My Mommy. (Oh, and some house stuff, too!)

It's been a while, I know- but I have a good excuse! My mother was visiting us last week, and work on the house slowed down a bit. But not completely. Before she arrived I spent the weekend cleaning, trying to tidy up our construction zone. Sam did some finishing touches, like hanging the door to the downstairs coat closet. That's the door on the right, here. The door on the left wasn't actually hung, because frustratingly it's a couple of inches shorter than the coat-closet door, and would look weird. So we'll have to use it somewhere else, and buy a new one for the bathroom downstairs. (We're trying to re-use as much as we can!)


He also put up the OSB in the bathroom, so that you can no longer see straight into the bedroom from the kitchen. It was nice that he did this, because my mom slept there while she was here, and it gave her a smidgin more privacy!


The Saturday before my my mom arrived, our friend Jerrod came down to hang out in Sam's cool garage. We thought it'd be nice if he could park in the garage. So Sam pulled his truck up, and Jerrod pulled his in. Sam was pretty pleased that with no effort at all our garage could accommodate 1 Toyota truck, 1 Land Cruiser, 1 1968 Dodge Charger, 1 VW, and 2 quads + camping gear (on lift). Nifty!



Then they got down to some serious fun, and put the Charger up on the lift. They thought it was fun, anyway! I went to cook dinner. :)


Then my mom arrived! We did all kinds of fun things (like going to the zoo and seeing the spectacular polar bear exhibit), and all kinds of normal things that were fun just because I was doing them with her (like going grocery shopping). She got to meet some friends and see some family, and Karen & David, some dear friends of my family from way back, came down to help us celebrate her birthday in style. It was a good time.


Because my mom wasn't interested in jumping the chasm from one landing to another to go see the cupola, Sam kindly finished the stairs. So now the fantastic stairwell is complete!




Looking up from the bottom...


... and looking down from the top!


Then, since he was on a stair- roll, while my mom was staying with us he built the steps up to where the bedrooms are.


These steps were a particular kind of pain in the neck, since he had to work around all kinds of pipes. (The ones in the foreground are obvious, but waaay in the back there are more. This picture was taken through the steps from inside the laundry room, on the right side of them.)


It came in very handy to have those steps to the bedrooms, given that while mom was sleeping in our old room, we were sleeping in our new room:


I know it might look a tad spartan (albeit huge!) in the picture, but it feels luxurious. There is a lovely cool breeze coming up off the canyon, and when we wake up in the morning we're greeted by a gorgeous view:


Since my mom left on Sunday, Sam has been very busy with all kinds of small annoying details. But the inspector passed us on our last inspection!

The plumber has been working on finishing up, including a bunch of pipes (which don't make for terribly interesting pictures, as we've seen!), and installing the shower in the downstairs bathroom...


Sam also built the step to connect the two levels of the cupola... I think that might be the last stair he needs to build!


He also is learning electrical. (Is there anything that boy can't do??) He phones the electrician from time to time if he has a question, but he's wired up the lights in the laundry room...


... and is working on doing the ones above the stairs. Sometimes, though, it's just nice to sit on the stairs and rest.


Today Sam the plasterer should be stopping by to get started on stucco-ing the last bit of the house! And although we should've had the windows last week, we don't. It's a long sob story. But we hope to have at least the frames for them this week, so stay tuned!