Sawdust in My Lip Gloss

Update #8 Sawdust In My Lip Gloss
Summer 2016 - Early December 2016

What a year it has been!

We did some traveling this year! Ireland and Scotland were toured twice this year for my ghost tour trips I do there.( Celtic Crossing Tours ) We did have a week at the beach this past summer with family and my youngest sister got engaged, so that was pretty cool. We had a great trip to Put in Bay Ohio for my middle sisters birthday, multiple ghosthunts and events in 6 states that I held and oh yeah, that horrific flood that happened June 23.

If you didn't know, West Virginia suffered a 1000 year flood event. Our new house, and the old one as well, were fine. Others around us did not do so well. Our office suffered nearly 2 feet of water in the lower garage area but our houses were fine. It was horrific driving across the state and seeing the damage there. Recovery is still going on in many areas.

These are some flood photos from the area near us and bordering our county.

             

 

            

          This was a road near us...

Yes. It was bad and we were so very lucky to not lose part of the new house.

We were lucky as we are on the side of a hill and our elevation is about 2100 ft.

Construction continued thru rain, heat and humidity.

Basement windows were cut out and went in.

Perry did most of the work knocking and cutting thru the 12 inch basement cinder block.

Sometimes we worked by the truck headlights at night.

If that ain't country!

That was my job.

 Sit in the truck with the headlights aimed at Perry. :-) 

A tough job but somebody's gotta do it, right?

Fall was here and the days were getting shorter, but oh....those sunsets!

Even from the basement window, it was beautiful. 

We had entered year #3 and all I wanted to do

was paint and buy furniture!!!!

Waterproofing the basement was a job I took on. 

DO you know how much waterproofing it takes to do a 4000 sq foot basement? 

Well, to be honest, I didn't have to do ALL of the walls but I did have to do 2-3 coats on the exterior walls and the product had to be hand brushed on.

Yes, hand brushed on. And its like this really, thick heavy mortar type stuff that gets mixed with water. UGH. It was hard work but I tried to view it as a type of cheap therapy that left my fingers numb and my neck and arms sore...but at least it was therapeutic, right? 

75 gallons later and it is DONE!

Framing continued on the 1st and 2nd floor.

SAWDUST got everywhere!

Even in my lip gloss.

I continued framing. I was noticing that I could use the

 airgun nailer with only one hand now instead of having to use two hands. 

 That came in handy because I used the other hand to pick sawdust outta my lip gloss and wipe the mascara off my sweaty sunburned face.

We did some help on a couple of days. Perry's nephew Jack and his friend 

Shane came and helped on a couple of occasions.

I was still framing and some days, I had some help.

I made sure to help Perry as much as I could when he worked the equipment like the Bobcat. Here I am supervising from my gator seat as he dug.

While I was off leading ghosthunts and haunted history tours,

 Perry was home doing this.

                                   

On many of my trips out of state, I would pick up 40-50 

2x4x8's as they were cheaper than what we could pay locally in West Virginia.

 It's amazing what the ghost mobile could hold!

 Perry's truck delivered a few loads as well.

The framing was looking great!

During mid October we somehow acquired a redbone coonhound.

 Perry and my dad found him at the new house one afternoon.

 He was skin and bones and just plain scared. He decided to "keep" us and has put on weight and some character. How can a dog chew on so many things?

Hank MacGregor has adjusted to us and even comes to the job site with us on nice days.

Friends and family swing by to see the progress on occasion.

Hopefully they bring beer or pizza. :-)

We worked on framing the center of the core of the house on the first floor.

Then we had to cover that in plywood. At night....of course.

 My arms got a great workout, that's for sure!

We built the framing for the Great Room and measured for windows and headers. There will be no logs in that room as it is mostly windows and doors.

Perry acting goofy in the Great Room. 

Steps to the 2nd floor went in as well.

I'm not sure how much lumber we have put up so far all I can say 

is it feels like a fortress in there at times.

We did a lot of work at night using big 500 watt lights. This was the Great Room.

Engineer Husband Perry decided we need more workers one evening, so he cloned himself which is clearly evident in this photo. (haha)

December had arrived and we were worried about the weather. 

Log delivery would be coming on December 2nd 2016!

Stay tuned....

Perry & Sherri