In: A Love Story* (*first draft)

Well, well, well. WELL, well, well. We are in the mutha fuckin' house!!! (Literally.)

So much has happened in the last few weeks and oddly (or not) I've found it really hard to crank out this post. A post, one would think, that this story has been leading up to. It is probably partly physical and mental exhaustion. It's been almost a week and I don't think it's quite sunken in for either of us yet. Plus, it's been SO cold in Creede lately that we've spent most of the time in the cozy upstairs of the bedroom and tv room. The house is well insulated, but the main room has so many windows and it's been below zero at night, so brrrrr.

And like I've said before, I never wanted to be just a "lister offer" of things that have happened over the past few weeks. I find that pretty boring as a reader. But the final push has been...like birthing a child. (Like, I said LIKE, for those who actually HAVE birthed a child and are laughing at me right now.) But you wait. Sometimes for longer than your expected due date. You waaaaaait. And in the end, you've done all you can and it's now dependent on outside factors.

Washer and Dryer. They work and everything!

The Sun/Laundry Room. Complete with sleeping, elderly dog.

TV room. Boxes of books and nice glassware.

My l'il office. Much to do, much to do.

Bath.

We spent our first night here the Saturday before Christmas. Our plumber arrived in the early afternoon to hook everything up and left around 8pm. Alas, nothing is ever easy. The city turned on the water a few days before at the request of the plumber--to make sure that if there is any sediment in the main line, it is flushed out into a bucket instead of into your brand new pipes. The water hadn't been turned on in at least three years, so it took quite some doing. The city had to come back the next day and do some light digging in order to thaw everything out. I worried myself sick about this and ended up smudging the house again just to feel like I had some control. Hippie control. It worked. Maybe. Who knows. But I sure felt better and that's what's important. PS. Hearing water moving under the house is my new favorite sound. And that's usually a bad thing.

Positive #3 (of many too numerous to list): Having a place for all your shit. I have been so happy to throw away boxes because, other than the occasional out of town job, I don't expect to be moving in the immediate future. I've been a nomad for my entire adult life and I love having a place to land. I'm used to, and even thrilled by, living out of suitcases from time to time. But not all the time. This is like your real, personal storage space and a whole lot prettier.

Sorry for all the blown out window pics. It's a sunny Colorado day. Living Room! Art wall continually growing. Note lack of trim and baseboard.

Come on over for a sammich.

Sleepy room (with a now inappropriate color of comforter cover).

Positive #2: If you have propane as your main energy source, having an on-demand water heater is "da bomb". You never run out of hot water so you can fill up a large antique tub with hoooooot water. Luxury, I tell you. That was one thing we splurged on as it is over twice the price of a standard water heater. BUT, saves you a lot of money in the long run because it requires way less propane.

Positive #1: Having your own home. (Duh, right?) I'm sure those of you who have one can attest to this feeling. At one moment it's overwhelming because you can't call your landlord to get something fixed if it's broke. But in another moment--so gratifying that this place is YOURS. I see both of us taking more care with things, also because we literally made this house from nothing. Anyone else would have bought the property and torn down the house. Only my husband thought it was saveable. I am now really curious to see the photos that were taken of it at its worst. I was not allowed to see these initially because RJ was afraid I would punch him in the face for taking on such a monstrosity and he was probably right. Only after we started on the outside of the house this May, did I really start to come around. Only then, did the project felt less like a burden and more like an achievable goal.

This story isn't over. As the title suggests it's more like a first draft. There are still many boxes out, but they mainly contain all the books that don't have a bookshelf yet to live in. There are outlets with no covers (on backorder from our delightful hardware store). There are no doors or drawers for the cabinets--hell, we still need a couple of cabinets. We need trim and baseboard in most rooms except the bedroom. The guest bedroom is painted...but has no flooring, trim or light fixtures. The downstairs bathroom is even less done than that. But the house is liveable--complete with all those things that most of us (and me even a year ago) take for granted. We've got running water, electricity, washer/dryer, and enthusiasm. The 180'' shower curtain just arrived today for the antique clawfoot tub, so we can get the monstrous circular curtain rod up and stop those ridiculous European baths ;) But on the flip side, there is nothing quite like a nice hot bath in a large tub. No, sir...not much like it.

As there are infinitely more drafts to come, I will continue to post on house happenings and poor person home ownership. Maybe I'll even start talking more about acting (or maybe not--yawn) or CO mountain town living in general. Though, as a home stylist I admire says, design isn't ever complete. Your style keeps changing and growing and so will this house. I'm just so g.d. happy to finally have a palette to work from.

Door knobs. Installed by yours truly.

I like to call this the Half Kitchen. It's halfway there but at least has all the components of producing and consuming food.

It's...Almost...Here...

Oh...oh...oh...so very, very close. The move in is practically upon us, people! We can smell it, taste it and reallllly really hope that the next few days are jam packed with making it happen.

That said, I do want to make sure everyone understands the difference between the house being "liveable" and the house being "finished". There are many, many things that still need to be "finished" but are not essential to us being able to live there.

