Cold Progress

 Isn't it wonderful when a plan comes together?  Fortunately for us, our idea of wintering in Idaho and working on the closed in house interior projects has been working out very well this month.  The drywall was finished and we are very happy with the results.  It certainly is MUCH better than the drywall experience that we had when building Cloverland Ranch 23 years ago.  The kitchen and bathroom cabinetry arrived in early December and the installation was completed this month.  The last 10 days has been nothing but PAINT; it seemed like 20 days!  I will admit that we had a nice little break as the drywall crew hung and finished the drywall.  We only went in the house for 5 minutes twice a day for almost two weeks as Luis and his crew worked.  They were walking around on stilts and no matter where we went we were almost immediately in their way.  So, we stayed out and only went in to check and see if they needed anything a couple times each day.  We enjoyed getting the little glimpses of their progress and techniques.  After they finished up, it was back to work for us... PAINTING.  It was amazing to us how much paint goes into a little two bedroom house.

It has stayed below freezing for most of December and so far into January.  When the sun comes out real good it may get up into the high 30's and we get a little melting action.  However, it seems to snow every couple of days or so, that is if it isn't snowing 6 days out of the week.  We haven't gotten too much snow at once, just a little bit each day and it just continues to pile up.  We think it sure is pretty though.

Leo finishing up the drywall job.  Leo was on 4 ft stilts and walked the finishing box across each seam on our 12 ft garage ceiling.  He made it look doable, but we know it isn't anywhere near as easy as he made it look.  One thing we were amazed about during the drywall process was the humidity that the finishing mud puts into the house.  Anything metal near the exterior walls was just dripping with water for the next day after a day of mud application.  We think the very cold outside temperatures exacerbate the situation.

Once the drywall was finished, we went right back to work painting.  Gari is working the first coat of primer.  We put primer on every wall and ceiling in the house and garage.  It took us 2 or 3 days to complete the primer application.  We bought 20 gallons of primer and used about 18 or 19 gallons.

We did it the old fashioned way with a roller, paint pan and a cutting brush.  This is how we do it. 🎶

Don't forget the cutting in of the corners and edges.  I think there are about 42 miles of corners and edges in this little two bedroom house.  Could be 43 miles...  Once we finished the two or three days of primer painting, the ceilings were the worst, we were in physical pain.  Then the reality hit us that we had to do this two more entire times.  Two more coats of finish paint color to every ceiling and wall.  Our plan was to paint the ceilings first, even with the primer coat, then we painted and cut in the walls.  In total we purchased 57 gallons of paint and applied about 52 gallons.  We finished today and are extremely glad to have that job behind us.

We really stretched our decorating talents, of which we have very little.  We chose two different contrast colors for three contrast walls.  Woo-Hoo fancy for us!  Below is the sitting room that shares open space with the kitchen.  The color is Ballroom Dancing.  Come to think of it, Gari & I have had a few dances in this space!  We love to Waltz!  The Tennessee Waltz song by Patsy Cline is a favorite, not to mention Waltz Across Texas by Ernest Tubbs and Willie.

The guest bedroom got the same Ballroom Dancing contrast wall.

In the master bedroom we went for the dramatic Hanging Garden color.

Gari takes a short break from painting to peek in at the first kitchen cabinet up on the wall.  Our cabinet installer Cody did a fantastic job.  Said he's been doing cabinetry work since he was 10 y/o.  He has some serious skills and completed a fantastic job in short order... 2 days.  The other part of our painting plan accounted for the cabinet installation schedule.  We painted and completed first the 3 coats of paint on the walls and ceilings where the cabinets were to be installed in the kitchen and bathrooms.  This allowed Cody to get in and install, while we continued to PAINT.

Another painting action shot.  Gari straddles the crawlspace hatch in the pantry as she applies finish color paint to the walls. Be assured that the camera operator stopped for just a moment from the cutting in painting.  It was all I could do to stay ahead of Gari.  That girl is relentless with a paint roller!

Cody finished the cabinet install in two days and we are extremely pleased with his quality and craftsmanship.  Thank you Cody!  It turns out that painting has a similar effect as the drywall finishing, it puts a bunch of moisture into the air inside the house.  Quite kindly, our drywall guy Omar let us use his 50A electric heater while the drywall and then paint continued to dry out.  It made a huge difference, thank you very much Omar for your above and beyond service!  That's the big electric heater in the shot below.

A couple more pictures of  the remainder of the cabinetry in the bathrooms.  Below we are set up for two sinks in the master bathroom.  We realize that this style of bathroom cabinetry is kind of out of style, we saw all the dresser and open type lavatory stands.  They sure seem flashy, but we just go for functional and try to stick with the never in style, and never out of style designs in pretty much everything we do. 

Single lavatory below in the guest bathroom/laundry room.  A utility sink will go at the right of the lav and the washer/dryer will be just past that.  Cody made a great suggestion of we could add a 30"-36" cabinet and drop a deep utility sink into the cabinet for a more integrated look.  We thought that was a fantastic idea... until we started adding up the cost to do that.  It got up to a couple thousand dollars additional real quick, so we sadly go back to the poly laundry tub.  We are thinking of either a homemade cabinet to dress up the naked utility sink or maybe some type of divider like a curtain to hide the utility sink and washer appliances from first walk in view.

We have been thinking about flooring recently as things continue to progress.  We are thinking plank vinyl everywhere except the bedrooms.  We thought we would do a tile pattern of plank vinyl on the bathrooms and pantry, then go with the wood look for the remainder of the vinyl.  We bought a sample box of Blue Ridge Pine as a test, but ended up not liking it so much.  It seems that pattern was going for a more weathered look and it almost appeared to us that the vinyl was damaged, but we think that is just the look.  We took it back and are trying the next option, Arcadian Oak.  Gari is thinking that may be too dark; we will see.  I think she is going to set up the same test as seen below tomorrow with the Arcadian Oak. 

Then by the good fortune of someone else's cancellation, we got the countertop guy Tyler to come out just a couple days after the cabinetry was set.  Otherwise it would have been mid to late February for the template visit.  Tyler showed up with his laser and started collecting points all over the countertop areas.  He worked for two or three hours and did a very thorough job.  He went over everything on our order with us as the conclusion to his templating job.

Well it's about quitting time, the Tumbleweed Mule Deer herd is heading out.  Out they go one by one...

Now we take you out of this post with the western exposure.  The Snake River runs just inside of those small mountains.