Category: rebuilding

Wrapping it up.

Published on by Jen9 Comments
Road and house construction side by side.

Quite literally, many things here are getting wrapped up, so to speak.  The biggest and most important of course, is our house,  and the timberframe is swiftly becoming enclosed, that is wrapped, while road construction is making great progress too as dumptruck after dumptruck of base gravel makes its way up the mountain from the quarry. 

Secondly I am about to close in on the last quarter mile of 880 yards of  Unspun yarn I made in the end of October. In fact, I have been putting together a lace stole & cowl design using this yarn, and the pattern is all ready but for the finish photo, all awaiting on the speed which I can wrap up this project!  I am hoping for it to be ready by the end of this week, and then there will be a lovely simple & satisfying lace pattern available for holiday knitting! 

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Next we’re wrapping up November, with only four more days to it, then its already December and the big wrapping up of 2018!  I tell you, in the recent couple of weeks I’ve had a transformation in attitude; I am no longer feeling sad and sorry for myself, but really excited, and my panic episodes calming, as the tide changes to feeling abundance and gratitude coming my way.   Its been a difficult year since last November,  but I am so very excited for 2019 at last, with all that it promises.  And until then I am loving the loud rumbling of road-making machinery, merged into the cacophony of air compressors, nail guns, and hammers, so while so much excitement is here at last, I want to enjoy every moment! I just know that in a blink the day is going to come when we migrate from this tiny house 500 feet up the road into our new rebuilt house. I am very content for life as it is, knowing that time will be here most certainly by the coming of next summer solstice. 

In closing, over the Thanksgiving holiday the rain came in a big way, wrapping up another epic dry season, transforming the dry moss into lush moss, life drinking it in, miniature rain forests growing thick carpets on the wood and rocks, and bringing a verdant mood to things. Loving that and giving thanks indeed.  

Timberframe! Part Two

Published on by Jen11 Comments

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The first rafters.

About a week ago I posted first of the posts & beams in Timberframe!   I think the most photogenic and magical part of building a timberframe house is when the posts & beams go together,  against a hopeful blue sky.

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Most days have had thick smoke in the air from yet another dreadful wildfire northeast of Napa County,  but yesterday the breeze shifted and some blue sky was showing, and the tops of many of the trees are somewhat healthy looking in spite of their charred trunks.

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The timberframe should be finished this week and I am already totally and completely in love with our new house.

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Watch this space for old familiar interior shots, as next the house will become enclosed, racing the clock as rain is expected next weekend.

♥    ♥    ♥

See all posts about our building our timberframe house HERE.

Four Posts

Published on by Jen18 Comments

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Now that the posts & beams of the house are going up, I am in a creative mood about what will go inside the rooms.  A couple of days ago I found  this  old oak double bed frame, and I’m really enjoying fixing it up.  It is very solid,  relatively inexpensive and worth every bit of work I put into it.

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It will go in the Loft Room, replacing an old tarnished brass bed I had forever, but I have convinced myself that I love this much better than the old one, for I love the feel of wood, so sensual and natural.
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I spent several hours scrubbing every surface with #0000 (finest) steel wool and a beeswax citrus cleaner, scrubbing off a layer of dirt & old lacquer,  resulting in a satin finish with golden oak highlights! Although it could use another scrubbing, I am reticent for I don’t want to lose the depth of patina in the grain & crevasses.

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A few cracks in the posts and flakes lifted from the veneer of the side boards, but I am absolutely totally in love with it.  I will be looking for old quilts now to dress it with, perhaps making another someday, but for now I am envisioning blocking out lace stoles the whole length of it!

Timberframe!

Published on by Jen23 Comments
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As most of you know its been a very long and difficult wait from losing our home to the wildfire last October 2017, but now the posts & beams coming together with alarming speed! It is the very same timberframe kit as Jeff and I  built from the years 1999-2005, and I’m quite grateful that we have a small group of expert & artful builders willing to brave their way all the way to Napa, then up this mountain to rebuild our home!

There will be a flurry of building related posts, and thus far the builders have only done half of the first floor, but the first posts & beams to go up are the most magical of them all as you will probably agree…

I’ll post more when they get to the second level.

Signing off ecstatic.

♥    ♥    ♥

See all posts about our building our timberframe house HERE.