The Basics:
1. Heat
2. Running Water
3. Electricity
4. A place to make the foods

Heat, we have. Word!

Our friend who has been doing the electrical is spending most of the day tomorrow installing the remaining outlets, switches and lighting fixtures. Electricity is flowing to the house, but it needs to be available throughout the house.

RJ is finishing up the walls in the kitchen and installing the most essential cabinet skeleton (frames that have shelves, but not yet doors or drawers). He will then get the sink and dishwasher in place so that our plumber can come in and hook everything up to water and gas--the kitchen, upstairs bath and washing machine/dryer. And another friend of RJ who is a tile expert will make sure we have tile on the countertops.

All this should happen in the next several days. The internet folks are coming to hook stuff up/transfer service Tuesday, with Direct TV doing the same on Thursday. So, between now and then, in theory, we will be in. I've been slowly packing and moving boxes from the cabin to our house. And on Monday, we drove up to the Denver area, rented a moving truck and took a whole shipment of furniture and appliances back down to Creede, narrowly escaping death on 285 South.

Many things could go wrong. We've already had a bitch of a day today. RJ's fuel pump died and he couldn't get started at the house until early afternoon because he spent most of the morning replacing said fuel pump. The plumber knows we need him to come in the next few days...hopefully he will...as he's a busy guy.

I am so, so excited and also still tearing my hair out. Every whisper of a hiccup sounds like a scream. But, I went through a bunch of boxes yesterday determining whether they needed to stay in storage or be dispersed around the house. I realized that, at the end of the day, I didn't want to leave! I wanted to stay in this house. MY house. OUR house, that we have created together. It's pretty damn cool.

But...back to the list of major things that will not be finished until later due to time and/or money:

1. Downstairs bathroom
2. Guest bedroom and closet
3. Bar dividing kitchen and dining area
4. Trim windows/doorways downstairs and baseboard everywhere that's been polyurethaned (except the bedroom, which is done).
5. Cedar siding on the addition/prime and paint it. (Spring project!)
6. Finish Stairs (they are functional, just not yet pretty).
7. Shelves

The Main Thing: RJ has to go back to work. For actual money. All of these things I can work on during the day or we can attempt in the evening, but we gots to eat. Thankfully he has a job in town to go back to, but we are pretty paralyzed with brokeness at the moment. Not that we've every had a lot, but we don't even have just a little.

You may have noticed there are no pictures on this particular blog post...I'm saving those for the next one in which I hope I will be writing FROM the house. But I will say this so you can use your imagination: we have couches, some desks, my childhood dresser, RJ's childhood dining room table and a lot of stuff to be put away in various places coming soon. But it is happening. IT'S HAPPENING.

Okay, I must go and await more anxiety-ridden dreams.

Until the next one, friends!

And From the Ashes...

I've got to say, having heat in the house REALLY helps morale. I mean, shit. Working in barely 40 degrees as opposed to 55-60 is like you're outside without the fresh air or mountains to look at. You have a constant chill and life just looks a little bit more bleak.

BUT, after a little tweak to the furnace (it's a few years old and had a fan that wouldn't shut off), our house is getting nice and toasty. Even though it's set around the same temp as the log cabin we currently live in, it already feels much warmer--at least less drafty and chilled.

And today...was quite productive. We finished the miserable job of insulating under the house, that we started last night. RJ did most of the grunt work but I got him anything he needed. It's the least I can do after insulating the entire house! Though doing it in a crawl space is a special level of hell. Though we can already feel a huge difference.

The Access Hole in the closet of the guest bedroom. (Pervy jokes about access hole commencing in 3...)

Unda tha houuuuuse!

I also got another wall primed. Then...it was on to a lot of small but mighty things: I moved the rest of the flooring (which will go in the addition downstairs in a couple days) out of the elements from the front yard  into the garage. It was wrapped in plastic, but we're supposed to get dumped on with snow between tonight and tomorrow night, so better safe than sorry.

We raised the back door up about a half inch or so. We hadn't taken into account the thickness of the flooring that will be installed and though a pain in the ass to have to move the entire structure, the door will now open smoothly. We also put the doors in for the downstairs bath and bedroom. Those will be the rooms we finish after we move in, so having a barrier from the unfinishedness is a super duper.  Plus, all this makes it feel like a real ass house.

Doooooooooor.

I also prepped the upstairs for polyurethane tomorrow. Meaning...I spent over an hour dusting. All the sanding of the main floor downstairs created SO much dust everywhere (including upstairs), it took  well over an hour to get it all up.

Tomorrow is the big poly day for me (I probably won't need that drink after work) while RJ possibly/hopefully goes to build some of the cabinets and counters for the kitchen in a shop outside of town. Again, a lovely perk of Creede being Creede is that a friend can order you cabinet supplies at cost!

It's happening people!

****I also want to give a sincere thank you to all the folks who sent me nice notes and comments about my last post. I was in a bad way, and this blog has been a great way for me to let off steam. Thanks for all the kind words and support. I love you, friends.

The journey continues. (With the help of a daily adult beverage.)