Ready to put it all back together

I just noticed that it has been a long time since we updated our progress on the repair/remodel job.  We are now down to the point where we are ready to begin putting it all back together again.  Next up is framing, then electrical, then sheetrocking, taping and texturing, painting, and finally flooring.  And in the meantime we will have our new cabinets put in, the plumbing done, the countertops on, and eventually tile backsplashes. Here are some of the photos we took to document our journey to this point.

 Some people raise the roof, we are going to raise the floor.  We cut back the sheetrock in order to frame in the new floor and raise the electrical outlets.  We will also frame in, insulate, and sheetrock the ceiling, and put in a ceiling fan.

 We will include a photo of the newly renovated front door in a future post, but believe me your mother did a great job and it looks brand new.  Here you can see that the railing is gone, the tile is gone, and we are ready to bring the living room floor to the level of the entry way.

 This is a view of the kitchen looking through the wall where the ovens were.  As you can see, the ceiling here has been raised to the level of the family room and dining room so it should give more of the appearance of a single room.

This is an old photo showing the window gone but the wall beneath it still there.  The wall is gone now too.  It actually came out pretty easily.  I got a new mason blade for my hand saw and scored the plaster, then knocked it out in one piece.  We were abundantly blessed.  The door that will be installed here is in the garage and we are ready to roll.

 As you can imagine, there was a lot to haul to the dump.  We made two trips with Uncle Peter's large trailer.

After a hard morning's work, this is how it looked.  Of course in the meantime we have done a bit more demo, and there is a much smaller pile there now.

And while we are at it, we are also still in the middle of renovating the bathroom and our bedroom closet. Photos of that will be forthcoming.  We are excited to be in the position of doing the work and feel blessed to be able to do much of it ourselves.

Castle Peak Revisited

I guess I am the last to get my side of the story on the long awaited 4th Level hike that took place a couple of weeks ago at Castle Peak.  I actually had it ready to go the day after the hike, but my laptop inexplicably shut down in the middle of downloading the last of the photos.  Anyway, it was a great success due to Leigh-Ann's preparation and some YW who all got along quite well.  We had a lot of fun and I was impressed that all of the YW made it to the place I figured we'd stop to eat lunch, then three of them made it all the way to the top.  Here are some photos and commentary.

At the junction with the Pacific Crest Trail.

Uncle Peter on the rocky outcropping where we ate lunch.

Peter O.'s shoulder angel.

Los Tres Amigos.

After lunch some of us made the final assault.  This is where we paused for a moment to take our bearings and rest a bit. In about the middle of the photo you can see the rocky outcropping where we ate lunch and left the others.  Up and to the left of that you can see I-80 and Kingvale, up and to the right is "Red Ridge".

Turning around from where we took that other photo, this is the view of the final assault. At this point there were some folks camping with a couple of rather large dogs.  Also, off to the left there was a young couple who had packed in a couple of small children and lunch who passed us going out.

The view from on top - looking east.  Donner Lake, where we camped for the night, is in the background.

 It was a pretty warm day, but whenever I stopped hiking I got cool enough to want a jacket - which I had fortuitously brought along.  It was pretty breezy on top.

 The view to the north from the top. At the end of that ridge you can see Basin Peak, rather an oxymoron, but nevertheless it looks like it would make a pretty nice day hike to go up there from the top of Castle Peak, then drop down to the left, pick up the Pacific Crest Trail back to the Peter Grubb Cabin and on back.  I hear that the Peter Grubb place has a 2 story outhouse.  This I gotta see.

 

 Just a sampling of the many varieties of beautiful flowers we saw along the way.

It was rather warm all night, even though I was out under the stars.  Toward 5:30 however, it finally got cool enough to shake me out of my bag, so I got up and took a hike around to see the sights.  This is a monument constructed in 1918 to the pioneers.  The landing upon which the statues are standing is 22 feet up, the height of the snow on October 29 when the Donner Party reached this point and could go no further.
What the pioneers endured in seeking "a better country" is amazing to me.  We should all be grateful for their example, and for our heritage.  They truly are blessed and honored.

