Lights, camera....

Wall sconce lighting stairway to loft.

Bathroom vanity light.

We went to the cottage today and admired all that Mike had done this past week. We were pleased to find Rex and LeeAnn working on the electric. The light fixtures were going up and looked great, and quite a few of the outlets and switches were live. Kathy had fun turning them on and off and seeing which switches controlled which lights!

Mike stopped by and he and Bonnie discussed some areas of the cottage that needed attention and what Bonnie's vision was for future work on the cottage. Mike will be drywalling the utility room inside walls and moving a door opening for a future door to that room. As finances permit, he will finish drywalling the basement and build our deck.

We were pleased to receive a visit from Barbara and Denny. We hadn't seen them for a while, so Kathy called to see if they would like to drop by. It was so nice seeing them, and they seemed to like the cabinets, flooring, etc. We may impose on Denny soon to help disassemble the deck at the campground and to bring the Rubbermaid shed to The Farm. We have offered to sell them to the people who will be moving on to the lot but have not heard back from them. Bonnie has too much time and money in that deck to just leave it behind. Anyway, Denny and Barbara are expecting grandbaby #4 this spring! When they get to 5 they will be caught up to Kathy!

Last weekend June stopped by and she was also complimentary of the work on the cottage...and it wasn't nearly as finished as it was today. We feel blessed to have so many wonderful new friends and neighbors, and people working on the cottage who take such pride in their work and are such wonderful craftsmen/women (a plug for LeeAnn).

Some good news we received from Rex today is that we may have our septic in next week and water to the house! Then we can have sinks and a toilet! Oh, happy day! Mike's port-a-pot will soon be picked up, so the timing couldn't be better! It may be too muddy for Rick Bauer to finish the back-filling, so don't know when that will be done. And we still don't have a way to get out of the kitchen door. Hopefully those things can be taken care of in the spring.

Crunch time

The railing is installed up to and around the sleeping loft.

Part of the loft railing.

Dutch door between country kitchen and front porch/living room.

It is crunch time at Blossom Ridge Farm and, as the work is being completed, the money is also coming to an end. With several variables still unknown (Rex's and Rick Bauer's final bills and the cost of the gutters and downspouts) we have had to temporarily halt plans to finish drywalling the basement and a few other things. Once we have all the facts and figures and have a final resolution on the camper, we can have Mike come back and do some of these things. For now he has left a few things for us to do to try to help us save a little money.

Last night we drove to the cottage to see the railings. How wonderful it looked, both up the stairs and across the sleeping loft! The spindles were larger than the 3 of us realized and, perhaps, that gives the impression that the main part of the cottage is smaller, but it really looked great. Bonnie feels very secure now when in the loft with the nice, sturdy railing. Mike had to re-figure where the stairway railing would go after there was an issue with the glass cabinets over the bar. This he did beautifully. He also added an extra touch with the spindles, taking the ends that were cut straight across and adding an attractive angle to them. Very nicely done!

The bathroom was done and looked great. When we say done, we mean Mike's job...walls, trim, etc. Rex still has plumbing and electrical work to do.

The Dutch door was up and Mike will be making the shelf that goes on the top of the lower section. Kathy wanted it 6", backed it down to 5", then agreed to 4", finally telling Mike to do whatever he thought would look good. He hasn't led us astray yet. The other interior doors were also up. The pocket door to the bathroom was at the cottage but not yet installed.

We will most likely clean the floors this weekend...or at least the cork flooring upstairs.

We are still happy with all of our paint colors (Bonnie still isn't 100% satisfied with the lighter of the two greens she chose for in the bathroom), and even the darker bamboo flooring is beginning to grow on us. Kathy still wasn't happy with it after it was laid (too dark), and even Bonnie said she wished we had chosen a lighter shade.

Bonnie pointed out that once we had furniture in the cottage, it would really look small. (Yes, she said small and not cozy.)

Metamorphosis

Front porch/living room with trim work.

Walls look pinker than they are.

Half bath in loft with hickory cabinet.

Cork flooring is down but dusty. Must be sealed.

Jan. 18 photo of kitchen.

Two weeks later.

3 days later.

Kitchen today with hickory cabinets. LeeAnn working on an outlet.
Walls are color in previous photo.

