Neverdone

Ed did some shopping for an I-Beam needed for the new barn. The beam needs to be about 21’ 7” and the beams only come 20’. He was going to have to buy 2 beams & have them welded together & then cut off the excess. This process was going to cost us about $700. Earlier this year Ed had gone up into the attic of the yellow barn (Setting up a place for the cats to get out of the cold) and saw an I-Beam. He went up again to double check the size, it is 23’. The yellow barn will be torn down as soon as the new barn is up and closed in. What to do with the beam. Hmm. Since we have to take it down eventually anyway, why not use it instead of spending the money.

It was nerve wracking watching him take it down, but the beam is now safely installed at its new home in the barn.

Continue reading "I-Beam Saga" »

Posted by Patti at 7:25 PM | Permalink

Continue reading "Building New Barn" »

Posted by Patti at 8:39 PM | Permalink

We (I may be using that term rather loosely as it is mostly Ed) have been working on our garden area this spring. Ed built all the raised beds and we have an honest to goodness vegetable garden. We will be putting up the deer fence this weekend and this winter Ed plans to build the pickets for the fence. It is looking great. We now have corn, zucchini, cucumber, cabbage, beans, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin,spaghetti squash, potatoes, tomatoe, pepper, eggplant and sunflower. In a separate area we have planted aspargus. If everything makes it thru the growing we should have some great meals.

Posted by Patti at 10:23 AM | Permalink

These are the most current pictures of the front of the house that we have.

Posted by Patti at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I have been suck a BAD Blogger. Ed has been working hard on the house for the past year, I just have not been very good about getting the pictures onto the site. I will try to do better.

For now, I will hope to get you all caught up with the progress that has been made.

Posted by Patti at 8:15 AM | Permalink

We had the front door built and installed waiting for the raised panels (which were in the barn that got hit with the high wind. Ed and AJ brought the panels for the bottom 3 sections into the house & Ed will complete the install sometime this week. I am designing the stained glass for the insert at the top and the side lights. Hopefully this won't take too long, We'll have to see.

Posted by Patti at 10:28 AM | Permalink

We had some big excitement over the weekend. There were "High Wind" warnings on Saturday night & while we were watching TV we heard something hit the house (No damage done) and went out to see a large tree limb on the ground. Heard quite a few more wind blasts but nothing else.

Then in the morning I looked out towards the barn while I was making breakfast & saw the tin roof on the old milk house was blown up. I did a double take & at first I thought the roof had been blown off the Shop. Then as I looked I realized that it wasn't just the roof, but that I was seeing the West wall leaning on the stable wall. I guess this is God's way of letting us know that we aren't suppose to leave that section of the barn when we get ready to rebuild. The original plan was to tear down the entire section to the right of the shop area and save this section & set it up as a nice wood shop. We will still plan to set up the shop, just a little sooner than we planned, and we won't be trying to work around what is already there. New construction usually is much easier.

Continue reading "And then there was WIND" »

Posted by Patti at 8:15 AM | Permalink

We finally got the kitchen ceiling done. We used an imbossed wallpaper found at the Pittsburg Paint Store and paint to replicate the old tin ceilings. Turned out great. I have found some similar wallpapers at Lowes.

Continue reading "Kitchen Ceiling" »

Posted by Patti at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Continue reading "Updated view of the Front" »

Posted by Patti at 11:13 AM | Permalink

Continue reading "Hallway and Dining Room, Now there is Wallpaper" »

Posted by Patti at 11:09 AM | Permalink

I'm finally back. It's not that we haven't done anything on the house since last November, It's that my home computer refuses to upload the pictures. I had to steal a few minutes & upload elsewhere.

Anyway, Ed has been working on the Raised Panel Wainscot in the main floor hallway. We now have it done. The only things left in the hallway will be the hardwood flooring and the baseboard. I was able to help a little with some of the painting.

Continue reading "Main Floor hallway" »

Posted by Patti at 1:35 PM | Permalink

I know that I haven't posted for quite some time. You have to understand that I have been busy with the house and all.

