The Ava-Bird is up and running.

In the evening, she falls and gets upset. Going outside usually calms her down. The roses in our front yard are bursting with blooms at the moment, mostly because we haven't done any yard maintenance in months.


For the three-day weekend, we drove down to GG's house and went to IKEA to pick up some things for the house. When it's time for Ava to change from clothes to pajamas (or vice versa) or get in or out of the bath, she likes to show off her new walking/running/stumbling skills while naked. This photo is the last we saw of that 'A' from the fridge. Who knows where she put it.



3 generations.


I wouldn't be thrilled if my mom posted my first real zit on the Internet for all the world to see either. Oh well, gotta document all the firsts, kid.


I love this picture. Andy took it during the zit photo shoot. She had been upset after a long day of awkward naps, so I was feeding her applesauce on my lap. She instantly perked up and gave us a little smile. Wherever I take her, people always comment on her beautiful eyes, but I still can't figure out why. :)

So many things going on.

On May 10th, I posted the following list of things left to do:
- Clean and dry concrete floors.
- Seal concrete floors.
- Install interior doors.
- Install baseboard and door trim.
- Coat all trim with polyurethane.
- Move in.

Since then, the gas & electric have been hooked up, the heat is on, the floor has been cleaned, dried and sealed. The interior doors and baseboard started going in on Wednesday. We are seriously in the homestretch. Looks like we'll be moving in the weekend of June 27th!

Now, if only I had enough time to sew quilt squares, create birthday and thank-you gifts for 5 people, finish the stained glass cabinet doors project, update the blogs, dye & sew curtains, stain and poly the shelves and desktop for the office nook, finish the tile in the bathroom, tile the kitchen backsplash, the master shower, entertainment center countertop and master bathroom vanity countertop, work 30-40 hours per week, care for a 13-month-old and maintain a relationship. Something's gotta give, and it sure as hell ain't gonna be one of the last 3 things I mentioned.

<< Deep breath. >>

We're moving all of my printing equipment into the garage on Saturday! Hooray! I'll be able to print again on my own press. I am really excited, and I hope this will be the smoothest press moving experience to date.

Here are some little random things that have happened lately:
Adam created the wrap for the front post. It has since been painted by Art. I like it, but it's not exactly what I had envisioned. I'll get used to it.

These are the pendant lights in the kitchen... 2 over the island and one over the sink. I'd love to show you what they look like when they're on, but that switch hasn't been wired in yet. Trust me, they look very different when illuminated. These were handblown by Mirador Glass just for us.

This light and the hall sconces were made for us by Old Town Antique Lighting. They look so good! More pics of these to come...

The floors are finished! They look pretty good, but unfortunately, there's evidence of some spills and dropped tools/wood/something in spots, but that seemed fairly unavoidable. I'm not upset about these--we're bound to add our own "character" to the floors sooner or later.

So, tomorrow the kitchen sink gets delivered and the guys clear out the garage. Saturday, we move in printing stuff. Sunday, the doors will get put on the kitchen/great room cabinets. Monday, the garage door should be installed. (We'll see about that... It's been weeks since they said it would be here.) There's something happening out at the house everyday now, and it's all good.

A nice day.

It was a gorgeous day in Blue Lake, too bad we were at work in foggy Arcata. Here's Andy and Ava when we were there to pick her up from Grandma & Grandpa's. (Looks like the back yard could use a little landscaping help.)


This is the bar countertop. The buffet and long wall in the kitchen will have similar tops. Adam and Dustin made them from colored concrete. They placed torn paper into the molds before pouring the concrete to give it that ragged effect running down the length of the top. Unfortunately, the paper bubbled and swelled more than they expected, and it left the surface pretty lumpy. Adam says he has a way to fix it.


I haven't posted an exterior pic for awhile now because all the work has been happening on the inside, and there have been few, if any, changes to the outside. Over the last week, though, Art primed and now has begun to paint the outside of the house. I'm excited, I think it's going to look really good.


I think the garage door may be installed tomorrow and I'm planning on moving my print shop in over the last weekend in May. Exciting!

Adorable now, blackmail later.

