WE ARE IN!!

I just received a call from the code enforcement officer and we were given a temporary certificate of Occupancy (CO). A Temporary CO simply allows one to live in the house while they finish the odds and ends. Can't wait to spend the first night in our new house!! Very exciting.

Mack's Latest Accomplishment

Many of you know my son Mackenzie. He has always been a very responsible young man. I value his help to me here on the farm, I can give him a task and he just does it. If I ask for him to haul brush or clean a fence line he doesn't whine about it he just gets to work. He wanted some money when he was visiting his grandparents down in Groton long point CT so he started a bike repair business and earned enough to by himself a $300 Ipod touch (this was when he was 12yo). Now at 14 he is planning on what it will take to get his learners permit so he can get his drivers license. Here on the farm he has his own P/U and he uses it to help with his chores. I got an email yesterday from his school announcing he was awarded Citizen of the month. below is the message got.... GOOD JOB BUDDY!!... MMS Citizens of the Month8th Grade: Mack Foster is new to MMS this year. He has been such a positive addition and brought great talent to the 8th grade. He has volunteered to help with our many projects and activities like the Fall Breakfast and the International Cafe. While doing this, he exhibited a sense of responsibility and self-direction. In many instances, Mack has exhibited caring and kindness toward his fellow students. Though quiet, he has a sense of humor. We nominate Mack with great pleasure!Mack Foster is a great selection and a member of the 8th grade band - He plays trombone and has volunteered to play percussion on one selection for the Spring Band concert and also plays bass guitar in the morning Jazz Lab Band. Kind, considerate and respectful come to mind as labels for Mack.

I think this is actually true.

It is April 2nd and the snow is still here. I am beginning to think that the 10" of snow we got yesterday was actually not an April fools joke! Just when the road was starting to dry up and the ground was getting exposed. I actually thought winter was over . Bad news is the code enforcement officer couldn't come up to inspect because of the weather so we are not in the house yet. She is going to stop by Monday and take care of it then. Meanwhile Paulette and I had the day off because of the weather so we were able to get a jump on the weak ends projects. Today the Sun is very bright and the it sounds like it is raining from all the melt off from the roof. It is not all bad, I don't have to worry about checking the dogs for ticks :-).

Kitchen Cabinets

This weekend we focused on getting the kitchen in. I was able to install most of the cabinets and make the counter top. I still need to do some more sanding as well as put several coats of tung oil on the top but the hard part of making it is done.

Paulette milk painted and polyurethaned the upstairs bathroom floor. It looks really nice. We kind of think we would have liked to have painted more of the floors, oh well to late now.

The first cabinets to go in.

Gluing the pine boards for the counter top.

The plywood back board for the pine counter top drilled and ready to go. I glue and screw the plywood back board to the pine boards to give it strength

After a lot of measuring and re-measuring I made the final cuts to the sink opening. I ended up using a skill saw to make the final cuts so it was a fairly tense few minutes until I had it done -- the potential to mess a days work up was pretty great i.e. "measure twice cut once, not "I cut it three times and it's still to short" :-).

I used cut nails and glue to hold the edging on.

A couple late night pictures of the finished counter top. I am going to make a back splash and glue it to the wall. I will finish installing the rest of the cabinets during the week and Paulette will put the doors back on.

Making progress

Here are some pictures of the work we have been doing. If all goes well we should be moving in by April 1st, no joke :-).


Here is the wide pine boards ready to be distressed.


Emma working on making the floor look 200 years old, kids are good at this. She is using a mace like tool that has pieces of metal tied to the stick so marks can be put in the floor before finishing it. The final product looks like a floor with many years of use on it.

Here is part way though the staining process. Paulette came up with a layered staining method that really looks nice when it is done. Here she is putting the second coat of stain on the floor. She will wipe this off and let it dry for a couple days before coating it with 2 coats of satin polyurethane.



Here is a bad picture of one of the finished floors. I will take some more pictures that do them justice.





Some of the kitchen cabinets Paulette is in the process of milk painting.



The window in the entryway. This is the first window we have finished and it came out great!! We are very happy with how all the pieces have come together and the look is just what we were going for.




Mud season is here really bad. The road is a mess and the weather has not been making it much better. It may be spring in some places of the country but we are still enjoying winter up here. Yes that was sarcasm.


The ewes are getting big and are due to start lambing in the beginning of May. I will need to give shots and shear them in about 3 weeks.

Ice storm!!

We had a little ice storm up here Monday and Tuesday. It was very isolated to the hills so we could drive 2 minutes down the road (~200’ elevation) and there was no ice. Lots of branches and some trees came down. But the Foster farm never lost power!!! Good old P&B light and power.

The house is coming along great. We should have hot water today (3-9-11) and all three bathrooms should be done by the end of the week. Paulette and I picked up the new kitchen cabinets at the cabinet makers yesterday and this weekend Paulette will start milk painting them. They are going to fit in very nice with the “old house”. I finished installing all the floors on the second floor and have started in the first; Paulette has been painting and finishing floors. It won’t be long now. The goal is to move in by the end of the month.

update

Here are some pictures we have taken over the last couple weeks.



The view out our master bath window!! (very cool)





The boards came for the wide board flooring, I am using rough sawn lumber planed on three sides and face nailing it with cut nails. This is exactly the same way it had been done in the 17 and 18 hundreds. Here it is being stacked inside to let it acclimate to the temperature before laying it down and nailing it.




This is about half the load, all total we got enough to do 2000sq ft (the entire house). I am going to use some for wainscoting in the dinning room and entryway as well.




P&B light and power is on-line!!!!! We made the final connections to the system and we now have power. The first picture is of the inverter which is the piece of equipment that converts the 48VDC power stored in the batteries to 24oVAC power that we use to run the house. The second picture is of the battery bank. The third picture is the screen on the charge controller. The charge controller is the device that regulates the dc voltage coming in from the PV panels. This screen shot is telling me that at that time we were charging at 10.7 amps at 56volts or 600 watts (remember ohms law, volt x amps = watts). The screen is also telling me that at that time we have stored 1700 watts of power in the batteries.