Halcyon Journal

Tub Tiled

Katherine — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:38:00 GMT

Yup, Tyler went nuts with the cuts. But, the tile looks AWESOME!!! He paid so much attention to detail. The rectangular tiles on the tub surround walls, platform and floor all line up. Even the diamonds on the wall line up with those on the floor. Although this one didn't need a snazzy diagram like the last one, it still took quite a bit of planning for Tyler to pull this off.

Yah, so much for the 4 hours...

Katherine — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:22:00 GMT

I tried a new type of rapid coat joint compound... rapid coat my butt! It took longer for the rapid coat to try than the regular joint compound I use. For the third coat, I finally ended up getting a different type of rapid joint compound that actually did dry in 4 hours or less. A couple days later, I was priming the walls.

New Year, Same Routine

Katherine — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Just earlier... first thing in the morning earlier. This is how I look in the morning after rolling out of bed to do another layer of mud on the wall. Don't I look enthused? I got up before Tyler so I could get the layer of mud on before breakfast. Since I needed to allow 4 hours for the mud to dry, that meant I could do the third layer by lunch time and start the final sanding before going to bed.

And Now He's Grouting

Katherine — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:51:00 GMT

With the tile down on the floor, what's next for Tyler? Gooping it, of course. Tyler grouted the shower floor. We now have a bathroom that sounds more like a dessert. The tile... walnut, the grout... chocolate truffle. Yup, that's gonna be one high-cal combination when its done.

After grouting the shower floor, Tyler also finished laying the tile on the tub platform.

I Never Liked That Wall...

Katherine — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:12:00 GMT

What do you do when a wall goes up and you decide you don't like it? Take it down, of course!! Tyler and I had planned on having a wall between the foyer and great room. However, once it went up and we saw how much it closed off the room, we decided to take it down. The following photos show the before and after of the entrance into the great room. This was another of my projects while Tyler worked on the master bathroom tile.

Before	After

New Light Boxes

Katherine — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:39:00 GMT

Our bad, the original light fixture boxes (the one on the right) we put up while doing the siding were too small for the exterior lights. Hmm, if memory serves, I do believe someone mentioned something about that to Tyler when we picked up the mounting plates. Oh well. It was a nice enough day today that Tyler snuck out and put up the new, larger mounting blocks (one on the left) for the exterior lights. He needed them up before he did the wiring on the first floor.

Tyler Begins Tiling

Katherine — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:48:00 GMT

Tyler started working on laying out the tile floor for the master bathroom. He started off insisting that the tiles were going down in a regular square grid. No fancy cuts or nag rugs. After a few, "but wouldn't this look cool" suggestions from his loving wife, Tyler was soon going crazy with the layout.

While I made suggestions, Tyler came up with this layout all on his own and it looks pretty darn awesome!

Squaring the Entry

Katherine — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:34:00 GMT

With Christmas behind us and Evan back at home, I decided it was time to start focusing on the house again. Tyler had become the tiler. So, I decided to tackle the stairs. First, I worked on squaring up the rough edges of the floor joists that we had cut when opening up the foyer.

Before	After

Our First Ride

Katherine — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:02:00 GMT

Well, its been a long time coming... but Evan and I finally had our first ride together!!!

I've been waiting for this day since Evan was born in October 2003. When he was finally 3 years old, a riding accident that shattered my shoulder delayed our plans for another year. Then, on the eve of my return to riding, an asshole in a Suburban ran me over in the street and shattered my wrist. Another surgery and round of PT delayed our plans for another year. And, the possibility of a trial and all the complications that go along with it, Evan and I didn't get to start working on our goal till the beginning of 2008. But, all good things really are worth waiting for...

Sarah and I had been planning on just when I'd take my first ride on Evan. We decided on a Friday after work about a week before the end of his second phase of training. Unfortunately, life got in the way and Sarah had to call and cancel at the last minute. She knew how much I had been longing to ride Evan and I could tell over the phone that the last thing she wanted to do was cancel our appointment. Even though I wasn't upset with Sarah, I was really depressed that I just couldn't get back in the saddle.

