Foundation Walls

Our basement and crawl space now have walls.  On Wednesday, Geff went over and took a couple of photos while they were pouring the walls:

Today, he checked and the wall forms have been removed.

Looking west into what will be our garage

I hadn't realized we'd have windows in the basement

Looking from the backyard south to the front yard

The second basement window--on the north side

Looking into the crawl space

More crawl space

Building Out the Foundation Walls

 This week, we had a blast of winter:  cold and snowy.  We finally had a chance to go take a look at how far the construction crew had gotten before the cold and snow arrived.

We were surprised to see that three workers were on site and hard at work on a Sunday.

These two gentlemen were working on the southeast corner of the building in the area that will be our garage.

This next photo is from the east side of the house where Marge's bedroom, the stairs, and the laundry room will be:

This looks so much larger than I was picturing from the drawings.  Granted, these are just the forms for the walls.

This next photo shows the depth of the basement on the north side of the house:

That photo is from the northeast corner of the house.  This next photo is on the north side, just on the other side of the basement, sort of between the third bedroom and the great room:

And, this is the basement from the north side:

Geff climbed up one of the dirt piles for a better look:

This next photo was taken from the area that will most likely be the back patio, looking south:

And, this last photo is from near the northwest corner:

The Foundation Is Taking Shape

 They have been making steady progress on the foundation.  We just went to check it out.

Looking at what will be the corner of the garage diagonally across the property

Looking from the corner of the garage across the front of the property

We are only putting in a partial basement

Geff checked, the hay is protecting the newly poured concrete.

Visible Progress

 We closed on our Westminster house a little later than we had planned, and then the race was on to get all the paperwork filed, etc. so that we could close on the loan for the new house.  Then there was the wait for the permit, and now, we have visible progress!

First it was the waste water mitigation effort:

Waste Water Mitigation

Then, it was the markers laid out where the house will be built:

The stakes where the house will be

And, then, they started digging:

That machine looks so small:

This was on November 1:

And, as of today, they are starting to get things ready to pour the basement and foundation:

That's a whole lot of soil...

Waiting to Close

 Everything is now set for us to close next Friday.  Yay!  Geff mowed the lawn one last time tonight, and we just have a few things left to haul down.  The financing is set for the buyers, so now it is just a waiting game.

While we are waiting, we decided to start a little refinishing project.  When Geff was cleaning out the old houses, we decided to save a buffet even though we didn't currently have a need for it.  We recently decided that the TV would fit better on the buffet (and give us more storage!!) than how we have it today.

Current set up

We'll use this coffee table as a coffee table at the other end of the room once we have something else to set the TV on.

The buffet has seen better days, but it has great bones:

Buffet before a little elbow grease

Tonight, while Geff was mowing the lawn at the old house, I decided to start cleaning up the buffet.  

Cabinet after a little elbow grease

More elbow grease is needed, but it is a start.

Another Hoop Behind Us

 Today we were notified that the appraisal went through.  The buyers are finalizing their finances, and we're waiting to close on the 29th.

One more step headed toward our future...

Sometimes I Just Need a Distraction

 We've gone on a drive each of the last two weekends, which has been wonderful.  It is great to get back out into nature and away from the day-to-day for a while. The wild flowers have been beautiful.  And, the flowers at both houses have also been in full bloom. 

I had never seen a columbine in real life before.

Up close, they really are a beautiful flower.

We have also seen a lot of wild roses when we've been in the mountains.

And, then there were these happy flowers:

And, I am still not sure what these are, but we kept seeing them on the way to Canon City, and so had to stop and get a photo (or eight photos).

All of these were pleasant distractions from the phase of the build in which we currently find ourselves.  We need to close on our Westminster house before we can get the financing for the new build cleared, but before that we need to make some decisions like:  to order windows now or wait until the details of the loan are in place and then there are big questions like:  do we want to go with geothermal heating or forced air?  

And, somehow, I suspect that these won't be the last set of decisions we will need to make.

As I was helping my mother-in-law bathe this morning, there was only one thing that was perfectly clear:  we are on the right path for working toward having her live with us.

Working on New Habits

 Throughout the process of packing and moving, it definitely became apparent that I hang on to too much "stuff."  For example, I'm not sure what year we made these in 4-H, but this Dip-n-Drape lamp is from the early 80s.

Dip-n-Drape Lamp

She was still in decent shape, except the hair was super dusty.  She's moved with me from Michigan to Iowa to Wisconsin to Colorado.  She didn't make the move to the rental.  The hair was dusty, the lamp part hadn't worked in a few years, and realistically, it was time to let her go.

I'm learning to take a photo and let it go, regardless of the memories of calling it Drip-n-Drape because I didn't enjoy getting my hands gooey working on  it or all of the work that went into creating her.  And, there was a lot of work that went into it.  While I hadn't like it at the time, I was proud of creating it.  But, I'm equally glad that I let it go.  That lamp took up a lot of space for something that was kept in a closet.  

And, letting things go continues.  This past weekend, we spent time hauling more boxes down from the garage.  More items didn't make the cut.  This was just one of the many boxes of cassette tapes that we will no longer be storing:

Old cassettes

Judging by how full our storage units are (yes, that is plural), the hard work of letting things go is just beginning.

Letting things go isn't the only new habit that I'm working on these days.  It is time to go sweep the floors and do some dusting because I want to get in the habit of cleaning a little at a time so that the house doesn't get out of control.

A Sunday Break: Drive Up the Geneva Creek Trail

All work and no play makes for some stressed people. While I thought we were planning on working all three days of the Fourth of July weekend, we decided we needed to take a break on July 3. We took a drive to scout out a trail near Guanella Pass. After leaving the paved road, much of the road looked like this (or a little more rough):

Geneva Creek Trail

At one point, there was a water crossing with a water fall on one side.  Fortunately, there was a nice place to park just past the point so that we could go back and get some better photos than what I took out the window while we were driving past.

Waterfall along the way

The waterfall next to the waterfall

At one point, we stopped and started up the trail toward the Geneva Creek Iron Fens, which is something I had never heard of before.  We didn't make it.  I was struggling with the altitude (and being out of shape), but had we known that it was a 6.6 mile hike, we probably wouldn't have started up the trail in the first place at that time of the day.  It was still a beautiful hike above yet more waterfalls.

One of several waterfalls in the valley

The river in the valley

The trail to the Geneva Creek Iron Fens

Geff along the trail

After we got back to the Jeep, we traveled further up the road until we came to a small lake.

Small lake

The views up there were pretty amazing.