Patio - Part Two

My patio secret is Sankrete Patio Sand. James dug out all the weeds and the dirt between the stones that grew prolific weeds. He then spread the sand between the stones and blew the excess off the top. Once it was as close to perfect as we strive for, he wet the whole patio. After 24 hours, it turns to a concrete product that won't let weeds grow.

We are currently in the "don't walk on it for 24 hours" stage, so we have it elaborately blocked off. I'm just thrilled to mark off "weed the patio" from my chore list!

                                                           Jenny

THE Wall

JD's big house project for some time has been THE WALL. The wall is actually four walls, with the largest going from the front, along the side and wraps around the back of the house. JD ran out of bricks and had to order another 500; it is likely that he will have to place one more order. The wall is on break now so that he can get the footers in for the future deck as well as the wiring for the electricity to be run. After the breaker boxes are up, the siders can come and finish the last wall. Then the wall will get a bit higher, but lifting the 60 pound blocks is easy compared to the digging, leveling and graveling.

Here's the front (obviously) where the one wall starts. The first is way up by the actual house and the second is between the second and third garage doors.

 

Here's wall three and four running along the side; there had to be two because each one can only have so many feet of dirt exposed, etc, so they have to stair step.

This is the back where the side walls just kept on running.

I guess we will plant bushes along the area between the walls; it has the potential of being very pretty.

Up close picture of a wall built by a bit of a "building perfectionist". He's a pro with the level. Since the heat index is over 100 today, it's good that the major wall work is done!

                                                                                                      Jenny

Garage Update

 It's been a long time since I've shown the garage progress; it has been very slow the last few months. We are picking back up courtesy of another loan, (sigh). Here is the monstrosity from the front porch -

We have siders hired that worked one day before Christmas,but should be back full time in the next few days until it is done.

Here is the enclosed walkway from garage to house that the county required of us; if we had not, the garage apartment would have been considered a separate house.

I'm ok with how the outside is going to look, but I'm super excited about the inside practicality. The room on the upper level is going to be the shoe room, where all shoes will live in harmony and not come in the house. There will be ceiling to floor shelves and each person will have their own section.

These are the stairs going down from the shoe room to the "breezeway" below the garage. That is going to be the boot room, where all rain and mud boots live in harmony and don't come up the stairs!

 Here is the first stall of the garage where JD is, for the first time in 25 years of marriage, actually fixing a car in a garage. The Escape is rather a money pit, but it's also our only 4 wheel drive vehicle, the perfect animal feed and straw hatch-back, and Moriah's preferred drive to work, so we are once again dumping nearly two grand into it.

Second and third stalls of the garage, filled with siding and wood.

There will be a separate tool room in the back of the garage along with a bonus 1/2 bath.

Here is the stairwell to the upstairs apartment; it has a separate entrance from the back side of the garage.

going up -

The upstairs is one large open kitchen, dining area and living room.

The back is divided into two bedrooms and a bathroom. 

Here's the view from the sliding glass door and future deck - our unfinished cow pasture. One day...

10 Years - Part 4

I'm concluding my 10 year series with a quick recap of the house progress the last 6.5 years. When we moved in moments before Elijah was born, the basement was just a shell and several things upstairs were not completed. The boys were designated to have the downstairs bedrooms, but every child other than Moriah, has moved bedrooms at least once since we moved in. Moriah is currently waiting to move down to Alei's room once Alei moves to the garage apartment that we are getting ready to break ground on. 

This was the pile of dirt that we had from digging the basement -

 It took 35 truckloads to have it all removed, in spite of the kids really enjoying "the dirt mountain".

  
JD kept up his work pace to get the downstairs bedrooms done. The bathroom did not follow for about three years however.

  
The remainder of the basement was finished slowly over the next several years. We honestly just finished the major building of it last winter and are still finishing the final touches this winter. Everything takes longer and costs more than one can ever dream!

A major part of the work was installing the Geothermal lines in the ceiling. 

Gabriel helping back in the day of long hair

 Shorty after Elijah was born, Aunt Deb moved back from overseas and came for a visit. Since Julia was a very high needs two year old and Elijah wanted me to hold him constantly, Debs decided to delay getting a job in America and stay for a while. Thankfully, that while lasted a full year!

