After the celebration . . .

After everyone left, Robbie and Brie relax and help clean up ... well they relax anyway. Here's Bob ...

and here comes Brie ... she looks a little hung over, don't you think?

Christmas Morning

We woke up with presents from Santa under the tree and then after coffee, spent a few hours opening them. Here are some shots from Christmas Morning.

Here

Aunt Janet slumbers with a friend

Aunt Janet bedded down in front of the fire with not one, but two new friends. It's amazing what body heat can draw in a cold house around sleeping time. Is that a small reindeer to the right?

The big day arrives

I want to thank everyone who worked so hard so our family could enjoy the house and it's first holiday. I really think all would have come happily even with the porta-potty that, until almost the very last day, was the only alternative. Yes, this was the traditional Callahan, Giles, Howard and Sedney celebration ... too hectic at first, but moments when warmth and laughter fill the rooms with joy. I wish we could figure out how to be together more than a day or two around these family holidays.

This also marked the first and I hope last time, dear old Dad had to go out an get a tree on his own. Was it also the first time that the tree arrived Christmas Eve? Here Patrick and Grace decorate.

Mia warms herself by the fire.

Everyone, including Bob, played games the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

Grace, Mia and Sally .... first the front ....

and then the back ...

and of course everyone has a chance to just sit and relax .....

Almost Christmas

During the week before Christmas, with the family practically on their way, Custom Mechanicals installed a temporary furnace for heat and hot water, Gary our plumber hooked up an indoor toilet and sink and finally, right before the deadline, our stove and refrigerator were installed. OK, so it was going to be like camping indoors, but we were going to have the family Christmas in Kent! To the right is our kitchen appliances going in.

To the left we see our new powder room and the cool cabinet and sink Kim picked out.

And to the right again, you can see our hats siting in our new entrance closet.

A natural outdoorsman

Since we didn't have any cut firewood this weekend, I had to scavenge the woods and make due. Here Kim took a picture of Mr. Rugged on his way to the logging trail.

After a cutting up a cord or two, Mr. Rugged always likes to relax with his best friend.

Bathroom counter top

While Grace and I were in he Garage on Saturday, we also took a picture of the cement bathroom countertops that Tom has made. They really turned out nice with just right balance of color and finish.

Just your typical bedroom door

Here is Grace freezing in the barn standing next to one of the spare bedroom doors. Kim's idea of course, a barn door on a rail that you pull from side to side. So much for privacy.

Nice Dad . . . but it still way to cold in here

Grace and I stopped up at the house, but could only stay a minute as Bill Deering was in the middle of finishing the floors. Grace posed and then ran outside to get into the warm car. The floors do look great.  Bill sanded them down and applied three coats of Waterlox.

To the left is a picture of the hallway after a lite sanding that will be vacuumed off before the Waterlox applied.

First trip to Tractor Supply

Well, the day finally arrived. Grace accompanied me on my first trip to the Tractor Supply Store. She took this picture before we went in and bought my Carhartt coat for the winter. What a great start to the day. After that, we went for a Pancake Breakfast in Kent and then up to the house.

A beehive of activity

Kim and Wes sometimes describe the house as a 'Beehive' of activity. I think they meant that there are a lot of crews on site buzzing around each other getting work done. Here's a view of the Great Room on one of those days.

The Hood

The range hood was installed by Ray of Hantsch Electric so we could take delivery and install the appliances.

Taking a nap with my best friend

Bob and I got a little shut-eye the other afternoon.

He woke up and wasn't happy with Kim for taking the pictures.

Sue and Jim stop by

Our friends Jim and Sue stopped by on the weekend.  It was great catching up and exchanging house building stories. A nice treat and they brought champagne, Kim's favorite.

First Christmas Decoration

Suzi and Ed, our new next door neighbors came over and installed our first Christmas Decoration. It looks great and we'll keep it up through the holidays.

Our front door ... a spiritual adventure

Well, we waited quite a while to buy a front door.  Along with a lot of other doors in the house, Kim wanted the front door to be special and very personal. What that really meant was endless trips to salvage companies, which by the way, as part of the 'experience', I discovered never use heat.

After looking at several hundred doors, which were either too short, too long, too narrow, too wide or generally too weird, in tears, we gave up. We had searched everywhere and there was only one other mythical place up in Sheffield Massachusetts that was rumored to exist and also rumored to have an endless supply of the doors we were looking for. It seemed though, like a bridge too far, so we turned our sights to ordering our front door from the web. Well it turns out that our door size was custom. We all know what that means.   When we saw the prices, we decided to make the trip to the Brigadoon of Salvage yards up in Sheffield.

As daylight faded, the snow started and the temperature dropped we headed North from Kent.  With Kim talking on the cell phone and our little Prius slip sliding on the road, I began to have second thoughts about this adventure. We finally arrived and instead of finding what I feared would be a small house with random offerings on the front lawn and a few doors leaning against a tree, I found, well, a small house with random offerings on the front lawn and a few doors leaning against the tree. Worse yet, Kim was still on the phone and signaled for me to make contact and start the search for our door.

