Update from the road...

As of 10am this morning the truck had just entered Indiana. Not sure if they'll try to make it to CT tonight. We'll have to see how it goes. By my calculations they are about 800 miles from Litchfield.

Update on the Cabinet Move...

On Wednesday Bernadette left Jackson Hole around 1pm en route to Denver to pick up her brother at the airport. According to Eric, Ben almost didn't make it to Denver because his original flight was cancelled. Ben ended up flying standby and making it to Denver. Bernadette piloted the truck through a hairy Hoback Canyon in Wyoming, but made it to Denver, picked up Ben and then the two of them drove to Sterling, CO, where they spent the night. Day one completed. I got a picture from Bernadette on Thursday morning fueling up in Sterling. I'm not sure where they all got to last night, but as of 9pm eastern time they were in Iowa City, Iowa, and still moving.

Back at the house things have been going on as usual. Jess finished the hardwood floors yesterday. They look great. I've had the week off from work and have been able to help Jess. Miranda has been spending a lot of time at Nammie and Papa's this week. Grandparents right down the driveway are pretty wonderful. The interior doors have been painted and Jess was starting to hang them yesterday. I got all the outlet and switch covers on yesterday. Pretty much Jess is going to push ahead with doors and interior trim. We still have to put tile in the upstairs bathroom, and finish off the plumbing and final electrical, but we sure are getting closer to moving in. We are planning on picking up the cabinet truck in Litchfield, CT on Sunday and Jess will drive them up to Shelburne. The appliances are scheduled to be delivered on January 8th. I ordered the vanity counter tops yesterday and they should arrive in a couple of weeks. It's all coming together. Here are some photos of the floors, and of Ben fueling up in Sterling, CO.

Ben in Sterling, CO
living room
kitchen
beautiful view off the balcony

The Truck is on its way!

Today is the day Bernadette leaves Jackson, WY headed to Denver. Her plan is to pick up her brother Ben in Denver today. He is flying from Boston and they will co-pilot the truck together from there. Word from Jackson was that the cabinets rolled out of there around 1pm their time. Here are a couple of photos of Bernadette with her new friend, a 20+ foot moving truck. Yee Haw!

Ready to go!
Our Hero!

Some holiday magic...

The story of our cabinets just got a new cast member. The cabinets for the house already involved family. My brother is a cabinet maker, which is a handy thing if you're building a house. Although some of that handiness kind of goes away when your cabinet maker brother lives in Wyoming and your new house is being built in Vermont. Of course there are ways to get things from point A to point B in America. There is a price to pay though, and some of those prices were pretty expensive. We were prepared to pay these prices until our latest hero entered the scene. It seems that it is rather cheap to rent a 24' truck for a one way trip from Jackson, WY to Burlington, VT. So the driver recruitment was the only problem. Enter Bernadette Buck. By day she works at an investment company in downtown Boston, but starting next Wednesday she'll take on the role of a long-haul trucker. My brother, Eric, convinced Bernadette (who was visiting Jackson for the holidays) that instead of enduring a grueling six hour flight back to Boston wouldn't she rather drive a 24' truck across the country in the deep of winter. The truck would be containing our cabinets and some cabinets for Bernadette's brother, Ben (who is my brother's brother in-law). It seems that Bernadette was up for a bit of an adventure. And so the story begins. One truck, one woman, one country to drive across. Check back, we'll be blogging the progress starting 12/26/07.

Winter is here....

It's beginning to seem like a Wyoming winter here in Vermont. Tons of snow, cold temps, not quite the best house building weather. Luckily most of the work is indoors these days. What isn't finished on the outside is just going to have to wait until spring. Really there isn't that much, mostly just a bit of siding here and there and a few other things that surely can wait until the snow melts. The house looks pretty cool these days surrounded by a blanket of white. We're in the middle of a big storm right now, and there must be at least two feet of snow on the ground. We took our holiday photo today in the middle of this snow storm. At this time last year we took our photo on the grass in the middle of the field where the house sits now. There was no snow then, and definitely no house. How things change. The latest from 199 Coyote Run is that the interior trim is going up, the slate is finished on the first floor, and the install on the hardwood floors starts tomorrow. Here are some photos of our snowy, soon to be home.

Jess and Miranda plowing the new snow over at Helen and Paul's.

Jess took a break from shoveling to pose for a photo.
snowy
The downstairs bathroom, with a working toilet.
The mudroom, this slate is down in the powder room, mudroom, master bath, and the front entry.
Ow, my paws are cold.

First Snow

We got a couple of inches of snow last night, and the sun was out today. This seemed like perfect conditions to go take some photos of the house. Jess was working on the siding on the backside of the house today, and he was almost done with the outside kitchen wall when I went by at lunch. I took some photos of the door hardware and the hardwood flooring, and of course a photo or two of Levi. Here they are.

the view off the balcony

hardwood flooring

door hardware on the doors out to the balcony

bored, and cold dog

I wasn't trying to be artistic, I just didn't notice that the camera was in black and white mode.

south

north

west

Jess pausing for a quick photo.