My depression was so bad that I couldn't focus on work and decided to leave a little early for the barn. If I couldn't ride Evan, I was at least going to spend time with him. After parking my truck at the barn, I turned around and looked at my Dressage saddle and riding gear. All week I had been waiting for the moment when we'd all come together (me, Evan, the new tack) for our first ride. The logical part of me said, "You've waited this long. Another day or two isn't a big deal." Then, the other side of me took over and said, "SCREW THAT!!! With your luck, you'll get hit by a semi tonight and tomorrow will never come and you'll never get your ride." The right side one - with a few concessions to the left side.

As I walked into the barn, I told myself that I would ride Evan if a) Evan behaved himself and was listening well on the lounge line, and b) the arena was quite, and c) my legs weren't too shakey, and d) if I had my cell phone ready in case of emergency. Plus, Tyler and I had plans to go to Vegas in a couple weeks. And, my experience has taught me that I needed about a week to recover from surgery before I could start moving about. So, I should probably get on Evan sooner rather than later if I didn't want to jeopardize our first vacation in 6 years.

Evan seemed to know something was up. He was a perfect angel and the arena was exceptionally quite. There was only one other horse and rider in the arena and they were just sitting down on the one end visiting with some friends sitting on the edge of the arena. So, I took a deep breath and decided today was the day that we stopped waiting.

I lead Evan over to the mounting block - not only was this going to be our first ride, it was going to be the first time someone got on him without someone else holding onto him. Well, if you're going to tempt fate, tempt fate. Evan stood next to the mounting block like a seasoned pro. I flopped myself over his back to see if he'd mind the fact that I was heavier than the trainer - by about double her body weight. He flicked an ear towards me and then went back to his happy half asleep slumber. So, I swung a leg over and prepared for the fireworks. Nada.

Quickly slipping my feet into the stirrups, I asked Evan to step off into a walk. The next thing I knew, we were riding!!! After that, I took every opportunity to ride Evan before bringing him back home for the Winter. Tyler was kind enough to stop by the barn and snap these photos of Evan and I. Since the lighting is really bad, he couldn't get much more than a close up of us standing in the middle of the ring.

We Have Tile!

Katherine — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:22:00 GMT

...Its just not on the wall yet. But, at least we finally picked up some tile for the master bathroom! We got another great deal... originally the tile was $14/sq ft. We picked it up for $6/sq ft. Now, we just need to figure out what pattern we're going to use to lay it. That should only take another month or two to figure out.

Second Round of Training

Katherine — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:12:00 GMT

Evan returned for his second phase of training with Sarah Hauschild at the beginning of the month. During the first week, Sarah worked with Evan to give him a refresher on all the basics he learned during his first session with her. By the second week, Sarah started riding Evan. The sessions began with Sarah working Evan on the lounge line. Once he was responsive - and worn out a little - Sarah had me take her spot lounging Evan while she climbed aboard. Before the end of the month, Sarah was riding Evan all over the arena. It was a happy day when Sarah started riding Evan off the lounge line. First, I didn't have to try and "keep up" anymore while they practiced walk-trot transitions. Second, I could finally snap some pictures.

Evan's Tracing

Katherine — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:28:00 GMT

With my first ride on Evan rapidly approaching, I've been stepping up my search for a Dressage saddle. Since the floods took out Saddle & Leather, the closest tack shop with a selection of Dressage saddles is either in MN or IL. So, I took my search to the Internet. To help figure out if a saddle would work for Evan, I took a tracing of his back. This consisted of molding a wire to the contour of his back just behind the withers. This showed me that he was a very WIDE boy! I was going to need an extra wide saddle to fit him.


Top View	Rear View

Left View	Right View

Mark's Visit

Katherine — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:43:00 GMT

Before defecting to Canada, Mark (Tyler's friend from SD) stopped down for a visit. He and Tyler found quite a few things around the place to keep themselves occupied. Since Tyler had found a great way into the dog house just the day before Mark's visit, most of these things focused on getting him back to freedom.

First, Tyler and Mark picked up all the old wood and small pieces of scrap iron out of the horse pasture. Then, they went and bought an extra set of sawsall blades so they could tackle the large pieces of scrap iron. They even moved the generator out to the horse pasture to power the sawsall - Casper and Buster were thoroughly entertained.

With the pasture cleared, Tyler and Mark turned their attention to the garage. They sorted through everything that had been piled / thrown / stored in the garage since we moved. They even fixed the broken springs on the garage door so that it worked again!

