Trimming It Up

This week, trim around the windows and doors began. The builder seems to be preparing to wrap things up as we met with him and discussed several outstanding projects including interior doors, kitchen cabinets, screening the porch and staining the outside walls and doors. Is the end in sight????

Walls Progress and Floors Begin

This weekend we went up for a quick trip on Saturday to check out progress and deliver the stone tile for the master bathroom floor and shower surround. The progress for the past two weeks included putting up all the available wood from the first delivery of wall boards and a start on the stone floors for the first floor. Looks like the builder underestimated the amount of wood needed and had to reorder. The additional wood has been delivered and hopefully he gets to work on finishing the walls and stone floors this week. All looks good thus far. We are planning on "gray washing" the wood walls to take some of the honey color out. Let me know what you think.

Weekend Off - Studio Tour

This past weekend we took house update duty off and went to the Western North Carolina mountains on the Toe River Arts Studio Tour. We went to approximately 15 different studios and galleries and picked up a few things for the mountain house along the way. Its always great to get out and about and see the artists and where they live and work. This area of Western North Carolina - Spruce Pine, Bakersville, and Burnsville - has attracted a great many artists and artisans bringing life back to many towns that have been devastated by the textile mills closing. There's also Penland School in the area which is world renowned for it arts teachings and many students from across the United States and the world attend its classes and end up staying or coming back to live in the area. Check out a few of the finds we made.

Beautiful Mountain Laurel

The Mountain Laurel are quite abundant on the mountain property and were in full bloom this weekend.

Wood Walls Continued

It was a beautiful sunny day on Saturday as we headed up to the mountains to check on the house progress. We put the top down on the Z4 and headed out fairly early after a stop at the Farmers Market for some fresh veggies and meats. We planned to stay up for the day and hang out, get some sun, and enjoy the fresh air. The wood for the interior walls had been delivered the previous week and the builder had gotten started with one wall and had stated he would be working on wood all week. We were excited to see all the walls up and see how the house was going to look with a more finished look (no insulation sticking out, no studs, etc.) Driving up the mountain to the house, the mountain laurel were in bloom on our property and it was a glorious day. We were surprised to see workers when we got there as the builder had not planned on meeting with us today and hadn't said anything about any workers being there on Saturday. Surprise! The builder had not done anything all week. The two guys working on Saturday had started early Saturday morning and were busy putting up the wood walls but would probably not finish the job. Since the builder was not there, I thought I might get some info from the guys on why no work was done during the week. After talking with them, I found out they were not our builder's full time crew, but had just called him the night before to see if he had any work they could do on Saturday and thusly, they were there today. Had they not been there doing some work, the disappointment of a week gone by with no progress would have been quite disheartening (to put it nicely). The walls are going to look great, but when, oh when, is this house going to become our builder's priority....