Moving In

We took possession of the house on July 10th and we've begun moving in gradually. Each time I go there to work on something I take a truckload of something with me.

 
I'd had such a good result with the peel and stick tiles that I put down on the bathroom floor in the barn that I decided to use them in a couple of places in the house; the closet that's off of the garage and also in my studio office.

 

The new bedroom furniture was delivered, and so was the refrigerator, so we decided to spend Saturday night there. After eight o'clock we made our way up to the second floor balcony to watch the sunset and take some pictures. Here are a couple of nice shots that I managed to get.

In this shot our driveway is visible in the lower left.

This is the first of many sunsets that we'll be enjoying in the years to come.

But the biggest surprises were finding out
how amazingly quiet it was up there on the mountaintop at night
and
watching all the private property security lights popping on all over the valley below.
That made for a pretty sight. We're wondering what the valley will look like at Christmastime.

The Final Week

There hasn't been much to take pictures of this past week because all the activity has been so detail oriented. Painters have been doing touch ups and a lot of cleaning has been going on, including using lacquer thinner to get the paint off of door hinges and other places it's not wanted. So the whole house has been filled with that wonderful aroma for several days now. But there hasn't been anything going on that would make for exciting pictures.

The barn swallows have already left the nest so I was able to remove the nest and do the much needed clean up on the balcony. We're glad that we could do our part to help them out this year, but in future we'll be taking steps to encourage them to seek a different building site.

But during this past week the county was working on the road so it was closed for a couple of days, so I had to take a detour that took me west of the property where I'd never been before, and I got to see what the place looks like from about a mile and a quarter away.

 

 So I stopped and took a couple pictures. This one with a short lens that gives you a sense of where the house sits, out there on that high spot on the horizon ....

 

  ... and this one, taken with a longer lens and zoomed in tight shows more of the house's details and how the driveway ascends the hill.

 

 AND ... the good news is that, after rigorous testing, the Ranch Foreman has given his Seal of Approval on the new carpeting!

 

 

 

 

So we'll be having a walk through with the supervisor Monday the 7th. After a couple of days to fix any issues that turn up, we're scheduled to take possession on Thursday the 10th.

Some Minor Setbacks

In our last post the concrete for the flat work was just arriving so it's all finished now. The expansion joints are made with redwood boards. Maybe we'll paint the exposed top edges with the trim color from the house. Or maybe some other color. Or maybe not.

The sink was installed in the utility room.
(Sorry for the bad cell phone picture.)

Early last week the air conditioners were installed. These two service the upstairs and the studio. There's a third one behind the garage that takes care of the first floor of the house. They were all started up and allowed to run overnight and into the next day to make sure they were working properly. (Hmmmmm ... well guess what...)

 

 

The past week was fraught with a couple of "do overs".

On Wednesday it was discovered that apparently there was too much "static air pressure"? in the air return from the house to the air handler in the garage attic which caused condensation to go where it shouldn't, which damaged the ceiling in the garage. But that was all repaired by the next day. And the A/C guys were back again just yesterday to get it adjusted so it wouldn't happen again.

 

 On Tuesday it was also discovered that the rough in plumbing installed in the walls for the showers in the master bath shower ... (left)

... and the studio (bottom half) were not the right kind for the faucets that were chosen. So the plumbers were in the midst of tearing out the tile and drywall so they could replace the equipment when the project supervisor showed up, and needless to say he was not pleased. But the right equipment was installed and the damage has all been repaired and we're moving forward with installing the right faucets.

As for the barn swallow nest above the balcony door ... These are the babies, already in full feathers! And yesterday there were at least a dozen adults swooping around the front of the house, constantly chirping as they passed close to the nest. Maybe a "Come on out" call to encourage the youngsters to take flight? Who knows? But it sure was interesting to watch.
Maybe that nest can be removed sooner than we thought.