Shopping!

When Marc left for his latest trip to North Dakota he packed for the normal week’s time stay but once there, he was informed that he would be staying until one of the problem projects is done. We figure he won’t be able to return home until sometime in June, so that’s all those weeks with no break for him. He actually oversees five projects now in North Dakota and on the edge of Minnesota so some days, like today, will see him up at 3:30 a.m. to drive around 800 miles making several job stops along the way. I honestly don’t know how the man manages to do it, putting in the ungodly hours and high levels of tedium and stress that he deals with on a daily basis. 

Meanwhile, here on the home front, not much gets done with his absence, towards the house or our lot. The sales rep at the modular place did redraw a plan we like making the changes we requested and I have a feeling we may well use this company. It’s a simple, small ranch style home with an optional large screened front porch which Marc will likely build himself or hire done. We did expand the kitchen, eliminating the dining area and will plan for a very large island with seating at some future point. I am trying to decide whether to go with the significantly more expensive built in oven/micro and stove cook top or just to stick with the more affordable slide-in range and oven. The decision doesn’t have to be made until we place an order. We provide our own appliances so I am free to get what we figure we can afford. I was able to get credit for a large bank of drawers in the expanded area since we eliminated all upper cabinets and the stupid angled raised small island the kitchen came with. Marc will replace the uppers with floating shelving. I love the openness that should provide and things are so much easier to grab and use. 

I did make a couple of purchases from an antique gallery in Appleton early this week. They get many of their exquisite pieces from Europe and maintain an excellent website with great detailed photos, making initial shopping easy. http://www.harpgallery.com/ Most of their sales aren’t local so I felt privileged to have them so close. I got four fabulous vintage iron and wicker chairs with great lines. They are solid iron so very sturdy; two will go with my small pine drop leaf table in what is left of the dining area. That will leave the others for the screen porch or bedrooms.

I had noted a primitive pine hutch and buffet which dated from 1900 and definitely took my eye so while in the store I checked it out. The hand carving was homey, the curved top accentuated the lovely glass hutch, and two skeleton keys opened both the top and bottom. I left the store with my chairs but couldn’t get it out of my head, so I called Marc and asked if he’d mind if I bought it? I ended up going back and securing the hutch and am very glad I did so—it’s the sort of piece in high demand by internet shoppers. The patina on the wood is satiny smooth and just the right color. It will look outstanding at the end of my kitchen as additional storage. I left it at the store until Marc can get home to get it, where we’ll be able to store it in our cargo trailer until the house is completed.

At a more local antique mall in Stevens Point, I added a couple of old crates to my kitchen items. These will eventually go under the island on a bottom shelf to hold something like onions and potatoes. I guess in my mind I have figured out a vintage “farmhouse, quasi rustic” look to everything.

Since one of the renters here moved out and threw out a bunch of still useable items in the dumpster, I fished out some old furniture figuring since it was free it would be good fodder for some practice painting with a technique called chalk paint. Chalk paint is sold professionally at very select places (none around here) and is terribly expensive but there are also recipes for DIY using plaster of Paris. Since I now have many sample paint jars from having chosen colors, I decided to paint up this old beat up end table and also add a decoupage accent to the top. It doesn’t seem to photograph as the true color but it gives you the idea of making something look distressed and vintage looking. If nothing else, it can be another item for the screen room although I think it goes well next to the new paint and upholstery job I did on my wicker set! Still to be done is an equally beat up Mission style oak coffee table which I will be turning into a padded ottoman bench once I can figure out upholstery fabric and color.

Spring is here and things are now really hopping in Central Wisconsin in anticipation of the holiday weekend. I will be checking out an art show in a small hamlet just up the road being held in a historic old 1868 grist mill Saturday. Marc told me to keep my wallet in my purse after this past week-ha! Have a nice holiday everyone.

Even Kitties like Wisconsin Cheese!

It felt as though spring finally really arrived here yesterday; warm sunshine greeted the entire day and the trees are finally starting to leaf out. Wisconsin responds to spring by holding city wide rummage sales and since Marc and I missed the one in Amherst the previous weekend I decided to head over and catch the one in Weyauwega on my own as Marc is again in North Dakota. 

Weyauwega is another old village of around 1600 population spread out over a pine filled hillside which spills down to flat ground around a very nice looking lake. It’s only about five or six miles from our lot in Waupaca. My wandering brought me to the free city boat launch so I made a mental note of that should Marc ever obtain the small fishing boat and time to use it he yearns for. While it has many nice old homes, like this vacant one, the town looks a little down and out with many empty store fronts and lots of properties for sale. Although Wisconsin weathered the recession much better than the west, it still hit hard here and many mom and pop businesses, especially if they weren’t necessities businesses, went under.

