Orange smiles!

Lane learned the art of Orange Smiles last night.....he's a natural........

Ahhhhhhhhh......Hot!

Scott showed Lane how to warm his hands by the wood stove. So now everytime Lane walks past the fire he stops and puts his hands out and says...."ahhhhhhh.......hot" and rubs his hands together.....it's pretty funny... but still didn't keep him from burning one of his little fingers the other day. :( sadness. BUT our new house will have an enclosed wood stove, that looks like an actual fireplace, but heats like a wood stove.......so it won't be as scary for little kids to play in our living room.

How many ways??

How many ways has Lane discovered to ride his 4 wheeler?

1. backwards

2. standing

3. sitting, feet up

4. sitting feet down

5. standing....no hands!!! (usually accompanied by "woo hoo")

The last one concerns me a little bit.....hopefully he grows out of that one before we give him something gas powered to ride.

Virtual Tour #2

OK so here is the 2nd story tour. First, here is a little floor map so it makes more sense when you see these walls with no sheet rock. The hole around the stairs will have a log handrail (see squaw wood post) So there WILL be handrail all the way around it.

I hope you all can read this map

Here's bed 1 at the top of the stairs
Bed 1 and Bed 2
master bed and master bath
Office door in the far corner

My craft nook .....looks are deceiving. I have enough room for a wall to wall shelf/desk and a chair....and floor to ceiling shelves....

Bed 3....to the left of the door will be the stairs going up to the loft/attic/rec room. It will also have log handrail....way cute

So there's my house! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! and once it is done i will never leave it....except to go swimming at the lake, and to my weekly trip to walmart. :) Ok so maybe not, but i am just so grateful for this opportunity and for such a talented husband that can build me a house! it's been fun so far! hopefully we can keep it up!

Bobcats and shovels

Well we started backfilling today, and it was a little crazy! (of course, this IS our house afterall) After several stalling episodes, and a few getting stuck fiascos we got all but one

corner of the hose backfilled. Scott and Lane ran the bobcat, and me (and sometimes payton) shoveled it out to smooth it out. I officiall hate shovels, but i LOVE the end product. It looks SO great with most of the huge dirt piles gone! (scroll down to see previous dirt piles)

Here's a shot of the house, all walls up, window cut out, and no roof. Sadness. BUT the Truss guy came out today so we should get our trusses next week.

So Kyle and Payton started building the deck while we backfilled. The got the back-side wall done...this is the only skinny section, the rest of the deck is 8 ft wide all the way around....covered....beautiful! :)

So tomorro we finish backfilling and probly frame the deck.....then our week of craziness will be done and house production will slow drastically as Scott will go back to work......and i'll go back to just posting cute pictures of Lane....:)

Sorry!!!

UGH!!! I forgot my camera today so I don't have any pics for today....sorry to my hundreds (ok 2 confessed followers) but you'll have to wait till tomorrow. BUT here's a recap what we did today. The boys finished framing the interior walls on the 2nd floor, so we're ready for trusses, but we can't get them till next thursday-ish. I worked on cleaning up all the scrap and making a huge bon fire out of them, so we can back-fill tomorrow and saturday. SOO i'll take some pics tomorrow and maybe give you all a virtual tour of our 2nd story.....

until then! See you tomorrow!!

Squaw wood

When we go camping, Scott jokes with me and tells me that I have to go get squaw wood,...or firewood....Indian women always get the wood for the fires....they would go into the woods and drag out whatever logs they could find... Well I took squaw wood to a whole new level today....and i used a chainsaw!! Yup, it was pretty fun....i was cutting down trees for our handrail. I didnt' know that i could use a chainsaw.....so i've successfully reached a new level in my mountain woman/redneck quest.......:) I should have taken a pic when they were still in the truck, it looked alittle more impressive. BUT here's my stash!!

