Here is the page for the pictures that Bruce took of our house in the snow. They are very nice. We were up there again the weekend of the 23rd. If you want to see details of all the walls and wiring and stuff look here.
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Category: Pokie
Sam had his first ski lesson. It went VERY well. Margaret had a lesson as well. After her lesson, she was skiing much better. (I think a little encouragement from having Sam do well was a good thing). They are both riding the lift now. Katy and I skied most of the day, then Elizabeth and Katy skied for a while. While they were skiing, Sam, Margaret, and I played in the snow near the Ice Bar. They showed off their new skiing abilities and I watched. Katy is now faster than Elizabeth (but that is not saying a whole lot).
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Construction Update
More progress on the construction. The rough electrical is supposed to be done on Thursday. The plumbers are supposed to be there right now. The fireplace is (mostly) in. The gypcrete gets poured starting on the 23rd. Then insulation and drywall.
We also got a couple of small benches/walls near the front door. The masonry is pretty much done. They will return and do the landing in front of the door in the spring.
We went to Tahoe again for the week between Christmas and New Years. It was an interesting week. We were able to see our house without scaffolding up around it. We went to a lighting store. I was able to get all of the communications wire run in the house. We had a flood. It rained a lot. We spent a lot of time in the dark.
We spent most of the week there with the Schwartz’s. As always, it was mostly good fun. However, I woke up early Saturday morning and stepped in a big puddle of water on the way to the bathroom. The bottom floor of Bruce’s house flooded because of all of the rain and the fact that the culvert up the street was not working. Then about 11am that day, we lost power. There was lots of rain, lots of roads were closed including I-80. The next morning we woke up and still had no power, so we left. Only to get back to Los Gatos and not have power for a little over another day. Somehow, all of this was my fault. [Now, after 60 hours without power, we have electricity again, and Rusty is not in trouble.]
The most amazing thing about the house not having scaffolding up around it anymore, was not how it looked from the outside, but how it looked from the inside. Now you can actually see how nice it will be inside once we get it done. In the great room, it seems like you are pretty much standing outside because of all of the big windows.
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Construction Update
Elizabeth went up to Tahoe to check on the construction. Things are continuing to move along. The outside of the house is pretty much wrapped up. The scaffolding came down on Tuesday. The plumbers and electricians are in doing their rough in. I will go up after Christmas and do my rough in work. Elizabeth also thought that the house needed a wreath on it. Bret needed his picture on the site as well.
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Windows In
Here it is late November and we have been incredibly lucky with the weather. ALL the windows are finally in. They are scurrying to get the siding up and everything done to get the scaffolding down before the big snows arrive. The other roadblocks are the gutters on the front and the heat system for the roof. The garage door should go up soon. The plumber was busy running gas pipes and getting the vents and all finished.
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It’s Coming Along
Elizabeth is up in Tahoe tonight to meet with people tomorrow and check on things. She has sent me a few pictures. Looks like some rain tomorrow and snow tomorrow night. We may get the rest of our windows on Thursday, but we’ll see. I am excited because I got one of these for the guys to use this winter.
Update: I was a bit disappointed that the house doesn’t look that different – the siding is about the same color as the plywood, and the roof is the same color as the felt. I was expecting a more dramatic change. The decking material is down, though, and it looks really good for fake wood. It matches the house very, very well. The scratch coat for the stucco is up, and it is gray so it looks like concrete right now and is not overly attractive. It will improve next summer when the brown-colored final coat goes on. The snow blower, however, is red and shiny and lovely. – Elizabeth
Update2: A few more pictures now that Elizabeth is back.
We went up to Tahoe this weekend to check on the construction. We got snow!!! It was only a couple of inches and it was gone by the afternoon, but it was fun none-the-less. The construction continues to move along. We got the windows for the downstairs and they are all in and mostly all trimmed. The roof has been “dryed in”. Which means it has felt down and is waterproof, but doesn’t have the shingles or the heating stuff in yet. We are still waiting for the windows for the great room and the top floor. Elizabeth and I spent a good deal of time running wire through the garage. Hopefully, it will be dry walled soon as they start really buttoning the house up.
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The Castle
More pictures of the house as it turns into a castle. We took all the furniture from the house next door up to Tahoe and put it in storage so that it will be there when we need it.
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Construction Update
This is Steve, one of two of the foremen, on the roof at Tahoe. Both Steve and Galen are terrific carpenters and highly photogenic, but Steve wanted his picture on the website, so he got front page. If you click on the photo, another 75 photos of the house and crew will show up.
I went up to the house for the day last Friday, while Rusty watched the kids and slept off his trip to the Gulf Coast. As you can see, things have come a long way. The house is big. Really big. And beautiful, too. It’s better looking (and bigger) than I had pictured it. Still a long way to go, but it finally looks like a house (or a castle, as I think the locals have taken to calling it).