KitchenAid Comes Home

At long last, the fridge moved into it's rightful place in the kitchen today. This built in fridge with the compressor on the top weighs a ton so, it was very hard work for the 2 guys we hired and in our small kitchen it was a very tight squeeze but, it is DONE!

Then and Now

Here's a look at "Then" Summer 2006 to compare with the "Now" Below. Yes, it IS the same space.

Painting Down in A's World

So we are back to painting down in A's space; this time ceilings and brick walls. Starting to shape up. Waiting now on delivery of some flooring material mostly. Doing odds and ends in the meantime. When the snow is gone A. will remove and renovate the old metal cabinets in the mini-kitchen. Here's a peak at the bedroom area and close ups of the brick and some of the craggy exposed granite.

Kitchen March '06 & March '07

As of this morning, the kitchen project has been "signed off" on by the building inspector (the electrical inspector having signed off last Friday). Also,how fitting, since it was a year ago today that Baird and I saw the house and put in our offer! Imagine --- a whole year has flown by! Well, it looks quite different. Here's some Then & Now kitchen pics just for haha's.

The Pond is Filling Up

The Democratic Party Pond is filling up. While I reveled in Barack's announcement last week, I fairly cringed with Hilary's this weekend. I have never bee n a Hilary fan and I fear that if both she and Barack seek the nomination they will be splitting votes and will make a clear choice much less likely. Could even open the door for some dark horse Dem and that in turn could leave the door open more widely for a Republican president in '08. But, what do I know? A political expert I am definitely not. Bottom line -- I just plain don't want to see her run; don't want to listen to her or to reports about her (or Bill) and don't want any distractions from Obama, a candidate that (so far as I can see to date) is one amazing guy. Someone the world MIGHT actually listen to! Well, we'll wait to see what Barack has to say "officially" on Feb 10. In the meantime, I'll follow the politics from my "arm chair" and keep surfing the real estate listings in Costa Rica, just incase :-)

In other areas:

Will the Patriots win tonight? I seldom watch football but the Pats are in the playoffs... so... like any good Massachusian, I tuned in last week, will tonight.. and we'll see about the Super Bowl.

As for the house, A. is closing in on the cellar project and Ben is installing cement board in our main bathroom so it can be tiled (floors and 43" high on the walls). I have been doing a lot of experimentation with art stuff but you'll have to click on the Terra Nova Design blog if you want to see pics of that part of my life.

Roof, Cats and Old Friends

That about sums up today. It started with Ben and Brett working some more on the roof while Baird and I loaded refuse from a few different house projects into his van for 3 dump runs.

Later, as the sun poured through the living-room bay window, the cats sunbathed and had a friendly sibling spat over who was going to get the biggest sunny spot. King Arthur won, over the young upstart, Merci while Surely looked on, too cool for such silliness.

Mid-afternoon, Baird and I headed over to Stephentown, NY to visit my childhood friend Nancy and her husband Tim at their get-away cabin in the woods. Back home at 10:30...ahhhh...what a good day it was. Now for a warm bed........

Arrival of the Hood

It's here and is in process of being installed -- our Sirius professional stainless steel range hood, as required by the inspector for our awesome Craig's List deal professional grade 5 burner Miele gas range. That's one "interesting" thing about some of the great deals on Craig's List... something like the required hood costs 2X the item you originally got the deal on. Oh well... I love it... it's superbly awesome.

Anyway, Ben and Brett have been working on installing it and will complete their part of the install tomorrow. Once they are done I will install slate on the cement board/walls, under and around hood like the rest of the back splash and counters. Yipee!!
Only the built-in refrigerator installation is left to go on the kitchen project.

October 21, 2006 in Pictures

Another busy weekend with some fun tossed in.

Big Week

It's been a busy week here at Sweetside. Significant progress is being made on Aaron's space and the tool room in our basement. Aaron, with the help of Ben, Julian, Steve & Sam has made some good headway.


With some help from Baird I have begun to get our tool room set up. We rebuilt the work table and work bench (both of which had been dismantled in Shutesbury and brought here). I also painted the floor bright yellow, just like it was in Shutesbury.





This past week we also cut down a dead tree of some sort in the Sweetside garden and I planted several shrubs. Gotta love the end of the season close out time at the local nurseries, like the Hadley Garden Center.














Then, Friday was Jess's 22 BD; they came here for desert after having dinner in NoHo.




Today we put away yard decorations and such and then I planted some daffodils. Afterwards Baird and I were installing storm windows when the huge red tail hawk paid us another visit. This time he (she?) flew across our driveway onto the lowest branch of a large maple tree, only a few feet from our front window where Baird was working.

I was on the inside of our window installation job, so I grabbed my camera and joined him outside. The hawk flitted between our 3 large trees out front, stalking 2 squirrels. See it hiding in the leaves on the left side of the tree in the picture? It just patiently hopped from branch to branch until one of the squirrels finally made a run for it. The hawk then swooped down and snagged it. It sat perched on top of it until it was sure it was dead and then flew off carrying it in it's talons, into the wooded area across the street. This whole time both of us were right there, only about 20' away, and I was snapping pictures. It kept looking at me, somewhat curiously, perhaps a bit menacingly, but it was not going to let me deter it from having it's mid afternoon meal.

I never let my cats outside but after this, I certainly never will!