The End

I almost have a tear in my eye to write this post....Almost.  Mostly I am doing a dance of Joy. 

Yesterday 11-12-13 we received our occupancy permit.  We are just two weeks shy of the 4 year anniversary of beginning this project.

The house is finished.  We can officially live here, pay taxes, use the septic system, drink the water and all the other privileges that come along with officially occupying a home.

Reflecting on the project,  I can't really say whether or not we would do it again.  It was a lot of fun and a lot of work.  Not just a lot of work but A LOT OF WORK!  We all made sacrifices but we all learned a lot and have made some really great memories and new friends. 

Chris and I were looking at old photos of the house and property and it is truly astounding what we accomplished.  I am not sure what made us think we could tackle this project,  maybe we were a little bit crazy, but we did it! We are so happy with our choice. We do not miss an opportunity to tell each other how much we like this land, or the house, or a tree, or the chickens, or how that tile work came out, or how wonderful the trim looks, or what great paint color choices we made, or how cool that the 4 of us made this all happen. 

Today Jackson asked when are we going to begin working on finishing the basement?  Well,  I guess that means the kids enjoyed the building process, if they want to start another project.  We have lots of projects planned for the future.  They may possibly include:

• Finishing the basement
• Trails throughout the woods
• Greenhouse
• Wood burning stove
• Shooting range
• Picnic area in the woods
• Campsite in the woods
• Clearing vines
• A swimming pool
• A sauna

As we take a break from projects we will also take a break from this blog.  I am not sure who said it but I read a quote once 'There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story.' As we all know, life carries on after the story ends. So we will end this story and prepare for the next one.

Thanks to everyone who helped us, everyone who stopped by to lift a hand or lend advice, everyone who said motivating words, everyone who sent encouraging thoughts and prayers.  WE DID IT!!!!

Fall

With an unlimited supply of wood, 
we have some big fires!

Autumn is in full swing here.  The trees are mesmerizing and the cooler temps are perfect for sitting by the fire.  We don't have an inside wood burner yet,  but most weekends in September and October, we were able to use the new fire pit.  We have also been able to do some entertaining.  Friends have been over to share in the glow of the fire pit or the occasional fire works display.  We even had our realtor out who helped us buy the property.  She said she would never believe it was the same property had it not been for the one pile of cylinders we saved. LOL



We "decorated" the pit with some
of the cooler rocks from the yard.


September was a big month for us.  We finally got cable TV and unlimited internet!  What a relief as we were on metered internet and the internet bill was more than all of our other bills combined.  Getting cable and internet was a big day of celebration for us.


The biggest news for October is the event of our first mowing of the new grass.  The place looks so much more finished with grass.  We ended up using almost 300 pounds of Kentucky Blue seed.  We watered for 3 weeks before we got some much needed rain,  but once the rains came the grass really took off.

Grass!

 I have published these photos below before,  but I think they are worth posting again.  This is a tree we rescued from vines.  It looks so nice now.  I am glad I didn't let Chris have his way and cut it down!




Vine covered tree

After vine removal


 

Three years later.

Chris has finished up all the trim in the house. The to do list is dwindling down to nothing.  We had our new property plat created and the surveyors were shocked at the changes since their first adventure here. We hope to apply for occupancy before Thanksgiving.  It would be exactly 4 years since we bought the property on Thanksgiving of 2009.



Sensational Summer

Completed Shade garden.  Notice the steps on the right...they are from the trailer but make a nice plant nursery.

View from the south, 
Lots of seed and straw.

Yes,  it has been a while since the last post.  We have been busy trying to squeeze some fun out of the last days of summer.  We went to Monticello and Hershey Park,   two really fun trips! The weather here in Northern Virginia has been spectacular.  Even on the hottest days, the cement porch stays nice and cool.  We continue to spend time every day outside on the porch.  Julie had jury duty in Alexandria, which put a bit of a wrinkle in our progress,  but she was able to paint in the evenings so that Chris had plenty of trim to keep him busy during the day. 



A view of where the trailer once stood,
just past the new cryptomeria tree.

Ron moved the trailer for us.  It is only moved to a different part of the yard,  because, unfortunately it still needs a new owner.  He also finished up the grading and only has the circle driveway yet to tackle.  That left us with lots and lots of grass needing to be planted.  One Saturday we planted 175 pounds of K31 seed and 25 bales of straw.  We have one small area yet to seed,  but most of the yard is now yellow and soon to be green.  Let the watering begin!

Front of the house. 
The landscaping is still in it's infancy, 
but at least we have some shrubs and mulch.

We finished up the shade garden and it is so lovely.  The fern area is planted and we have several other areas with only a few plants.  Luckily Julie has a couple of plant swaps coming up and hopefully can score some cool flora!