As evening set in, they set all the scrap wood they'd collected on fire. As you can see, Mark had quite the bonfire going. He even through some scraps of copper wire onto the fire to show the cool color affects it made in the flames.

Fall Facade

Katherine — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:57:00 GMT

The front of the house is looking really awesome outlined in the fall colors.

More Siding? Seriously?

Katherine — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:06:00 GMT

Alright, that's it. One way or another, the siding will be hung by the end of this weekend! After last weekend, Tyler and I decided that we really didn't want to try and finish the siding with just ladders but all of the lifts had been rented. So, I placed a reservation for a lift for this weekend.

On the way to get the lift, I got a call from Tyler. He had gone home early from work sick. Hmm, well, he'll probably be better by tomorrow. So, I picked up the lift anyway. But, the next morning I woke up next to death warmed over.

To give sicky a little more time to recover, I worked on prepping everything. First, I cut the lawn so we'd have less grass to search through for dropped nails. Next, I maneuvered the lift into position using some "one time use only" ramps courtesy of my burn pile. Then, I started to hang a few pieces of siding only to find out that I was under attack by about two dozen wasps! So, I ran into town and picked up a wasp fighting arsenal. After killing all the wasps, sicky was still sick. So, I resigned myself to hanging the siding with little to no ground support.

By Sunday night, I had done about 3 square (or 300 feet) of siding while Tyler lay in bed sick. After a donkey check, I ran into town and picked up some more powerful drugs and some cookies for Tyler. After a little while, the ground crew reported for duty. Apparently cookies are the magic cure for the common cold. With Tyler's help I was able to finish up the peak of the South wall by 10 o'clock Sunday night. Without his help, I probably would have been out there till at least midnight.

But, all the effort was well worth it. The house is looking awesome and the word 'TyVek' is no longer visible!!! Oh, this is a proud day.

Siding, Will It Ever End?!

Katherine — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:58:00 GMT

After hoping off a plane from Philadelphia, I hopped into the basket of a boom lift. Tyler and I were planning on spending our Labor Day weekend siding the upper parts of the house with the help of a lovely all terrain 44' boom lift. As you can see, the thing was bigger than my truck and horse trailer combined! Even the pups were fascinated by it as Tyler jumped in the basket and fired it up.

On Friday Night...
To get use to handling the lift, Tyler first used it to replace the yard light that had been burnt out for most of the summer. This one job alone probably saved us enough money to pay for the rental on the lift.

On Saturday...
	Tyler and I decided to start with the worst looking portion of the house, the top half of the NW wall. This portion of the house still had the multiple layers of old siding that needed to be demolished. While Tyler worked on pulling down the old siding, I worked on carrying it over to the dumpster. Tyler's mom and dad even stopped out and helped pick up debris while there was an open house at their place. Once the old siding was done, Tyler and I worked on putting up the new siding. When I had done the starter strip for the siding, I had found it difficult to get the strip lined up on both sides of the patio door. So as the siding started to go up on the back of the house, I was happy to see that the siding on either side of the patio door was lining up. By the time we were done with the back wall, it was the nicest looking part on the house.

On Sunday...
It was time to hit the North side of the house. The North side presented a new challenge... the peak. Since we found it difficult to find the right angle and cut it on the saw, I ended up cutting all of the pieces by hand once we got to the peak.

On Monday...
	Tyler and I decided that one way or another the front of the house would be sided before the boom lift was picked up Tuesday. Our marathon siding session had left us short on supplies, so I started working on hanging more siding while Tyler ran to the store. With Tyler on the ladder and me in the lift, we were making really good progress on the house. Unfortunately, there was a lot of progress to be made. So, true to our OCD and crazy nature, we broke out the work lights and kept going well into the night and the next morning... 4 o'clock to be exact! But, we won. Before we went to bed, the entire front of the house was sided! And, we went to bed happily thinking about the boom lift heading down the road in a few hours.

On Tuesday...
Tyler and I received the, uhm, good news that the boom lift wouldn't be picked up till around 5pm since the rental store hadn't dropped it off till around 5pm on Friday. Oh yeah! So, after a trip into town for lots and lots and lots of caffeine and sugar, Tyler and I returned to siding. We moved the lift to the South side of the house and worked on installing the last attic window and all of the J-channel for the siding. Since we assumed the rental store would be out around 5pm to pick up the lift, Tyler and I had a short day. Around 5pm, Tyler headed off to his bowling league and I loaded Evan up for his return to the trainers. But, when I got back from the barn the lift was still in the yard. Hmmm, they must be planning on picking it up tomorrow.

