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9
in the summer of '03 the szuplats purchased property
on 12 vacation lane.
found here will be details of putting a structure up
written mostly by erica and photographed a lot by ben,
however like most things in life there are exceptions....
for instance ben wrote that last useless sentence.
You Asked For
It!!!
feb 24. erica looks out on the septic tank!
feb 28.
ben peers around the basement-- notice the insulation!!!
we got most of our house insulated on thursday and friday! it
should be done the beginning of next week!!
ben walks on water! he is standing on the place where the excavation
guys connected the water from the street into our house today!!!
they only took out two scraggly trees and were very persistent
with the still somewhat frozen ground. at one point they couldn't
dig through the frost anymore and decided to tunnel the last bit
through to the foundation. all this on a saturday- they rock!!!
ben is on the lookout for creepy
storage unit types! here is in the storage unit we had some
of our stuff in. it's a unique lifestyle- those that have storage
units... we had ours for exactly six months which was six months
a-plenty. we made 2 trips in the trustworthy Webb van today and
our stuff is now in the basement of the house. this stuff includes
our beloved washer and dryer and other assorted stuffs that fit
in a 5 x 10 dark metal box. if you couldn't determine by the numerous
exclamation points that we had an exciting week- well, we have!
we essentially have water going in and out of our house now! this
was huge as all of this was kept at bay by the cold temps. today,
there was a high of 54. HOT!
March 7
as evidenced by the red sox in
spring training, and local landscapers (paul!) on the move, the
days inch toward spring. these early march days saw the completion
of the insulation!
stach also hooked up the water
meter and put in the shower stall in the upstairs bathroom!
pete stockpiled the truck with
staging planks for saturday morning's project...
clayton, peter, and ben put up
supports under the two beams in the liv.rm./cathedral ceiling.
this was in lieu of the sheetrockers who will be "hanging
rock" this week and needed some stable surface on which to
stand way up there in the ceiling. ben and paul also removed most
of the scrap wood pile to which i had actually become accustomed.
one tends to forget that stuff like that isn't actually a part
of the landscape. paul's dumptruck was filled and there is still
another half of a load- at least- to go. meanwhile the landscape
is looking even better as the septic has been covered by a couple
deliveries of fill. this week should also see the ordering of
our flooring.
march 13 SHEETROCK!
top left is, clearly, the stairwell.
the top right is the "room" next to the kitchen. bottom
left is the triptych of doors on the first floor (steps to basement,
closet, and bathroom door.) bottom right are the two doors upstairs
(door to the bathroom and a closet.) needless to say we are excited!!!
the house feels much different in some ways. the sheetrock still
needs to be taped, mudded, and primed before we get to put colorful
paints on. although we have picked out our flooring (inexpensive
eastern white pine wide planks that will look well-worn and casual,)
we ordered our gas-fired free-standing stove. we decided to go
with the black matte finish- although we both loved the slate
blue enamel, i was afraid in a few years it would look like an
avacodo bathroom from the seventies. we are going with simple
flat trim for the windows and baseboard and some simple doors.
we have also hopefully finally got enough information to order
a tankless water heater, which seems to be something unheard of
on this side of the bridge. lacking any major projects, ben decided
to put up the mailbox. ben can also be seen here at The Shop at
john parker road. This is a sneak peek at one of the doors jim
has constructed for us (blue stained-glass triangle in corners
is a little hard to see in this pic.) They are ready for some
outdoor sealant and hardware.
p.s. ben is sporting a sort of
a play-offs type of cranium hair. he isn't shaving or getting
the hairs cut until we move. the jury is still out as to whether
this is due to lack of time or whether he's trying to start a
movement. speaking of weather, i am hereby informing everyone
that Dairy Queen is OPEN for the season.
