new house projects | Cabin Mama Humor

I must apologize for being so absent these past few months! We’ve had a busy summer and fall with weeks worth of company, a move into our new home, cleaning the old house and coordinating showings to prospective buyers. I’m happy to say we now have a buyer and, fingers crossed, we’ll close in a few weeks. It’s been a long slog, for sure!

But we’re now settled into the new place and have (almost) found a place for everything we moved over here. Doug can finally get all our vehicles into the garage!

What We Learned Along the Way

First, we should have cleaned out the old house of all our non-essentials before we moved. We tried to get rid of the old stuff, but ended up moving most of it over to the new house. Then we went through the painstaking process of sorting through everything and making a number of trips to Goodwill. We’re not done yet. There’s still a few more loads to go!

It’s amazing how much “stuff” we had! I won’t bore you by listing it all, but suffice it to say we filled numerous truckloads. At some point we looked at each other and said:

Me: I wish we’d cleared all this stuff out of our old house sooner.

Hubby: Why didn’t you tell me to get rid of all this stuff before we moved?

Second, we shouldn’t have put our old house on the market as soon as we did. We were planning on a “best case” scenario in terms of timing. (We’re such silly people!)

We had hoped our new house would be built much earlier than it did, but noooooo! In addition to a few other items, there was a problem getting concrete work done on a retaining wall that delayed us over a month. A month!

Then we failed our first inspection and had to fix some things. One of them was a pane of glass that needed to be replaced in an upstairs bathroom. The window was one and one half inches too low and close to the shower and required tempered glass in both the upper and lower panes. (Just in case whoever was in the shower would feel compelled to leap out of the tub and fall into the window.) Trouble was, the upper pane was not tempered. Lo and behold, we couldn’t get the glass quickly — it was on backorder! So we waited two weeks for this dinky little pane of glass to arrive before we could re-schedule the inspection.

FINALLY we passed the followup inspection, got our Certificate of Occupancy from the Building Department and started the big move!

Appliance Adventures

Once we were into the new house, you should have seen us trying to get used to our new appliances!

The new clothes washer is fully digital with a locking lid and a HUGE drum. The first time I used it, the darned thing got off balance and tried to wiggle its way out from between the stationary sink and the wall. I couldn’t figure out how to get the lid to unlock so I could re-balance the load. I started whining about how I wanted my old washing machine back from the old house. We were seriously considering swapping out the new appliances for the old. Eventually, I calmed down and figured I’d try to get used to the mechanics. I reasoned it’s better to have a brand new washing machine than one that’s 15 years old. (Or is it?)

Our next adventure was figuring out how to start the dishwasher. Do you think it occurred to us to open up the booklet of directions? Nope. We figured it couldn’t be that difficult. So we experimented by fingering our way across the panel of digital “sensors” and finally hit upon the one that started things up. Once you hit the Power button there are 14 different options to choose from to get the kind of wash you want. Then you hit the Start sensor. But you’d better be quick about slamming the door shut because it only gives you four seconds before it shuts down. Then you have to start the whole process over again!

Finally we figured it out but we didn’t hear anything happening. So there’s Doug and me leaning over with our ears pressed against the dishwasher listening for water sloshing around inside. It seemed like minutes had passed with the two of us crouched over waiting for sounds that signaled success! Now that we know what to expect, it’s old hat.

Home Sweet Home

It feels good to be in our new home after years of going through the building process. Our marriage is still intact despite the construction issues that cropped up. Our kitty Snickers has settled in and initiated our new carpet with a number of thrown-up hairballs. We’re getting used to the sound of the heater coming on, which makes us feel like a jet aircraft has launched from our rooftop.

And the house I had built after the wildfire will now belong to someone else. Hopefully they will enjoy it as much as we did.

We’re home now and we’re blessed!

Never in my life would I have imagined I’d be taking pictures of a septic tank. But here we are! Doug decided to take his do-it-yourselfer skills to the next level by installing a septic system for our new house. Estimated date of house completion is December 2023.