Bathroom Jan. 18.

Bathroom on Feb. 1.

Bathroom on Feb. 4.

Bathroom today. Walls are closer to colors in previous photo.

Today we met Rex and LeeAnn at the cottage. LeeAnn was wiring electrical outlets and Rex was working on installing the electric baseboard heat. Back from their trip to China and visit with son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren, they were hard at work but took time to visit with us. They did not have their China photos so we will have to see them another time.

We discussed paint, flooring, cabinets, etc. Kathy was happy with just about everything. Bonnie was wishing the lighter green paint in the bathroom was lighter yet, but Kathy and LeeAnn told her they thought the contrast was very nice. LeeAnn said she wasn't so certain she was going to like the salmon walls. Then she saw them with the hickory cabinets installed and liked them. She also liked the cork flooring that Mike laid in the loft this week. He also stained the wood for the ceiling beam and got that up. Bonnie had him stain it the color of the bamboo flooring. She is very happy with the beam and the bamboo flooring (which isn't down yet). LeeAnn likes it too. Kathy thinks the flooring and beam are too dark. She and Bonnie had picked out a lighter flooring, then the darker flooring (which was more durable and more expensive) went on sale at considerable savings, and the decision was made to go with it. Kathy will reserve judgement on the bamboo until she sees it down next to the hickory cabinets. Bonnie and LeeAnn think the flooring will make the cabinets stand out even more.

The cork is wonderful. Kathy couldn't find any seams. Mike laid the cork himself and did a fantastic job. Right now it is very dusty and a photograph will not do it justice. Once it is cleaned and sealed it will be a masterpiece of flooring. Though Mike liked the cork, he said it was soft. The loft will not get as much traffic as the rest of the cottage and will not have much furniture, so we think the cork will be fine in that application. Kathy is anxious to get it cleaned and sealed before it becomes scuffed.

Young Ryan showed up at the cottage today to pick up some tools. Kathy teased him about not liking our paint choices. He said that he didn't have to live with them. Our colors have been described as girly. What we tried to accomplish was choosing earthy colors to represent vineyard colors. The greens and purple in particular. We may even put up border with vines on it! And what on earth is wrong with girly? That is, after all, what we are. And, at our age, we want our cottage to be exciting and not bland like our current villa.

We have an interesting cabinet door that Kathy would like to discuss. When we walked into the cottage today both Rex and Leann assumed we would be unhappy with one of the cabinet doors that had lines on it and would be sending it back. We were already familiar with that door and find it very intriguing. John Battershell told Bonnie that the tree that wood came from must have been up against a fence to have those marks on it. They are not indentations, just marks - almost like someone had taken a wood burning tool to it. We had asked John to use the more interesting pieces of wood he had. Wood with different grains, knot holes, light and dark contrasts. Bonnie told him, "I want the pieces nobody else wants." Since the three of us agreed on this, we were thrilled with the grains and color variations we got. This includes the cabinet door that no one else seems to like. Bonnie considers it part of the history of the wood and the tree it came from. Kathy says it is part of our green philosophy of waste not. When she looks at it she sees something that is beautiful because it isn't perfect, just like most people aren't perfect. She loves it for being different and standing out. It says, "I am not like all the rest. I am beautiful in my own way. Somebody believed I was good enough for their dream cottage and loves me!" *

*See Jan. 27 blog for photo of this door.

Tile and paint

The front porch/living room.

Walls have a very pale rose cast.

A kitchen wall. Three walls are this color which is a salmon color.

The bathroom has pale green walls with one darker accent wall.

The walls were painted this week and the tile was set in the downstairs bath and the front porch/living room. The grout is hardening now and will be sealed next week. Mike recommended second coats of paint in the kitchen and bathroom, and the purple in the loft definitely needed another coat of paint as he said it would.

The AC was through the wall in the loft and we will not be taking it out in the fall and putting it back in in the spring. It has a cover on it and Mike said he would show us how to take it out in the spring and remove the cover. He even offered to stop by twice a year and take care of it for us and we could share a bottle of wine!

Mike will be framing windows and doors this week, hanging doors, and doing finishing work in the house. He had the Dutch door that he made there to hang, then will take it home to paint. He will also make the ledge for it. A custom-made door for a custom-made cottage.