March 18 i am not sure if i shamed ben into
cutting the hairs but after the last posting, i was elected to
give my very first haircut (with sufficient instruction before
i even got to hold the scissors!) i have to say so myself that
i did a great job. ben shaved up his own cute face. all this salon
talk is not just filler. the rock guys are making great progress
on their second out of three rounds on the mudding. and the snow?
well, i can't even talk about that anymore. i am off for a whirlwind
DC trip with mum, kay, and nani, to shower terry and mary and
the little szuplat! stach and ben will be holding down the various
forts (someone's got to do it!)
mar. 24 i
have returned from D.C.; i have seen spring and it is real! we
are beginning to start to think about hopefully going to maybe
order up some buckets o' paint in the possible near future. right
now our walls still look like a lot of frosting-
ben also constructed us a platform on which to put
our bed!! right now we sleep with our mattresses on the floor.
this will keep us nice and low, which we like and because we are
putting the bed in the eaves, and also get us off the dusty ground.
it just needs some sanding and staining.
mar 29. i think our bed platform is very zen
inspired. i sanded it this weekend and think it reminds me of
driftwood. i rounded out all the edges, but they are still uneven
and comfy! i will stain it and it will be done! we are waiting
for the rock guys to finish up- we are eager to get painting!!!
wise ben used his time to hone some more constructing skills and
built us three doors for our crawl spaces. why, here is he, putting
the screws to it! they will probably get puttied, sanded , painted
and all that good stuff in due time.
the illustration below is gentle ben facing the wall
o hardware at the home depot. we've been so many times but there
were no pictures to prove it.
before ben crafted the doors, we needed hardware! we
needed hinges and locks to keep the doors from swinging open and
handles and hinges for our fosterbuilts. hopefully i will get
to sealing those this weekend and we will be closer to having
those installed. we also got more dirt today. pete and jen got
their septic this week and so there is a good possibility that
our fill is from their property. it had better be good stuff!
APRIL 3 these are the bogs o controversy near
our house. i think they are beautiful. apparently a few days ago
i was out of my tree because i said something about spring. we
all know that there is no spring on cape cod. anyone who doubts
this and is not brave enough to visit can check the weather site
and find out what is in store via the little maps. http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=02536
this week was feeling agonizingly slow, but friday
rolled around with a bang. our rockin excavation guys came by
and dug the hole for our underground propane tank. sometimes i
realise that we tried so hard to save as much greenery as we could
and at the same time we have crammed every inch of earth with
some sort of piping, tanks, or what have you. i often feel some
guilt about the lack of "green" home we have constructed...
ANYWAY, the excavation guys also pushed around
dirt in the back of the house and it is miraculous! one can now
stand on the ground and look in the kitchen windows! you can also
easily step on to the porch now (if you are so-called "short"
like me.) In the above photo, you can see some grey piping on
the porch (left.) Despite the fact that i pick up pipe all the
time for my father, i walked into the electrical supply house
and immediately became a bungling idiot. I was rung up for schedule
40 when i wanted sch. 80 and then got credited for half of the
sch. 40 and couldn't pick up the entire order that day so i had
to go back and in the meantime called in more sch. 80. All of
these 3 or 4 trips were unnecessary since it turns out that the
plumbing supply place in mashpee carries it as well. sigh....
in any case, we will cement up the 10 footers and run the phone
and cable and electrical lines through them from the street to
the house.
This morning ben and i had a promising meeting with
the bankers. They gave us a good outlook and so we should be able
to proceed and purchase the house after all. :) It's always good
to hear the loan officer say that. since it was only 930 or so
when we left the bank we swung by the house. The sheetrockers
returned on friday and plastered the ceilings. At first we thought
they were that old popcorn kind that pops little kids' balloons
but its really just a nice cloudy pattern. It helps break up some
of the open space too.
This week also saw the ordering of the almost revolutionary
Takagi TK2 propane heating unit for our baseboard and domestic
water. After much much deliberation we decided to go with this
brand that has been in many other countries for decades but has
only broken into the U.S. market in the past few years. We are
going tankless! Today we also ordered and picked up our first
8 or 10 gallons of paint. We are not exactly sure how far this
will get us but we are leaving the ceilings white for now which
is one less thing to paint. The sheetrockers have plastered and
painted the ceilings and should be priming the walls tomorrow.
Then we move in; have rollers will travel. My clawfoot tub faucet
also arrived last week and is quite fabulous. I was worried because
i bought it over the internet. I am a fan of buying things on
the internet since it saves so much time, but it's hard to guage
quality over teh internet; the money was worth it on the faucet-
it's quite heavy duty. Today we also ordered our flooring which
will be delivered sometime monday. it has to sit in the house
and acclimate for a couple weeks while we paint. This week i also
picked up a better front light and house numbers to match it.
i think thats all the news from lake wobegon. where
the women are strong....?
page
9 has seen better times, click here to see PAINT!
bens first attempt at inserting a counter.....provided
by http://www.digits.com/