Old

Heres a great old photo of our property when our place was an RV park.

LanderLand before it was LanderLand

The real Lander's, soon to be 90 and 88

More Plumbing

 Been working on and off the last 3 years building a small Straw Bale studio here in town. A cash as they go project. Last year was a big push finalized with a nice coat of cement stucco on the exterior.

View of the south west corner

Rubble trench, concrete bond beam, Rastra block (ICF, insulated concrete forms) stem walls with synthetic stucco. Post and beam straw bale infill wall system. Pella Pro Line Windows. Mueller R panel metal roof with metal facia, gutters and Hardi Soffit cement board fire proof panels.

A clean and tight, 400 square foot space with a wood stove and radiant heat.

We have been given the go head to do a little work each month so Satomi has started to apply earth plaster base coats on the interior. I will be looking at plumbing and electrical.

21 Steps

A step in the right direction, OK, a step in the wrong direction and down you go. What looked to be a nice job failed, the supports boards have all rotted. Our job will be to replace all 21 of them. This is for the same vacant Kingston owner that had us help remove the Moffit house. Lets just call this guy Bob. Bob has been a good client over the years but he met a gal, lets call her Val, and off he went to the city.

Should the horse shoes go?

This place went, The Moffit house before final tear down

Some folks in town felt the place had historic value and should have been saved, what do you think?

What house.....

Mexican Train

So last night was game night. Good company and good fun. 7 of us played a game called Mexican Train Dominoes. Heard of it but never played before. A simple game but with a quick witted group there were lots of laughs.

Today Satomi finished up cleaning the Moffit property. Tomorrow I phone for a pick up. The dumpster is completely full.

Other than that is was a not so busy day.

Not so busy

Today was a not so busy, busy day. Spent the morning making phone calls and emailing then drove to T or C. For those of you who don't know it's 45 miles. Closest stores. This trip was primarily to take the pick up and purchase 1200 pounds of washed plaster sand for workshops and plastering around LanderLand. A whole $13.75. $202 for groceries, $47.31 for gas and then the drive home.

While unloading the goodies the phone rang. A plumbing leak in town. Cabin owners from Florida showed up and found a broken pipe along with a cracked toilet. Damage from this bitter cold winter. An hour later I was done. Now what service is that, and to have the parts, I only charged them $50. What a deal. Did line up a toilet install and a porch re roofing job from them.

After that Satomi and I worked on the final stages of the Moffit house dumpster loading. That will be finished up tomorrow with just enough room left for a few of our bags.

Now it's off to neighbors for gaming night. Didn't really want to go but figure we had better make a appearance.

That means no Netflix's tonight.

Chaco being a rock hound and not to busy

Clouds weren't too busy today either except for this one

Earth and Stone Wall

Last month Satomi and I were hold up for two weeks in Sun Sites Arizona on an exterior Earth plaster job.

Across from the frequently visited Mini Mart we ran across this Real Estate Office's Cob wall

Shower Start

Another Timber Frame project that has been waiting for ten years is tiling the shower. Seems like this is the summer where it is all coming together. Tomorrow we grout the kitchen counters so really, the shower is the last big task left to complete. Today is the third day I have been working on the shower but the first day that tile has started.

I began the project by mixing up white thin set and floating out the walls square. Seems my framing and Durarock cement backer boards were not perfect enough. Next step was to begin installing the Stainless Steel Bull nose tile edging we had special ordered from Home Depot. check out www.schluter.com

Once the door way perimeter edging was set tile work began. First was the curb face baseboard. This was cut from left over 12x12 floor tile. Then the curb top had a base coat of thin set sloped inward at 1/4" per foot. Once set up the top of the curb quarry tile was installed. My day was done.

At days end

Tape and spacers hold it all together for the night

Looks to be all lined up

Close up of the Stainless Steel edging

Home made 45 degree saw jig

Friday

Our little Cacti decided to bloom

Then it rained and decided to close up. I guess thats all we get.

Satomi added yet another coat of colored lime plaster on our Timber Frame south walls

One more coat and she will be done

I'm done.....

Kitchen Tile

I have been waiting to post the progress on our kitchen counters until now. Today I set the last piece so I figured it was about time to let you all see. Sunday we will install the French Vanilla Mapei Opticolor  Epoxy grout. Now I'm moving on to tiling our shower.

Trim glued, taped, and clamped in place, first things first

Stainless steel tile edge next

Close up of trim and stainless edge

12 by 12 Marble tile in place

Sink set in for the visual

Kohler single hole 8 1/4" deep sink

Again, I'm now on to the shower tile so the drawers and door fronts will be completed later this year. Over ten years in the waiting!

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Lets see!

Lets see,

Today we finally had a rain, 0.6 inches

At least the rain gauge says 0.6 inches

Should bloom tomorrow

Love the shapes

On to shower

More of the same

A sign of the times?

No fish in the desert

About 2 this afternoon

 Every day we hope for rain but like everyday these dark clouds just passed us by.

Kitchen tile counters in process 

Added a gas line circuit for the kitchen. A change order!

Satomi's 15 degree was is complete, on to the next plaster job.

Nice colors

Tomorrow I work for others so our place is just going to have to wait....

More Work

I never know when a job will come my way or what I might be asked to do. A Swamp cooler, a trap door, whatever, except for appliance repair, I can do it all or at least I think I can. If I have trouble I have consultants, my guys. If I need a tool to do a job Satomi give's me permission to buy. On this job no new tools were required.

Removed a window and installed a cooler

On to the bathroom Trap Doors

The owner asked me if I could do something about the hole in her ceiling. A single door would have been to heavy so a modified trap door came to mind. Originally trap doors would be sprung to close on their own, at least according to Wikopedia....

Installed trap doors

Unlatched

Attic ladder in down position

All for now until the next job comes my way.....

Dumpster Progress

About full.

Beginning Pile

One of our neighbors, the guy who wanted the rough cut boards and who did most of the demolition spent the morning loading the dumpster. Satomi and I arrived around 10 and were totally shocked to see all the work that had been done. In the back of my mind I sort of thought the guy would do this.
 

Neighbors morning session

After Satomi's  6 hours 

About full

Artifacts

The last load