Short blog today but important. All our storage locker stuff arrived. We haven't seen it for almost two years, so I guess that means we haven't missed it because we don't even know what's in half the boxes. So as we open them it will be like Christmas - surprise! I worked in the garage most of yesterday cleaning up and getting ready for our stuff. I built a 20 foot long workbench and here are the before and after pics.
the before picture. lots of room
after picture full of stuff
Here's our life condensed into half of a garage. Notice Crissie's little scooter to the left. It doubles
as a lawnmower. So when she can't walk anymore at least I'll get the grass cut.
So we started painting last week. It's a lot of paint and thank God we decided to just go with one color or we'd be wasting a lot of time picking out colors. It's probably better to add accent colors after we've moved in for a while to figure out what we like best. So we arrived to some of our kitchen cabinets already in. No face plates for the drawers and cupboards but that's okay.
We've decided to go with antique white. It has a bit of yellow in it and it complements our front door very well. Hopefully we'll be done tomorrow. Just our bedroom left and the living room/kitchen but that's still a lot of walls. Here's some pics.
Yes, I do the cutting. I still have a steady hand.
A look at some of our cabinets. The one with the large drawers against the wall will have a gas cooktop. Sink is on the left with the dishwasher on the right and garbage on left. There'll be plenty of cabinet space. This is only half.
Crissie found this new cute gardener to mow our grass. I think he is overdressed compared to me above.
So, we started with the hedge today. If you don't stay ahead of it, you'll pay for it in the end. So Crissie drove the truck and I stood on the platform in the back with the hedge trimmer and cut away. Our hedge is called Podocarupus and it can grow like a tree, but we don't want that. As long as it's small enough, it's feathery and easy to cut. Since we live next to the highway the hedge provides privacy and sound mitigation. We are trying to keep it about 8 feet or more tall so you can't see any pickups or cars. The big semis we still can see, but not the driver's cab.
If you do look out from our Lanai or porch, you get a direct shot of the highway. See the picture. So we bought more Podocarpus to plant and let it grow tall, so no part of the highway is visible. We also have a back hedge but that is called Olive Vine. It doesn't have olives but the leaves look like the olive tree. It can grow huge as well, but we're keeping it the same as the podocarpus. So basically, three sides are or will be hedge.
The only other side is between us and our neighbor, Anthony. It's just grass between his property and ours. So we've decided to plant 3 avocado trees - the kind that grow wide and have plenty of fruit. That should give us free avocados (and you know how expensive they can get) and a certain degree of privacy as they grow out. Remember Robert Frost - good fences make good neighbors.
Tomorrow we're building a work bench in the garage and starting the painting.
This is our highway podocarpus hedge. We're going to extend it to the end of the fence.
You can see we've already started killing the grass to extend the hedge.
With the hedge growing higher than the fence, we won't see the cars on the highway. The downside is that we won't be able to see the flowering Hibiscus.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Hello everyone,
We are back in business. After a summer of warm water, fire smoke, and repairing damage done by ice to the dock pilings at the lake, we are on our way back to our other island - the Big Island of Hawaii and the renewal of the blog. Below is the latest picture taken in August by our good Hawaiian friend, Bernie Hite - the second to arrive as a visitor. Sharon and Hank Hankins came in July I believe. Of course, while it's finished on the outside, we have a lot to do on the inside. So starting Tuesday, we'll have at it. Let's see if two 70 year old codgers can put some things together. We don't have much time because our first inside staying visitors come in Feb.
So stay tuned for all the excitement of finishing our house and all the adventures we will have doing it.
Here's Bernie admiring our front door. When we left it was just a white sheet. The wood is called
Sepele - a type of African Mahogany. They call it poor man's Koa (which is very expensive and hard to get - native to Hawaii) because when it darkens, it looks like Koa. I guess like fake news, it will be fake Koa.
So, this is probably the last blog before next October when we return to finish the house. We have left Hawaii and are now on the mainland working our way up from San Diego where we landed to Spokane and Priest Lake. It's been a very productive 5 and one half months. We are on schedule and no big surprises. We planned on finishing the outside and sheet rocking the inside before we left and we are probably a little ahead. The garage is painted, the walls are all primed and the ceilings are painted. The tile is bought for the bathrooms and the cabinet maker is working on our cabinets while we are gone as is the quartz guy for our counter tops. We don't have a front door yet, but it's in the process and Monty will put it in while we are gone.
Before we left we had a meet and greet party with the neighbors at Tony's and although we met most of them already, it was a good opportunity to really have a chat rather than just wave as they drove by. We also had a big barbecue with Monty and his crew at the house to thank them for their work. They were very conscientious.
