Ella Has Her "Castle"

Entry tower / foyer/ stairwell - going way up.  It'll make you dizzy inside looking up at the trusses.

  Every little girl's dream is to live in a castle and that is what Ella thinks of when she sees tall towers.  She was in awe when she came back from her grandparent's today and got to see the site below.....

2nd Floor Up

Wow, this thing is starting to look so tall.  We are loving the way the house sits on the site - just can't wait until the old roof is fixed to blend to the side of the new.  We can only imagine what people must think we are doing right now- as it looks so much like we are building two houses sitting hip-to-hip.  It looks kinda funny....

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Trees - Take One - Winter

 If you know us, you know we are all about outdoors and the environment.  The trees at Gifft Hill are one of the main things we fell in love with about the property.  Everywhere you turn you have views of great trees.  After seeing these you can see why we wanted the garage off to the side - we couldn't imagine blocking a view by attaching the garage.  Above are the famed Maple and its companion dogwoods.  These babies greet you right at the front door.

 Our majestic Oak overlooking the Shed and future garage.

 An old Dogwood that hugs our front porch.

 This thing blazed in the fall - Mel's substitute for the Japanese Maple she left behind in Brookshire.

 More dogwoods - they are everywhere on the property and huge.

We are also blessed to have tons of native magnolias around the property on all sides.  These are along the driveway as you enter the property.

We will post these again as the season's change.  Spring is right around the corner.  We already found some crocus today and can't wait for the dogwoods.

Movin' On Up

 Day two and a half of framing produces much of the second floor.  Here's the future front door area.

 Future view from the master shower - sans the dumpster and outdoor loo!

 Entrance to the loft.

 Master bathroom doorway.

 Ty standing in the future living area expansion.

 It looks sorta stuck on doesn't it?  It should blend better when the roofline is fixed to run into the addition and everything is painted a mutual color.

Now, we can't wait to see the tower go all the way up!!!

We got Walls - Excitement Abounds!

 Wood +

 Block =

                                     Some New Walls................................................................
First floor went up so fast.  You should see these guys working - it was crazy how quickly they do this.  Don't friggin' blink!

The Tracks

The tracks at the back end of the property.  We still haven't in six months heard or seen the train come by the property when we are there.  Watch that baby show up five times the first night we sleep in the house.  :)

Like American Pickers

 By the way, we love that show - you know - American Pickers.  Can't say we could stand that many hours together in one vehicle, but they have such a cool job.  Anyway, we are finding buying an older property is sorta like picking.  We keep finding things.  And insert "The Shed" - the perfect place to put all those picked things.  Heck, it's kinda like a pick all in itself.

Mel and Ella have spent a little bit of time working on cleaning out "The Shed" - mostly leaves being there hasn't been a roof on the thing for a good bit. Beneath the leaves they have found tons of fun metal goodies.  You can see some of the pile on the bench in the photo below.  Ty found the large wheel in the woods.  The mirror was taken from the house.  You get the picture. Mel and Ella plan on making some sort of folk art with all the found metal parts.  That's Ella's tub - NO we didn't find it in the Shed.  Just being stored there.  Thanks to Nanny and Papa for acquiring and bringing that up.

The Shed itself is going to get a makeover, but in the meantime it is just storage.  Time to get a roof back on it so we can store some things from the house that don't need to get rained on.

 We initially thought do an entire metal roof, but look at the sun coming in.  So, now the Shed is destined to become the garden shed/potting shed/ greenhouse/ (future rear access to chicken nesting boxes) - oh yes, we will join the ranks of our good friends the Swanepoels and get us some chickens.  :)  You know you all want eggs.  Hee.  We have some neat ideas for painting the Shed and perhaps using some of the removed windows from the house to open up the other end.  We'll see how it comes together.

Below - some more found things.  Along the back property line, which shares its shoulder with the railroad line, we found this old electric pole.  It still has some old connectors attached.  The pieces below are from under our new master bedroom.  They dug these up cutting in the footings.  We'd love to hear from anyone who knows exactly what these may have been used for, but we think they are an old pipe line (they have been under the carport concrete for forever).  Anybody got any cool ideas for how to use them now?  They must be repurposed.

Moving dirt around

It' that simple things in life that make you happy, like back filling the foundation and dumping in the gravel base.  It may not seem like much to most but to us it means that things are about to start moving fast.

Foot Print is Established

Taking shape, the blocks were laid today, back-fill on Friday and begin framing on Monday.

Making our Mark

 Brent's texted photo to Mel this morning as the concrete truck cleared the Maple.  A few tired twigs came down as it left out, but overall they did a great job respecting Mel's obsessiveness.

                                                                       Hey Brent!!!!

 Finally, something new coming out of the ground.  Concrete foundation poured!

So cool to be able to make our mark on the house that will be there as long as the house is.  Ella made sure Arli and Preta were not forgotten - note the kitty figure and "2 cats".  Fitting enough, the local cat that tends to hang out in the crawlspace had come by during the day and walked along the footing leaving it's paw prints right up to where we 'signed'.  A really great memory.