The bamboo and cork flooring are acclimating to the cottage and will go down after the cabinets are in.

John Battershell will be out the end of the week with the cabinets, so the cottage will really look different next weekend!

Rex is back from China and is continuing with the electrical work. A few of the lights had been mounted and some electrical outlets wired when we visited today. We took the baseboard heaters to the cottage so they will be there for him when he is ready to install them.

The vent-free fireplace was delivered this week and the toilets were delivered when Menards delivered the tile and grout. That was a fiasco. Menards gave us a huge window of 7 a.m. - noon for the delivery and then couldn't manage to hit that, finally arriving, according to Mike, at 2:10. And this after Kathy called Menards at 12:30 asking where the delivery was. She was told (at 12:40) the truck would be there in 20 minutes, and that stretched to an hour and a half. Kathy spoke to a "manager" who was authorized only to apologize. Bonnie emailed the corporate office with a very civil email and received a phone call the next day with yet another apology from Menards and a $40 in-store credit which we will apply toward the last sink we need to purchase.

Another busy week at the farm coming up. And the yard is a mudhole! Again!

Gizmo visits the farm

Ceiling is orange peel. Click on photo to see texture.

Sanding is done. Primer is on walls. This is the sleeping loft with 1/2 bath.

Gizmo enjoys a romp at the farm in the deep snow.

Looking north from south property line.

Bonnie had to work this weekend and insisted that Kathy drive to the cottage to take photos of the drywall with the primer on it. In a few days the walls will be painted. The ceiling was textured in orange peel which Kathy thinks looks just like what we have in our villa. Bonnie insists that what we have in the villa is Spanish lace. Everything looked very nice. The shadows prevented nicer photos.

Kathy took Gizmo with her to The Farm and he had a wonderful time romping in the snow. He went inside the cottage but refused to do stairs. He was civil to Denny whom we met on the road and invited in for a tour, and he ignored Richard's dogs to the north. Lots of animal tracks in the snow...both small and large.

Kathy is concerned about the grapevines. Only time will tell how much damage the ice storm and sub-zero temps have done. The problem is that we won't know how many vines we will need to replace before we have to place the order.

We were hoping to not have a railing on the outside of the stairway going up to the loft, but the ruling came back that the railing is code. Not having the railing would have given the room a more open look and larger feel and made it easier to get things up to the loft, but it was not to be.

Kathy will be going by the cottage on Wed. and Thurs. on her way to and from another sleepover with her mom in Logansport, so should have some photos of the painted walls. She took photos of the cabinets when she went to Hicksville on Thursday, but they did not do the beautiful cabinets justice so she refused to upload them. She was very pleased with the cabinets and countertops. They were beyond her expectations. She had forgotten what countertop we had chosen and was delighted when she saw them.

The tile, grout and toilets will be delivered Tues. and the tile should be laid this week.

Hickory cabinets

Cabinet door made from hickory.

Another door

Bonnie paid a visit to cabinetmaker, John Battershell's shop in Hicksville OH today and was pleased with the progress on our cabinets. They will be ready next week though we won't be ready to have them installed at that time...but it won't be long!

John doesn't often have a customer who tells him to build their cabinets with his scraps...the pieces of hickory that other people don't want...the pieces with the darker colors, knotholes, and the more interesting grains, and Bonnie felt he was almost as excited to be building these cabinets as we are to have him doing them. If we haven't mentioned before in this blog, the reason John was chosen to be our cabinetmaker is that his brother, Tom, has worked for Bonnie for many years. Tom suggested that Bonnie give John an opportunity to quote our cabinets. We certainly didn't expect to be able to afford custom-made cabinets, and especially not hickory, but it all worked out. The cabinets will be the focal point of the cottage, the first thing you will notice when you walk in, and they will be the star of the show. Everything else we have chosen for the cottage...paint colors, flooring...were chosen so that they would not detract from the cabinets.

We continue to wait for resolution of the claim for the ice storm damage to the camper. The insurance company has settled with us for the damage to the Portable Porch. They claimed to have never received the estimate for the damages to the camper which Roger faxed to them 2 weeks ago. Roger was kind enough to fax them a second time yesterday morning along with a copy to Bonnie. According to Kathy's conversation with Roger on Monday, he feels that the camper will be totaled because the cost to fix it is so high. We hope to settle soon and will not, of course, be purchasing another camper but will, instead, put the money into the cottage.