Debra and Elijah 2008

 I was thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that we were able to grow some grass in 2009; mowing grass seemed like a glorious chore!

 
The pool and playground were now located in our front yard, but continued to draw a crowd.
 

Other than just finishing, we have done some other major projects. We installed a wood burning stove and chimney that I LOVE.

We have also built raised garden beds, put in a pasture fence and JD finished the "chicken mansion" this summer - 
 

We finally broke down and paid an excellent carpenter to finish the screened in porch and build built in shelves in the TV room and a TV cabinet in the playroom.

the new TV that JD waited patiently for for 6 years

the old TV in a new built in corner cabinet in the playroom

 I am currently working on the playroom reorganize and redecorate. I ditched the Kelley green carpet, painted the floor and bought a new rug. I also added another Ikea cube shelf to further organize the toys. My next job is to work on hanging pictures in the entire basement. I'm going hang the children's art in the playroom.

The upstairs living room and school room are always a work in progress, but I'm pleased with how life in running in those rooms at the moment -

living room - yes, toys seem to end up everywhere

school room

 I still have painting to do; there's always painting. There will be lots more painting when we move the three bedrooms again once the garage is built.

 And now we are nearing ground breaking on our next building project - our garage and Alei's apartment. She has been buying things for her new home and lining her hallway with them; it's practically a fire hazard at this point.

Our August So Far

 This August has been the best weather I have ever remembered - yesterday, the high was around 80. We are thoroughly enjoying our finished screened in porch and are able to eat out there most nights; when I took this picture, it was raining hard. I will find it a complete bummer to have to eat inside this winter.

  
When I went back and calculated the date I bred Leia, I realized that she is due Sept.  4th, not Oct 4th. She isn't very big and it's her first round, so I am assuming she will only have one to two kids. We are hoping for at least another female to keep.

  
JD is still working on the chicken mansion. It now has complete fencing around and I was able to clip the teen chicken's wings and keep them in. It now has two large "barn" doors - one to each side of the fence.

 I told a friend that I was interested in becoming a Classical Conversations (the home school program that I have Alyssa, Elijah and Bella in) tutor next school year when I also hope to pull my public schoolers out of school. Next thing I know, I am tutoring this fall! I was very behind on the training, so have taken many cram sessions. Between them and the fact that I sat in the kid's classes all last year, I feel pretty ready. I have spent hour upon hour getting my books and supplies ready to go. I have my class list and start this Tuesday. Elijah is super excited that I am his teacher and Bella is equally excited that she gets "her own" teacher. (It's so funny how different these kids are!)

Time line book I've had for 20 years

My plan (after my husband talked some sense into me) is still to leave the three schoolers in this last year. Tori really wants to go, but knows that 4th grade is her last year in school. Julia doesn't really want to go, but she really, really does so much better with a strict routine and I am seldom able to leave her home with our teen sitters due to her challenging behavior. We are trying intensive essential oils and biofeedback therapy this year and hoping to gain serious ground on some of her control issues. It's pretty tough for me to send Selah this year, because she could be in my class at CC and I'd really enjoy having her there. When she wanted to go to K so badly, we had a lot of competition between her and Elijah and it was valuable to split them up for school; that issue seems to have gone completely away. JD convinced me to leave her with the 1st grade teacher that we know and trust to ensure that she isn't going to require the reading therapy that Tori and Julia did. Once I pull her, I will lose access to it.  

It may not be super realistic, but I am going to try and have the three girls do the CC memory work along with the little guys to give them an edge when they start there next year. Tutoring will make CC more financially reasonable long term - they don't offer any large family discounts.

I made a traveling white board to take every Tuesday and use at home the rest of the week.

 Of course, I had to take a break from the books for back to school hair. I accomplished all four girls this week. Julia is the one that we went the extra mile with. I added yarn extensions to make it fuller and a bit longer.   

  
The problem with them is that it took me seven hours to put them in compared to the three that Tori's took. Tori was initially interested, but wanted me to do Julia's first before she committed. I was pretty thankful when she decided that she didn't want her hair that "long".

  
Here's our finished product. I am hoping the yarn and the end of swimming means that they will stay nice looking for longer than usual!