This is how Ava eats O's: shoved into her mouth by the fistful. Really, how do you get a 13-month old to take it easy? She eats like she'll never see food again.


Bathtime! We have successfully transitioned to baths without Mommy being in the tub, too. It's so much easier this way!


Ava's pants were off after a diaper change, so she decided to put them on her head. The first few times, she created a pretty good hat out of them, but then she saw that she was making us laugh and her technique got sloppy. Still cute though.

Photo dump.

The location of the electric and gas meters in relation to the house.

The new electricity meter. How many people have seen that reading on their meters?

The hatch from the master closet to the attic. Even that's pretty.

The blue concrete floor in the master bath along with the blue concrete caps on the half wall and curb. You can see the slate tile resting against the half wall there. Those pieces are a little more rust-colored than the rest of the batch—I hope.

The kitchen is SO getting there! The appliances are out of their boxes, the floor is in except for the edging, and the cabinets are in except for the doors and drawer fronts.

Progress has been made on the tile in the main bathroom... Over three sessions so far, I have completed the two end walls. Getting around the plumbing wasn't that bad. Now it's time to tackle the big back wall and window.


Foreman Ava is back! I think I've passed the preliminary inspection for the tilework and I think she approves of the wood choices for the interior trim. (Which, by the way, got its first coats of polyurethane this week and looks KILLER! It smells awful in the house, but it was raining outside and the garage is too dirty. Oh well, it'll air out soon enough.)

We got gas.

PG&E almost didn't hook up our gas line today because 2 drops of rain threatened to fall from the sky at the same time. But, they managed to struggle through the drizzle (if that) and connect us to the gas main. Tomorrow Alchemy comes back out to hook up the boiler to the gas line. Then we can start the floor-drying process. Very exciting!

Posts with pictures coming soon, I promise.

text message from Adam

"We just cut the umbilicle [sic] cord. Your house is its own being."
May 12, 2009, 12:53 pm

Hooray! 40 Buckley Road now has its own power supply from PG&E and is no longer leeching off Art & Ann's house. This also means we can get a P.O. Box in Blue Lake since we'll have a power bill, thus proof of residency.

We're so close now, I can taste it!

more finishing work.

All the interior painting is done. (With the exception of touching up some little accidents.) The electricians are putting cover plates, switches, outlets and light fixtures up. Cabinetry is going in. Things are moving right along, kind of... Here's the timeline, minus some unrelated things:
- Clean and dry concrete floors.
- Seal concrete floors.
- Install interior doors.
- Install baseboard and door trim.
- Coat all trim with polyurethane.
- Move in.

It seems like all of those things could be done in a timely fashion, but no. A few more interior things need to be finished before the floors are cleaned. Then the floors have to dry out for at least a week. But we can't dry the floors until the gas and electricity are hooked up and the radiant is running, which won't be until the end of this week. (Thanks, PG&E.) Then 2-3 coats of the sealer should take at least another week. Installing the interior doors shouldn't take that long, but coating all the woodwork in poly? That's going to take forever. We might as well find a way to dip the whole house in it. It seems like the easiest way.

And then there are things like me tiling at a snail's pace that are holding up the finish plumbing work... It's not hard, it's just time consuming. I started the subway tile in the main bath and got about 10 sq. ft. done in 3 hours. And that bathtub has 75 sq. ft. alone. Then there's the master shower, the entertainment center countertop and the kitchen backsplash. And somehow, we still are trying to move in within the month of June.

Here are the entertainment center cabinets. Base cabinets with doors and open bookshelves above.

There's the kitchen. Doors will go on all those cabinets. The fridge and stove are temporarily off to the left. Flooring for the kitchen has been delivered--it's Australian Cypress--and it's luscious.

Here's the master bath. The blue concrete shower pan has been poured, along with the caps for the curb and pony-wall.

In other news, the house is finally sealed up. Hopefully we won't be finding anymore mystery puddles or #2's in the middle of the house. HSU's softball team was knocked out of the playoffs, so no repeat National Championship this year. That will allow Art to get back to working on our house. I think he's all lined up to start on the exterior paint. Let's hope the weather stays nice.