Jonathan already has someone who will be wanting to move on to our lot at the campground this spring. Bonnie has offered to sell those people the small storage building and deck still on the lot. If they do not want it, we will move them to The Farm. That would entail taking the deck apart which is something we would not relish doing. And we would be needing to do that in a timely manner so that the new campers could move on to the lot.

Mud

Drywall taped and with a layer of mud.

Yesterday was a very trying and tiring day at The Farm. We met Builder Mike after lunch and had more decisions to make than we had anticipated.

One decision was what to do with the stairway. Originally we were going to carpet the loft and the stairway leading to it. Mike built the stairs to suit this plan. Now, of course, we are putting cork flooring in the loft and plan on painting the stairs and putting a runner up the middle. Mike, who is very particular about his work, explained to us that he had not put a grade of wood on the stairway good enough for the change of plans. Long story short, Mike will be pulling up the stairway to the loft and replacing the wood (both the treads and the risers) with a better grade of lumber, rounding the front edges, and making the stairs wider to fill in some gaps that were on each side of the stairs. We should have a much better product to paint.

We appreciate that most of the contractors we have hired have taken ownership of the cottage and are extremely proud of their work, often bringing others with them to show off their handiwork. Mike falls into the category of those who take extreme pride in their work. When he walks away from the cottage for the last time at the end of the project, we are sure he will want to be completely satisfied with every aspect of the cottage that he had any part in creating.

Whenever we have driven to the cottage on the weekends to check on the work, we ALWAYS find everything neat and tidy. We appreciate that.

Some of the things Mike has done that have gotten our attention are very minor, but they prove our point about his pride in his craftsmanship. His neatness is just one of them. His ability to discuss options for problematic situations without making us feel like we are stupid is another. We are pleased with our working relationship with Mike and our ability to talk about what is best for us and for the cottage. He listens to us. He knows our goals. He tries to make them happen but will tactfully point out if he feels there is a better way. We are all able to compromise without compromising the project. We all want the same thing: the best use of space and materials at the best price.

When the openings under the front porch had to be addressed, Mike MADE the hinges in his shop that would be sturdy enough to hold the heavy doors he made using the Nichiha siding. And yesterday, when we were discussing the opening between the front porch and the main part of the cottage, Mike never told us that he felt a storm door wouldn't look right. He waited until Kathy worked her way back to wanting a dutch door, and then he offered to make it for us in his shop, complete with ledge on the top of the bottom half. It was only after all the decisions had been made about the door that he said that he didn't feel the storm door was appropriate for the statement we were wanting to make about the cottage. Respect. Trust. They are very important when working with your builder.

Which brings us to something that Kathy feels needs to be addressed. Remember that Kathy was (in another life) the editor of a newspaper where she reported facts and attempted to keep all emotion out of her reporting. We want to be able to talk about the cottage in this blog and report the facts. With that in mind, Kathy wants to state that as happy as she was with the sprayed fiberglass insulation and batting on the main floor of the cottage and in the sleeping loft, she was equally disappointed with the quality of the work in the basement. To her eye, the quality of the work and the materials in the basement was not nearly as good as the above grade work.*

We have not seen Denny and Barbara for several weekends now and hope they have not been ill. A stop at their homestead or a phone call might be in order.

Yesterday we purchased a sink for the upstairs bathroom, a shelf for the upstairs bathroom that will go over the toilet, all towel racks, toilet paper holders, all faucets, a light for under the glass cabinets over the bar, and the kitchen sink. Today we purchased our ceramic tile and grout, two toilets and a couple of smoke detectors.

Mike will be picking up the bamboo and cork flooring from Lumber Liquidators, saving us the trip and trouble (they don't deliver) and we will be having the toilets, tile and grout delivered by Menards.

*This paragraph was edited because Kathy could not keep her emotions out of her reporting and went into great detail about all that she was unhappy with re. the insulation of the basement. Bonnie convinced her that to say that the quality of the insulation work in the basement was inferior to that of the work above grade was sufficient. Sometimes less is more. Thanks, Bonnie. Even editors need an editor. ; )