Good house keeping

Good house keeping

Celebrating Charlie Day

Charles Barkley turned 13 this week, 12 of those as my housemate. He's still every bit the Charles. Why, just last evening he valiantly and awkwardly rose to Lucy's defense as we were all walking along a greenbelt. However, I'm proud that he went through the whole renovation without incident with any of the workers. The only thing 13 about him are is lanky hips, but he keeps on trucking as best an old dog can. He's a loyal friend to all that earn their way into his inner circle, he self-appointedly keeps us safe, he keeps Lucy entertained (and keeps the deep recesses of her ears clean), he doesn't fetch. Happy birthday bud!

Oh Christmas tree

Cutting down your Christmas tree in TX means being able to do it in a t-shirt. We did this last weekend out near Elgin. It was everything you could ask for. A hay ride, a donkey, trees, toy trains, cider and helper kids with tree allergies wheezing through the day.

Here are our stockings hung by the hallway with care.


It's not easy to see any detail well in this picture, let alone the little owl on top of the tree. We have a lot of screech owls and an occasional barred owl in our hood, so we topped our tree with a tribute.

A touch of fall in TX

It's a crisp cool morning in Austin and we just came in from a walk during which Jes did a little swinging.

When we got home, Charlie surveyed the yard from the new porch.

I was waiting for a good progress point for some updates

And, here they are...

First the front. If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you'll be able to see the new door better.

Now, we've walked down the drive to the back for 2 shots.




Back around front and inside the front door. The pine box is our old kitchen cum laundry room.



This is the hallway into the kitchen.

Jes playing house as I enter the kitchen.

And here, I'm standing in what will soon be the eating nook (under the loft) looking out into the cooking part of the kitchen.


And finally, here are a few pics (bad light) of the bedroom and new bathroom.


The shower and bathroom.

Jes's eggplant & beat dinner

Jes's eggplant & beat dinner

1st art

We got our cabinets fully installed this weekend, so the kitchen is really coming together. Also, we're putting out some of our stuff (as opposed to contractor's tools and cardboard boxes). Here you can see the first piece of art to be hung. Our wedding gift from Tom. I wish it could tell it's own story of what does glass art do to survive construction, it's a different tale than any of the boxes of "stuff" would have.

Also, we went to Mandola's Vineyard for Jes's birthday, click here for some pics from that

Progress

We moved back in Yesterday. It's good to be home and down to a single rent check. We're very close to having the interior done for all but the new bedroom. Here are the latest pics.

New AC installed and chillin (plug... done by Steve and Don of Total Comfort. Call them w/ all your HVAC needs!)

Speaking of chillin, here's my neighbor Amy enjoying her new lawn. Hi Amy!

The blue floored laundry room and on-demand hot water heater are in... you can set the water temp on the fly if you want really hot for laundry and then a bit cooler for other stuff.

The stained glass is installed and lighting up the hall

And the wood wall that wraps the laundry room is going up. Using a spacer to open the seams and then assembling them so the grooves go around the corner proved to be more complicated than it sounded in my head. You can see the pocket door inside the wall (I recycled the old back door by filling in the knob holes and a cat door in the bottom all with wood and bondo and sanding, lots of sanding...)

Ceiling in main staircase is framed

Don't I wish. April fools in October! I went, with Matt, to this house that's been under construction for the last 5 years and still has about 4 to go. The upside down Christmas tree is a place holder for a large chandelier. Here are a couple of other pics. Suffice it to say, it's a little over the top.

Kitchen is beginning to shine

Here's a pic of our skeletal cabinetry (dressed for Halloween?) and the newly laid Raging Kiwi floors. And... Mike the contractor's butt as he puts the last tiles into place. The wood floors look great too. We had a nice Friday evening happy hour of looking through the dining area window and watching Mike work while dreaming about the very-near-future of living in this house.

Here's a view through the "gallery" (Architect-speak) from the Kitchen into the living room, and you can see the refreshed floors, the new blue walls (a Jes original!) and the delicious new front door (soon to have a door knob). Mmmmmm!