Boy it’s been quite the journey!

At first there were the measurements. I never knew you’d need to be so specific when dealing with, well, you know. But it does. You need precise locations to get the right flow (again, too much information) and location of trenches.

He used his BMS (“big measuring stick” in Laura language) to get the right elevations so we knew where the tank and pipes should go. We trudged to and fro across that property to get the locations just right. I helped by carrying the BMS, moving from spot to spot so he could take shots. No, there was no drinking involved, although if you watched me from a distance you’d think I was tipping a few. I staggered around the property for hours.

It was important to be accurate.

Doug: Ok, go stand right next to that clump of wood.

Me: Which clump?

Doug: The one I just showed you.

Me: Okay, I found it.

Doug: Now turn the rod (not stick) so the numbers are facing me. Move it to the right just a little bit.

Me: Is this better?

Doug: I mean lean it to the right. After that, walk in a straight line over to the next spot where I dug an X in the dirt.

Me: Where? There’s more than one “X” down here. (I could hear the sigh from yards away.)

Doug: Walk two yards to your right, then stop at that big log. Next you’re going to move west to the orange stake, then two feet south…

And so it went. He was very sweet to tell me how much he appreciated my help and how he couldn’t have done it without me.

But the next day he bought a laser level that would send a green light from the transmitter on a tripod to the receiver attached to the BMS. I was out of a job.

Back at the house, little baggies of soil appeared all over the kitchen, deck and dining room table. He weighed lumps of dirt for weeks.

Then he sifted. Did you know there are specially designed sieves to filter dirt? Yep, bigger lumps would remain on the larger sized screen, then the rest would fall to the next smaller size and so on. It was like watching a baker create a cake but without the frosting. In the meantime he measured the percentage of big stones and fine dirt to get a mix that met the standards. This would thrill the county inspectors, so accuracy was important.

You can imagine our dinner conversations.

Earlier he had removed the old septic tank. By hand! It was a big concrete box about the size of an elephant. He dug around it ’til he could get the tractor bucket underneath to lift it out and then hauled it away in pieces. (Yes, the tank was empty, in case you were wondering.)

After the hole for the new tank was dug, we drove up to Denver to get it. It looked like a big black plastic caterpillar 15’ long x 5’ wide and x 5’ high. I gave my husband a lot of credit for rigging a lift to move that tank to and from the trailer.

There was this one little mishap when he asked me to move the truck forward S L O W L Y so he could nudge the swinging tank into place. But I had missed that last part. The truck lurched (on its own, of course) and the thing swung around and almost knocked my long-suffering husband off the trailer — “head over tea kettle” as my gramma would say. (Oops, so sorry honey!) Then he repeated the whole process to drop the tank in the ground at the site. This time he kept me a safe distance away. For him and for me.

But the work wasn’t done yet.

While I was snuggled up at home in front of the fire (like the lazy girl I am), he was out ’til the late hours digging and laying pipe. But he said he liked it. Yes, really! He loved getting dressed up in his quilted overalls, heavy coat and beanie to go play in the dirt. I couldn’t talk him out of it.

“Honey, are you sure you want to go over there in the dark with these freezing temperatures? Can’t it wait until morning?”

“Nope. I’ll be fine. It’s really not that cold once I get working.”

He grunted, beat his chest, then lumbered out of the house towards the tractor and shouted “Hi-Yo Silver!” as he drove away.

All the men in my family were eager to help Doug dig. That’s what they said anyway. Secretly they wanted to run the excavator. You could almost hear them in their manliest moments growling like Tim “The Tool Man.”

Then it was finished. The time had finally come to extend an invitation for the County to come out and inspect. And they loved it! Well, maybe I’m being too generous. They probably grunted, checked our names off a list and drove away saying “We’ll catch ya next time!”

New Home Sweet Home

What We Learned Along the Way

Appliance Adventures

Home Sweet Home

Doug’s Manly New House Project