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!