Pullin' Chocks: April Anniversary

It's probably not what you think; we have been working on the homestead project for one year in a stretch as of April 4th. Whew! A lot of good things have occurred over the past 3 or 4 weeks. We keep inching closer to occupancy and here's the update for April.

First, let's talk about the weather. It's gonna snow. A shot of Mt Baldy and Sheep Mountain coming back into Swan Valley after an IF (Idaho Falls) run.

Buggy ride up the hill first of the month. Still a lot of snow, and more was still falling regularly.

Up the hill we go.

Elk feeding with the Equine livestock at Conant Ranch. MMMmm that's good hay!

Picture below today. In a melting slot. Hope it lasts! We think it will. Well, it will snow again, but it should melt of quickly then.

Fire ring and wood pile reappeared after several months of being buried in the snow. Hopefully we will have a few fires before long.

Couple days before, finally getting the east driveway opened up. We had finally conceded defeat and let the snow have it for a month or more. It's ours again, yay! It helps a bunch when we pull the flat bed trailer, and don't have to turn around in the driveway with the trailer on.

Probably 10 AM and it looks like it wants to snow... it probably did. Something we say often when we look out the window, "look, it's snowing again!" hahahaha That's what it does.

A small group of Honkers flying past Eagle View.

Speaking of Honkers. look at this pair! Looks like a union break going on. OK, let's get inside and get busy.

We completed baseboard installation. Gari is the head stain and polyurethane finisher. Below she is working in the guest bedroom. Best light in there... on the south side of the house.

Steve installing HVAC return registers and baseboard in the master bedroom.

That part of the master bedroom is completed.

...and the rest of the master bedroom baseboard is now officially complete. Certified by Inspector #3.

We finished the tile feature for the gas log. The gas log arrived and we set it up in it's place.

Now that the master baseboard is complete, Gari moves the staining operation into the master so we can install more baseboards in the guest bedroom. Carpet for the bedrooms is on order and we have to have these bedrooms ready.

And..... the guest bedroom baseboard is also now completed. Next time you see these two bedrooms there will be carpet in them. Carpet install is on schedule for tomorrow. That will complete all finish floor covering in the house.

Made a couple design tweaks to the plumbing header in the garage. It's still dry fit below.

Below was the day we decided to tear the header up and glue the plumbing header back together. It is now completed and looks like the picture above

One of the other baseboard priorities was to get baseboard installed behind where the toilets set. That is, so we could set the toilets. Mission accomplished.

What's next? You guessed it, toilets are now set. This is what we call a luxury feature of the homestead project.

Master toilet ready to install.

Finished! We went with white after searching for an off white toilet with a reasonable price. The prices were ridiculous. Thanks Ann & Barbara for guiding us in this decision.

We decided to hook up the electric water heater one day. Well, I glued the cold water plumbing in the wrong sequence. Can you see it? The valve should have been up top on the horizontal. Had to get a replacement ball valve and try again another day. Wish I had a picture of my expression when I was trying to hook up the supply connection and it didn't fit. I knew it was just right. What's going on here?!?! hahahahah Dumb mistake.

Got 'er done! another day. More comedy there. We had roughed in the cold supply on the left and the hot on the right, which by plumbing convention is backwards. Just didn't think about that at the time. The ball valve handles that we ended up with have a red handle on the cold supply and a blue handle on the hot effluent. That seems backwards to me too. Oh well, life is like that sometimes. Two short stories; dad got up early one morning many years ago and wall paper glued a life size poster photo of a horse in a stall looking out dutch stall doors, to our basement garage door. He did a meticulous job. It was when he went to rehang the door that he realized he had glued the horse upside down. It stayed just like that for many years. I get it honest. Second and last story; I have previously purchased a house built by professionals and our toilet was connected to hot water! Surprise! I guess it happens to the best of us!

Electric connect completed on the water heater too.

We purchased and installed a utility tub in the guest bathroom/laundry room. At first look I thought it was going to be a plumbing disaster. We fixed it by building up blocks under the legs to get the drain height we needed. We will build a custom plywood cabinet around it before long. Will probably do that when we get to building out all the shelving.

Thomas and John from FloForm came out and installed the kitchen countertop this month. It is a solid surface product they say is Corian. Long story that I won't go into, but after an excellent experience with the cabinetry installation, the countertop was a minor disaster. Was not Thomas or John's fault. FlowForm outsources the fabricated countertop and it was just made wrong and very sloppy. The guys did their best to recover the job from total disaster. We have requested compensation from Lowe's. Should be interesting to see what happens.

From a distance to the untrained eye it looks OK. So that is a small consolation. The picture below is very large and you may be able to scroll horizontally to see the entire set up.