Happy Thanksgiving

I promised Alexis that I'd get the living room and dining room ready for Thanksgiving so she could do her "homemaker" thing. I did and she did... she has really made the "very fine house" I built her a home. Here are a few shots of the dining room just before our Thanksgiving celebration:

My friend Roger Gertz's son-in-law works for Shaw Industries (carpet manufacturers) and he was able to get us some 2' X 2' commercial carpet squares (stacked in the lower left corner of this picture) and a brand new 10' X 10' bound piece of carpet which we used in the dining room. We like the look of the stained concrete but have been VERY disappointed in its durability... besides sealed concrete is so slick Baxter walks on it much like Bambi did on the ice... Big "B's" being marooned on a 5' X 7' piece of carpet is bumming out our VLD (VLD = Very Large Dog). The carpet squares are beautiful and will allow normal mobility for Big "B."
This was the center piece for Thanksgiving... pretty, huh!?
I get to be with Ethan & Baby Caleb in Tulsa a week from Sunday... EXCITING, huh!?... here's Ethan... he'll be 2 on December 3rd:
Here Caleb doing his best banana impersonation with his Daddy (Phillip Dail):As a point of interest... we are now drinking our rainwater (collected in these tanks):...and filtered through our "Big Berky":The rainwater gets poured into the left vessel (with the white ceramic filters/"candles" in view). The top vessel with the "questionable" water is stacked on the second stainless container (right) and the water leaches through the barely porous filters into the bottom container where we draw off the filtered rain water.

More progress... inside

Well, we keep plugging and all the while Brigid's Wood feels more and more like home. Here are some shots of the living room and dining room:
And lest anyone should forget... the living room is over my left shoulder in the distance.

Autumn in Tennessee at Brigid's Wood

This is a shot looking west on Highway 41A on our way home from Sewanee... Brigid's Wood is about a mile and a quarter from the "bustling" village of Sewanee... just ahead turn south on Sherwood Road (Highway 56):
About a mile down Sherwood Road (Highway 56) turn west onto St. Mary's Lane:
Count 4 telephone poles (about 800') and turn left into Brigid's Wood... if you don't turn, you'll end up at the late Sir John Templeton's empty library... not ONE book on the shelves of his multi-million dollar edifice:
Inside Alexis is making it a home:We heat primarily with our Tempwood wood stove (note: stained concrete floor):Mosby and Boone disappeared last night... ALL NIGHT. Alexis didn't sleep a wink worrying about our "little boys" (most dogs are "little" compared to our 120 pound "Big B"). Fortunately both Boone and Mosby were wearing "dog tags" (literally) and a lady who lives on Rattlesnake Springs Road left a message on our recorder, "My name is Dawn and I have two dogs here at my house who are sweeter than apple pie..." Rattlesnake Springs Road is over 3 miles from Brigid's Wood so it's a good bet Mose-bose and Boone-dog were lost. We brought them home and they crashed all day... here's Mosby on Baxter's bed:Here's Boone-dog sawing logs:Baxter was exhausted just thinking about their little juvenile delinquent caper:

Rainwater collection system installed

I was able to track down Aaron Gifford (my helper who is able to climb like a squirrel) this morning and we got our two "rain barrels" installed and hooked up. He also was able to significantly enlarge the dog pen and install a "thingie" on the bottom of both exterior doors that will keep mice from sneaking in under the door (Alexis is like most women... she doesn't like mice in her kitchen).
Now we have to wait for rain. Actually I couldn't find my PVC glue this afternoon so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to permanently hook-up the spigot at the bottom outlet. We'll begin to use the rainwater immediately to drink and cook (running it through our Big Berkey filter first).Last Monday my two local moving-guys - Sammy Dee (400#) and his "little" brother Fuzzy (only 350#) - came over and we got some of the really heavy things moved from the storage building into the house (these guys are good... I think that given a weekend they could pick this house up and move it over 6"). We are now at a point where we can begin to unpack and finally get settled instead of living out of a suitcase in a construction site (the living room/dining room are still not finished). Here is a shot of the bedroom with the basics in place on the newly stained floor (if you look closely, you can see I still need to touch up the corner between the "Orange Spice" and the "Vanilla Delight" and my homemade bed frame needs a skirt).One of the main things we got moved in was my Mama's book shelf which allows us to begin unpacking books of which there are MANY because Alexis is an ardent "paper & ink" book reader and historian. Emptying the storage building frees up room in there and lets us move tools and assorted "stuff" out of the house. Here's the bookshelf in the process of being filled (the shelves face the computer desk and the windows):And to vent politically I make these bumper stickers:

Revised/simplified rainwater collection system

Learn as you go...