I spent a pleasant morning scoring a few treasures, perused the one antique store I found open then headed directly across the street to one of the reasons for coming here—the plain-entry Star Dairy retail store. It’s no secret that Wisconsin makes, by far, the creamiest and tastiest cheeses in all the land and my formerly high cholesterol levels can testify to that. I still buy cheese for Marc and an occasional snitch for myself but being in a place like this sure makes the choices hard. We are particularly fond of smoked cheeses and they offered up quite a selection here, including smoked Monterey Jack with Peppers, something I’ve not seen done before. Of course, smoked Parmesan is also to die for and I had also never heard of smoked Swiss so all those offerings had to make it into my basket. Then I threw in some of their freshly churned butter. In addition, the store offered some locally produced honey and some homemade (even the label says literally “produced in my cottage kitchen”) jams of various berries made by a gal in Wild Rose, another close-by village. Since we have a large rhubarb patch growing I choose a blueberry/rhubarb combination to try to see how I like it. I was planning on giving our rhubarb away but if this combination is a winner then some weekend Marc will just have to get on his jam-making hat!

Later in the afternoon I took Rocket for his romp in the park which was a pleasant place to hang out smelling spring coming to life. As we were standing by the Tomorrow River I heard this loud scratching sound climbing a downed log on the far side of the river. It was so brushy and whatever it was blended in so well I couldn’t tell just what creature it was at first, thinking maybe a beaver. I about fell over when I saw the most massively large turtle short of a desert tortoise I have ever seen! Unfortunately my pictures don’t do it justice as I just couldn’t focus in close enough but I was astounded with the size of the claws which were easily as big as a bear’s. I figured the creature must have weighed at least 150 pounds; I had no idea water turtles could get to such a size! It looked like one nasty creature to mess with, let’s just put it that way. Snapping turtles are ubiquitous in the Wisconsin River so I figure that is what this may have been. It soon disappeared back under water; and here I had been daydreaming about floating this river on a tube on a hot summer day!

Marc appears to be really tied up in North Dakota for the foreseeable future, maybe weeks this time. His job is not an easy one and he put in 70 hours this past week. It’s very tiresome and there are no easy answers for it. We are tentatively making slow progress on having the modular house company draw us up a plan incorporating changes we wanted but this could be at a standstill until his return. Another thing now at a standstill is further mowing of our lot which he did manage just before leaving. I must say though that at this new point in the game, it is something he seems to enjoy, as evidenced by the smile on his face. Having just learned to run the mower I don’t feel competent enough to tackle it all on my own as yet. We did manage to get five poles of our garden fence set.

Likely to Change it up Again

Yeah, it’s not like we purposely set out to always be changing our minds, but in regards to our first choice of house it is just proving too costly to do that plan. Costs have escalated much beyond what Marc was even aware of in regards to building (just look at the inflation factor involved in the cost of appliances over the past five years as one example. You’d think refrigerators had to be made out of gold for what they are costing now!).

Since Marc didn’t really have the time, I have been scrambling on forays out to talk with builders and look at modular homes. Much of the building done in the northern Midwest is of modular construction because of the short construction season and bad weather so probably six or seven out of the normal sized newer homes are actually built that way. The construction, being done in a factory, is precise and timely; many of the wood cuts are even done now by computer operated robot jigs so the consistency actually far exceeds field standards achieved by a perhaps a hung-over construction framer.

Modular’s are built to a different and higher code level than manufactured homes and are always set on a real foundation using exactly the same materials as a site built home. They are transported to the site in sections on trucks but have no frame or axles like a manufactured home and thus are known as two, three, four or even five section homes. Erection is quickly done via a large crane on a foundation which has already been completed by someone else usually. Depending upon the manufacturer, one either has practically unlimited upgrade and option possibilities or limited options within a range of vendors, but all of which can add significantly to the cost. We have determined that we will be better off sticking with items that are standard grade that can easily be retrofitted and changed out later as Marc can do it and we can afford it. For instance, we have eliminated an attached garage to begin with and will likely go with builder standard flooring. We figure the important thing is to be able to be living in the home and enjoying our wonderful property sooner rather than later, and to us the sacrifice of time for higher quality materials is just not worth waiting for.

Blenker’s system is for factory assembled walls, which include the windows and insulation and house wrap, floor systems complete to the subfloor and roof trusses. They can also go farther to complete an enclosed shell stage and they have a division which uses their factory system plus a contractor who oversees on-site construction right on through to a completed turn-key house if one wants. Due to Marc’s demanding job he won’t be getting the time to actually work on our house as much as he thought for cost savings so with few exceptions (the basement; interior painting) we need the completed package.