Just add color

Ken the painter stainer... Actually this is more akin to a publicity shot because Jes did the vast majority of the staining. She also cut all the boards for the new wood floors (made from recycled wood from the house) that we installed in the old bathroom.

Future bathroom furniture, this is part of what we're going to use as a bathroom vanity. It's an Ikea, butcher block, kitchen cart. The lesson from this is Ikea uses pretty cheap wood, so the stain ended up a bit blotchy. We'll see.

Here's the new, and final window. The reflections of the trees in it it, from the exterior, looks like we have an outdoor plasma screen showing the Nature Channel 24/7.

The painters were in all weekend and for the beginning of this week. Wednesday, the floors will be started. It will really start to look "done" by the coming weekend.

Good neighbor

Good neighbor? We've got 2 signs, two storage pods, a 6' chain link fence for a dog run, a massive pile of scrap lumber, and a port-o-john on the front lawn. What more could a neighbor ask for? (You can see the "box" peeking over the roof.)

Click

James has contacts, and here he is modeling them.

And now a deck

The deck is in and, since this picture, the roof over the porch has gone up and the siding on the south end (bedroom) has been put up. The electrical is getting installed this weekend. Our stained glass arrived and looks good. We've been shopping for showers and faucets and will be ordering them this weekend. I've spent this morning thinking about how we'll get up into the loft. I like the cabinet / steps this guy built, and think it would be fun to have a little kitchen desk / cubby that can be stepped on.

Stained glass

We bought this 22"x10" stained glass window on eBay to span the top of the wall at the end of the old hallway. We had made an offer on another, more square shaped one, and then immediately found this one listed. Of course, we ended up "winning" on both bids, and this posting almost became a "stained glass for sale" ad. However, the seller of the extra window was cool about it (after some e-mailing) , so we have just the amount of stained glass we desire. I mention the stained glass number two story as a reminder to myself that there are people I've never met who aren't complete asses. Now, I just hope they vote...

Melissa's wine tasting birthday

Melissa's wine tasting birthday with the troops ready for action.

Loft!

Loft! New plumbing, new bathroom, and so much other stuff too, but this was the best picture.

Living room "gallery" through to kitchen

Living room "gallery" through to kitchen is open

4 people 4 lines

We expanded the definition of Haiku a bit so all of us could participate in the game. 5.5.7.5.
Each person writes a line without seeing preceding ones. We like to gussy up "to go" box covers while waiting on the check.

Windows are going in

The big windows are going in.
Update - the reason that the middle one is missing is because the manufacturer is going to rebuild it. The one we got delivered was built backwards. To fit the hole, it would have the in side, out.

My stolen bike is replaced

After shopping, dropping the topic and shopping some more, I settled on a bike. Today was my first commute to work on it and I'm really happy with the speed and nimble feel. I got a Gary Fisher Monona. It was built to be a commuter bike through and through. This is a nice ending to the loss I was feeling from my bike getting stolen out of the Whole Foods Garage. I hate bike thieves, and I wish the stolen bike serial numbers would be made available on the web by the police, so it would be harder to sell them. "Seller beware, you might get punched in the nose." Nice ring to it, huh?

View from the back yard

It's getting harder to capture anything meaningful with the camera. It's all so big at this point.

Chili is now known as Grayson

Chili Chasteen is born!

Men @ work. Adding roof decking.

Men @ work. Adding roof decking.

Roof rafters are going up

Roof rafters are going up despite the Edwardo threat. A false threat so far, but I don't want to taunt him.

Wood on the walls

Now that I see the walls getting closed in, maybe I really wanted them to be clear? Just kidding. I have a feeling that today's progress will be slow and the day was spent "battening down the hatches" in preparation for tropical storm Edwardo.

Catherine's house is our house

We're renting our friend Catherine's fully furnished house for two months, we moved in today. She was nice enough to vacate over to her fella's house to make room for us. Catherine is an art conservator and from an art-family. I'm having a great time just sitting on her couch and looking at her stuff. This will be fun, not only because working from home / dogs / construction guys don't mix, but I get to explore some else's books and music collection all the while.

Here's part of my view from her couch, I'm looking forward to long talks with the apparently Picasso inspired snake hunter to the left of the fireplace: