Time to catch you up

I apologize, I have had a number of people ask me to update the blog, and I have told most of you, I am so busy and both work and home I barely have time to pee. But as I went through my old blogs, I did not realize how long it had actually been and ALL that has taken place since my last post. 

First of all, things are coming along nicely, and I am going to spend some time updating you on all the progress room by room and floor by floor

Basement

The basement is going to be a place to gather for fun. We eventually want a pool table down here, we plan to mount our largest TV down here, and basically want to create a game room for our family, and a nice place to watch a movie, or the deer, or the turkey, or the random bobcat that wanders through the back yard. Dan had at one time talked about putting the stone we are using on the outside  also on the inside. Well, cost prevented that. We were nearly 6 thousand dollars for the outer wall and the fireplace, so plan b. He decided to make a wainscoting of board and battens from pine boards. So each individual board was cut, and then he routered the battens. Once everything was up, we stained the entire wainscot.  Since this was a game room we had been talking about a bar. A place to have a few dishes and fridge and microwave. I am an avid user of Pinterest. I know some of you HATE it, but for me, it stirs my creative juices, and I love it. We planned most of Jennifer's wedding with Pinterest. Anyway, when we Jen and Grant started talking about purchasing our home, and we started looking at land, I created a new book on Pinterest called " Maybe I can dream". This book was filled with ideas about what my forever home might include. I also stumbled upon the website Hozz. This website allows you to look at millions of home and decorating ideas and save them into ideabooks

So back to the bar, it was on these websites that I fell in love with the idea of making a western saloon in my basement. I kind of mentioned it in passing a couple of times and Dan really did not seem to GRASP my vision, till I started showing him some pictures one night. I also started reminding him of several of the items/memories we have that I would love to display. One night he came home, he grabbed a mirror from the bathroom that I have had nearly all my life, and said. "So you want a saloon? I'll give you a saloon. He proceeded to tell me how he was going to do it, drew it up and we went to Menards for lumber. It took a weekend to build and stain but I love how it turned out. 

This is all the trim for the basement that has been set out to stain. Dan milled it all then we stained it, and finished it. We had to set up stations to finish it all over the house.

 

My saloon bar nearly finished.  Notice the spittoon in the right corner. I will talk about this in my next post. I promise, it won't be so long in between.

If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.

So Dan and I have been very busy since my last post. Mostly in our basement. We do have kitchen cabinets up, our counter top ordered, and a sink ordered.
Most of you ladies, have the reality of husbands/significant's that probably could care less about decor or aesthetics of a home.  My reality is, that my husband and I both care. Care very much, and well believe it or not, I sometimes have to fight for my voice or creative "flair" to be heard in my home. This has sometimes slowed our decision making down in the process of building this home. Fortunately, Dan actually had good creative ideas, and for the most part we have had to find those common things that we agree upon and move in that direction. Most of the time everything just falls into place. One of the things Dan and I have always agreed upon is a farm sink for the kitchen. We both have always loved the look of the farm sink. So, with the promise of a new kitchen, I mean you can't build a new house without a kitchen, we started with the farm sink we had agreed upon. So, we met with the kitchen designer, and settled on cabinets. The cabinets came in, and our builder started urging us to pick our counter top. Dan loves granite, but I would have been fine with a high resolution/ higher grade laminate or a solid surface counter top. Granite felt a bit mucky, muck to me, and although I love the look, I was not really sure if I could justify the cost. Our builder gave us the name of the guy he gets all his laminate through, and we set up a visit. We also got the recommendation of a stone and granite place. So, one day Dan and I took off in search of counter-tops. We first visited with the guy who does mostly high resolution laminate, and then to the granite place. Both asked be to send them prints of our kitchen, so they could get an idea of the size of job. Not long after I sent my design plans to the guy who did the laminate he called me back, and gave me the news that it is not a great idea to put a farm sink into laminate, cause in rare cases they sometimes de-laminate. GRRR, This will not be the first time I think or say, "I wish I would have known this about installing a farm sink."
So, our choices, solid surface, granite, or quartz. With the solid surface not a lot cheaper than the granite, we returned to The Stone Shop in Ankeny and picked our granite and slabs. We set up a time to have them measured and potentially installed. Remember-they had our plans already. So the day came that we were getting our kitchen measured. I waited with anticipation, the gentleman arrived, nice guy by the way, he came into the kitchen and looked around and pointed to the cabinet that would hold my sink. "That looks like you have a farm sink going in?" Yes, I said no knowing what was coming. "Do you have the sink?" Me, curiously, No, not yet, we are looking and trying to find what we want, but since you have to order a sink, we are a bit lost yet." Guy-Farm sinks are the only sinks we do not install, and they must be installed prior to us measuring, so we can get a correct measurement." GRRR- "I wish I would have known this about installing a farm sink. He was very surprised that the people missed the sink, but mistakes happen. If we can find the sink and get it installed in the next 10-15 days, there is still a chance that we can still have it installed by our current install date of April 1. You know, April Fools day.
After getting a couple recommendations of places to get farm sinks, I took off in search of my sink. I finally ended up at Plumb Supply in Des Moines, and found the sink of my dreams, oh yah, the farm sink we are looking for is black. Guess what the most expensive farm sink is? Black, because they only make the black farm sinks from cast iron, not composite yet. And a white farm sink would be an eye sore in my kitchen after picking the cabinets, appliances, and counter-tops. So, I gulped and said, "Order it". But first, we have to double check with your plumber and make sure we can make this purchase. I will send the specs to you plumber and wait to hear back from him, and then we can order it. So, I waited, and waited. bugged my builder, who bugged the plumber, and we waited and waited some more. Remember that window we had, well we missed it. I mentioned the plumber- I might have to have a separate posting, just to talk about.......him. Yah, pretty much everything he touched, crap. So they finally got it ordered and then we waited to have it come in. April 1st day came and went, April fools to me. Then, the sink was finally ready to be delivered. It was beautiful!!
That night, Dan came home and did some measurements.....Too small, the sink was too small for the cabinet opening. I had told the guy the sink front opening was 36 inches. So after a night of frustration, we found out that the sink, was the largest sink that was made by Kohler, and that the cabinet was made to big. Which, in looking back, and if we could go back, we wish the place who worked with us on our kitchen would have told us about all the ends and outs of installing farm sinks in like October, November when we met. We would have then known, we need to look at kitchen sinks to get an idea of size before order the cabinets, but it was one of those things we were some what rushed into. So, my handy husband and son in law took to installing the sink. I am so fortunate to have an amazingly talented and handy husband. More on that in the next post. Cherry on top, my daughter married one, much like him, smart girl.

So, here is the picture of my installed sink.

Dan and I recently took a walk down our road next to our timber. I wanted some air and exercise, Dan was hunting turkey sign. These pictures are of one of the coal creek located on and at the edge of our property. One of my favorite places to walk.  

Home sweet Barn! 

It's been a while since I posted, and I am sorry. We have been so busy, I have barely had enough time to catch my breath. My last post was a little over a month ago. I was whining because we were seeing little progress on our home. Then as I ended, so many things were falling into place. I was finally able to clean the weekend of Dec. 12-14th. Every wall and ceiling had to be swept down and then the floors. I had to start in the loft bedroom and work my way down to the basement. 

On Wednesday, December 17 Jennifer came down and we started the process of priming the walls for paint. In preparation for Dan to tile the bathroom. We needed to prepare the basement for us to live in just in case the weather turned bad. The basement bathroom is "Dan's" bathroom. I'm not sure if you can see the shower in this clearly but it is the size of tub, only it is a step in shower with a large seat. Dan was so excited when he saw this for the first time, he promised his first shower in this thing he would sing and empty the water heater. So Dan completed his tile work, as I continued to prime and paint walls. And paint and paint and paint. Then a couple days before Christmas we were told we would need to get the bathroom ready for plumbing. So on Christmas eve I spent my holiday at Menards. Where we spent hours, as if we had not looked at ever square inch prior to this. It's different when it's for good.

I also came home to garage doors being installed. And our builder got our porch and deck railing on.

Dan, Duane and Grant were able to get the rest of the fireplace and chimney completed. And then our doors were delivered, and hung.

Deck railing

Finished bathroom

We were not exactly happy to see that the Friday after Christmas our plumber had not yet showed up. We were expecting a fairly bad cold spell, Dan and I were both getting sick, and we were tired of taking our camper showers/baths. We were mainly tired of the constant filling of the tank and be careful that lines did not freeze as we were filling. But what do you do. We talked to the builder and told him that we need this to happen quickly, and that it was only a matter of time before we could no longer stay in the camper due to temperature, and that we'd actually been quite lucky so far.

About a week or so after we got our bathroom we heard that our luck with the camper had run out. We were going to get some severe cold that the camper furnace and little heater would not be able to keep up with. So one tiring weekend we moved nearly everything from the camper inside our very unfinished house, and set up camp there. We were in our camper EXACTLY 7 months to the date.

 Our interior doors are beautiful. We did not want a dark stain, but we wanted to add a bit of depth to the wood. Dan has worked diligently nearly every night staining the wood doors and windows in the basement, so that we could get our trim and our carpet.

Finished door

Our cat Stache, well Stache does not handle change well. Each time we move him we have to provide him a confined space where he can find everything he needs, but just let him hide. We usually make him a bed of fuzzy blankets he loves to make him comfortable. It has not taken him long to make himself at home. For whatever reason he thoroughly enjoys the loft and looking down on us.  

Dan's mancave room, which actually goes by another name, but because I respect him and his desire to not have his life added to the public, I am not sure how many more pictures I will get to add here. I am in the middle of painting the cabinets right now, hoping to finish priming tonight. 

In the mean time, here is my make shift kitchen for now. Isn't it lovely!! Think of me while you are cooking your dinner tonight. But it is warm, and I don't have to use a hose to fill a tank to do dishes. I just have to take a dishpan to the basement bathroom sink. 

           More to come- Busy, busy, busy!!

Pollyanna I am not. Confessions of the heart and the saga of the drywall

In this blog I have tried to put on a positive front, but some of you that see me daily, know that this has not always been the case with this build. I want to be upfront with that, and yes, I do try to have a positive, sunny outlook on things. The truth is I don't always, and sometimes my eyes get on me and my situation and I grumble, A LOT.  I also get anxious, nervous and impatient. Some of this comes from being completely out of control, and this has been ongoing through out my adult life. When our children were small, we had very little money. We had one income to live off of. My husband Dan was an outdoors man and I learned to do what I could with deer, which was completely new to me.  I was thankful that my parents had brought me up they way they had, I had to be creative with hand me down clothing or what my mom could sew for my sister and I, and I was NEVER allowed to turn my nose up to what was placed on the table. Picky eating were not words that were allowed at my fathers table, but it helped that mom was a great cook. As an adult, I learned to make cheap meals, shop garage sales and consignment stores. If someone gave us a bag of clothing, I learned to use what I could, and again, be creative with it. For a good long time, I don't know that I had an article of clothing that was not found at a garage sale, consignment, given to me or on the clearance rack. (This excludes undergarments) There were times we did not have money for food, money to pay bills, or anything extra. We were that dirty word that no one likes to admit to, poor. Our house had lots of issues, including expensive structural work that needed to be done. As a result I became a bit of a pack rat. I had a hard time parting with items that I might sometime need, and I still struggle to get rid of items.  I also became very anxious about money, to the point that it was and actually still can be a struggle for me to really look at finances. I am saying that today, because things, situations in life can take me back to those uneasy anxious feelings. Gods word says in Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 

As an adult when I was troubled my mom would tell me to turn on good Christian music. There is just something about listening to good music that helps settle me. As a child, our home was filled with music. I grew an appreciation for many different music styles. From Blue Grass and old time country that my Grandpa would play, to the Blackwood Brothers Christian Quartet that would play always on Sunday morning as we got ready for church, (as well as lots of other times) to Chuck Mangione and other forms of jazz that my oldest brother Rick would listen to my other brother Curt listening to heavy metal, the Beach Boys album of my cousin's Jeff and Rhonda that I nearly wore out, and then was a small amount of time that I lived in the south and a greater appreciation for country music and orchestra music was born.
But as an adult, my greatest joy in music is listening to contemporary Christian and Praise. For me it is relevant to my life and situations, and Christ truly speaks to my heart and my anxiety through song. Most of the time you will find me listening to Life 107.1, and I am touched by the stories this radio station gives of changed lives, not by the music, but the hope that this music can point you to if you allow Christ to work in your heart.
      If you are reading this and you are learning about my struggle with anxiety, that's because I don't talk about it much, if I do, it is with a select group of people and I rarely delve into it's source. Quite frankly, it is a struggle of faith on my end or lack there of, and it continues to be a work in progress. For some reason, God has laid on my heart that I need to confess this struggle publicly, and how I have learned to deal with it. First, I must say that I have come to believe we are on a journey through life. If you believe yourself to be a Christian, and you live to have Christ first, it is a journey that Christ puts you on, to mold you for his use, and not your own. For this reason, I believe God has led me down many paths I would not have wanted to walk simply because he was going to use my situation and circumstance to meet the needs of others. I have attempted to never turn away anyone that God brought to me, and God has brought some of the most amazing people to me and through this, I have been greatly blessed as the people he has brought to me have left the greatest impact on my life, just by showing his absolute love and power. Most of those people are you, reading this, I have been told I have a greatly caring heart. This is why, because I have let others impact my life, because in my lowest moments God brought us together and we walked the path together. And most of you are very special to me. God has also taken people out of my life. I have struggled with this until just very recently. As I write the next few lines, please know that anything I am about to write, and you are to read is my opinion and experience, and do not expect accolades. This is Christ in me, and if you ever see any good in me, please know that it is Christ in me, and not my carnal heart you see.

Poverty- And how it changed me- I spoke earlier about the anxiety it created, but there was some great growth I made that would have come no other way. You never find out exactly how creative you can be until you have nothing. I grew a greater discovery of sewing, cooking, gardening, canning, painting, creating, and decorating from nothing. I learned how to look at throw away items and find use of them. God changed my heart by allowing me to go through poverty, and with the people that I have been able to connect with later. Rather than look at someone in judgement who might be down in out, I have great compassion, and usually find myself  humbled.
   When I reentered the work world after my youngest was in school, I followed God's guidance that led me to education and early childhood. (Pre-K) I grew in independence as I learned that I could do anything if I determined to. I also learned that if God put me some place, he would give me the ability to perform. And he did. A few years after my first endeavor in preschool I took a job with Head Start. Head Start is a preschool program for income eligible and low income families. I was able to show great respect to many of these struggling families, mostly young, single women. I learned that all any one really wants is to be treated with dignity and respect. You don't have to agree with someone's life choices, situation or circumstance to treat others with respect, you just see them worthy of respect. I currently am friend with several of my former preschool students on Facebook, and I enjoy seeing them grow and spread their wings.

Anxiety and yes at time depression- I heard a report that indicated 8% of Americans 12 years and older were moderately to severely depressed, and that depression is more prevalent in women. These numbers do not surprise me, and I am humbled at the amount of people I have ran into that suffered from both depression and anxiety. For me, again it is usually my spiritual walk, and I need to draw close to the Lord in prayer, devotions and music. But in my times that I suffered, and times that I starting sharing myself with others, I found that most of the time I could take a look around and find about 5 people who had life much, much worse. As I started to look around, instead of my own circumstance, not only did I see those who had things worse, but I started to notice how much God had blessed me, and how much he had taken care of not only me, but my entire family. As I started looking for God's blessings, and acknowledging God's grace, he blessed me more. I still would have struggles, and would still have moments of discouragement, but I learned how to lean of Christ more and more. God has been extremely good to me, but he has allowed me to walk through some very dark moments.

Selfishness- As much as my life has been impacted by God's grace, it has also been deeply impacted by selfishness of others, and to watch the impact of my life, my families lives and the impact selfishness has played in the lives of loved ones. The pain of selfishness can be unbearable, and most of the time, the selfishness is is so denied by those guilty of it, they can never acknowledge the impact they have had on others, which adds to the hurt.

There are some hurts I hope I never have to experience, but if I do, I hope I can remember to draw close to Christ.

So enough about me and on with the house, which is why I started to write this whiny entry. On Wednesday, November 26th, the day before Thanksgiving we had the drywallers arrive. It was my first snowy drive, and a man had come out to show them where we were to have drywall hung and where we were not. He was worried about them driving out in the snow, but they made it, and had a majority of the house hung by nights end. The next morning to our surprise they were back to finish. This was Thanksgiving morning. Thursday evening, we had a call from our builder telling us that we needed to turn on our furnace so they could come mud and tape the next morning. Now let me remind you, we have no doorway from our garage, which is open, to our house, and there are three downstairs windows with plastic covering them, but no windows. And we are supposed to turn our furnace on.........So they sent someone down to put a piece of heavy plywood over the door, but Dan reluctantly turned it on. Because the furnace we have installed produces condensation, once you have turned it on in the cold temperatures, you have to leave it on, or it can do damage. But we were told they would be there in the morning, so this is what we had to do. The next morning.....no one.......the next morning, no one. Day after day we were told they will be there, but they weren't. I started writing this blog on Monday December 1. Confessing what I felt God wanted me to and on Tuesday, December 2nd they started our septic system. On Thursday, December 4th they finally began to mud our walls. Today the Amish guys should be back with my three basement windows, and the door between the house and garage. By this time next week, I will likely be either cleaning, or possibly painting.....Lord willing as we say in Christian circles.

November 11-26

So November has been cold. We were able to sneak a few days in above freezing during the day, and rarely at night. About a week ago they finished putting the siding up on the outside. We are now waiting for garage doors, three windows in the basement that came in wrong. (We've been waiting for about 3 weeks on those) septic, and drywall. When I left home this day before Thanksgiving this morning our drywall crew had showed up finally. Dan has been working for the past few days to install our fireplace, and we got more snow. We are both getting just a little weary of delays. 

 The morning after they completed the front of our house, the sun was just coming up and I snapped this picture. I then grew just a little concerned at how bright the red was. You will see by the pictures below that it's not quite as bright, and I love it. the end is in sight of camper living, but a few very big steps need to happen, so continued prayers are requested.

 For these shots of the house, I actually walked around the entire house to capture several different views.

The fireplace looks so small in this space, but it is a beast of a fireplace. Can't wait to get a fire started, and come home to the smell of a wood burning fire.