With school starting we have more time for projects so Julie has started on a terrace garden on the back side of the porch.  Lots of digging and moving cylinders,  but we have high hopes. 


A nice view of the door trim,  but really the highlight of this photo is the new china hutch we bought from some kid out of his garage.

Gotta run,  time to move the sprinklers.





Living the Good Life

The shade garden, a work in progress

With the exterior of the house complete,  we only have trim to finish on the inside and excavating on the outside.  We decided to focus on some landscaping.  I have a ton of plants free from other master gardeners, plant swaps and MG college.  I even have a few we paid for.  It is time to get them in the ground.

We started working on a shade garden since the sunny area of the house still needs some excavating.  we put in a pathway and used up the last of the boy scout mulch.  We got quite a bit done,  but had to stop until we get the trailer sold and out of the way.  Know anyone who might be interested in at 40ft park RV?


This photo will be so much better when we recreate it with landscaping instead of a dirt pile!

We had some friends over for a marshmallow roast and it turned out to be a fabulous evening.  the weather was perfect and no bugs.  Chris made these log candles with the chainsaw and they burned for hours.  The turned out to be the perfect marshmallow roasters and gave out a ton of heat.  We will certainly be making more of these in the future.  It has been so nice to take a break from working on the house and enjoy the porch and yard. Hopefully we will not settle in and forget we still have work to do.



Cooper perfecting his roasting

Allelulia

The siding is finally finished!   I think Chris may have almost died of heat stroke a time or two,  but he finished and it looks amazing.  This means the exterior of the house is complete!  WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Chris putting some finishing touches on the garage
gable.  Yes,  our insurance is up to date!

If slow and steady really does win the race we should be coming into a huge prize very soon.  Chris has been plugging away at siding every day for two weeks now.  He is getting very close to finishing and hopes to have the exterior all buttoned up by the weekend. 

We lost another 6 chickens,  all babies, last week.  We think they didn't get into the coop before the door closed and a night predator got them.  So sad,  but the chicken that looks like a bald eagle survived.  We are only getting 6-8 eggs a day, so the extra layers would have been nice.  Hopefully the newbies will begin laying soon.

The garden is coming along nicely.  It is a bit weedy and we are trying to keep up between vacations,  but they seem to need to keep up with the phrase 'growing like a weed'.  We have several baseball sized cantaloupe and lots of golf ball sized watermelons.  We are getting a few tomatoes however small they are still yummy.  We can't wait for the 'mortgage lifters' to ripen.  A few peppers are coming in and I think I should be harvesting carrots,  but am not sure so I keep holding off.

We picked a ton of raspberries from the forest and made a beautiful pavlova.  It was so tasty,  I would have included a photo,  but it didn't last long enough for the camera.

We are enjoying this time of year.  The fruit and veggies are bountiful and the porch is nice and cool even on the 90+ days.  We love it when guests stop by for a cool beverage on the porch.  It all feels very southern.  I think I am going to have to perfect my mint juleps.

Free-Bees!

The swarm cluster from far

This weekend Jackson was mowing and came in to let us know our bees were swarming.  He said it was like a hurricane of bees in the air.  Sure enough our 8-frame hive decided to split into two colonies.  Unfortunately we were not prepared and had no knowledge of capturing swarms.  We found enough equipment in the barn to come up with a hive until we could get more appropriate materials ordered.  What we lacked was the knowledge,  but we can be very resourceful!

After reading that you have 1-hour to 3-days to catch the swarm or they will find a new home on their own,  we were anxious to capture them.  After all, a package of bees costs about $125 and free bees sounded good to us!  We researched how to shake the branch and let the bees fall into your hive body or use a sheet to be sure bees don't fall into the grass etc.  The main idea seemed to be if you can get the queen then the swarm will follow her.

Closer view of the swarm

Our swarm had come to rest in a pin oak tree about 25 feet up.  A box on the end of a couple of two by fours would do the trick. Easy!  We went to the barn and found an old Lou Malnauttis Styrofoam cooler and two really long PVC pipes.  PVC and Styrofoam are light materials and would make it easier to reach the swarm, we thought.  The PVC poles ended up not being long enough so we backed Chris' truck into the brush and he climbed into the bed and just barely could reach the swarm. 

With a firm knock of the branch the majority of the cluster fell into the box.  What we didn't plan on was how heavy the bees were and in slow motion those PVC pipes began to bend and the box fell onto Chris' truck and the ground and we had a mess.  Bees were everywhere!  There was a puddle of bees on the windshield, a puddle on the hood,  a puddle on the ground and surprisingly still a bunch in the cooler.

So we just sat and kinda watched what was going on for a while.  Mostly we were dumbfounded at what happened,  be lets just say we were studying the bees behavior.  No bees were going back up into the tree,  the puddles were disappearing and the box looked about the same.  After about 10 minutes Chris saw the queen in the cooler.  It was the queen from the package we bought this year and she had a bright blue spot on her back.  WOOHOO!  We dumped the cooler into our makeshift hive and crossed our fingers and went in for the night.

