Hickory Clouds Under Our Feet

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program.....

The Floor

We spent so much time on the prep that I was beginning to think that we would never actually lay wood down. But we have.

Let me back up a tad. We completed the upstairs floor months ago and have slated this trip to complete the downstairs floor. Well, that or at least the living room/kitchen/dining room, and the hallway. SuperMoto was, as you might expect, Mr Science about it all. He was calculating whether the outside walls were parallel to the inside walls down to the 1/16".

FREAK!!

However, at the point of installation that we went to bed the first night, looking down from above, it looks perfectly straight, so FREAK, paid off.

Thanks SuperMoto!!

Where Closet Dreams Come True

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Yes people, we have successfully arrived. We received the cabinets and we have installed the closet system, we have done some flooring and SuperMoto has gone back east to work.

I am so loving our new closet system. It is pretty, it is industrial, it was easy to install.

(since we kept our heads steadily in the game)

We Laughed...

We Cried...

We installed an Elfa Custom Closet System...

Great fun was had by all, see....

The Mattress

So, just about now you might be wonder what is keeping us focused. I have one word for you...

KLUFT

What the heck is a KLUFT you might be asking? Well, I will tell you. It is the most wonderful, most comfortable, the most heavenly mattress in the world.

When you lay on this mattress is is like having the most wonderful squishy, squeezy, bear hug

you have ever had. It is like a massage and a sauna, and a cloud all surrounding you.

When SuperMoto is in Washington D.C. and I am home alone I go to bed so early, just to climb into this wonderful haven.

There is nothing better after working hard all day than a really hot shower and a lounge on my Kluft.

So, when you are wondering what I am focusing on. Just picture me luxuriating in my bed after a hard day's work.

Of course, when SuperMoto, Myself, and the Geodog all climb on....that is an entirely different story.

The Return Home

I noticed during our hiatus that I have felt like I was missing home.

HOME

There has been a shift in my thinking this year. I now consider California my time filler and San Juan Island my home.

We are on our way there soon. There for Thanksgiving. Of course all we are going to do is work. The main floor is our focus. We start with receiving cabinets, tearing out the carpet, tack strip, baseboards, hardwood flooring, ripping out the kitchen, installing new plumbing and electric, laying the heated floor, painting, installing cabinets, fabrication of counters, installation of counters.

EEK! I feel so tired thinking about it all.

I will keep you posted while we are there for sure. More from me in a week.

Warm Feet vs. Cold Feet

Do you know how much I LOVE cold feet?

I love the feel of crawling out of a warm bed, and just as I place my feet on the floor, anticipating the coolness on my toesies. I love the sound of bare feet on wood floor. I massively love the sound of the soft patter of bare feet as you tromp to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Do you know how cold the floor is in the SJI house. FREEZING!!

SuperMoto hates cold feet and as much as I don't want to admit it, my feet are freezing up there too. So, you know how we are taking care of it????? We are installing in floor heating. We are using a product that SuperMoto found. We are going to put it in the kitchen and in both bathrooms. It will be installed right underneath the hardwood floor and the slate tile in the bathroom.

Toasty toes are in our future!!

Getting Out of the Closet

It is unbelievable. I finished designing the closet and we purchased most of the components on sale yesterday. We are going to wait until Christmas Eve. to order the rest of the components when they go on sale. I am so happy to get the closet together and to hang our clothes up and get the room all neat and cool. This is the style of product that we are using. We went with all metal which will look good with the metal railing that is coming up the stairs right outside the closet. It is all coming together! YEAH!

Granite Countertops

I have talked about counter tops for months. You are so sick to death of me talking about counter tops you could scream.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!

Well, we finally made a decision and a purchase. An actual purchase. Granite. I know I know, that is where I started. Then I moved on to recycled glass. $19,000+ for what we needed. SHEESH it is bottles from the recycling for goodness sake. Then it was cement. I do so love that idea and the look but not on light cabinets. Then it was Okite, Quartz. Then back to Granite.

I went off island the other day to a granite yard in Anacortes. I was so excited to find granite that I loved and put a deposit down and so.....

Imperial Yellow Granite it is. These are our actual slabs. You can see that they are from the same piece of granite. I love the unusual vein running through it. The colors are perfect for our room and house so I am VERY happy!

YEAH! The kitchen is coming together. Now all that is left to do is TONS OF WORK!

Timber Part 3: The End Is Near

I am writing in front of the fire at the end of the night. The day was long for those two hard working chaps. I actually saw sun in the kitchen today after the trees came down on that side of the house. I couldn't be more pleased. They have taken down about 16+ trees and endless amounts of what seems to be called Sea Spray or Ocean Spray. It is this nasty brushy stuff. If you have allergies then you don't want to be near that stuff. It is terrible. Well, so much of it is gone and I am so happy. I am going to attempt a before and after shot of that area.

Please use the satellite dish as a place marker so you can see the differences between before and after. See the dish there next to the truck, just to the left of the truck actually.

See how all the dead snags were there in the first picture and there aren't any in the second picture. Do you also see how so much of the nasty brush is gone?

On a side note, look at what a fantastic day this is. The sun was bright and warm. It was almost 80 degrees out and perfectly still.

I AM DECLARING 9/24 NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL OR REGIONAL AT LEAST... TREE DOWNING DAY!

Timber Part 2: The Trees Come Down

This is the beginning of something beautiful. The trees have been coming down. I mean literally. I had no idea that it could happen this fast. They arrived around 7:30 this morning and by 8am five trees were down. They have come down so quickly and accurately and neatly. It is an interesting process to witness. The unbelievable part is the amount of sun that is now shining through. It is fantastic. I am so happy. It is sunny and bright. These are some of the logs from early this morning. I am excited that our neighbor, who is doing the excavating, negotiated a very fair price for the wood so we will be getting back a large chunk of what we spent in the first place. WAHOO!! Those cedars are making me happy today. Turns out these two men that are doing the work are working fast because they have already done so much more than I expected them to have gotten done. It is 2:30 in the afternoon and they have done all that I asked and then some minus the trees in the front of the house, because those have to be done at the end so as to not block the route out. We were even able to get rid of disgusting, deadish shrubbery and some snags that were an eyesore. This really is property changing. I can't wait until SuperMoto gets back into town so he can see the amazing results of our decision to have the land worked on a little bit.

Timber Part 1

So tomorrow is tree day.

I am thrilled at the idea that soon we will have more sunlight than we currently do. Don't get me wrong, in the spring and summer we have plenty of sunlight but in the fall and winter we have less.

These mothers are coming down one by one and letting my sun shine brightly through. I can't wait.

One of the great things though is that we are selling the wood to a man that makes cedar shingles and a man that mills cedar and makes cedar timbers for building.

I can't wait to watch the process and capture it as well. It should be interesting as all but one of these trees is right next to either the house or the garage.

Cedar isn't the best wood to burn so we are thrilled it is going to good use. It will make beautiful shingles and lumber.

Bummer we aren't ready to build the shop or we might use it ourselves. Oh well!

Of course these are the before pictures and soon you will see the after pictures.