Ilanarama!

I have been intending to make a new house post, but lost my Round Tuit, as they say. But: the landscaping is done, and the furniture's in place, and most of our artwork is on the walls. We are still waiting to get back some of the artifacts that were discovered during our pre-construction archaeological survey, so we can display them in the niches in our rock wall; we have put some of our other treasures in those spots for now, but we will need to have glass display shelves made for those niches. I don't have time (see below) to take photos and make a nice fancy post, but have a picture from yesterday morning:



Anyway, the reason I'm posting now is because I'm heading to the airport Real Soon Now. First I'm off to Boston, and thence in a van to New Hampshire, for the Reach the Beach relay with a team of mostly internet-friends. (I ran this race once before, in 2015, with the same team.) On Sunday I'm flying down to Virginia to spend the week with my parents, now in assisted living, and help my brother prepare their house for sale. Britt will join us on Friday night, and on Saturday morning...we are off to Barcelona for three weeks! We have not been on a proper vacation in some time because of the whole home-building and moving thing, so we are hoping it will be an enjoyable and relaxing get-away.

We've got Google Fi so I won't be completely cut off from the internet, but I will likely not be posting here (because typing on a phone is ugh) or reading my flists (because busy). I may be posting photos on Instagram (because it's easy): https://www.instagram.com/heyheyilana/ I may not be! In any event, see you (for, you know, social media values of 'see') in October.

As some of you know, Colorado had a late-season snowstorm earlier this week, but it cleared up beautifully for the Memorial Day weekend so we went on a bike ride! Here is the Strava map: basically, we rode the Skyline Trail (for some value of 'rode' which includes a whole lot of walking the bike up steep and rocky switchbacks, for me at least) up to Raider Ridge, then down the other side, then looped around through the Horse Gulch area and back through the trail system to the Skyline Trail trailhead, then back home. We actually rode to the trailhead on various bits of singletrack and one dirt road, so the amount of pavement totaled less than a mile, yay!

Here is Britt at our lunch spot on top of the ridge (and I know I've posted other photos at this very spot, but lookit all the snow in the mountains!):



I also wanted to post more house photos, since I realized that basically everything I've put up here since we moved in has been either the exterior or the great room/kitchen. Here is our sunroom, which will be getting houseplants eventually. It's designed so that in the summer, the sun doesn't come in due to the angle and overhang, but in the winter the sun should come in and warm up the black stone floor. The view is not as dramatic as on the other side of the house, but it looks out over - well, our driveway, first, but then a golf course (my beautiful lawn that I don't have to maintain!) and Raider Ridge in the background (the ridge we climbed today, though this view is further southwest than the spot where we were).



Here is my office! I waited to photograph it until I got my new office furniture (the Metro line from Pier One, rather simply made but solid wood). I still need to KonMari some of my office things (and put up some pictures!), but I am pleased with it as a workspace.



The thing on the left side of the view with the rock wall is the cat perch, which - I'm thinking of getting rid of since it doesn't seem to be bringing Lucy much joy. Instead she likes to sit in the bottom windows, which open and have screens across them (she loves sitting in them when they're opened), and the other evening I caught her sitting in the small upper window:



We still haven't put out the patio furniture because the landscapers are still working (well, the past few weeks they have not been here, which is a bit aggravating - we want this all done!) but I'm looking forward to moving our primary living space outside!

After a few weeks of pretty much nothing, the crews came back and are working full-tilt on our new house. We have an estimated date for the Certificate of Occupancy, which means we have an estimated official move date: April 12th - six days before the closing on our current house! We've started packing things in boxes and moving them into the back of the new garage. This is meant to save time, which I'm sure it will, but it also means that e.g. I can only cook things I know how to cook, or that I can find recipes for on the internet, because all my cookbooks are in a box in the back of the garage now. (As are my summer clothes, my running trophies and medals, most of our backpacking and camping gear, and all the pretty souvenirs that lived on display shelves in the living room.)

( Photos! )

We went up to the house on Saturday to see if any progress had been made. And...there is some. The floor has been completely installed (with the replacement floorboards), and that means the baseboard trim could be installed also. (No photos, though, because it's all covered with paper for protection). Unhappy ETA And...it turns out the floors are having problems (which we couldn't see because of the paper) and a rep for the company is coming out to meet with the contractor (and with Britt) tomorrow, sigh. But it's looking like all the floors are going to need to be replaced, again, and that is going to push things even farther out. Hopefully we will be able to move in by our closing date, 3 months+ into the future, but that is not a given!

