Doesn't look like much.....

but it's been another busy week!  Mr M has spent many hours painting the front door.....

We just used a satin varnish.... lots of coats later and its done...

Installed the hardware...

Varnished up the frame....

And then it was supposed to be installed today, but rain stopped play, hopefully tomorrow we should have a front door.

Terry Tidyup decided he was fed up with falling over boxes of nails and stuff so got himself organized and built some shelves, plenty of remnants of wood lying around....

Its in the downstairs bedroom closet, I hope they aren't permanent.

So apart from painting and tidying he's been cracking on with plumbing, he'll be using pex pipe and a central manifold....

Hot and cold pipes will run directly from this manifold, through the studs (lots of hole drilling) to each sink, shower, toilet etc.... using pipes, they keep it fairly obvious in the plumbing world.....

He's been putting in blocking for the "stub outs"....

And we have brought all our taps (faucets) shower heads and thermostatic shower valves.  We had to get the valves now so he can crack on with plumbing in the showers, so we decided to just knuckle down and make some decisions and get something else crossed off the list. O M G there is so much choice its overwhelming.  But decision is now made....

Not much else to report, this week we have had some proper winter weather, snow, hail, frost and sunshine....

But today normality was restored back to wind and rain, which is good as the rain count was looking a bit low for February....

It's like the smug police are punishing us....

Another week a bit more progress.  First job this week was the finish up that West Wing...  Before he could get the big windows in he had to put in a ledger for the deck that will eventually run the length of the wall...

Then he added the sills to the window ledges.....

Then the windows got fitted, these are pretty big windows, 8 foot tall.. lots of "being careful"  not to drop them :)

And that was it, ALL the windows fitted, all 24 of them!

Onto the doors... first door goes into the final hole on the West wing.....

This is a fibre glass door and the frame needs to be painted white.  But I do believe the West wing, much like the East wing, is now complete!

So next its the front door.  We spent a lot of time thinking (well I didn't, but Mr M did) about what doors to buy, there are any amount of doors out there but the problem being most of them come from China.  Living in Oregon, the lumber state, it behoved us to buy a wooden door from China!  We looked at lots of options and finally found a reasonably priced option handmade in Washington State.  Of course there are many different configurations for the windows (lights) and panels, and blah blah blah.... which also caused Mr M quite a bit of anxiety.... we/he finally decided on this knotty Alder.....

As soon as it got fitted, it got taken off and is now in the garage being varnished... we decided against a stain and are keeping it the natural color with a satin varnish.....

 

Finally after being so smug about the weather last week we woke up to a snowy mix today.... a subtle reminder that it is still winter....

 

Summer in February and other animals.....

Its been G L O R I O U S down here on the coast this last week, its been sunny, sunny, sunny and warm, shorts and t-shirts weather and the promise of things to come!

So, Mr M was able to crack on with the big windows on the West side of the house.  Its like the West Wing only slightly smaller!  prior to this week he really hadn't done much on this window, the framing wasn't completed and neither was the sheathing.  Take note the top is just square, no curve, and the bottom window has been boarded up for the winter.....

First job was the put the posts in between each window....

Then he had to finish up the sheathing and cut the curve into the top for the windows...

 

He then had to add blocking to ensure the upper "hole" was strong enough for the windows to sit into and to give something for the windows to be attached to....

Then the posts and the side of the house got wrapped....

The sills got taped......

And finally the upper windows got fitted......

This week the two lower windows and the glass door will be fitted.  We thought about having a bi-fold (tri-fold?) door going into this space, to enable us to have this wall open all through the summer days, sitting out onto the deck (which will be there eventually) sounds amazing right? .... we even got as far as pricing it up, and that is where the idea fell flat! Not only was it crazy expensive, it wasn't approved for use on the coast and wouldn't have met code for wind loading...

So like I said we have been having summer in February this past week, and the upcoming week isn't looking too shabby!!!  Just going to leave these here for you to enjoy...

"February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until March." Dr JR Stockton

First thing this week Mr M finished up all the plumbing for the waste water....

We only have one vent pipe out through the roof, which meant a few more twists and turns inside...

But keeps the outside looking clean.....

Then being blessed with some lovely weather he cracked on with the last three windows in our bedroom.  First he put in the wooden posts that go between the windows...

The he wrapped the dormer.....

Which was a bit of a "clenching" experience......

 Then the windows got fitted....

And from the inside... lovely, lovely windows :)

All that is missing is a front door.....

The gorgeous weather is set to continue, Thank you February.... Mr M will be getting the last windows installed, these are the biggies so he'd better not drop any!

This nice weather has me thinking of Spring, Summer and the garden.  Garden project 2018 no. 2 is underway. 

7 post holes dug and 7 posts in place... 4 more to go.. this is the start of project DeerBeGone.....

 

This years garlic is growing well already, Won't be long and soon all the beds will be full!