So now it's the inside game and it looks like our two year plan to finish the house will be on schedule. We could be done by as early as Christmas but probably the end of January. Here's what it looks like.
Guest bedroom one
Guest bedroom two
Master bedroom with bath on left and walk in closet on right
Kitchen on right, Living room on left, study is doorway and slider that leads to the lanai on left.
looking from the slider to the lanai to living room kitchen and front hallway. The ladder is where the refrigerator, wall oven and pantry go. down the hallway to the left is the laundry room and garage.
The garage all painted and ready to go. It's got a side mount motor and is very quiet.
The house with the driveway finished and re landscaped. The grass will be grown in by the time we get back.
So we took a little hiatus from the house to visit cousins and tour a little in Western Australia, Perth, Fremantle, Bunbury, etc. Had a great time and it was wonderful connecting with family. Meanwhile, things didn't stop at the house. While we were gone, the insulation went in, the drywall went up and it was mud and taped by the time we got back. The lanai cement and sidewalk and porch were poured and the tongue and groove ceiling for the porch and lanai were put up and stained. And the big thing was the garage door. So now the painting begins. I finished the trim on the outside and have started to work on the inside. Walls and ceilings need priming and Crissie has to pick out colors. Hopefully we will get a lot of painting done before we leave for the mainland in ten days. Monty is finishing putting the forms up for cement on the driveway and the garage will be poured Wednesday. We are rushing to get the last minute things done before we leave next week.
Our bedroom
Tongue and groove ceiling under the lanai
Looking out the front door porch roof and overhang
Front of the house with the garage door. Forms are up for the driveway. Front door will be wood with two side panels
We're not sure about painting the garage door. Any suggestions?
This is the last blog before we leave for Australia for 2.5 weeks. We'll try and blog from there but it won't be about the house.
So, most of the work on the house has been going on inside. The plumber came and did all his work. It was inspected and passed. We have a water spigot on the side of the house that works, but until we get all our plumbing fixtures for him to put in, he's finished. So that will be next fall. The electrician has been coming and after our walkthrough, we have 34 canned lights to put in. He does the wiring and we do the buying of the lights. And he puts them in, so that won't be until next fall. But we do have some power available. Tony and I put in the support box and roof flange for the wood stove. While we're gone, it should be insulated and sheet rocked, which means we're coming close to the end of Monty's work. It's been very enjoyable working with him. I spent most of this weekend painting the trim around the windows and corners of the house. Got mostly one coat on and will have to do a second, hopefully before we leave.
Here's an update on our cherry blossom tree. It doesn't take much to have a green thumb here. Things just grow, so we didn't screw it up. The tree is blossoming and the leaves will be out by the time we get back.
So, what are Saturday mornings like around here? About the same as most everywhere else. Soccer games, tee ball, little league. They do have old timers softball. It's big here and I'm going to join as soon as we get the house done. You have to bat, but somebody can run for you. I went out in the yard and practiced catch with Tony and I think I can still play. Yay! But the one major difference here on Saturday kids' sports day is Keiki Rodeo! Keiki is Hawaiian for children and I must say there are a lot of budding cowboys here in Hawaii. So we went to the Keiki rodeo for a while and watched some little kids on man size horses do some barrel racing and break away roping.
This is the Parker ranch rodeo arena.
Int barrel racing the idea is you can't lose your hat before you enter the arena or it's a deduction. You can't allow the horse to stop or reverse. You must keep it going. The first two barrels are done in a figure eight, then you high tail it to the third barrel, circle it and go gangbusters back over the finish line.
In break away calf roping, the calf gets a head start and the rider has so many seconds to lasso him and let the rope go. If the contestant tries but still hasn't lost the rope, he/she can keep trying until time runs out, but if the rope falls and the calf isn't lassoed, then it's a miss. The kids are still a little small to actually dismount and wrap the calf's legs with the rope. This video is a little hard to see, but the kid actually lassos the calf and you can see the rope trailing on the ground. A success.
So here's a couple pics of the house with some of the trim done. you can see in the top picture the sidewalk forms are in place to go from the front door to the lanai. Gary of Gary's Custom Cabinets is going to do a 40 inch wood front door with two sidelights. The red trim is the color of Waimea barns and represents the red dirt. That's why we wanted that color. It goes on bright but dries dull like you see on the roof trim.
This is the back of the house. That's the dining room window. The small one is the guest bathroom and the last is a guest bedroom window.
