Grand Adventure: family, house building and travel, Pacific Northwest style
Instead of trying to camp together during the busy summer months, we got together with my dad’s side of the family early this year, in April, at a cabin near Mt. Rainier.
We went on a couple of short hikes and got caught in a hail storm that sent us running back to the car for lunch.
The cabin was on the banks of the Cowlitz river and we had fun walking around in the bizarre looking environment of an island in the river.
We had a great time camping at Camano Island State Park with Jack’s cousin and his family. We lucked out with lovely weather without a shadow of April showers. Originally we planned to go to the family property, but the winter collapsed the picnic shelter there and things were too much of a mess.
Time is marching on and the house looks more and more like a place we could live. It was a pretty stressful month due to some utility complications that I’ll write about once we have resolutions.
The contractors put on the cement board siding, put up the drywall and finished the mudding on the walls. They also put in a door with a normal lock, which is much more convenient than the plywood situation of the last few months. Without any fuss, our natural gas was hooked up in the street. The electrical service was just approved (thanks Brad!!) so now we can ask the city to connect us to the grid, but as I alluded to above, we’re having some issues and I wouldn’t hold my breath on this one. It will happen some time in some way, but actually deep breaths are necessary on this one.
We had our appliances delivered, picked out our paint colors and had a very successful cabinet assembly party. As a little April Fool’s joke, the Ikea dispatchers listed our order as consisting of 16 pieces for the cabinets, rather than the 160 pieces it actually was. Therefore we ended up carrying all the boxes up to the third floor, which was quite a workout.
We happily hit the annual Albert Lee (appliance) sale and an Ikea Kitchen sale.
Here’s the siding work and the scaffolding they use for it:
Covering up the street after the gas hookup, appliance delivery, and permanent stair supports with the second temporary stair.
Thank you to all of our cabinet helpers!
Drywall and mudding, including the elevator shaft
We had a nice, busy, double Easter celebration with brunch at my parents and the afternoon at D’s cousin’s.
Doesn’t GG have a good silly pose?
This month they put in the insulation and noise dampening stuff, installed one of the doors, did a bunch of blocking, framed the supports for the staircase and started on the drywall. They used a crane to put the drywall on the second and third floors through the windows. We did several more “last” wiring jobs and picked out our tile.
This will be a recessed cabinet, not an interior window :)
Drywall and the stairwell
The exterior, from today, and tiles for the bathrooms
My office moved up the street this week, in to the heart of downtown. I’m losing my vantage point for our big dig, but gaining a similarly awesome view. After four years in the same office, the change is welcome. Another boon is that Jack and I are close enough to have lunch together sometimes now!
Out with the old:
and in with the new:
Although I can no longer see the viaduct replacement tunnel, I can see plenty of other construction projects. I’ll now supervise construction of the new Rainier Club tower at 4th and Marion. I can see it from my desk and actually I could also see it from my old desk, so the project will have some much needed continuity.
The new building is Art Deco and it makes me feel like I’m immersed in the Soviet iconography in the intro of the excellent TV show, The Americans.
l