoke alarms with him when he moved out! Luckily' we have boxes of alarms in our storage since renters seem to move out with them all the time also. We find it funny, they remove the smoke alarms and their toilet paper.

We now have an alarm in the apartment. Still can't believe we hadn't noticed they had been removed since this is something we immediately check when we have rent houses open.


If your alarms are not hardwired please check the expiration date on your alarm they are such an inexpensive safety system  for your family.

The Iceman Cometh

When you are on a water well you are dependent on electricity for your water. Your water is pumped out of your well and then into your house. It just takes a little preparedness to not have a drought in your house. When you hear there may be something happening where you may lose power just fill your bath tub with water and you have enough to last quite some time.

Oh no, this apartment does not have a bath tub and our plans do not show us putting on in the build out. Hm-m-m have to rethink what to do. Maybe a Windmill? May have to contact Wendell and see if we can buy Mom and Dad's old one off of him. No time we have an ice storm coming in and need to do something now.

5 gallon buckets should do the trick. We have 14 at the house. Oh, but they are all full of stuff; sand for sanding the drive, storing bits and pieces of stuff. Found two I can use, nope they are stuck together so really just one. Oh well, at least we will have enough water to flush one toilet one time if need be.

May have to put an oversized sink in the utility room in the build out. If we fill all the sinks in the house we should be okay.Once the pool is put in we will have lots of water but all that is down the road not helping at the moment. Am definitely taking buckets home from the rock yard for times like this.

That's One Long Door

The garage framing hasn't started yet but the main garage door was just delivered. At our last house we had a wider than usual garage door at 16 feet. Well, this door is a full 20 feet long. We don't want to worry that as we get older; with the slight turn into the garage that we will ever be close to hitting the garage wall.

Had trouble finding a place to store it where it wasn't in the way of possibly being driven over. The other garage door will be the door we are using now to park in the future house. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle that is our motto.

Another; What Was He Thinking

When Bill started taking the interior skin off the front wall of the West Wing he started seeing stuff that didn't make him real happy. It was quite evident that the roof was leaking and running down the inside of the wall. Because of the metal walls you don't see leaks unless there is rust appearing on the metal and a little leak won't show. If they were sheetrock walls you would see the leaks. So after cutting into the wall, he located the leak and up on the roof he went; again.

There appears to be one 10 foot section that is missing a piece of foam like this. The rest of the building has it, just not where the windows is going. We may find other areas without it as we progress and we now know that is one more thing we need to look for. When building a building  how would you miss important steps like this one. Especially considering he installed it everywhere else.                                                                              

First Window

After the fun of putting a hole in the wall we needed to fill it in with something. What should we do? A window, what a great idea.

Isn't this wonderful! Four feet tall, eight feet long. The two sides are sliders so we can get lots of fresh air. It's kind of boring right now but just imagine with rock on the bottom and a really cool siding on top.

Prepare, Plan, Organize

Now that the doors and windows are arriving and being put in we need to organize once again. We started out organized but over the last couple of months we have spread to fill the space. We had furniture and art work stored where the french doors in the family room are to be installed.  So back with our furniture moving muscles and packing materials to stack and organize once again. We found two pieces of furniture that were perfect for storing paintings in.

This furniture was spread all along the wall for 40 fee;t it is now all crunched together and ready to be covered for construction. It was fun going through our art work again and finding things we absolutely had to have in our apartment. That place is getting about as filled as it can be. This console table is one we call the "Shark Cage".  Normally it houses a  hand carved Great White that we got in Belize.

The First Cut

Oh my, this is exciting. It is time to start putting the windows and doors in so that after the garage is finished the stone and siding can go on. The frame work is in and ready, the interior metal skin is off, insulation pulled off and time to make that first cut into an exterior wall.

First side done and now for the second.

We had our own fireworks show. Sparklers, sparklers, sparklers.

 Mallory, Sutton, and I had the job of watching to be sure nothing caught on fire from the metal grinder cutting through the metal.

Then a big push  and we now have a hole in the wall.

Look Ma no wall!

Good thing Sutton is only 4 feet tall, if he was any taller he wouldn't fit in the window opening.

Hallway to Nowhere

We have a hallway but it goes nowhere, ends at a wall. It will ultimately go from the Trophy Room to the garage. Since we don't have the garage built yet there is no door. Things are really starting to take shape in the West Wing, we get excited every time something new happens.