Continue reading "Well, We're IN. Not Done But IN" »

Posted by Patti at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We can't believe it. The front siding is finally complete. Ed worked especially hard to get this exterior done before the weather turns.
Now we are going to concentrate on getting the inside ready to move in.
Stay tuned. More on that later.

Continue reading "Siding is finally done" »

Posted by Patti at 5:47 PM | Permalink

Ed pulled off the kitchen for a while. The weather has been perfect & we decided to get the front of the house done. Our weather has been so rainy this spring that it was easy to work on the interior. Now that Mother Nature is cooperating the outside will be finished. Ed should be able to get all the siding on by the middle of this week. Yippee!

Ed said that the only thing holding up the finish on the front was making the decision on how to trim out the half round and oval window. Well he figured that out & now the windows are done, or pretty much done.

Posted by Patti at 8:32 PM | Permalink

It has taken quite a while, but . . . . we will be able to use the kitchen (as it was intended to be used) very soon. The only thing missing right now are the countertops, drawer and doors. I figure we can get by without drawer & doors but we will have to wait for the counter tops before we can move in. Water it on, just no hot water yet. We ran out of propane in the house tank. The "summer" fill should be done soon. So we can hook up the hot water after that.

If it's not one thing, it's another.

Continue reading "Kitchen is getting close to done!" »

Posted by Patti at 8:19 PM | Permalink

Posted by Patti at 8:52 PM | Permalink

There is a really good reason we bought this place. These are some pictures of the glorious sunrises we get to see in the mornings.

Continue reading "There is a really good reason we moved here." »

Posted by Patti at 8:17 PM | Permalink

Even without shelves, drawers or lower cabinets there is more room in this kitchen that we have in the little trailer. Life is good.

Continue reading "Cabinet to right of Sink" »

Posted by Patti at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We have been busy gettin the kitchen cabinets ready to go in. I am pinting them. Yes, the color is going to be the same Devon Cream that the rest of the trim is done in. The goal now is to get these cabinets ready and them have Nathan come in on Tuesday and help get them up on the wall.

Continue reading "More Kitchen Cabinets" »

Posted by Patti at 10:02 PM | Permalink

We called for our final electrical inspection the week before Christmas. The inspector came out on Thursday and WE PASSED! We now have the certificate of completion. This is the one and only inspection we need on this house.

When we first decided to build out here, we called the Yellowstone County Building Department to find out about getting our permits & found out that since we are so far out of the city limits the electric was the only thing that we had to get a permit for. Really surpriesed us. Not dissappointed with that though.

We can now move into the house when ever. We are still planning on waiting until the entire house of 99.9% done. Atleast that is the plan for now. The closer we get the harder it is not to move in.

Posted by Patti at 12:58 PM | Permalink

Considering how much I love to cook (NOT) the big question is why in the world would we need to put in not one more oven but a double oven. My friend Gary figures that five years from now the oven will still have the manufacturers labels in it. My response to that is that I'm sure Monica will love the ovens whenever she comes home for vacations. You don't have to cook to enjoy the really classy looks of the ovens.

Continue reading "Who's kitchen could this be?" »

Posted by Patti at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, we do live in Montana and it's getting late in the year. We have moved inside now. We will be trying to get the house to the point where we can finally move in. We have been painting doors. I started priming the doors and Ed finish the primer. Now he has sanded them down and I am ready to start putting on the final coat.
View image

Continue reading "Moving to the Inside Now" »

Posted by Patti at 7:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This story started last year, or maybe the year before. We have been fighting the seemingly losing battle with keeping the birds out of the attic of the new house. This fall Ed worked very hard to get this done.

Continue reading "Ed 1, Birds 0" »

Posted by Patti at 7:41 PM | Permalink

Now Ed has also completed the kitchen gable. The same but different design from the front gables. The front gables were done in an octagon pattern, The kitchen has been done in a hexagon pattern.

Continue reading "We're Getting Closer Every Day." »

Posted by Patti at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I know we seem to have been working on the gable ends forever, but the front 3 are done now. The shingle patterns look great but add to that the posts and statuary & that really finishes the look off. What do you think?

