Here We Go Again!

Another week...  The sheet rockers are done, they blew the ceiling with a light texture and did a final sand of the walls and it looks great!  We start painting tomorrow! 

When I got back to the cabin this morning I found this...  I keep a bag of bread on a chair outside for the peacocks that wander by a couple of times a day.  We also have lots of squirrels in the area...was the bag chewed or pecked?  You make the call...

Hmmmmmmmm...

Are you looking at me??

Jeff came back (bless his heart!) to help with yet another rock wall...

Break time, Stu, Mike and Jeff lounging by the "Man Machine".

This was today's project, right in front of the house.

And, finally able to fill in the area right in front of the porch, now all we need is grass!

Almost done and it looks great!!

This is the unfinished end, to be continued...(after the Ben-Gay takes effect)

Is It The Weekend??

We heard a rumor that it is the weekend, not that we would know, all of our days are kind of running together...  Anyway, we have been busy!  Yesterday we hit the Home Depot to get the stuff for the tile guy and some of our paint, at least the colors we could agree on...  On our way though Sevierville (tourist central), we noticed that the gas is even cheaper than in our little town...rotten!

This was today's project...  This entire wall will be covered in stone, but before that happens we had to cover it with OSB (oriented strand board) it's like plywood.  We just need the cement board directly around the fireplace and we are good to go!  That should be this week too.

We should be able to start to paint on Tuesday!  Here we go with another busy week, but our plan is to be moved in by the first of October...The count down is on!!

Closer And Closer!

The "mudders" did a great job yesterday!  Today is a drying day so it was pretty quiet, just Rodney, our stainer, working on our trim work.

Now we are trying to pick paint colors...

The mudders come back tomorrow to apply another layer of mud then they will finish up on Monday!  We also have a new stone mason coming on Monday who will be finishing up the last three pillars outside and then start stoning the fireplace wall in the great room.

On a sad note, our little cinque is sick, we can't get her started...so we loaded her up on a lawnmower trailer and shipped her off down the road to get fixed (hopefully).

Stacking Rocks

Jeff came to help us again today with his neat toy the "Man Machine"...and boy did they do great things!

Stu playing king of the hill...  They built up the back corner of the patio against the garage with a really nice looking retaining wall.

With that corner by the apartment filled in, our square footage on the patio has increased significantly!

We laid the first "steps" we plan to sprinkle around the porch.

All of the sheet rock is up, tomorrow they start the "mudding" process, which is filling in all the cracks and screw holes.

As you can see we still have lots of rocks left!

Stu thinks the sheet rockers will be done by the end of the week...so maybe we can start with the tile next week!!  How exciting, closer and closer everyday!!

Sheet Rock And Roll!

Here we go!  We'll really be able to get a feel for the rooms now!

They finished all the ceilings, this is the master bedroom.

The great room...

And they started the wall in the great room going to the kitchen.

The sheet rocking continues tomorrow and we will be stacking more rocks with Jeff...Yahooooo, or is it Ouch!

Max Patch, NC

 We had some crazy rain storms come through last night!  This is the creek behind our little cabin, high and muddy.

I just though this was a cool pic...this is on the way up to our house on Tomahawk Drive.

The creek and waterfall behind our house are flowing like we have never seen them before! 

Beautiful!!

This morning we finished up stuffing insulation around all the window and doors, with the help of Jeff and Kate.  When we finished with that and got cleaned up a little, they took us up to Max Patch, NC. 

This is from a lookout point on the Foothills Parkway.

Max Patch is a 4,600-foot mountain that was cleared and used as pasture in the 1800s. Today, it's a 350-acre tract of open land on a high knob with 360-degree views.

It's on the North Carolina-Tennessee Border in Madison County, North Carolina and Cocke County, Tennessee. It is a major landmark along the Tennessee/North Carolina section of the Appalachian Trail, although its summit is located in North Carolina.

Check us out "hiking" on the Appalachian Trail!!  Of course you know it wasn't a real strenuous hike if we are in flip-flops! (my kind of hike!) 

One of the many great views from the top.

Setting up camp...we brought a picnic lunch with us to enjoy along with the great views!

The weather was perfect...

We had a nice cool breeze blowing by.

Jeff and Kate...what a back drop!

On our way back down.

This is the view from Jeff and Kate's house...beautiful!

That was a great and much needed break!!  The sheet rockers start bright and early tomorrow morning...here we go again! 

Sheetrock

Our sheet rock was delivered yesterday...

And they will start to install it on Monday! 

We have some HUGE spiders here!  (Angela, make sure Nora sees this...Hee hee!)

This morning, just before the rain hit Stu and Jeff strategically placed some of our bigger rocks around the house.

And staged even more for another go at it on Tuesday, hopefully the weather is better.

Ditch Digging 101

Yesterday we moved rocks again, cleaning up the front of the "yard".  We are trying to get ready for our friends Jeff and Kate who are coming on Saturday with their Bobcat to help us move some of the bigger rocks that Stu can't get with his tractor.

Today we moved the rocks from here...

To here, which is the back of the patio area.

We'll have rocks stacked on the side of the garage door too. (We'll have rocks stacked everywhere!) 

This morning Stu rented a ditch digger to grind through the mass quantities of rock we have.  Money well spent!!

The guys for the propane tank finally showed up and installed the copper pipe going to the house and BBQ.

And the window staining continues...

And here is our cute little 500 gallon tank, we'll put it in place this weekend.

The fruits of our labor, well Mike and Stu's labor anyway...

They got all the ditches dug, the drain pipe installed and almost all of it buried.

Tomorrow we'll be burying the rest and then we'll start to fill in around the house with top soil...Bye, bye septic tank!