 On our initial plans we showed a four foot hallway. We have lots of room so we moved it to a four and a half foot hall and are so glad we did. We will have artwork on the wall, a hall table, and a big window so we need a big space.

Now to figure out lighting.

Oh, Tannenbaum, Oh Tannnebaum

 Our one bedroom apartment is wonderful, we love it. All the space we need; except now that it it's Christmas. No room for a tree so we brought out the singing Christmas tree and the presents are under the tree.

Makes our gifts look super sized.

 

O'er the Hills of Snow

 One of the big reasons for us falling in love with Buffalo Hill were the hills. As we were looking at the property we said the kids will love to sled these hills. Our last house had one good hill but the boys had almost outgrown it. This house has world famous hills for sledding.



Even Bill and I got into the fun. Our old bodies couldn't do the jumps like the boys could.

Built snow ramps and we got real good air.

Babysitting; Buffalo Hill Style

Boys are outside sledding, girls got cold so they came in with us. What better toys than blocks of wood to stack into towers. Mallory was happy as a clam helping Pa.

Brynnlee wasn't even fazed by the noise of the saw and nailers.

Cough, Cough, Sputter, Sputter

Before working in the West Wing we hooked up the furnace that was in the area that will be the storage/work room. Previous owner said it was new and had never been turned on. Couldn't test it during the inspection because the propane had never been run to it.

It is a really good propane furnace that will more than do the job. Bill hooked it up a few weeks ago but had never turned it on except to test it. Works just fine. Puts out lots of heat, super quiet, a good little unit. As he was working this past weekend we started noticing a smell that was funny, it's a new unit must be dust in it. Had a carbon monoxide alarm in the building and it was not going off so everything is fine right? Wrong!!!!!

The previous owner had never put the propane conversion kit on the furnace so it was still set up to run on natural gas. The reason the alarm wasn't going off is that it is such a big area the carbon monoxide was being spread out. On Sunday the alarm started going off. Sunday night Bill mentions that his legs are cramping is this a sign of carbon monoxide poising? Yes Bill, the CO2 was eating the oxygen cells in your body.

We have now taken the furnace completely apart, it will go to a car wash for everything to be cleaned and hopefully the furnace is salvageable. This is now twice that Bill came close to serious injury or death due to the way the previous owner did things.

Snow Days=Work Days

These last few days of snow and ice were the perfect time to get the building started. Bill picked up enough lumber to get do the storage/workroom walls. Not a lot of extra work space since we need to be inside to do everything. Temperatures in the teens are not conducive to cutting boards outside.

 Here is the start of the wall between the storage/work room and the Trophy room. There are already beans and such in place from the previous owner and we are following those lines. No need to redo what is already done. We are just designing around the existing.
 

 Bill needs to put short studs above the metal beam so when we add the sheet rock it will be a seamless wall.








Now to get the new framing nailer out and start putting studs in.

Finished wall, have to leave two studs out so we can get into the room until the garage is done and the entry door is put in. We do not want to have to squeeze between 16 inch center studs every time we need a tool.







This is the beginning of the hallway going from the Trophy room to the garage. There will be a big window looking out at our view and a door at the end going into the garage.Have to start thinking what kind of lighting I want in the hall because we are putting our art work from South Beach on this long wall. Do we want sconces or eyeball cans? There will also be a small table in the hall. It is a wide hallway. No reason to scrimp on space.

Family Fun

Bill got his new tool out to start putting up walls and we all had to get in on the fun. 

Driving nails into concrete. Not every grandparent comes up with this fun family activity.

Sutton wielding the hammer to hit the top of the tool for the .22 (without lead) to explode and pushs the nail into the wood and then the concrete. Gotta wear that ear protection!

 Momma can't let the kids have all the fun. Tiffany had to show them that she is a macho woman. You can't just tap the tool you have to whack it hard. Then you hear the gunpowder explode and see the smoke. If any of us were involved in a crime we would definitely test positive for gun powder residue.

 Fingers in the ears standing on the scissorlift watching Mom.

Wyatt is our super strong boy and just took one try to get the nail in the floor. Took me three tries to get the confidence that I would hit the tool and not my hand.

 Little sisters watching the big boys work.