making mud built to last

The holidays (and their hangover) are behind us. We are well into our winter routines and despite the cold, it feels good. Tilt is still working on a remodel job elsewhere during the day, but in the evenings he has penciled himself in as our home builder. I am lending a hand as much as I can with a Mr. Three year old in tow. I answer over 100 "why" questions every day. Fortunately he really likes to "build things." He is working things out in his mind, sometimes he thinks that his Daddy builds everything we own. He asked me this morning "How did Daddy build our car?" And it seems that while Daddy "builds" things, Mommy "makes" things.

It is gooey and dusty, spread with a blade and smoothed with sand. Spreading mud is the name of the game at our house right now. A little bit more goes up every evening. It is great to see walls on the main level. Tilt has decided to build our kitchen cabinets rather that order them made. I am especially excited about this because I get to help with design. Our kitchen is not big so it will have to be very efficient with every space being a useful space. We will use wood that was cut into boards from the largest of the logs milled up for the timber frame. Finally we finished our lighting plan. I am ordering some very small (2 1/2 inches in height) low voltage recessed lights for the main story. I am very excited about these lights. Previously, I was resigned to the fact that such small recessed lights did not exist. Our floor system is only 2 x 4 construction above the timber frame so there is not much space for lighting. After searching the web several times I finally came across a Canadian company that has them. While so much is moving forward, we are already faced with maintenance! The windows are getting so wet with the house drying out that I am cleaning and drying the wood every day. It is super frustrating to see some mold forming on a new window. We were not able to seal them immediately because of the cold weather and now we are paying for it.

We needed a coat rack in the basement so we decided to make it a family project. It gave me a chance to use the lathe (reminding me of how much I love turning). Then Glenn worked with Keaton to "build" it with the things I "made" for it (Tilt did turn some too). Alas we have another spot to hang all of the winter stuff. It has been cold. We have a lot of gear!