These are logs we're going to use on the wrap-around deck.........no i did not cut these down :) Scott did

Tour

Here's a virtual tour

standing in living room/play area, looking at living room where fireplace will be (up against stairs)

other side of family room

Lane trying to climb the stairs.

looking in the front door

standing in the laundry room doorway, looking at the dining room/kitchen on left, stairs and our sweet log posts.

laundry room door on right, bathroom door in the middle and pantry on left
kitchen
my posts....they still need some love but aren't they cool!?

Another day...

Here's pics to make up for yesterday. I worked yesterday so i didn't get to take any pics. But yesterday they got the last wall up downstairs, and finished interior framing on 1st floor, and rolled the 2nd floor system. Today they got their 2nd story exterior walls up, and the stairs built, and our logs set under the beam. Here's some working shots of today. Kyle and Scott were building, me and Payton were packing wood up to the 2nd story, and other various grunt work :)

This is the hole for the stairs...it will have log handrail all the way around so you can see downstairs.

Day 2

Another productive day at the homestead. I didn't get there till noon, cuz i had to go grocery shopping, and get everyone lunch, and pick up some more nails, and since we don't live "in town" that took me ALL morning. So we got there at noon and the boys had the front and side wall up:

No, Kyle is not hitting Scott in the butt with that board, just a bad camera angle :)

Notice the nice tall ceilings...LOVE THEM! I think they are 9 ft tall. Where Kyle is standing is the mechanical room

The left of the pic is the front of the house. 2 windows and a door in the middle. The wall to the right is the living/play area. Where Scott is standing is the beginning of our pantry, then next to that on the right is a bathroom, then a laundry room that goes to the end of the house.

Here is the ginormous beam that we set today. Yes, scott, kyle and me manhandled it and got it set up on my lovely 9 foot walls :) Scott didn't know that he married She-rah. But then again, I didn't know that I married He-Man either so I guess we're even. But LOOK how cool my beam is!!! It is exposed thru the whole main floor and i LOVE IT! it will have two logs holding it up in the middle. (i worked all day stripping those logs....they get set tomorrow)

better view of the beam. Also the pantry is framed in this pic

Front of the house

More beam, and action Scott
living room/play area window. See the little 2x4 on the beam? that's how we lifted it. Pretty genious, huh.
Kitchen wall. Window on the left is where the bar is. Window on the right is over my sink.
random working shot

All in all a good day! we were excited to get the beam set so we don't have to try and recruit people tomorrow. Lane was also pretty good today, he is SUCH a trooper. He's been having fun at the building site. Tomorrow's plan is to put the last exterior wall on the first floor, and roll the second story floor system, and put in stairs (maybe)

Stay tuned! :)

(scott wants to add there's no "maybe" about it.....all that WILL get done tomorow......and more......the pressure is on!)

Let the framing begin

Our first day of framing went well. We stripped all the forms off the concrete on friday night, so Saturday morning we could get started. Scott, Kyle, and our friend Glenn worked on rolling the floor system, and I got the most important job: Cleaning the sheeting of all the nails and concrete. (we used our sheeting as forms) And i also get to de-nail all of the 2X4's to use later too. Lane supervised and worked alongside daddy. Lane is very interested in all the tools that daddy uses and wants to help. We need to start getting him some lane-sized tools so he can play along.

We got the whole floor system rolled today, which was great!!

Scott and Glenn

Nailing the floor downLane dancing in the kitchen. He thought it was helarious to stomp all over the floor Almost done sheeting.....I think Lane was wanting my camera.
Watching Kyle cut a board. Lane thought the nail gun and the saw were the coolest things.

The rest of our house..... Us sitting in our living room.The finished product of the day! Monday they'll put up the first floor exterior walls. One of these days i'll put up a floor map of what the inside set up will be so this picture makes more sense.
Still smiling after a hard days work! We actually had alot of fun!
Stayed tuned this week. Scott has next week off so it will be a whirlwind framing week. Then progress will be a little slower after next saturday since he has to go back to work.