Continue reading "It's all about the Details" »

Posted by Patti at 1:50 PM | Permalink

We have been going to the antique shops around the country & have been able to find our rocking chairs for the front porch. Every Victorian House needs some rockers on the porch. We really enjoy sitting there looking into the woods. It will be even better once the big ugly yellow barn is gone. That's a project for next year. We don't want to take it down until the garage is built. Eventually we hope to replace all the odd ball chairs with good old wood rockers.

The flooring on the front porch is mahogany. By the end of summer we will put a sealer on it to protect the wood and help to bring out the red and also darken it.

Posted by Patti at 3:22 PM | Permalink

This is the project that Ed has been working on so diligently lately. We now have one of the gable ends almost completed. They are all going to look spectacular. I know it's been a while since I last posted, I'm a terrible person (well maybe not a terrible person, just a terrible blogger). We took a week off and went to California to visit Monica and Marc. Had to see what type of house they bought. Now that's another story. You can read all about that on Monica's site bungalowdreams.fibergeek.com.

Continue reading "East Gable End" »

Posted by Patti at 5:04 PM | Permalink

Ed has started putting in our interior doors. They look great. A soon as he is done installing we can begin to paint. Our colors were taken directly form Sherwin Williams. Devon Cream for most of the interior trim. I'm really looking forward to the time when they are painted. Although the do look nice even unfinished. I hope to be able to do some painting on them soon.

Continue reading "Doors are a good thing" »

Posted by Patti at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just before Christmas Ed did the floor in the Kitchen. It is a really neat design. A Dark green border with Cream colored tile around the main body, with a box of terra cotta colored tile with green tiles placed on point. I love it.

Continue reading "WOW! The Kitchen" »

Posted by Patti at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The interior of the house is going pretty well. It's slow because of all the detail but it is looking exactly like we want it. Ed built a set of drying racks for me to use for painting all the trim pieces so I don't have to find places to set them while they dry. It has been a God send. We had some 6x4 posts that we weren't using and he set them into a particle board stand and drilled holes in each side.

Continue reading "Interior Trim Work" »

Posted by Patti at 2:53 PM | Permalink

Posted by Patti at 9:42 PM | Permalink

There is some proof that Patti did work on the house. We did some price checks when we decided to set up our boiler remote from the house. We had seen a "This Old House" where they had done this. Sounds like a great idea, Right? Well the piping the transfer the heat from the boiler to our radiant infloor heat system. If you buy the piping it cost $75.00 per foot. Call us conservative or cheap, but we looked at how the pipes were put together and figured "We can do that" So I spent some time wrapping insulation around the water pipes and then inserting the entire thing into a section of outer protective field tile.

Posted by Patti at 7:39 PM | Permalink

And built the front deck. The construction of the round section of the deck was very interesting. Ed did a very nice job and then we put a nice trim board around to finish it off.

Posted by Patti at 9:02 PM | Permalink

Windows are going to help keep the weather out for starters.

Posted by Patti at 9:00 PM | Permalink

2002 was a very good year. We finally got the house completely enclosed. During the winter of 2001 we spent several evenings either shoveling of sweeping out the the house. We were so glad to be to the point where the house was mainly secured.

Early in the year we completed the roof. FInally! This is just one more thing that will add to the time spent building this house.

Posted by Patti at 8:46 PM | Permalink

We had a new well dug when we first moved out here. The drill company hit water at a little over 8 feet and bottomed out at 13 feet. Because of this bit of information our original plan for a full basement had to quickly be rethought.

Continue reading "Getting the Foundation" »

Posted by Patti at 5:44 PM | Permalink

Let me start with a little introduction. We, Ed and Patti, decided to leave the city life & move to the "Farm". We sold our home in town and bought a 47 acre farm.
Even before we decided to sell our home and move we had been looking for land to buy.
At the time it was mostly just a dream. We found a small ad, 4-5 lines in the paper one day for some land on the Yellowstone River. They wanted a lot more than we were able to pay but we went to look at it anyway. FELL IN LOVE!

Continue reading "Here's where we started" »

Posted by Patti at 11:35 AM | Permalink