Update December12, 2010 Inside View

A lot of work is taking place on the inside of the house.  We have had painting, tile work, and the brick pad for the wood buring stove in the upstairs family room.  The garage is full of hickory wood for the floor in the
sewing room, office, dining room, family room, and the great room.  An update of the interior as of today includes:

This is the brick pad in the family room for the wood burning stove.  The pad is 5ft from the wall and 5 1/2 ft wide.  We hope to have the wood stove installed in the next 10 days. A picture of the stove can be found at

http://www.quadrafire.com/Products/Cumberland-Gap-Wood-Stove.aspx

Steph says my job this winter will be to get the fire going each morning while I read the paper, drink my coffee, and watch Fox Morning News and Squawk Box.  Now you know why we need so much wood.

These two pictures are the large walls in Steph's sewing room.  The first picture is a light green color and the second picture is a soft blue.  The pictures do not accurately show the color due to the light available at the time of the picture.

This is the east wall of my office.  The color is a little more bold than the soft pastels in the sewing room.  This is pretty close to an OSU Cowboy orange, but not exactly.  I like it!!!

This is the partially completed master bath shower.  The tile in the shower is also used on the floor in the master bath.

This is the master bath floor.  The tile has just been grouted and is not cleaned-up, but it will give you an idea of what the room will eventually look like.

This is the tile in the kitchen/breakfast room.  Note the pattern of large tile surrounded by the smaller tiles.  Like the master bath, this picture was taken after grouting and before cleaning.

This is the  upstair bathroom at Steph's sewing room.  The tile in this room is the same as the kitchen/breakfast room. 

This is a quick update of the major interior changes at the house.  The rest of the rooms are painted Kilim Beige and this is the color of the walls next to the fireplace pad.  This week should be a week of change as we expect to begin work on the wood ceiling, start installation of the wood floor, and our custom cabinets for the kitchen and the vanities in the master and sewing room bathrooms should be installed.  We are actively talking about a mid-January move-in date.  Keep your fingers crossed we have no unexpected

delays.  Next update at progress warrants.

Update December 12, 2010 Outside View

Since the last update we have celebrated Thanksgiving with our daughter and her family in Springfield, Mo. and returned to Texas for a wonderful extended weekend in South Texas.  Our good friend, Pete Wardenburg, invited Steph, our daughter Ann and her husband Jared, and me to his ranch for a big game weekend. 

The guest house was awesome.  We have had the pleasure to hunt at Pete's many times during the past 12 years and this year was one of the best.  The wildlife was abundant and we saw turkey, hogs, quail, and lots of deer, including a couple of trophy class bucks. 

One of the highlights of the trip was our youngest daughter, Ann Marie, harvesting her first buck.  Pete had scouted this blind ahead of time and told Ann there was a good first buck for her at the Creek Blind.  Ann and I were in the blind at 6:30am and the buck entered the feeder around 7:45am.  One shot at about 110 yards and Ann has her trophy to put on the wall next to Jared's, which by the way, was shot at the same blind last year.  Now on to the house!!!

The brick work is essentially complete, only need to do the front entry when we finish the concrete work. 

Another view of the front and the west side of the house.  We better really like the brick because everywhere you look you see Arkansas Rose.

This is the back side of the house.  Note the brick pillars under the decking and the way the bricklayers outlined each window.

This is the east side of the house showing the garage doors, master bath window, and the shop window.

Before the bricklayers left we had them build a mailbox for us with the same brick as the house.  Like I said earlier, you better like this brick because it's everywhere.  We made it a double mailbox since our neighbor across the street has his mailbox on our side of the road. 

Our address is the 403 Jims Road.