We stepped away from most items which drive up the cost of construction and are now at a stage where Marc will rough draw, to scale, our own plan. Well, don’t tell anyone—it’s actually a plan I ripped off from one of the modular companies, but we will be making enough changes that we make it our own. From there, Blenker’s engineers will actually draw it up so it can be budgeted out. It will be simple and easy to modify so we can eliminate things now (like the master bath) that Marc can add in later.

It will be totally rectangular in shape with a simple one direction gable roof and a nice sized covered and screened front porch which will run the width of the home and be deep enough to accommodate our spa, which Marc intends to move from Yuma.

If this proves too expensive, then we will regroup yet again and likely order the similar plan from the modular company who sells it since I know theirs is within our budget. Right now, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Yesterday, despite the cold and blustery day, we finally chose the the house placement and Marc got it staked so we could visualize the views, etc. Although the grass is quickly turning green we have yet to see any trees budding out so the end of April here still looks much like winter minus the white. He immensely enjoys riding around on his riding lawnmower and it won’t be long until we are into the routine of weekly mowing.

In the first photo of Marc on the mower you can note the flat spot which is the area where the original old farmhouse used to stand. We have measured out an area here of 50’x30’ which will be fenced in for our garden. We didn’t want to place our home so close to the highway so it is going much closer to our back property line which will allow our side yard to incorporate our apple trees. You can note our side yard property line stake beyond the trees but now that we are purchasing the additional acre it includes the lot with the dirt pile and off into the distance towards the far house where you might be able to see the stakes by the white vehicle. That’s a lot of mowing!

Spring in Wisconsin

Fooled ya, didn’t I? Fooled us as well to wake up to this in the middle of April.

Marc’s surgery last week went well and the mass tested benign. It was a very large growth; he’ll have around five inches of scar gracing his lower back but he’s just happy to have it out. He returned to work today even though sitting upright in a chair is still painful. 

He did get the property corners all marked and staked this weekend on our lots but I neglected to take photos. We decided on a 50 foot by 30 foot spot for the garden where the old farmhouse used to stand. That makes it convenient to the water outlet. Next will come lots of post-hole digging once his back will allow the movement, as we have to put up a tall deer fence before anything is planted. Of course, with weather like this, gardening is just a happy dream for now.

Almost Nothing

Well, the sun has come out this morning on a brand new “snowless” day. We only thought we were through with ol’ man winter; he struck again this past week, leaving Marc on the edge of Minnesota with a closed freeway yet to drive in front of him and me sequestered inside yet again.

There hasn’t been much of note to comment on lately and I figure most folks have enough of the mundane in their lives they don’t need more from me. Now having health insurance for the first time in many moons, I’ve been catching up on all the wellness tests and exams the new Obama Care covers at no cost, including the dreaded colonoscopy. Thankfully, all went well with everything and I felt quite good at only receiving a bill of $236 for $4300 worth of medical tending to.

Next, it is Marc’s turn; he’s had a fatty tissue tumor growing on his lower back for years so he is scheduled to have surgical removal of that this coming Wednesday. That will earn him the rest of the week off work as he is forbidden from driving. Of course, his will cost a pretty penny since our policy has a $10,000 deductible so is virtually worthless for anything short of catastrophic happenings.

Although I haven’t been out to our lot lately, I’m sure the snow is about gone. There was a huge difference in just a week’s time in mid-March as you can see from the photos. Now that we can actually see the terrain our next step is to do some planning on placement—where we want the house, where we want the garden and the very tall fence we are going to need to keep the deer out. Marc has worked hard (with his little spare time) to build walls of shelving in the garage and is redoing the entire electrical there as well. It feels like baby steps but with him gone out of state much of the time and working such long hours, this project will likely slide by at a glacier’s pace. Life never goes as planned, does it?

Just the Usual; Waiting for Winter's Demise

There really hasn’t been a lot going on here since Marc ended up being out of town for about ten days on his recent supervisory visit to the projects. He travels during his time off over Sundays usually so did a very long stretch with no days off so arrived home extremely tired. Since he is salaried, there’s no watching the time clock on his job and he’s probably easily working 60 hour weeks which is hard to keep up with when you’re getting to be an old guy!

I had a good meeting with the Blenker representative to make selections and decisions on the interior & exterior of the home and am into deep consideration now of wall colors. So far I’m weighing in heavily on grey-greens and grey-blues for those; I’m sick of whites, tans and beiges and figure any dark colors are a real no-no in this climate since it is gloomy much of the time. I’ve also been trying to narrow down some flooring choices knowing that what I really want (real hardwood) isn’t going to happen this first go-round so I’ll need to come up with something we can live with for a few years. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the new choices in laminates which they are now even making in things like look-alike slate.

