Tomorrow morning is the big day. The excavator begins work. I'm not sure how long that will take but once that is done, the contractor will begin work on the basement. After years of having it as a long range plan (try getting a concrete guy to call you back. They just don't), we found a guy who was willing to do the work, and to do it in pretty short order. Amazingly, we found an excavator who was willing to come out and do the required work in that time frame as well.
That is pretty miraculous, like the stars aligning. So. We're building a house that we were not ready to build, but we'd be stupid to not build, what with the alignment of the stars and all, because finding a concrete contractor who's not booked for years and an excavator contractor who happened to have a free month, well. that's something that might not happen again in our lifetime.
We've been stockpiling for this house right along. When Tim sees windows on clearance at Lowe's, he buys them and stores them in the old house on the property, the one that I refuse to live in because it has snakes and other critters (once there was a ground hog in the attic). We have a little wood stove, a parlor stove. I've got my butcher block, that huge monstrous thing taken from a commercial kitchen. We're building a kitchen around that piece. (Well. That and a Heartland stove). We have a cast iron bathtub for the bathroom, a real beaut, a Kohler in perfect shape. Some guy ripped it out of his house and just wanted it gone. We got it for $100. We've got a high back bathroom sink we took from a renovation. I even have the chairs and lounger for the front porch. Tonight Tim found a fiberglass front door, still in its box for sale on line. The guy bought it 4 years ago, and never installed it. We got a very expensive door for $175.
It's how we roll.
It's hard not to be excited. We went walking tonight. Usually we're dreaming our dreams, but tonight we were planning our plans. That's a very different thing.
I made chicken last night for chicken alfredo. I set a decent portion aside for tonight's supper. I knew that I was going to be doing some running today for Tim. 120 miles later, I got home five minutes before William got out of school. I was throwing a quick supper together, the chicken cooked in chicken broth with mushrooms and peas and onions added and thickened. It really did make a good gravy, and it went over potatoes quite nicely. William doesn't like peas, and he is really quite clever about it, taking a mouthful of food, but somehow, when he takes his spoon out of his mouth, there are always those peas on his spoon. He daintily sets them off to the side.
Sigh.
There was not much left gravy left and Mangey was begging outside, so I took a bowl of chicken gravy out to him. Later, I went outside and laughed to see the empty bowl was licked clean. The peas were licked clean and daintily set to the side.
12 year old boys and feral cats: Not all that different.
Tim and I walked tonight, admiring the flowers, and talking about the new house. It felt nice.
Had to laugh at the pea-avoidance antics of feral grandsons and cats!! Well done on getting everything lined up for the big build, and yes, I heartily concur buying things when you see what you need at a bargain price is the way to go. We used to go to auctions regularly for furniture, but also picked up internal period doors that way and at a deadstock auction in a field near Llangadog, we got JUST the ancient oak beams we needed to be the base plates for half-timbered walls to be put up down in the Old Dairy. No-one else wanted them and they cost us just £1 each!!! We had to take the front seat out of the Volvo estate to get them in it to bring them home, but it was a case of needs must!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh. What a deal on those beams! Tim would have been snatching them up too. We have a dump truck. I will tell you a story, prefacing it with 'your old and our old are two different olds'. We were working on our first house. It was circa 1830. But here's the cool thing. The beams in the basement were hand hewns AND they were repurposed. You could tell that they were from a building that had been taken apart. You could see the holes where they had originally been pegged together. We had to jack up the house and replace two of those beams, but Tim could not bear to get rid of them. We figure that if the building was even 30 years old, those massive beams were taken from trees that were growing during the revolutionary war. They are up in our carriage shed right now. No idea what we will ultimately do with them, but we needed to save them.
DeleteYou have pretty talented creatures that can avoid the peas. Are you sure there's nothing wrong with the peas? Be careful and safe with the house building. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely sure. William has been picking peas out of his food for nearly all of his 12 years. Not sure about the cat.
