COMING RIGHT ALONG

I don't have a whole lot of pictures to post on today's entry since our Contractor is focused more on the job details then being my personal photographer. (Imagine that!) I've said before that he is a first class guy, a perfectionist and a master craftsman who has proven himself over and over again that he can be trusted. Yesterday he responded to an e mail I had sent and sent me a picture he had taken with his phone. At first, since I was looking at it on my smart phone it didn't seem any different from the pictures I posted on my previous blog entry. Those pictures were from our Realtor/Property management guy. I e mailed it to myself and once I downloaded it onto the computer, I caught a small detail. He has all of the granite for the hearth pad, which means it is much further along than I had previously thought!

The corner is being "sketched out", the slabs of granite are stacked beside it and the new wood stove is still enclosed in its packaging.

The corner where the new stove is going to be placed. This is before the walls were painted and the dining room was set up.

In this photo the walls are painted, the dining room is set up and the corner where the new stove is going in is off in the distance.

We bought the house as a foreclosure last August, but the previous owners had listed it five years earlier and our Realtor sent me the link that also included the pictures from that listing. We are taking the house in such a radically different direction!! The dining room where we are having the stove installed was their living room and this picture is before they laid the Pergo flooring and made a few other changes. For us, using this room as the dining room makes more sense.

This picture was from the second time they listed the house, three years ago. They had made some changes but were still using it as their living room. I have to wonder what they would think if they could see the house now?

Four weeks from this Saturday we will be at the house and Dave will lay eyes on it, in person for the very first time. It will be nearly one year since the day that we bought it, the house has come a long way in that year! At that time, the stove installation will be finished and the downstairs will almost be done. We still need some additional trim installed and the Wal-Mart type bookcases that are fastened to the wall in the office will be ripped out and new built in bookcases will take their place. We are having a new concrete porch and some reworking of exterior electrical work done as well. My guess is that, that work will begin after the stove is finished since they can get snow as early as September. The upstairs work will begin after the first of the year. It's hard to believe that so much has been accomplished, soon the only thing left will be for Dave to retire!

QUIET PART TWO

Just a little follow up from yesterday. Our Realtor/Property Management guy stopped out at the house yesterday to check on the yard. We had received a notice from Flathead County about noxious weeds; it was our 3rd notice, the first 2 having gone to a wrong address. Our guy had lined up lawn care for us at the beginning of summer so I contacted him to straighten everything out for us. He is on top of it and while he was out there photographing the yard, he went inside the house and took a few pictures. I had just written yesterday that I was eager for our Contractor to start on the wood flooring in the downstairs guest bedroom, so imagine my delight when I received these pictures!!

The flooring is installed and I love the new knotty pine door and lock set that he installed. I'm assuming that the ceiling is patched and that the wall is finished as well; he's very meticulous and thorough. My first order of business once we're there next month is to clean this room well and then move the guest bed and dresser in here. Can you say excited?

The next thing I saw in his photos is that the new wood stove is at the house and ready to be installed! Once the hearth slab is in, he will begin this project. I am eager to see the final results!

He also sent me another photo of the kitchen now that the back splash installation has been completed (in May). I am eager to cook our first meal for Dave and I in our Sweet Montana Home!! We are also planning our first "dinner party" next month, inviting our Realtor/Property Management guy, our wonderful Contractor and their better halves!!

A little sneak peek of what's going on 1800+ miles away! I can't wait!

QUIET

Things have been pretty quiet here lately since the downstairs guest bedroom remodel has required a lot of prep work. With the tile drain now installed to channel the rain and snow melt away from the house, it is no longer backing into the guest bedroom. Our contractor patched the ceiling where we had an "issue" and smoothed out the wall where the previous owners had enclosed a doorway. He also finished the molding and trim work, installed a door and picked up the new lockset I had ordered.

(I repainted the bedroom ceiling last October except for the area that needed to be repaired. We've also had a new ceiling fan installed.)

The next step will be the new wood flooring. Our decision was both easy and difficult at the same time. Dave is a HUGE fan of Bamboo with it's woven strands and epoxy making it much more durable than more inexpensive "Pergo-type" flooring. We had Bamboo installed in the Family Room remodel and absolutely love it, so selecting Bamboo was the easy part. Due to the existing wood in the bedroom's built in's and the need to transition from the oak "Pergo-style" flooring in the office area outside the doorway, the hard part was choosing the color. After making our choice and placing the order, it took about a month for the company to get the materials in and then another 10 days to have them shipped to Montana from the warehouse in California.The Contractor told me that the flooring is beautiful and I can't wait for him to get started!

(Our flooring choice.)

However before the flooring could be laid, our Contractor had to not only seal the floor, he had to level it! He sent me these pictures and I was surprised to see how unlevel the floor was in some areas!

(I ordered 2 of these rugs for the guest bedroom.)

Along with all of the prep work for the bedroom, we ordered our second wood stove, this one will go into the dining room. We made the decision shortly after we bought the house that we should have a back up heat source in the wintertime, just in case we lose power. We bought another KUMA brand wood stove, this one (the Ashwood model) is larger than the wood stove we had installed in the Family Room.

(We ordered it without the pedestal, it sits on cast iron legs.)

Our Contractor is going to bring a slab from the quarry to use for our hearth pad underneath the stove. He sent me these pictures so I could choose but I ended up leaving the final choice with him! He made a great choice for the Family Room hearth and any of these will look great!!

We have a new washer and dryer being delivered on August 26th and we have 2 rocking chairs and a small table being delivered while we are at the house next month.

I can't wait to put these chairs and the table on the front porch of our Sweet Montana Home and greet the morning with a cup of coffee in hand, listening to the birds singing and the wind in the trees!