Two days later we still have bees in the new hive.  This is not a story I would share with anyone from our bee club as they might kick us out for the crazy way we caught our swarm,  but needless to say, we are quite proud to have got the job done!  We now have 4 hives and have high hopes for a nice honey flow in July.

Never a Dull Moment

I am always amazed that I can find things to write about each month.  Although, Chris does not want me to blog about him hanging out of the scuttle hole in the ceiling when the ladder fell out from under him as he was climbing down, so I will have to focus on other interesting tidbits like the snake I found in the basement.  He must have just shed his skin because not far from him I found a snake skin that we were able to measure 42 inches long. Once again I found myself in the job of snake wrangler and armed with a broom and two sticks helped this one fine his way out of our basement. 

oooooo  snake

We had a rainy weekend and decided to work under cover and began working on the porch railing.  It took the whole weekend to figure out the how tos of installing a railing.  So we didn't make much progress, but we did finish it up over memorial day weekend.  It makes the porch feel so much bigger and gives the house a more finished look.  We decided that not a lot of people put in their own railings because the hardware store does not stock the parts in very big quantities.  To gather all the pieces we needed for this project we went to Lowes in the following cities: Sterling, Frederick, Winchester, Chantilly and Gainesville.  We finished an audio book with all that driving and every time we get in the car the kids say 'We aren't going to Lowes again are we?'

Front porch with railing.

Our beloved excavator, Ron, has been bringing in lots and lots of free dirt in the past weeks.  We think he is going to do our final grading any day now.  I sure hope so because I keep buying landscaping plants and I am afraid if I don't get them in the ground soon,  Chris is going to have a plant sale when I am not home.

New tennants

We have some new tenants here at Watermark Woods.  We have yet to run into them, but we are sure they have settled in as they have really spruced up the landscaping in their front yard.  Below is a photo of their place.

 

We have been working on the outside of the house bit by bit each weekend.  We have all but two walls up finished which just leaves the gables and the front angles.  Areas that are going to take a lot of time and certainly a lot of cuss words.



It is just a few days until the eggs begin hatching.  We have been candling the eggs to see inside and we think there are two 'yolkers' which are eggs that were not fertilized.  Several of the eggs we can see the network of blood vessels and the chicken moving.

We were able to get in a little target practice this weekend.  It was a lot of fun and a nice respite from all the construction work.  Zombies beware. LOL

Due in 21 days

This week I have been so fortunate to spend some time in the garden.  All the beds are ready for planting and the chickens have been feasting on weeds!  Now I am just waiting to be out of the frost danger zone.  We have lots of plant babies and several packets of seeds that cant wait to get their new home in the ground.

I have also been hanging around the local nurseries trying to find some native shrubs for our landscaping.  Not an easy task especially when you want some things to be evergreen and some things to have color. I think we are going to have to work  to find a balance between native plants and ornamental plants.  I do have a few great finds sitting in pots just waiting for the final grading to finish up. 

the new babies

After the fox attack we(I) have been considering more chickens.  We put 7 eggs in an incubator and in 21 days we should have new baby chicks.  We can't wait to see if this really works.  The only problem is that we are bound to end up with a couple of roos.  I guess we really are going to have to make chicken soup.  Anyone with experience butchering birds want to come for a visit in late October(you know who you are)?

We are looking forward to nice weekend weather and hope to once again get moving on the outside siding and trim.

April Showers bring........Foxes

Fox den near the barn

Well,  Not a whole lot has been going on.  We traveled for spring break and have had some scouting events keeping us from any major projects.

Chris did get some of the finishing trim up for the bath and kitchen cabinets.  Mostly our efforts have been focused on your typical honey do list.  Fix that door, hang that picture, paint that room,  hang these curtains....you get the gist.

I am trying to get the garden ready for planting.  Most of the beds have been turned, composted and turned again.  I have loads of seedlings ready to go in the ground as soon as the danger of frost has passed.  It is hard to wait especially after we had such a mild spring last year.  I did get lettuce, onions and a new variety of rhubarb into the ground. 

We had some unfortunate circumstances with the chickens this week.  The boys and I caught a fox red-handed.  We came home to find him munching on one of our girls and a whole mess of every color feather you could think of.  All he did was eat the heads.  Eeeeewwww.  In total I think we have lost 5 chickens.  The flock is dwindling, which is OK because our coop was pretty full.  I think our egg customers will be the most disappointed.

We Passed Gas

Our final inspection stickers

The gas inspection that is.  As of 2/22 we passed our final inspections for the trades.  That is HVAC, Plumbing, Gas and Electrical.  The inside of the house is finished except for trim and Cooper's closet door.  We still have a small mount of siding and exterior trim as well.  Once those things are off our list we will be very close to getting our occupancy permit. We need to re-order that door since the opening is too big.  Chris is going to re-frame the opening and we will get a new door. 