DeleteIt is a good feeling to find something you need in excellent condition for a bargain price. Most of our furniture in this house came second hand!
ReplyDeleteWe really are very lucky that way. Tim stops in at Lowe's just to check on their clearance stuff. We stockpile for the renos and the rentals...and as it turns out, for our new house. Our good fortune is to have places to stash it all.
DeleteWhat a terrific way to build a house. I just love it. Reminds me a little of when hippies started building houses. If there was going to be a tear-down of an old building anywhere near, the word would go out and people would dart in and collect windows or flooring or beautiful old light fixtures or sinks...
ReplyDeleteI have had dogs who could do that same pea trick. It is a talent!
I mean, the bathtub alone was $3000 new. We got it for $100 because it was heavy! Tim was so pleased about that find.
DeleteGood that you have got started on the new house. You will bee busy .
ReplyDeleteTim's favorite thing to be.
DeleteHappy for y'all that plans are becoming reality, you two deserve it with all the hard work you do to get to this point. Every house we lived in we sold with many remodels and better than we bought it. And cleaner. My husband like Tim could do about everything himself when it came to making a house better. Well, another cup of coffee for me and thankful for all your hard work paying off.
ReplyDeleteTim just called. The basement should be done by the end of the day!
DeleteBest of luck! Hope all goes smoothly!
ReplyDeleteOh it won't. Any project this size is going to lead to frazzled nerves.
DeleteDebby, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy reading your blog. You are a wonderful writer and I am so enjoying being along for the ride with you. The house news is so exciting. NOW is the perfect time to build it! You will be so very happy you didn't put it off another year when you are all cozy with all of your treasures around you.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice thing to say! Thank you!
Deletegetting started on the house is very exciting. Hope all goes smoothly and beautifully.
ReplyDeleteOh I imagine that before it is over, we will be nuts over something. But...it will get done.
DeleteMy younger brother somehow managed the trick of swallowing Brussels sprouts whole when he was a young kid. The lengths boys will go to.
ReplyDeleteMy son hated vegetables with a passion. He grew up and married a sensible nurse. I will never ever forget the day that he called me to say, "Guess what I had? Brussels sprouts! They're delicious."
DeleteI listened incredulously wondering who I was really talking to, and what did they do with my son?
When I went to CWR I also lived in the section of Cleveland called Millionaire's Row, on Euclid Ave. I knew an old mansion was scheduled for demo, but had no idea of the day until I passed by the fenced in place, by a high wooden fence, and could see the wrecking ball swinging. I went to class in tears. I came back, hours later. It was over. I snuck in and in my one minute there all around me was devastation. Cherry fire place mantles. Iron kitchen stoves. Metal sinks. I picked up the inside and outside round glass globe door handle. Solid glass globes. I got thrown out. That door knob set lived in my first house, and when I sold it thirty years later, I explained the door knob to the new owners and left it for them.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe the workmanship that was lost in that. So sad. It seems as if, today, that these old mansions allow salvage businesses to come in and remove things like that. We've got the old glass door knobs on our front door. We've also got the skeleton keys to the original locks. Tim took everything apart and machined them and put them all back together so that we can use them. It will be hard to leave this old wonderful house, but we really need to downsize.
DeleteWe collect the damndest things, really. I have a triptych leaded glass window set of a sunrise...or a sunset...depends on how you want to look at it. Those will go at the top of our front porch. So many little details like that and those old beams....this will be quite an interesting new/old house.
I'm trying to picture the cat licking all the gravy off a pea. It's a pretty funny image.
ReplyDeleteOops! That was me (Kay of Musings). I just can’t figure out how to do comments to show it’s me.
ReplyDeleteKay of Musings: I’d written, “Wow!”. But now I see it didn’t get published anyway.
ReplyDeleteOur dogs used to get scraps from the table with their biscuits and bones - generally inhaled in no time. We did have one very skilled in the pea trick but not noticeably slower in gobbling.
ReplyDelete