Outside Rock

Finally, pictures of the exterior rock!!! We also had them do the parging while here. It is not quite complete. We will probably have them back in the spring to put rock on the posts of the deck (once we get it framed in!!!).

Almost done the fire place!!!

Just a reminder that if you want to see a larger image, just click on the picture, and it will open it full screen.

Fireplace Finished

Here is the finished product!!! As you can see, the boys love the new TV!!! We are very satisfied with how it turned out. I will get some pictures up of the outside rock in the next day or two. The front of the garage still needs to be completed, and they are about halfway done the outside wall of the fireplace. Todd is very happy that he chose not to do this project!!!
We are going to be putting a sealing coat on the hearth stones, so that if anything gets spilled on them, it won't stain. It takes 48 hours to dry though, so we are waiting for a time when we are going out of town for the weekend.

Rock!!!

The hearth stone still need to be put down, but that should be happening today.

We will have to put the TV back in place once all the dust is cleaned up.

Mantle

Here are a few pictures of the mantle, now stained and in place. There will be rock all around the fireplace, the mantle, and the TV--alot of rock. The mason was here today, and dropped off some of his tools, so he should be starting first thing tomorrow morning. He will still need to put up the metal lathe outside, as well as inside, and then put on a scratch coat. Needless to say, it will be a few days before we actually have any rock on the house. He will need to do about 500 sq ft. This is on the outside, front of the house/garage, as well as the fireplace wall, inside and out.

The guy who did the woodworking on the log, figures it to be from a 100 year old tree. It was in my grandma's house for 100 years, so we are looking at a very old piece of wood!! The staining turned out real nice--just as we were hoping it would!!!

We originally had hardwood on the hearth, but ripped that out this weekend, as we decided to put some stones down instead. They are 20" x 20", and are of the same type as our rock for the rest of the house.

A close up of the "worm holes".

Trees

Our trees were delivered and planted yesterday. They are a white spruce, between 4-6 feet tall. We have 100 of them. We also grabbed a few poplars from my mom and dad's last weekend.

The latest....

We still continue to work on the house. We have been living in the house for just over 1 year now. It has been a wonderfully busy year! The grass is coming in not too bad. We ended up buying a little lawn tractor, so it takes about 3 hours to mow the lawn. We still have lots of rocks, so we will work on getting all those out over the next year or so. By then we should have some trees, and we will consider getting a zero turn mower.

Todd powered through 2 weekends and got all the spindles and railings painted. We still need to varnish the railings, so the kids and I will have to leave one more weekend--the kids are just a little too helpful!!!
Todd has also been working hard on getting baseboards, headers, and chair railings up. The is the headers of the front bay window. It all came together very nicely! We still have to put up window casings in the back windows, but that means setting up the scaffolding. We'll have to get to it one of these weekends.
Todd bought a paint sprayer, so we finally got all of our doors painted. They look so nice!! Todd just installed the first of the closet doors last night, so I will have to get pictures up of that.

We are having someone in to do the rock inside and out, and he should hopefully be in the last week of October, or the first week of November at the latest. These are our 3 choices so far....we are having a hard time picking which one!! They are all Eldorado Stone.

Manzanita Cliffstone

York Limestone

Mesa Verde Moutain Ledge

Once we have that in, it will make the house look so different. I had a mantel for the fireplace made out of a log from my grandma's house. The log itself is about 200 years old. The tree was about 100 years when it was cut down to be used for my grandma's house, and the house was built over 100 years ago. I can't wait to see the finished fireplace wall--it should be a great feature in the house!!!!

We are getting trees brought in tomorrow. We will have 100 white spruce planted. They are between 4 -6 feet in height. That will make the lot look a very different.

We are also looking at different options for sidewalks. We had looked at getting stamped concrete, but apparently that gets very slippery in the winter. I think we are learning towards paving stones, that Todd and I will do ourselves---the projects just never end around here!!!

By the way--Happy Thanksgiving!!

