Eleventh Week Continues To Move Along Nicely

The eleventh week was exciting because we really started seeing the house becoming closer to being a home.

Just as important, we are beginning to see first hand why our builder has such a good reputation for building quality homes.  It is evident everywhere you look.  Equally important to mention is that the contractors not only know what they are doing and do it well, they all think the sun rises and sets on Gary Salathe and Martin Murphy of Alternative Design Build.  For contractors to say they 'love working with them because they are the best' reassures us that we have the best possible house we could have built.

That said, here are some photos taken during the week;

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday 

Thursday

Friday

Tenth Week Was Very Exciting

It's funny how time can be both blistering fast and agonizingly slow at the same time.  This week was completely full of both, but I'm here to tell you it was exciting all the way.

As of late Saturday, the cabinets were installed, the trim and molding installed, the garage door installed, and about 90% of the brick installed.

Yes, only 90%.  And that was because the brick masons ran out of brick.  Now they have to return and get all their gear set up, to knock out the last 10%.  As fast as they are, they can do it in a day or less, but running out of brick was probably not in their plans for a perfect week.

A couple of minor issues with pocket doors and a slightly too large refrigerator cabinet was corrected quickly, and most of the construction debris was picked up.  It still looks like a ...... don't get me started about how messy construction sites can be.

Meanwhile, we already purchased our refrigerator and will now buy the wine chiller for the beverage center.

The office furniture we found on Craig's List was just too good 'a quality to cut up for our home-office, so we sold it, actually at a profit, but still a great deal to the people who purchased it for their business.  I plan to build exactly what we want for our home-office, and it won't look like the offices at a branch bank.

I also happened on a really nice quality Treadmill which I plan to set up in the garage/shop/gym/and hang-out room.  Yes, the garage is so nice being over-sized and very prominent, it will likely be the new hangout when Judy and I are working on projects.  So much so that I plan to have A/C ducts extended into the garage.

Finally, we closed out the week by being invited to the Terra Mariae quarterly luncheon for residents. It was fun and we got to meet a lot more of our neighbors.  Yes, I took photos and made them into a video.  Here's the link:  Terra Mariae Luncheon

Here are a few photos of the week's progress on the house.

Down To Two Big Green Eggs

When we got our first Big Green Egg in 1999, we never thought that one day we would own three Eggs, much less six of them.  But by 2016 we owned six.

When we made the decision to 'downsize' our lives and move closer to family in Louisiana, we decided that two Big Green Eggs were enough.

So we gave away Lily, our oldest, to a neighbor who expressed interest in ceramic cooking.  Lily had been diagnosed with a seriously cracked base, fire pit and fire ring, all of which I repaired with some PC7 epoxy, and she was able to continue on as a great cooker.  Even so, I thought she may not survive the rigors of moving in a very rough/bumpy moving van.  So Neighbor Mark took her under his wing and he quickly let me know that she was performing well.

When we sold our house, we thought it important to give the buyers Maggie Mini so they could start off being Eggheads.  After all, they were not only buying a house but were getting the famous Chicken Coop which they planned to continue using as an outdoor kitchen.

When I cooked some Magnum Loads for them to try, plus show them how to fire up and cook on a Big Green Egg, they immediately wanted to buy the Large Egg.

So, three down and three to go.

An Egghead friend from Jacksonville, Florida wanted to buy Mini-Maxine but he lived too far away to come get her.  But Hurricane Irma forced him to evacuate to Mobile, only two hours away from our new hometown of Covington, Louisiana.  He let us know that he was coming take Maxine to a new home.  They arrived over the weekend and were thrilled to get her, almost as much as Maxine was happy to be off to a new adventure.

I treated them with some Magnum Loads, and they brought us some delicious BBQ from The Shed in Ocean Springs, Misssissippi.  The ribs had to be the best I've had in a long time.

No photo of the BBQ they brought, but trust me - it was delicious.

So we are now down to two Eggs: Lola Large and Shirley Small.  We hope to end up with two Large Eggs in the New Coop we plan to build at New House.

It was great to see Gene and Tanya again, and to meet their two sons, Grant and Graham.  

And I guess a road trip to Ocean Springs for some BBQ is in our future.

9th Week - The Parts Keep Falling Into Place

Probably the one thing that stands out for this week is the partial clean-up of construction debris.  It was such an eyesore that it took the fun out of seeing all the other progress.

The problem was apparently due to the huge dumpster's rear door not being closed properly.  Any attempt to haul the dumpster away would have resulted in its contents falling out the back.  It was corrected the hard way, by hand-removing tons of debris enough to lock the door in place.

It was then hauled away and the dumpster quickly started to grow again.

Meanwhile, the drywall crew finished their work, followed by the texturing and painting crew, the trim crew, and even the garage attic stairs installer.

There's still more to do to finish up the trim, but things are moving right along.

There's no official estimate on when we can actually move in but some of the neighbors are saying we could be ready to move in by early December.  That would be great, but we don't want to rush any important steps, possibly causing one step to be done poorly or missed entirely.  And All of them are important enough to be done right.  Fortunately, our builder thinks the same way.

Bricking starts next week.

Here are a few photos of the week:

Monday

Tuesday 

Wednesday   (waiting for drywall mud to dry

Thursday

Friday 

Saturday