Rainy Days and Sundays

With much of the work done on the house, there was time for other things, like the outdoor lighting. Gerald had wanted to expand it for some time, and this seemed a good time.

That is, it did, until it started to rain. But who's complaining? We needed it desperately and on this last trip home, it rained just over two inches over the course of four days. Since we had our gutters installed, the runoff was being channeled down the driveway. Gerald bought some pipes to divert some of it across the road. The plan is to attach the pipes to the drainspouts and bury them in trenches so the water can be channeled to the trees on the other side of the driveway.

The security gate at the entrance to Ruger Ranch that the property owners authorized at the last HOA meeting finally got installed. Gerald had given the gate makers these stars to spiffy it up a little. The rain gave them a nice rusted look.

Finishing the upstairs fireplace

 Gerald finished out the upstairs fireplace with slate tiles on the hearth.

 And installed the mantle he had built at the shop.

"Summer" master bathroom shower

 The last big project that remained was the "summer" masterbathroom shower. Gerald was uncomfortable installing the glass block, so we hired a tiler. In the end, we decided to have him to the whole thing.

 For the walls, we used ceramic tile we had picked up at a Habitat store. The green was a perfect match of our wall color.

 We used the river rock he already had for the floor.

 Here's how it looked when the job was finished. With the shower done, Gerald was free to install what was left of the molding. And the upstairs was done.

Dining alcove

 With the upstairs finished, Gerald turned his attention to finishing some of the little things downstairs.  This is a little dining alcove. We weren't sure what materials we wanted to use to finish it, but our choice was made easier by what materials we had left. We had used all the brick and pine, so we finished it with the wain-edge material. It really was the best choice, because we used it to face the loft edge above it.

 With that in place, Gerald was able to finish the top. He sanded the boards to round the edges and then put them in place.

"Winter" Master Shower

 We didn't have enough honed slate to reach the ceiling in the shower in our "winter" master bathroom. For that reason and because really tall showers are drafty, we decided to lower the ceiling and add a glass door. Gerald had picked up some tin ceiling tiles, which we painted to install on the ceiling.

 For the hole in the wall, Gerald mounted a ceiling tile in the center of a panel that was cut to fit. He added some compositional ornaments to border the tile itself and installed molding around the panel.

 The last step was to seal the edges with a clear silicone. Here's how the finished ceiling looked.

Who knew when we moved out in the middle of nowhere, we would have such an active social life. Our monthly get togethers with other Ruger Ranch property owners had outgrown our dining room table. So Gerald used some of the oak we had left over to make this dining table. He made it in sections, fastening them together on the bottom with window latches. Here, it's supported by folding resin tables, but eventually we found some old fashioned sewing machine bases. When we're not using it, we disassemble the table and store it under our bed.

We lost one of our trees in the spring to some sort of fungus and had to cut it down. That was sad, but the timing was good. The local landfill was accepting brush at no charge to encourage people to clear the brush around their homes as a fire prevention measure.

We had been wanting to compost, and found this compost tumbler at a yard sale. Gerald had seen these online for $150 plus shipping. We picked this one up for $40. Spring also meant bugs. I found this guy in my exercise room trashcan.

 It didn't take long to figure out that one little compost tumbler wasn't going to meet our needs. So Gerald got a couple of blue barrels from the community garden and cut an opening that opened and closed with hinges. Mike Yakos in Congress gave him these juniper posts.

 Then Gerald installed a rod running between the posts and hung the barrels from them. This allowed us to rotate the barrels to process the compost. Later, he painted them green.