Coatless in the now frigid evening with the snow above my loafers I set off to find the proprietor. When I found him, he greeted me warmly and even knew who I was, as Kim had called several times and left messages asking if he had any doors we could use for our home; Old, solid, wide and tall and of course with a bit of history. It seems this was a common request, and of course, he did have one door that might work.  He led me to a tree in his front yard, and with my feet numbing and my body shaking, showed me a short, very wide door that had probably been leaning against that tree since the first war with England.  I was relieved.  No way this fit Kim's bill; it wasn't the right height, was too flimsy, AND the top was rounded since the 2 halfs once formed a monastery front door. Kim would take a quick look and we'd be back in our heated car in no time at all.

But of course, we all know how this would end.  Kim, in her warm coat and boots comes bounding over and falls in love with the old door, as well as the 'fascinating historian/storyteller' old man, whom I'm sure she has invited for dinner.  I saw 'customization' and Kim saw a piece of history. I'm saying 'Let's think about it', 'It won't fit in the car' (and thinking 'no way'), while Kim is saying 'Cool! I bet it will fit in the Prius Contractor's Special - Let's try!'.

SO, after a few hours of touring unheated out buildings looking for other artifacts and a complete loss of feeling in my lower body from the cold I plunked down cash for the door, we jammed it into the back of the Prius and without so much as a receipt, off we went.  The only other minor detail was that the door extended out the back, and the entire way back it snowed as much in the car as it did on the outside, as Kim chattered about going back there for more treasures when time allowed.

Here is a picture of our new front door and I'm sure the adventure will continue.

Siding for the Screened in Porch

Hard to really picture it, but this is going to be the small screened in porch that will keep out the huge bugs in the spring and fall.  The 'Inside' walls of the porch will be same as the exterior walls.

Vertical Siding in the Great Room

Here is a shot of the vertical siding that the Strid Brother's installed in the Great Room. We talked with Rich and Matt about how it should be finished. Their view is to let it darken (doesn't take that long) and then it reaches a color you like, seal it. You can see that one vertical board that's a lot darker than the others.  It must have been on the outside of a bundle so exposed more. I asked Rich what happens if you go on vacation and when you get back it's too dark? He didn't answer me for some reason.

You can see the Kitchen cabinets in the background as well as the cardboard covering the floors prior to them being finished.

Kitchen Cabinets Go In

The kitchen cabinets were delivered from Home Depot and the Strid Brothers installed them as much as they could until we get the cement counter tops fabricated and installed.  Here are the cabinets along the back wall.

And here is a picture of Charlie, doing some calculations as part of installing the cabinets. Like Rich said a month ago, 'don't worry if they are not the exact right size, we'll make it work'. This is one of Charlie's specialties,  what an artist.

Barn Painting ... progress thanks to Dane

Kim's cousin Dane has been stopping up at the house from time to time. He's a handy guy and the other day, he got on a ladder, braved the cold and finished staining the side of the barn that faces the house.  Thank's Dane, it looks great.  Stop by anytime!

The floor arrives and are installed

Back to the sequence of events.  Try as I might to accelerate things, there seems to be a time tested way to proceed. First you prime and then you bring in the flooring.  Why you might ask?  Is it so you don't get paint on the floor?  Well no, it seems that paint is wet.  That may seem obvious, but what it really means is that as it dries it lets out a lot of moisture.  That's the same with the spackel drying. With wood flooring, you want the house to be at the same moisture level as it will be when you're living there and when it reaches that point, you can bring in the wood flooring and let it 'acclimate' for at least a week.  Some people even suggest measuring the moisture content in the floors before you install them. You got that?  Consistent humidity and acclimate or the floors will swell and create small hills that you trip over or shrink creating gaps wide enough to swallow a dog. So, what did we do? We had a propane heater in the basement pratically spewing as much moisture as heat, delivered the floors, waited the week and off we went.

Here is a picture of the flooring once it's been laid down, but before it's been finished.

Kitchen Hallway Ceiling

With the walls now primed, here is a shot of the front hallway ceiling. At the far end, you can see the mud room. Kim has bought an old door to put there from at the Board and Beam in Kent.

Painted Walls

Well at least primed walls anyway. Thanksgiving is over and now we're down the home stretch going toward Christmas and the family gathering. Here you can see one of the upstairs bedrooms with a nice coat of primer done by Rich Webb's company.

Sign, Sign, everywhere a Sign ... and a dog

When I was digging my many mailbox holes, Bob found a place to rest and tucked himself in between the signs on our property. There have been others, but Wes, Rock-On Excavation and the Strid Brothers still seem OK with associated themselves with our house. We certainly feel good associating with them and the many others that have helped.

Getting ready to put in the mailbox

I went to dig a hole to put the mail box in. Nothing below the surface is easy on our land. I dug about 20 test holes and hit ledge at six inches on every one. Finally, I moved to the other side of the driveway and crafted a hole between rocks. I'm not sure this is going to work as I think the mailbox post will need to navigate a few twists and turns to get two feet below the surface. Well, here I am, the simple man again, this time with his mailbox. I figure it may be easier to just come out here and hold it every afternoon and wait for the mailman (actual mail woman) than trying to dig a proper hole without blasting.