On Wednesday...
For the love of... is THAT LIFT STILL HERE?! Tyler and I got home from work to find the lift still sitting in our yard. With tears in our eyes, we decided that if the lift was still there that we should still be making use of it. This time, Tyler hopped up into the basket while I hooked up the trailer and headed into town for more siding. Since we were going to be working around the power line and it was getting dark, I prepped the generator so that we could kill the main power and still have light. Thankfully, we ran out of TyVek tape and it started to rain! Yes, we were about ready to drop dead so the rain was a good thing. But, we had managed to get the worst parts of the siding (the soffits and J-channel) up.

Winter Prep - Kitty Door

Katherine — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:43:00 GMT

Yup, its that time of year again. The chill in the early morning air serves as a reminder of the cold days to come and as encouragement to get those 'winterizing' tasks done. This lead me to replace the door on the feed shed.

The feed shed also serves as the Kitty Condo. Last Winter I had setup a heat lamp and some straw bales to help the cats weather the subzero temperatures. In order for the cats to get in, I needed to leave the door propped open a few inches. This meant the snow would blow in all over my hay and feed - not good.

So, before Winter hit this year I wanted to upgrade the amenities offered by the Kitty Condo to include a small kitty door that wouldn't let the blowing snow in onto my hay. The old door on the shed wasn't in too good of shape. The panels had started to split and fall out. Thankfully, one of the old doors from the house that I had been saving (For what? Who knows.) was the same size as the old feed shed door. After swapping the doors, I installed the kitty door and used some barn paint to spruce everything up.

Beautiful Pictures

Katherine — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:35:00 GMT

Cleaning Up the Grounds

Katherine — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:33:00 GMT

After spending most of the summer getting wapped alongside the head by the branches off this tree, I decided it was time for it to go. The tree had been brought down last Winter by some ice storms that had swept over the area. Since my To-Do list is usually pretty full, the whacking and burning of this guy just kept slipping towards the bottom. But, with the mulberries weighing down the branches I was finding it increasingly difficult to just mow around the thing. So, I decided it was time for it to go.

I started on a Wednesday night by sawing the main trunks off of the portions of the tree that were still upright. The ice storm had just bent the branches so they were still trying to grow. Cutting them off would mean the leaves would fall off and it would be easier to get into the middle of the branches with my chainsaw.

On the following Saturday, I fired up my chainsaw and went to town. After a couple of hours, the lawn was covered in various piles of tree bits. A dozen trips later with my trusty John Deere and wagon and the whole thing was in the brush burn pile in the horse yard.

I coralled the horses into the SE paddock and lit the pile - yup, definitely got some good flames on that one. The brush pile started off being about 15 feet tall. By the end of the day, it was nothing but a pile of ashes.

While I was working on the brush, Tyler was working on clearing out the old straw from the lean-to on the side of the double corn crib. We have no idea how long the straw had been in there. But, it had been long enough for all of the twine strings to rot and for the bales to fall apart. So, we're thinking quite a while.

There were a couple main reasons why I wanted the straw gone. First, it was nasty. Second, I wanted to feed small square bales of hay this Winter and I needed someplace to put them. Third, there's an old chisel plow in the back that I wanted to get out of there.

While burning the straw, Tyler and I found lots of interesting things - thankfully no snakes! We found several beer cans. Some clothes. We even found the bones of some sort of small cat like creature. The bones were found in the ashes of the burn pile. The fire had gotten so hot that when we tried to pick them up to examine them, they turned to dust.

We're Cooking Again

Katherine — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:31:00 GMT

We have a kitchen again!!! With the new windows in place, Tyler was able to hook up the old kitchen sink. The temporary kitchen also gave Tyler and I a great opportunity get a feel for the final kitchen. The old kitchen cabinets are lined up along the same wall where our new kitchen cabinets will reside. We were also able to put our old stove in the cubby for the new stove. And, we were able to put our rolling pantry into the future pantry.

This allowed Tyler and I to play around with the location of the fridge and the island. We used some blue painters tape to mark out the location of all the cabinets in the kitchen.