Another January First

It started on Friday afternoon, January 29th and is ending this evening, January 30th. The Asheville area set a record with 11+ inches of snow, but as you can see from the pictures, we got over 12 inches. I back can attest to that! Really sorry for getting rid of our snowblower.

The roads have been plowed, but remain very icy. The community is advising that no driving take place until the ice melts. The secondary roads outside of Champion Hills have not been plowed. They just do not have the equipment to handle these large, wet snows.

Here are some pictures that we took today. The snow depth on our deck is greater than 12 inches. Based on the pictures of the house, there will not be any work done for the next week! The front of the garage is now finished. They are now finishing the stone around the front door. As you can see, the bluestone has started to be laid.

January Thaw!

After a record snowfall in December and very cold weather the first two weeks of January, the workers returned to the house this week. Today is the warmest it has been since November! The high today hit the mid-50's. The exterior siding is now complete the house is starting to take shape. The drywall crew came in on Tuesday and starting taping on Thursday. This crew is from South Carolina and consists of four individuals who really can tape. If I was doing this, I would still be in the first room.

The painters stained the tongue & groove cypress for the living room and the exterior porches in the garage area. Heaters were brought in so the wood would absorb the stain. We had to run some experiments to get the stain color we wanted and we are pleased with the results.

Fireplace Stone

The fireplace is finally taking shape. They will start the hearth later this week when the weather turns from sunshine to rain. The interior doors were delivered today as well. We are storing them at our rental house since we are not ready to install them. Estimated date of install: mid-January. The last picture loaded (the first picture shown on the blog) is the concrete columns under the deck. We decided to have them faced with stone, rather than just leave bare concrete.

This will be the last post for 2009. We are spending the holidays in the Twin Cities, visiting family and friends. Hopefully there is lots of progress when we return in January, 2010!!

Welcome !! Isla Anne Frys

Isla Anne Frys was born on November 30, 2009 at 10:45am. The proud parents, Michelle and Justin, told us the birth was "a piece of cake."

Isla weighed in at 6lb 15oz, and 20.5 inches. Michelle is doing great and plans on coming home on Wednesday morning.

Happy Thanksgiving !

Today is a cool fall day with lots of sunshine. We went down and took some pictures of the stone progress. If the weather holds, they should be done by early next week.

House Update

After a month of indoor activities, the exterior stone for the house was started on this past week. We are waiting on the mantel for the fireplace so the crew can complete the work. Once this is done the roofers can shingle around the fireplace opening. We are still getting large rainfalls and every time it rains we have lots of water in the house.

The electrical and plumbing rough in's are complete and the inspectors have passed all of the work so far. The framing inspection will be done next week.

If we get some dry weather, the roofing crew will start laying shingles. They say they need four days to complete the job.

Here are some photo's of the stone work. Looking forward to seeing everyone during the holidays.

Donated Large Rocks

Here are some of the large rocks that we gave to Champion Hills for an erosion project. We kept over 15 for landscaping, and still have around 30+ to move around our site. This is part of the rock we hit when we started digging for the foundation.