Thanksgiving

We are grateful and appreciative this Thanksgiving for many things but we are just going to name a few. 

Ron - we are thankful for him for his talent, help, wisdom and sacrifice of living hundreds of miles away from his dear wife, Lori so that he can help build Deeradise. 

We are grateful for our land and the opportunity to build a home for ourselves. 

We are most grateful for our family and friends and each other.  We miss not being with the Ferguson/Wharff families for Thanksgiving in Kansas but are so glad to be spending the holiday time in Florida with Jason's family.  As most of you know, this is a very special Thanksgiving as Jason's mom, Kay, has been fighting for her life these last few months battling pancreatic cancer.  We were able to bring her home from the hospital this last weekend and have a wonderful Thanksgiving feast planned at home.  We truly cherish the time we have with our loved ones here on earth and thank God for His sacrifice so that we may all live together again in Heaven.

Insulation was completed in the basement.

Metal and rough cut were installed in the 1/2 bath.

Rough cut was put up in the laundry room.

This large piece of stained cedar will hold the ceiling fan in the living room.

Hanging the extremely heavy 8x8 hemlock timber for the loft/living room ceiling divider.

Divider log for the living room/loft.

Accent log in the loft

Hemlock timber and accent logs in loft

Mud and tape!

Installing hemlock timbers on the office ceiling.

finished office ceiling

The spare bedroom ceiling was stained.

Hemlock timbers being installed in the dining room/kitchen.

installed timbers in the dining room/kitchen

kitchen

dining room

the foyer chandelier canopy was installed - the fixture lights still need to be installed

the rock (minus the capstone) was finished on the pillars

A Whole Lotta Railing

upstairs' stairway

This week we finished putting up tongue and groove in a few spots - the upstairs' stairways, closets, linen closets and basement stairway.

basement stairway

coat closet

linen closet in Mbath

The shower floor and walls were also done in the Master Bath in preparation for the tile work.

MBath shower w/bench

Both fun and messy, Ron and Jason had a glorious time drylocking the basement walls.  Drylock is a waterproofer that withstands 12 PSI (greater than a wall of water 26' high).  So, the basement should stay nice and dry from all of the East Tennessee rain.  The insulation crew should be out next week to finish the insulation in the basement and that should wrap it up for the lower level.  (We are only partially finishing the basement.)

Most of the week was spent on the porch railing.  The hand hewn porch railing from Rocky Top looks really awesome but was a lot of work to install.  Not to mention, there is a LOT OF IT!  The rock subcontractor, Castone, should be out next week to finish rocking the pillars now that the railing is in place.

back deck - you can see the rear stair opening to the left

Side porch and side stairway opening

Front stairs opening

rear stairway opening

messy! :)

We stained the interior loggerhead railing from Rocky Top which will go upstairs in the loft. 

Installed porch lights

installed garage lights

Cow Patties of Concrete

Garage doors!

We've been staining...this is the "barn" aka Master Bedroom

this is the Master "barn" bath - and yes, we have a window in the shower :)

added 2 extra coats of stain

We finally feel like we are in the home stretch of getting this house done!  It's nice to know we are down to just weeks instead of months!  All in all, the building process hasn't been too terrible.   Mind you, I don't want to do it again anytime soon as it is stressful and unbelievably time consuming, but we've been pretty lucky and have not had any major problems in construction.  And, I think that has a lot to do with Ron and Jason. :)  It's like that old saying, if you want it done right, do it yourself and for the most part we have.

Which brings me to cow patties of concrete...we opted to subcontract out the work for a 28x30' concrete pad for the drive and the back patio.  (You know where this is going, right??)  Well, Jason's buddy Dave flew in from FL Wednesday so we went to pick him up from the airport and then went out to dinner.  We swung back by the house to lock up as the rock and concrete workers were still working when Jason had left earlier.  It was about 9:40 pm and the concrete guys were still there and as the truck's headlights shown ever so brightly on our drive, all we saw was a large mess of concrete with what could only be described as multiple cow patties of concrete all over the 28x30' pad.  Not exactly what any of us were expecting.

I don't know the entire story or the reasons why the concrete was poured so late, etc.  It was obvious there was some error in judgement.  The next day, the concrete did look better but the job was still not up to our expectations.  The back patio was acceptable; the drive was the problem.  The subcontractor did compensate us for the mistake and the drive is functional, it just doesn't look as "nice" as we would have liked.  Jason and I came to the realization that its just a drive.  Its only concrete and there are many more important things in life than a patch of concrete on our driveway.  We opted to let it go.  We are also hoping everyone is just so wow'd by the house that no one even looks down at the concrete!

the scrap pile is gone!  replaced with seed and straw!

The rock subcontractor, Castone, did an awesome job laying our rock on the fireplace and front pillars.

the 2 holes are for holding firewood

the hearth stone

We finally got our 2700 lb delivery of porch railing and interior railing.  It was a lot of fun to unload and even more fun to stain!  Thank goodness Dave is an awesome stainer and was a HUGE help!

the rest of the railing got walked down the drive