Before

Clean concrete after scrubbing with commercial buffer:During (Step #1... etching)

We had to re-etch the bedroom floor because I "forgot" to sufficiently scrub the floor with an "acid brush" after the acid solution had had a chance to "work" (is forgetting possible at my advanced age?... I can't remember?)... DUH!... I also wanted to get a REAL mop for the second time around to get the etching solution up off the floor... those little kitchen sponge mops just don't "hack it" for essentially a commercial job like this... and I was right ... the traditional "almost Navy swab" and the rented mop bucket with squeezer arm made the job of getting the etcher solution up a whole lot easier. By 10 PM, however, we were both wrung out like we'd been unmercifully squeezed through the mop bucket. Here are shots of the bedroom, hall and office beginning to dry after the etching:
Master bedroom:The hallway... for some reason the saw-cuts in the concrete took much longer to dry everywhere?:

Looking into office at and me, "two of the boys" and my incredible 24" iMac. ("I think... therefore iMac")... Baxter (Alpha Dog) and Boone-Dog are getting ready to do one of the things that they do best... sleep. If you look closely you can see Baxter shedding the equivalent of one and a half Beagles:During (Step #2... staining)

The stain has been applied here with touch-up needed before the application of the sealer :
Master bedroom (touch-up paint needed in corner between "Orange Spice" and "Vanilla Delight")... we wanted a leather-look on the floor and got it:Master bath needing touch-up before sealer:
Office looking at "barely pink" wall where large bookcase will go:

The outside of our Irish cottage is finished

With the exception of one piece of trim and the flower beds, etc., the outside of our Irish cottage is finished as of today. I finished a little dab of painting on the south wall this afternoon... Aaron had run out of paint yesterday so I wrapped it up this afternoon instead of shooting off fireworks. Here's a long shot of the south side before construction cleanup is complete:

I also worked on laying leftover AAC blocks to create a pad for one of our two 1,600 gallon rainwater collection tanks. The second pad goes in tomorrow or the next day and then we can set the tanks, hook up the gutters to the system and start harvesting rain water. Here's the pad I finished today:
Alexis and her Mama did a lot of painting today so we're almost finished inside too.

So you'll understand how we are plumbing the rain water collection system, here is a rough diagram of the water flow:

Tomorrow we'll finish the little dab of painting that is left to be done on the inside and start cleaning the floors so they can be stained one room at a time... staining will be tough to do while we're living in the house.

Finishing touches

Alexis and I (between my business phone calls) continued to paint today in the master bedroom. The wall behind the headboard is Behr "Orange Spice." It's really a rich color and with the other three walls being painted "Vanilla Delight" there is a nice warm, cozy feel to the room. All the trim (baseboards and trim around the doors) will be bright white enamel).
I can't remember the exact details but this headboard (below) was bought by my great-great grand parents after the War of Northern Aggression.

**************** (... and it's time to start over again!) ****************They started building their new homestead (to replace the log cabin) on the family farm in the 1850s but it was not finished until after the "recent unpleasantness" (the land was acquired in a 10,000 acre land grant in 1790... it's now Warren County, Bowling Green, Kentucky... Daniel Boone used to come by and visit). The headboard and the marble-top Victorian chest to the right of the bed were purchased for their newly completed home in about 1870 in Louisville, Kentucky. The last piece of the family farm was sadly sold off about 15 years ago... until then the abstract only contained one document, the original 1790 land grant (the land was in my family for over 200 years before the city slicker heirs sold it off for the money). There is a matching foot board too but I've got to figure out how to attach it to the foot of the bed (it has curved corners plus it's only a full-size frame to go with our new king-size mattress).We'll finish painting in the bedroom tomorrow and move back into the master bath to finish it up. It's beginning to REALLY feel like home.
Aaron was here today. He is almost finished painting the stucco on the south side of the house and has continued to work on our rain water collection system by installing gutter guards. Tomorrow or the next day he and I will set the two 1,600 gallon tanks at the west end of the house.

Beginning to settle in

Ben finished the sheet rock texturing Friday. Today was another milestone as far as achieving some semblance of normal living here at Brigid's Wood (the hassle of living in the middle of a construction site is beginning to wane)... except for staining the floor we finished the master bedroom closet and started moving into it. Alexis picked out a really nice color ("Vanilla Delight") for the closet that will also go on three walls in the master bedroom.
To see a better representation of both colors, click each color image.The fourth wall will be a bright, cheery color called "Orange Spice." All the trim will all be BRIGHT white enamel.She and I talked about using bold, bright colors and that's what we'll have... orange in the bedroom (it really is a neat color especially with the vanilla), rose/pale, pale pink in the living room/office, GREEN in the master bath (like Kermit the Frog says, "it isn't easy being green") and "Bicycle YELLOW" in the utility room. We painted the closet last night at 2 AM and today we were able to get the 11' closet rod in, the cover on the electric panel and the huge double cabinet - that I got for a song at Vanderbilt Medical Center - set in the corner. We also got our new freezer set in the corner and got it "cranking:"We'll have to add a "window treatment" to this closet window but this is the other end of the 11' rod. We have a chest and at least one more short closet rod to go on this west wall.
Here are some new pictures of my beautiful grandson, Ethan:
Messy eater just like his Granddaddy:Helping Daddy spread fertilizer:Easter haircut:Helping in the backyard before haircut:More teeth than his hillbilly Granddaddy:Alexis and I are headed to Nashville tomorrow to a "Cap 'n Trade" Tea Party... we'll get back to painting tomorrow afternoon.