Greenery

Here are a few shots of the freshly sprouted grass!! We just need some rain over the next couple of days, followed by some nice warm weather. We have had temps just above 20, but no rain...not ideal. We may have to consider watering with the sprinkler......

Some patches are growing better than others....

Update on Seeding

The grass seed is just starting to come up. I'll give it another week, and then I will try to get a picture. We have a few spots were we will most likely have to bring in some topsoil, as the ground is just too rocky, or has too much clay....We have been lucky to get a little bit of rain, followed by some warm weather, so that has helped the grass. We could use more rain, which we will hopefully be getting in the next little bit.
We had a few moles, but we were able to get rid of them this past week. We still have one, maybe two gophers, and they are proving difficult to remove......
Alberta Paving stopped by as they are paving a neighbours driveway, and we got a quote. Needless to say, we are going to stick with the gravel driveway for a few more years.....I think their quote was reasonable, just more than what we are willing to spend at this time.
The front and back decks almost have all the deck boards down. On the back, we are missing two boards, and on the front, we have to finish building the frame for part of it, and then we still need to put on about 8 boards on the already framed in part.

More seeding...

The seeding is just about complete. Now, bring on the hot weather with no rain!!!! It is supposed to be fairly warm over the weekend, but then we are supposed to get some rain early next week--let's hope!!!

These are the rock picker attachments. They used a rock sweep type attachment to put the rocks in rows, and then attached the bucket to scoop the rocks up. We have a huge rock pile in the backyard, so if anyone needs rocks.......

The backyard tilled and harrowed, no rocks picked yet, and no seed.

Landscaping--okay, tilling and seeding!!

The bathroom mirrors were installed last Tuesday--what a difference it makes! It is weird to walk by the rooms though, and be able to see your reflection--takes some getting used to! Main floor bathroom.
Todd's vanity mirror.
My vanity mirror--note all the Kleenex--Nathan loves to open boxes and pull the tissues out!!
Boys' bathroom upstairs. Jacob loves to stand in front of it and make faces!!

The prairie grass was cut with a rough cut mower yesterday, and now is being tilled today.

We had some gravel brought in the last week of May, just before we had all that rain. It was pretty muddy already at the end of the driveway, you almost got stuck getting out. The gravel is holding up well though.
The front deck. We can step out the front door now, but we still don't have steps in place to get up to the deck. We will wait for the seeding to be done, and then we will get a concrete pad poured, or put in some kind of paving stone blocks (depends on what we are going to do for a sidewalk), and then we will install the stairs, and finish the deck.

Todd was also up painting the office dormer on the weekend, and around the front door. We have no other spots that need to be painted brown. We have a couple pieces of trim board that need to be painted white still, but that will have to wait again now until the seed is growing nicely. The seeding company (Kayben Farms) came out a couple days earlier than we thought, so Todd was actually painting when they showed up. We had to move the lift out of the way though.

Hopefully we still get the occassional rain shower to help with the grass--once it is in. The lot has dried up nicely from last week. We had a lot of very big puddles--I think Jacob referred to them as "ponds", actually--they did come complete with the occassional duck, and lots of frogs!!! Oh yeah--and a few million mosquitoes!!!

Kitchen Backsplash Finished and a Few More Baseboards

Nathan and Jacob were helping Dad this weekend with baseboards--Nathan especially. He wouldn't leave Todd alone for a minute. He had to help hold the tape measure, and he carried sections of baseboard all around the house. Todd placed them where they fit, but didn't nail everything in until the end, so Nathan would take a piece out, and then put in back in place.

Here are a few pictures of the finished backsplash. It now has the sealer on it, so it will retain this "wet" look. We are really happy with how it turned out.

I am still working on getting together a quote for the cultivating, seeding, rock picking of the yard. Hopefully by the end of the week we will of had someone out to look at it.

Still no vanity mirrors, and not sure exactly when either......

We had a few of our hardwood boards replaced, as they had moved, and the fixes look great!!