I have been pouring over seed catalogs gearing up for planting.  the garden look a mess but I am hoping for some warmer weather to get the beds turned over and cardboard down between the rows.  I did plant some lettuce and spinach in a pot on the front porch.  My hope is that the slugs will stay away since it is up on the porch and that we will eat it faster than it grows since it is so accessible to the kitchen.

We lost another chicken.  We think to a fox.  We found her,  and whatever got her just had a little snack and left.  That brings our total casualties to 3 due to predators.  This week egg production s back up due to rising temperature and longer days.  We are getting 13+ eggs a day.

Kitchen,  still needs some trim on cabinets, but it i fully functional.

The last week of February Jim and Marie came for a working visit.  Unfortunately Marie had the plague so we couldn't work her to hard.  We did get the barn all cleaned and organized. It looks so civilized now and we can find things.

Marie and I put up a tile back splash above the cook top.  What a great mom! It came out better than expected and we are getting lots of compliments. 

My purple bathroom, which I let Chris use.

Now that we are all moved in,  I decided to change some paint colors.  I repainted the family room a dark brown and our master bath purple. I don't think Chris is too crazy about the purple,  but I love it!

Welcome Leonard

The house projects are slowing down,or maybe we are slowing down.  We passed both Electrical and Mechanical final inspections in the past couple of weeks.  Once we pass plumbing then I have to go back to researching what else we need to do to get our occupancy permit.

During this whole project the boys have been so helpful and so good at self entertaining that we treated them to a day at Madam Tussuad's Wax museum in DC last week.  While it was fun and interesting,  Jackson's only comment was that it was creepy. The boys have also been taking advantage of the slow time to work on some scouting merit badges. 

We lost two chickens recently.  The two roosters had been battling it out and the lesser dominate roo was refusing to go into the pen at night.  I told him that if he didn't go in he would get eaten and sure enough,  after 3 nights something got him. There was quite the mess of feathers in the yard. We lost the second to a hawk.  It was one of the smaller leghorns, and one of only two we had that lay white eggs.  We are down to 19 chickens and getting anywhere between 8 and 12 eggs a day,  not bad for winter.

Jackson added another pet to our menagerie.  He saved his money for a very long time and bought all the supplies and a leopard gecko.  He named him Leonard after a character from the show "Big Bang Theory". He is cute...behind glass.  If he gets out I may move back into the RV.

We are in hot water now!

January 18th we finally got the hot water running!  The hot water came in the nick of time.  Last week the propane tank for the trailer emptied.  So rather than refill it, we made due with space heaters and the elec. hot water heater which is small so that meant really quick showers. I feel like hot water is such a huge success I should stop writing now.  However,  we have gotten more things done that we need to brag about so I'll continue.

Front Porch.  Still needs railings

The last two weekends have brought some very mild temperatures and lots of sunshine so Chris was able to finish the porch ceiling.  He used pre-finished bamboo flooring planks and finish nailed them to the ceiling.  It really gives the porch a nice finished look.  Especially if you look at the photo on the top left side bar of this page.  It shows the porch when we first purchased the property.

Last week the granite was installed,  but I wasn't able to post photos so here is a shot of our giant center islandIt is 7ft x 7ft.  We have been loving eating breakfast here.  Having a solid surface on which to pour milk has made Cooper's life much less messy.

Kitchen

This week Chris has been finishing up the odd tasks.  He hangs a door or two most week nights.  He finished the cabinets in the master bath and just needs the trim work on them.  He has a huge list of little things that is getting shorter each day.

We also hope to winterize the RV this week. Now that we no longer need it for showers we can close it down.  We have quite a bit of clean up to do then we plan to sell it back to the RV place.  Know anyone in need of a 40ft 3BR 2 bath RV? 

Master BR.  Sunny with a view of the woods.

Lastly I wanted to post a photo of the view from our bedroom.  It is really cool to wake up and look right out and see deer, turkey, fox, squirrel and whatever else is meandering past.

Happy New Year

We had a great holiday working every day.  We got lots of little odds and ends wrapped up.  The closets are all finished up and clothes have moved in.  While Chris and I were happy to be reunited with our complete wardrobes,  all clothing we stored for the boys is too small.  Either they grew a lot or we lived in the RV a lot longer than expected.

The gas was hooked up to the house just today,  so we hope the plumber will be by next week to get the hot water flowing.  At that point I anticipate we will all be in the hot shower as much as possible.

The granite counter tops were installed in the kitchen today.  They came out much better than expected. We were very happy with Flintstone Granite company.  We are so pleased Fred left his position as Dino-crane operator and broke out on is own.