The mirrors are up in the bathroom, though alas, we realized that the countertop color we chose doesn't look that great with the wood trim. Though that's just looking at the bit of sink backsplash since the counter and vanity drawers are all still clad in protective foam - hopefully it will look better when it's all visible. The kitchen backsplash and trim has been removed in preparation for replacing it with a slightly different arrangement; it had been installed without reference to our design plan, and the designer asked us to redesign it anyway because she didn't think it looked good, so we came up with a new plan and I guess that's what they've started in on.

But we've had a lot of snow, which has been great for skiing, and helping with our drought conditions, but not so great for getting our exterior hardscaping done. Which means that our steps and patio aren't safe to use without a lot of care (the flagstones are arranged but not cemented) and so they can't bring in the appliances. Most of the lighting fixtures and fans are also not yet installed, though some switches have been added.

I looked around and I said, "This doesn't look even close to being done!"

Britt looked around and said, "The things that are left will go fast once they can be done!"

So I don't know! BUT! I'm posting today because there is important news on the second half of the equation of us moving: WE SOLD OUR CURRENT HOUSE!!!!!

Okay, actually we just put it under contract today. So not "sold" yet, really, but I'm pretty sure this will go through; the couple we sold to are super nice and our house's idiosyncrasies, the things we did in remodeling to suit us but which wouldn't necessarily suit others, match their needs. (Like for example, we have a loft master bedroom/bath, and then a guest bedroom below, but because the loft is so open it's not suitable for a couple with a child, or someone who wants a roommate.) Best of all, because they haven't sold their own home yet (it's out in the country, and they want to move to town) and need the proceeds to afford another house, they were happy to set the closing date in mid-April, which gives us a lot of flexibility for our new house being finished and habitable and being able to choose when to move in (and so not have to move during a snowstorm, for example). If they don't sell their house, we'll carry the note (so they pay us directly rather than a bank) for a year, which is fine with us since the house money isn't critical for us and hey, we'll get interest.

So things are happening, but not immediately, which is about the perfect situation!

The in-floor heating pipes have been covered with the sub-floor.
The wall framing has been covered with drywall (and the first coat of paint).
The rafters and insulation have been covered with a roof.
What a difference!



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Okay, there have been many intermediate changes between these sets of pictures - the older interior one's from June and the exterior, from April - but still. It's turning into a house!

So as I mentioned before (sort of elliptically, I guess!), we're building a house. The dry and warm winter meant that progress, which started in December, has been relatively swift, and we have gone from



to



to



And that's about what it looks like now, although most of the windows have glass in them now, other than the front door area and the big sliding door set that will be under the arch, leading to the patio and the view. (Which means that the deer are still meandering into the house at their leisure!) Right now they're working on some of the exterior stone, and the plumbing and electrical wiring, so it's hard to see progress. But we do go up and check on things once a week or so.

I've made a Flickr album with some of the photos; the mosaic view gives a pretty good idea of what things look like, but you're welcome to page through if you're interested. I'll add photos as things progress. Right now the coolest things to look at (IMO) are the arched roof being assembled, and the awesome views out the back (see above!).

Back in autumn of 2006, Britt and I ripped out the east side of our front yard (where the grass never grew too well, as there's a juniper tree and it's quite shaded) and put in a few plant terraces and a tiny patio. (A few photos of the process are on Flickr under my landscaping tag.) I have always wanted to put a little bistro table and chair set there, but the round tuit was elusive - plus, I never found exactly what I wanted...until now!



Isn't it pretty? And how I got it is yet another one of my small-town stories: I was walking to the natural foods coop (I call it a "grocery hike" - it's not quite a mile, and I figure I get some good exercise, especially on the way back with my backpack full of food) and passed by a consignment shop, Reruns. During the warm months they often have outdoor furniture displayed on their lawn, and there it was. I went inside, asked the woman at the register if I could write a check right now, and come pick it up the next day since I was just walking.

"Where do you live?"

"Up on 13th Street, by Mason Park."

"Oh, that's on my way home. If you help me load it up in my car, I'll drop it off when I close up tonight."

So we loaded it into her minivan, and then I went on my way to finish my grocery shopping, and that evening she came by and we set it up on my patio! And not only did she not charge me for delivery, she took off $10, for no apparent reason. (Other than to totally cement my conviction that this is a place I will shop in the future!)

I had my evening beer on it last night! Yay!

I took these pictures last week but just got around to uploading them to Flickr. Remember the big pile of branches and tree limbs that were left from the big honking snowstorm? Turns out that's a deer buffet. ETA: Hee, they're out there again today!

( Couple of deer pictures. )

Also, an update on the ( roof situation. )