When it's all done, this will be, "the house that Jess built".

Almost there....

I just checked to see when the last time I posted was. It seems that we've been a bit busy lately. Jess is spending almost every waking moment at the house. Since the last post a lot has been completed. The biggest of those things was the completion of the sheetrock. Not being able to see through walls is a cool thing. The sheetrock has been up for a couple of weeks now, and the entire house has been primed, and has at least one coat of finish paint. The garage doors are installed. The front door is stained (thanks to Jess' mom). We also took all the plastic off the windows, including the protective stuff that's been there for months now. That was a big deal because we could finally see through the windows like we will when we move in. 1700 square feet of hardwood floor arrived on Friday, and is ready to be installed. The cabinets are under construction, and should be ready to ship from Wyoming (my brother is building them) sometime in early December. The move in date was supposed to be Christmas, but it will most likely be a bit later. There is still some exterior stuff to be completed, the floors put down, interior trim, interior doors, and the finish plumbing and electrical to be completed. For now the house is heated, there is a toilet that works, and we have hot water. Someday we will actually wake up there, make a pot of coffee, look out the windows and realize that we're home. Until then, we work hard, especially Jess, and we wait. Here are some photos of the latest from Coyote Run.

The front door, come on in.

The view out of the living room windows.

Through the french doors that lead out onto the balcony.

The garage even looks big with Jess' truck in it.

living room

That's the view out of the kitchen.

more soon.....

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The First of the Shingles...

Jess often says that this isn't the cheapest or easiest house to build, but it will look damn good. It's true, the details are cool, and it's coming together beautifully. Today when I went by at lunch the first gable was shingled, and it's a very nice look. To date the decking is completely done, and the next round of sheetrock showed up yesterday. I think Jess is going to wait until the weather turns until they start again with the drywall. I don't think it will hurt to let their bodies rest a bit from that. It looks like tough work. The leaves are starting to change around here, and we'll be wondering how our view of the lake and mountains will change once the leaves fall. Levi has a new friend on the job site, Jade. She is Mason's (Mason is Jess' new worker) dog, and like Levi she's from the West. They are getting along well. She seems to like to hunt mice in the field and also howls when the air compressor kicks on. Silly dog. Here are some photos of the decks, the shingles, and of course, the new dog on site.

Damn that looks good!
Master bedroom deck
back deck
another view of the front
New dog Jade

Sheetrock!

The first sheetrock showed up last week which was pretty cool. Jess worked on Saturday and got about half the ceiling done in the garage. Yesterday they almost finished up the rest of the garage walls. Right now the plan is when the weather is nice to do exterior siding and trim, and when it rains(which it hasn't much here) to move inside and work on the drywall. Our grass is coming in really nice despite the lack of rain. Here are some photos of the latest from 199.

The garage insulated and ready for sheetrock

Jess and Jermaine placing a sheet onto the ceiling. The drywall lift helps make this a lot easier.

Jess admiring his work.

Jess and Mason placing a sheet on the wall. As always Levi supervises.

The front of the house is looking good. The garage doors are ordered and on their way.

watering our lawn.

We've turned a corner....

It seemed like for a long time not much was changing about the house. I have to say that I didn't have much enthusiasm towards posting new blog entries. But things are looking different over at 199 Coyote Run lately, and it's about time we updated everyone on the latest progress. Now there is siding on some of the house, the roof is complete, one of the first floor decks now has decking, the plumbing, heating, and electrical are completely roughed in, and today the insulation guys showed up. The balcony is also done, in fact, I enjoyed a very nice sunset from it tonight. The property has also been graded, seeded, and covered with hay. We did that a few weeks ago, in the course of two days 200 bales of hay got spread over the property to cover all of the grass seed that was put down. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

The property got nicely graded by the excavators.

This is how the hay was spread. That machine is like a hay gun. 200 bales, that's a lot of hay to shoot.

This was Jess' idea on how to spread grass seed. He drove the ATV while Ben sat on the back spreading the seed. Levi supervised.

Miranda having fun in the house.

Levi hanging out at the front door.

That's the front entry, and the side of the garage to the left. The siding is a cement product, and came pre-painted.

The balcony had to be dealt with just like it was a roof because there is a covered deck below. The decking sits on top of a floating frame that is glued to a waterproof membrane that covers the whole deck. The balcony is sloped, and has drains that run out of the floor and down the columns on the deck below.

That's the brain of the heating and plumbing system for the house.

Insulation in Miranda's room.

South side of the house was getting sided today.

The balcony

This is the radiant floor heating tubing. It was my job to staple all of those aluminum plates onto the subfloor.

Jess on the balcony at sunset.

Another beautiful sunset over our future home.