Six years ago today......

Six years ago today, we moved in, 

no heat, no hot water, Hell....no working toilet!

Missing a large section of the roof & quite a few walls...
it was going to be done in 6 months....
then a year.....then........
well, you know the story.

YES.......We are still very happily married,

and.......

Today we are 

Officially Declaring the House Finished!

"Old Charlie's" House

The "Medaj Manor"

Retaining wall

Tom has been exploring options to protect the shoreline of the piece of property next door we bought a couple of years ago (remember my birthday present???). Since a couple of the neighbors were also getting it done it Tom decided to go ahead and have a retaining wall installed.

They started on August 29th & were going to knock it out in a couple of days, since it was a small job. ( I do believe we've heard that line before. I think it's a standard Upstate NY line)

They found a huge tree stump on the 6th of Sept(maybe that was the hold up?).and before you ask, they did work over most of Labor Day weekend. The work days usually consisted of 2-3 hours of work a day when they came;)

They finally finished the job on the 17th of Sept.
And oh look... we don't have to throw the canoe or row boat in the water any more
& try to jump in!
We have a boat launch!  
Now if we could just find the time to buy another oar we wouldn't have to row in circles:)....
or we could just get longer paddles for the canoe, then taller people could use it ( hint-hint).

Tom had the top soil delivered, graded off and ready for grass seed by the 26th!!!
Obviously he's not an Upstater...he's from Western NY, they apparently have a different time frame.

What happened to Mandy & Eva?

Well we've joked about it for years (literally!), 

that the house would be done by the time Eva went to school. 

Eva started kindergarten on Sept. 6! 

Hard to believe, here's her on her first day of school:)

Eva,  June 2006 she had only been coming here a few months!

Mandy's still working for Tom occasionally,

hopefully for a couple of days soon to finish the entertainment center,

it's just as it was in March!

Her business is flourishing and she's quite busy, you can check out her shop @

http://www.etsy.com/shop/mleefipps.

In Sept. she married her high school sweetheart in a beautiful ceremony.

Eva looked as beautiful as the Bride:)

The photo was taken by one of Mandy's bridesmaids,
who has her own Photography business

she couldn't shoot the wedding for obvious reasons;

but the pics we've seen so far are terrific! 

Check out her studio:

http://www.stonybrookphotography.com

"The Lost Summer"

We have now officially named this summer "The Lost Summer".

Rehab work is done on the restaurant;

MJ's Chill "N Grill's bar & grill are now open along with the Ice Cream stand.  

Now the real work begins!!!!  

The "Pavilion"

Things are under control and Tom was able to steal a few hours from the restaurant rehab to work on finishing "The Pavilion". The metal roof has been painted and the siding attached. We used the same siding as the house and it all just blends in.Need the trim work...but then it's always something that's not quite done, isn't it? 
Still not quite sure what we're doing with it, but hey, it looks much better! 
A fine place for a Polka or maybe a Hoe Down! How's your square dance lessons?? Ready to allemande left? We've got the space!

The Queen Reigns.....

Sure wish I had started a Blog for getting the ice cream stand up and running 

& for the rehab of the bar/restaurant. 

That would have been quite entertaining!

Not a clue when I would have had time for it though;

14-16 hour days are the norm for now:(

The Ice Cream Queen

In addition to my other responsibilities, 

I'm in charge of getting the Ice Cream Stand up and running.

 

As you can see, I've taken over the dining room table, 

no meals here for a long time! 
But then I didn't cook before did I ???

Our World is About to be Turned Upside Down.........

Well,we had to take the restaurant and ice cream stand back and it looks like we're going to be there awhile. Needs quite a bit of work before it's up and running again. 
Good thing we didn't kill each other getting those wires hooked up so we have TV and stereo.

I'm thinking Mandy's not going to be back here anytime soon for her & Tom to finish the entertainment center, her new destination will be the restaurant too!  
And I ask you again....could someone tell me where, exactly, is the entertainment is in this???

Entertainment Center

We were finally able to get Mandy away from her Mom's kitchen for a couple of days to help Tom begin to install the entertainment center. They got the base cabinets in, now to figure out how to hook up all those damn wires! We'll do that without Mandy and save her skills for the next phase. So Tom and I will be working on that and we all know that Tom and I don't do so well on the "togetherness thing" when it comes to construction/electrical. There is a motivator though, no TV or Stereo until we figure it out!

