Craziness (11-18-15)

Amidst all the craziness of the final weeks of the house build, our friends came to visit.  We took time out to have some fun, and even managed a day trip up to Oatman for the 6 of us.

Oatman is an old mining town that is known for the burros that roam the streets. The babies all have stickers on their foreheads letting visitors know that they are too young to be fed.

Both Mike and Dave play the guitar, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard either of them play!  I hope they get the guitars out more often because it sure is fun for us listeners!











It wasn’t all fun and games for our friends while visiting us though. We put them to work helping us move appliances into the house…









…and while they were here, Paul had to fly to Michigan to oversee the loading of our household goods, and since our yard was being graded, we had to put the camper on the truck and get it off the property.  I parked it at the Elks Lodge, where our friends were staying, and they got the dubious honor of being my Uber drivers while Paul was gone.
Sure was nice to have them around!!







Paul’s trip to Michigan was not without issues.  The truck that the movers sent was 2/3 full already and did not have enough room for our stuff.  They had to send a second truck, which made it a long day for Paul.  The second truck is for local moves only, so they will have to transfer our stuff to yet another truck before it gets delivered.  We aren’t too happy about that.  To top it all off, a storm front came through when he was trying to fly out, and his flight was delayed enough that they had to re-book him on a later flight.  He was exhausted by the time he got home!

House Update

So much has happened at the house since my last post that I am going to split it up into two posts. 

Outside, the color coat has been put on the house….

And the roof is finished….

The travertine for the pool is in process. They did the bull nose trim around the pool and spa first. Once that is done they lay the sand that the travertine will sit on. These guys are very hard workers! Everything has to be “just so” so that water will flow away from both the pool and the house, and into the drain they installed.

Once the sand is laid they start laying the stone.

This is what it looked like at sunrise this morning, from the dining area window.

Inside the house, we now have lights and ceiling fans…

The plumbing is finished…..

And the carpet has been installed…

All the little details like towel bars, medicine cabinets and mirrors are being finished up now.  It won’t be long!

House Update-mostly (11-08-15)

Not much is going on in our lives other than the house and pool, so that’s what this post will be mostly about. 


There is one adventure we’ve had in the last week or so.  The weather has cooled off enough to take the Jeep off-roading.

It’s part of the reason we wanted a Jeep, to be able to explore the desert, without the need for roads.  Since it was our first time, we tried not to test the capabilities of the Jeep (although I thought we tested it pretty thoroughly).  Paul was happy with the performance, for sure. 

We stopped along the way to have lunch, and climbed up an outcropping of rocks, but we hightailed it back to the Jeep when we discovered that we had disturbed a bee hive.


So, as for the house, there has been a ton of action going on!  Starting with the inside:

the granite has been installed…

There is an enormous amount of granite in the kitchen…its hard to see the true color in the pictures but the picture above shows the coloring the best.  The granite is called Blue Pearl and has gray and blue with some brown and black in there too.







When we were hammering out the contract for the house, we elected not to put granite in the laundry room and told the builder that we would supply a piece of laminate for the counter top.


When the time came to buy the laminate, we drove around town looking at all the places that sell granite, and found a remnant piece for just $120, about the same price the laminate would have cost.  Paul prepped the cabinet, and cut the granite to the right size in the bed of the truck.

….and it worked out perfectly!

After the granite was finished, the back splash was next…

I really like the way it looks with the granite! We also, as you can see by this picture, have a microwave/convection oven now.  It’s the only appliance that has been installed, so far.

Little things have been getting done inside as well, such as the installation of the baseboard, the door hardware and all the closet hardware.

On the outside there is also plenty going on, and that’s what has been keeping us the busiest.  We are putting up the fence ourselves.

This fence is “temporary” and will allow us to put up the full fence at a later date, once the house has passed all its inspections and the landscaping has been done.

Instead of setting the fence in cement, we are sleeving the wrought iron post over a temporary post that we have pounded into the ground.  Paul calls the post pounder the “whammer jammer”.

Once we had the spacing correct, we actually had to take back down the sections that are close to the house.  We left the posts up so it should be easy to re-install the sections. This week they are spraying the finish coat of stucco on the house and it makes a mess.

We had other things to do in the yard as well.  The power company let us keep the old power poles and we will use them for erosion control and landscaping. Final grading of the lot will be done next week, while Paul is in Michigan, so we have to clear the lot of all our stuff, so nothing will be in the way.




The outside stonework is finished now as well.  By the end of this week, the exterior of the house will change completely.  Not only will the stucco be the right color, but the roof will be finished as well. 

The pool is also coming along nicely.  The tile should be finished today, and then the travertine deck will be next.

 

While wandering around in the pool I realized that I was going to have an issue. The bench seating near the spa sits quite low, making it quite a big step to get in and out of the pool from there. We talked to the pool contractor and he is going to add a step at one end of the bench seat, which will help a lot.

Over the next couple of days Paul and I will be taking some time off, in between the projects that have to get done by next week. We have good friends rolling into town today and tomorrow. 

We spent last Thanksgiving with these two couples in Terlingua Texas, and we’re looking forward to seeing them again!

Typical Havasu Weekend (10-30-15)

Its pretty normal for Havasu to have something going on most weekends.  They think nothing of shutting down Main Street to traffic in order to show off cars or boats. 













This past weekend it was cars.  Lots of cars.  We enjoyed walking the streets, looking at all the classic cars. 













The great weather and plentiful parking brings out the residents by the thousands.












Now that the weather is cooling off, the weekly swap meet has started back up again, and garage sales abound.  We’ve been keeping an eye out for anything we might need.



We also decided to extend our stay in the resort for another month, until the end of November.  It would be cheaper to stay at the Elks club, since we don’t need a full month, and the price went up where we are, but the fact that we won’t have to move all the stuff we have in the casita, and find a place to park the boat, makes it worth the extra money for us.

House Update

Things are really  moving along on the house right now.

The cement has been poured for the pool….

.. and the contractor has assured us it will be ready when the house is.  Awesome!

We have to slow down the curing process by watering the cement twice a day for almost a week.

Paul and I went to work on the wall as soon as the materials arrived. We started with 8 pallets of blocks for the wall.  Each block weighs 62 lbs, and there were 490 blocks. That means we moved 15 tons of rock.  And yes, I helped carry them.  The hardest part was the first layer- we had to make sure it was straight and level for all the subsequent tiers.



  It took us 4 days, but most of the wall is done.  We actually ran out of material, so when we get the next delivery we can finish each of the ends. 

In the meantime, the cement trucks were in the front yard, pouring the driveway.

These guys sure do work hard.

The finished product:

Inside the house, the tile work continues.

The front entryway medallion:

The guest bathroom:

and the master bath walk-in shower:

Much more to come next week!