If I end up getting my cabinet choice in the kitchen*, I’ve chosen a very nice granite-look Formica which goes very well. I actually prefer Formica over granite as I don’t like the coldness and hardness of granite since I am fumble-fingers and often dropping glassware and plates. Formica is much more forgiving! Plus, they have now come up with a way to attach an under-mount sink so I am able to get the deep, one hole stainless apron front sink I wanted. *This cabinet finish, being hand distressed and glazed, is a whopping 40% up charge over other stain choices so the question is whether we can truly afford these. To help out, I specified in the kitchen design, that all uppers be open shelving which will actually be builder-built and painted white. This should actually give more storage area and has the added benefit of creating a nice open and airy look thus visually expanding the space more even though this will be a great sized kitchen at around 11x20 feet. 

The first photo shows the door style I’ve chosen and it will be on knotty alder which will hopefully create the rustic look I am after. The second picture shows my choice of counter top and the third picture shows the runner up. I dearly loved this dramatic dark granite look, thought it went fantastic with the cabinet sample  and was so realistic looking, but overall I thought it would just end up being way too dark for a kitchen. I prefer a nice, bright kitchen, something cheery, rather than weighty.

Marc finally has a weekend off so we will be working on moving more things from our apartment garage to our shop and the apple trees are now due for pruning and spraying before they bud. Wisconsin’s winter has been one of the hardest on record; we surpassed the 1910 record set for most amount of minus degree days, at 55 so far. We have about 28” of snow on the ground currently, with a little over 70” of snowfall recorded. We have averaged 20 degrees below normal temperature ranges since November. To say we’re ready for spring is a gross understatement! Bring it on!

Brimming With Ideas

We’re still dealing with lots of winter here and Marc just got off to more of it this week in North Dakota as he oversees his projects there. You can tell what Munchkin thinks of it all…er, wait; this is what cats always do right? 

We closed on our additional acre lot last Friday and I’m hopeful to make some progress this week on making some selections so we can start the process of working towards a price quote on part of the house. I will meet with Jenny at Blenker’s, in their nicely done showroom where we’ll go over selections of things like roof color and material grade, windows, siding, interior doors and millwork, and most important to me, kitchen cabinetry and counters. We intend to stick pretty close to basics, hoping to hold price down as much as possible, figuring we can always upgrade later to better materials as we can save the money for it. Marc is insisting upon a high grade of roof and some decent windows though since those are difficult to trade out later.

I’m very excited to finally be at this stage but I feel as though in my mind’s eye I have been at it forever. I have a computerized idea book that is bursting with photos and ideas but which causes me to constantly second guess my choices. Do you ever find that about modern life—that there are just too damn many choices anymore? I mean, how does one chose from thousands and thousands of wall paint colors for instance? Have you had the need to check out flooring lately? Not only are there too many choices in materials, within each category there then are too many grades and categories and finally, too many patterns and colors. It’s enough to drive a person mad! 

We can say we are fairly certain of our floor plan however. This is the stock plan and we’ll be making some changes to it. The plan is small but sports a few really nice features, like the screen room right off the main living area of the house which will make indoor/outdoor living a breezy convenience. Marc will have a full on basement which will effectively double the square footage but it won’t be finished off at first.

We have the idea to move the laundry closet to the hallway by the master bedroom since we can get by with less room in the master bath. We only need a shower and one sink in a smaller vanity so we can eliminate the tub and larger vanity with second sink. The former laundry closet will then open on the kitchen side becoming a large pantry closet. We also don’t have any need for a large dining area (preferring a really long island/eating bar instead) so we plan to move kitchen cabinetry farther into that space giving room for a built-in wall oven and microwave where it shows the current pantry cupboard. This will also serve to enlarge the kitchen to the professional size with lots of counter space that we desire. We’ll be moving the cook top from the island but not sure just where as yet, and hope to have it topped with a statement custom hood/vent that will be the focal point of the kitchen. 

Finally, I am being drawn strongly to a very different type kitchen cabinet, done with a specialty stain that resembles coastal driftwood in color. It’s called Appaloosa and after thinking long and hard about it I think I can make it pretty striking by accessorizing with coastal colors and white, using a very pale grey wall color. Here are a couple photos of the model kitchen showing it on cherry; it’s also available on rustic alder and maple. So I’m fairly certain I have the color chosen; now to choose the door style and wood species. This is just the beginning folks; stick around!