Week 2 Remodel — Sleep Outside 365

So we are into the grit of things for sure. Each day begins at 6:15.. or close to that. Back in May when we brought the baby chickens home they were all 14 thought to be ladies. As it turns out, one is most certainly a rooster. (Pearl=Earl) Though, at only 4 months old, he sounds a little off. Instead of a cock a doodle doo… it’s more like a Gah.. Gah Gah. Needless to say, we never need an alarm clock. Wether by the sun or the rooster, we get up. By 7:30, the construction team begins arriving. We have fully settled into (and perhaps are even celebrating) garage time. I think we have had more people up for more dinner parties in the last couple of weeks than we have in a while. But mornings get it all started. This last week saw the going away of anything useful on the main floor. There is sporadic electricity throughout the house. None in the bathrooms.. but some in the upstairs “bedroom” in which we never sleep. None on the porch but ALL in the garage. No toilet, no kitchen sink. No use of the washer and dryer.

So, we moved everything we needed daily into the garage. Here, we have set up a portable propane double burner for cooking and heating water. Water that we use in our new “dishwashing” system that involves 2 bus tubs. One for soapy water and one for sanitizing. We have 5 tubs full of “dry goods” we pull food from, and the old fridge has been moved out here as well for anything cold. We have metro shelving for essential dishes and the basics for pots and pans. And… it is totally working. Awesome even! To really round things out we brought out an old TV. Each day things change a bit, and each day we figure out how to play house/ glamp/ cater to our needs.

Interestingly, the people that built this house originally lived out here too for a time. Their original house was built with what they described as very “custom” finishes. Everything was hand made. Lots of mosaics and spiral stair cases. Lots of flagstone and other rock walls. Lots of stained glass. It sounds like the quintessential Cabin/ hobbit hole. And then it burned to the ground. Fucking tragic. While rebuilding, they moved their houseboat into the garage and set up a make shift toilet / sink scenario. At the end of this week we pulled that old toilet and sink out. They had not been used in years, but still, both YUCK and No thank YOU come to mind when I think about it. From those walls we discovered an old Playboy from 1968 and other treasures (dated 1968-1973). The house we live in was finished in 1973. :) They really kept something for everyone in that bathroom. There were old coupon flyers and sears catalogues for Mom. There was an old Dr. Suess Book for the girls. There were many many old rifle/ hunting/ scuba diving mags + the Playboy of course (for Dad). Good reading for a long time… For ALL in the family to be sure.

At any rate, in that little water closet we now have a Hot water heater installed. That will heat water for our outdoor sink that hopefully gets plumbed next week. That means, and please know there is a smile ear to ear on my face as I think about it, that we will be moving away from bus tub dishwashing soon! It’s the little things.

Construction wise, the biggest thing that happened this week were the big steel (structural) beams that were installed into the house. There were a number of posts and 2 beams installed on the lowest level first. Then came the 2 beams for the main floor and more than a few posts. In the process of tearing down the walls it became clear to people smarter than me that (AKA the structural engineer) that we needed some better shit to shore our house up! The largest beam was over 12 feet long and weighed about 800 lbs. There was some question about how to get it into the house. Many of you reading know some of who my husband is.

Besides feral, often a good descriptor for Erik is “MacGyver”. That Mofo can do just about anything he puts his mind to. He’s never afraid, always game for a good time and usually right on the money when it comes to figuring shit out. Shit like… how to unfreeze the shitter line from the airstream while in the middle of a deep freeze in winter in Wyoming for example. Or how to hang a ceiling fan in our living room with a 25 foot ceiling and only an 18 foot ladder. (Oh boy.. that was a nail biter for sure). Any who… Erik came up with the great idea of loading the beam (see below) onto the skid steer and strapping it to it and slowly, very slowly, steering it into the house onto 2 four wheelers. The kind furniture movers use. You know, because he was a lumper for a while, before he was the Pork Pimp. And believe it or not…. It worked!

The other big thing that happened this week was a lot of good progress on the outdoor kitchen. We met this super cool metal artist named Mitch Levin a few weeks ago and enlisted him to help us creat an outdoor kitchen. Besides Gabe and Lawson (the 2 really great guys that have been doing all the demo in the house… also friends and neighbors) who have helped pour the foundation and begun putting the roof up, Mitch and his counter part Steve have really dialed in and made happen all the crazy dreams we have for something between Austin BBQ and Mexican Beach Cantina. When Erik and I talk about the house, he will regularly say that I am in charge of the inside and he is in charge of the outside. The truth is somewhere in between for sure, and I can not wait to see how each part comes out. Mitch created the tractor seat bar stools pictured below and made them “adjustable” with the quick addition or subtraction of the big nuts for height. Erik had him paint them each the color of tractor companies. So “Ford Blue, John Deer Green and Yellow, Massey Ferguson Red and Allis Chalmers Orange” plus… one for Comida pink. All of the colors are slightly off currently, but that will quickly be fixed with a couple new cans of the correct spray paint. For now, you get the picture. Cool right?!

Okay.. til next week. Stay tuned!

After the beam was brought in and then blocked.

Look up.. There is the beam after install.