So, could someone tell me where, exactly, is the entertainment is in this???

It's Official!

We are in receipt of the final 

Certificate of Occupancy 

and we can live in the house:)
So...Happy Dance for us!

Final Electrical!!!

We had the final electrical inspection today.
Really, electricity is a little overrated...if the house isn't quite finished...who wants to see what isn't done?
Tom was a little concerned since our original inspector who has been over throughout the process had died.
He wasn't sure how the new inspector worked off other inspectors jobs;
I certainly was hoping he wasn't going to make us go back and count all the electric outlets and switches again to make sure we didn't add any!

Well, we passed with flying colors! 

We can finally apply for a permanent C of O, 

since the one we've been living on is a 6 month temporary!

Guess what?????

So much for the optimism.......Guess that wasn't the solution.

This is what we came home to.......

Heat Loss.......

Snow Melt.......

Large Icicles......

Repeat............. 

 

Tom had to hire a crew to go up and remove the snow and ice (again!)

I don't think anyone is coming thru the front door anytime soon.....

So we're taking bets on when the snow pile will be gone....any takers?

And then.........

Our entertainment center is delivered (YEAH!!!) in a snow storm, so we had the delivery guys set the boxes in the foyer so they didn't track the crap in thru the house.

 

Tom and I carry the boxes into the family room and find that the very last box has a dent in it, it was placed to face the wall so it wasn't noticeable.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

 double click on the pic to see the damage

Looking at the box, it doesn't look too bad.....
Unfortunately we've got cabinet damage, Tom calls right away...no problem they'll order  rush order a replacement, we'll have it in 2 weeks.
Right now the only saving grace is that Mandy is still working on her Mom's kitchen 
(which is looking awesome) and wasn't able to start just yet. 
With a little luck (and we haven't seen much of that) Grama Colleen's kitchen will be done by the time our replacement cabinet comes in!

YIPPEE!!!! No roof melt!!!!

So optimistic!!! 

The repair over the furnace room seems to be working......

there is no roof melt....let's hope at least in this section the problem is fixed.
We're off to Florida tomorrow, let's hope the optimism is warranted.....

Ongoing Roof Saga

Tom has had multiple companies come in to evaluate and we still have yet to find a solution.... 

One company did find that there was a large open space between the hi-density foam insulation board over the furnace room ceiling and the blown in insulation under the floor of the attic.

We filled that in with fiberglass insulation.

After we addressed that area we were quite optimistic......

 
 

So minimal heat loss is evident ...........

could it be that easy a fix, at least for that section???

Winter Sunset

Paint colors chosen by God .......

Viewing location chosen by us.....

Makes it all worthwhile!!!!

Entertainment Center

One of the last big projects left to complete.....
We've ordered the cabinets,
decided on no upper cabinets on the entertainment center
due to the arch and the fact that we thought it would make it look too dark.
We chose a dark chocolate stain that looks great,
so the cabinets are on order!

Guess this is here for the duration......

The dirt pile from the excavation didn't get relocated;

heavy rains made the pile unmovable in the fall.

Apparently my wish for no snow also didn't happen,  

(Tom will need to use the snow blower) 

winter came early and it's staying.....so, apparently, is our dirt pile.

Good Vibrations

.......well I guess that depends on who is running the tamper....

Tom is tamping down the last load of stone with a power vibrating tamper (pic is blurry, I could feel the vibrations...lol). 

We'll need a smooth surface for the winter before he can use the snow blower, then he'll pack down the first couple of snowfalls to ensure we don't have flying stones everywhere.

Assuming of course, we have snow this winter and he actually needs to snow blow;)

WOW....we can drag a job out!

Siding began the in the fall of 2006 and dragged out to the late fall of 2007 but was never completely finished (there's a surprise). This was mostly due in part to the original contractor who never finished the job; then to the  multiple contractors hired afterward that either never returned after working a few hours or just didn't bother to show.
SO.....fast forward...Nov.  2010 the last section of siding went on! The exterior of the fireplace chimney is finally sided!!!! It's completely finished! The gutters and fascia on the newly finished upper back patio (redo) have been installed, we're winding down..... (did I actually put that in writing???).