 

  

 Yes, Peter was right.  This was a great breakfast: dark hot cocoa with some oatmeal in it, and cinnamon crumb bacon sandwiches.  I have been looking for this Oberto treat ever since, but without luck.  I plan on taking some of this bacon jerky with me on all future campouts.

Trip to Utah

We made a quick trip to Utah for the wedding of Joseph and Bonnie and got an extra plus because Saramarie, Adele and Ezra, and Nathan, Emily and Rose came too.  We just had a great time with lots of fun photos so get ready for lots of photos.  Uncle Peter and Grandma Hall traveled with us. We stayed with Sharon and Paul and they stayed down in the Orem/Provo area.

Taking some steps

David came to pick up his Dad and we had a chance to visit with him.

We went to the Monte L. Bean Museum in Provo.  It has been newly remodeled and is it so nice.  

They had an exhibit of some of the works of President Boyd K. Packer.  

Wednesday we were off to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple for the sealing of Joseph and Bonnie.  It is such a beautiful temple

The happy couple

Tres de los Hermanos

 This was the best picture we got of the Hall Family.

Just as we were leaving the temple we heard "is that the Halls?"  It was Sister Tingey, who is the wife of President Tingey the first stake president of the Yuba City Stake, and a great friend.  It was a wonderful time to renew a loving friendship.

EZ doing his scrunchy nose thing.

We rode Trax downtown SLC.  It was really fun.  We went to the Church history museum.  It was just a great trip and we loved being with so many of our family.

More Progress

This past week saw quite a bit of movement on the remodel front.  We visited the cabinet maker and made semi-final decisions on what we want there.  We purchased the remainder of our appliances and picked out our countertops.  We finally went with a granite because it was the one pattern we could both agree on.  And we had the contractor walk through to let us know exactly what to demo and look things over to give us a bid on the work.  And Peter & I began the demolition, taking out the entire south side of the kitchen.  We hope that by next Friday we will have all of the demo done so things can move along more swiftly.

 The cabinets where the ovens and the microwave were are gone.

 The carpet, etc. are all gone from the living room.

 All of the doors and frames are gone.  The sheetrock will go this week.

 The colors we have chosen for our cabinets and countertops.

 A big chunk of the granite countertop.

The gas cooktop we purchased.

Oh yes, we also hung the mirrors in the bathroom so that we could show the electrician where to put the lights.  Hopefully that will get done this week also.  Then we will get to work on painting the bathroom and it should look pretty nice.

So that's it for this week.  As always, any comments/suggestions are welcome.

Now you see it - now you don't

We were promised this last week that we would have plans in our hands to take to the building department and to a contractor, so that we could get going on the primay pieces of our remodel.  Didn't happen.  But in order to be prepared, we emptied the potentially affected areas of furniture.  Here are some photos.

 Soon the exposed beams and woodwork (the underside of the roof) will be insulated and covered with sheetrock.  The idea is to make this room actually liveable in the Winter and Summer.

 Also, the sunken living room will be raised to level with the rest of the house.

And that area on the right of this photo, separating the entry hall from the living room will magically vanish.

 It only took us 23 years to rid the place of all the wrought iron.

But it is all gone now!

 Peter's suggestion was to forget about raising the floor and insulating the ceiling.

Just put in some birdseye maple on the floor and a hoop on the wall 

and have a small 1/2 court for shooting hoops.

What do you think?

 We got a good deal on a 10x10 storage unit and that's where most of the furniture went.

But we didn't want to move the TV or the dining room table, so they came for a visit in my office.

And as a dry run on installing shelving in our bedroom closet, I extracted the old computer hutch and now have a built-in desk where I can have the scanner right next to me.

The two shelves just above the desk are temporary until I figure out what kind of shelves I want there.

This is a great work area, I love it!  Can't wait to get my hardwood floor so I can wheel around my office.