Premature furnishing

I couldn't resist. I've been picturing these old snowshoe chairs here for a long time, so thought I'd give them a try. Sure enough, they fit just fine. Of course they'll look better with real walls behind them....

Windows arrive!

The windows arrived a couple weeks ago. Thirty-three of them. Our Yakima house has eleven. Yikes.

Well, we wanted lots of natural light...as much as we could get into a two-story house without having a glass ceiling. (We DO have two functional skylights! They are there under the pretense of providing much-needed ventilation for this very tightly built home...but I'm delighted with the idea of being able to look up and see stars at night!!)

We chose Milgard windows. Clad in dark green fiberglass on the outside, and wood on the inside.

Good thing we were there when the truck arrived. Those 33 windows were heavy, and Larry (the builder) has a very bad back. So Don got to help unload them.

Now, if I can just get him to wash them, too...

The biggest adventure of our lives

Last night I mentioned to Don that building this house was probably the biggest adventure of my life.

He said he definitely felt the same way.

Between the two of us, we've led very full and satisfying lives. We've had the opportunity to see and do a lot of exciting and unusual things. We've both been pretty blessed.

That said, neither of us can think of any experience that tops this one. The project has consumed our thoughts (and money!) for more than four years; before we even bought the property, we were planning the house.

As we both head into retirement in Montana, I'm proud knowing that both Don and I have contributed significantly to our country, economy, and social passions over the past 30 years. Now, we're channeling a lot of that energy toward our OWN destination: Shorthorse.

A close-up look at our SIPS roof

This is Lizzie, our pit bull, posing atop one of the few scraps remaining from the construction of our roof, which is made of SIPS panels like the rest of the house. You're looking at a piece of dense styrofoam sandwiched between two pieces of 5/8" OSB. The roof panels are two inches thicker than the walls, providing extremely good insulation.

For more details about our SIPS-constructed house, read the earlier post titled SIPS: A Foam House.