Last stone load!!!

Yippee!!! Hopefully this is the last load of stone  for the driveway,
just need to get it leveled and we can start parking in our driveway again.
Now we just wait for the town to come through with the sewers

NEW ADDITION!!!

 Boy...had you going on that one didn't I???? 
 Actually the new addition isn't to our home,

but to my cousin Heather & her husband Rick's home.

Welcome Madison Collins Eldredge, she was born on October 25.

Well she's not actually my cousin, her mom is,
so would that make Heather my first cousin once removed???
Then Madison (Maddie) would be my first cousin twice removed???

Or would Heather be my second cousin & Maddie my third???

Guess it's time for some research since this family just keeps growing!

 

Isn't she just adorable???

Patio's almost finished!

The grouting begins on Oct 18th .......Mandy has a bit of a challenge (but what else is new?) working within the confines of the tarp (which went up on the 26th of Sept...but who's counting?) and it was dark, like working in a cave. We've had some high winds and some heavy rains; at times that tarp was just flapping! Grouting was finished on the 21st and after the rains stopped long enough for the tarp to dry out, we were finally able to take it down on the 26th, a month to the day! You don't realize how much natural light came in through those windows...our poor plants were gasping for sunlight (kind of like us this time of year).

The second installation of the upstairs patio came out beautiful, let's all hope this is also the last installation (at least in my lifetime!). Just a little trim work left now....

Smoothing things out....

You'd hardly ever know there was a house there now; all graded off;
well except for the large mound of dirt just hanging out there
begging for my nephew to just come & dig in it.... 
Now there's a Tonka Truck pile if ever I've seen one....
Sure does make a much nicer view than the "camp" that was there,
not to mention the rottweiler/pit bull mix that's no longer part of the neighborhood :)

Patio Re-do Take 2

The tiling begins.......

And tell me what exactly are the odds that it's on the same day.....

3 years apart?!?!?!?

So....what do you think of the new color?

Then the Rains Came.......

....and it rained and rained and rained.......

we have a huge mud pile 

(which is right next to our temporary driveway-that muddy lane to the left)

 

a muddy swimming hole......

 and a wet fermenting ground stump (and I thought it smelled bad before!).......

Driveway destruction....

Lot of destruction going on.....on top of the destruction of the back patio and the demolition of the house next door, Tom decided since he had this piece of equipment here he might as well tear up a perfectly good driveway! 

What the heck...you can tell the size of the boys by the price of their toys...LOL!

Seriously though, we're supposed to finally get sewers this fall & we've put off actually putting a driveway in until they come thru. Since the area will need to be dug up anyway & crushed fill brought in, he decided to dig it up now, use the dirt for fill the property next door.

So he comes upon a tree stump that will need to be ground out, enter "The stump grinder"....really nice guy, was able to accommodate us the same day.  
He's all done & leaves and there is this foul odor...I ask Tom (since he & Mandy were also working on the upper patio today) "is that smell from that Hydro Ban you painted on the patio?" He didn't notice any smell...it was terrible....how could you not notice???
Come to find out-it was from the stump-it was a sugar maple which had been rotting & fermenting underground & grinding it up released all that beautiful aroma!!!

Demolition Day 2

The remainder was cleaned up and a large hole dredged out

to push a lot of the misc debris into....

 This is also the hole Tom will end up in if he starts talking 

about building a house on the lot next door!!!

Patio Re-do part 1

In order to finish removing the last of the tiles & Hardie board the railing had to be uninstalled.

You can see where the railing is unattached & how wet the beam is, at least there is no rot!

A layer of water & ice barrier has been laid underneath the new layer of Durarock, then the railing was reinstalled, exterior seams caulked & the entire surface painted with Hydo Ban...touted as "The NEW Industry Standard for Waterproofing Membranes". Nothing's getting thru this one!

Now I just need to go shopping to pick out new tiles....I was ready for a color change anyway;)

Demolition of the House next door

Demolition began on the house next door to make way for our view!

The plywood from the roof was salvaged, in addition to the roof trusses. 

Let the Monster do it's job.......

Not bad for the first days work.....