Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Painting, tiling, packing, moving, baking, and blogging

Here's what we've been up to:

Packing - about a quarter of our household stuff is packed up (I'm not including large items of furniture as part of the "stuff"), and most of those boxes have been moved out to our new abode. The new abode is not yet ready to receive everything (or everyone), so family members have been taking turns doing watchman duty out there.

Rachel, Boo, and I do regular housework at home, and plan, and pack. Rachel and Boo also work on certain projects at the new house. They did lots of the wall painting, and today they are sanding and finishing our new kitchen cabinets (which Allen built earlier this week).

Allen, Russell, and Gus work out on the property most days, getting things set up for us. Their ongoing projects include: finishing the water system(digging ditches, laying pipe, filling ditches, completing the construction of the water tank), tiling the team house floor, installing kitchen cabinets, installing electrical outlets, etc. Unfortunately, Russell had a bad run-in with a wood planer this week, and has lots of stitches on two fingers of his left hand (and, of course, he's left-handed). This has kept Russell out of some of the messier construction work (he was previously heavily involved in laying floor tile in the team house and laying blocks for the water tank). He's staying busy, however, running errands, doing paperwork, and driving loads of household stuff back and forth to the new place.

Thanksgiving - Rachel and I have been trying to figure out how to squeeze an American-style Thanksgiving dinner into the schedule. We had decided to put off the dinner until after the move (we'd then have something extra-special to be thankful for), but the end of the move keeps creeping away from us, and so Thanksgiving is looking like it will merge in with Christmas, if we're not careful! Now we're discussing having a mini-Thanksgiving event this Sunday. If the elections are free and peaceful on Sunday it will certainly be a day to celebrate!

I took a couple of pictures of the interior of the bodega the other day - warning: this may be overwhelming to those of you who know that we are planning to live in this space very soon!
The bookcases you see in these photos are going to become the "walls" of our house. We have just over twenty bookcases, and we're plotting and scheming how to use them to best advantage. With our front door and front windows overlooking the rest of the house, privacy from outside is a major concern, as well as setting up privacy in the bedrooms!

Here's Boo, checking out the first of the new kitchen cabinets. I'm going to have loads of counter space in this kitchen - Allen thinks I deserve a perk like this now and again. Rachel and Boo are at the new house right now, sanding and then painting and staining the cabinets. At Rachel's request (and I agreed to it) the countertops will be a deep blue, and the rest of the cabinets will be stained to match our bookcases.

4 comments:

Missus Wookie said...

So sorry to hear about the stitches - hope the planer didn't do too much damage.

Bookcases make good walls. We found we needed to give ours insulation between them to make it a bit thicker. Really like your kitchen cabinet - of course it would fill one of my kitchen's walls but hey :)

Live Simply Love Strongly said...

I hope you are able to make the move soon. Happy Thanksgiving! I am also praying the elections are free and safe.

The Reader said...

Sorry about the planer injury, but glad to see so much progress over there! Praying for smooth elections, fast healing, and a quick, safe & easy move. Happy Thanksgiving, whenever you get to celebrate!

Bob Gleason said...

Beautiful! Exciting to see the progress. I remember looking at the property when it was all dirt! Glad to know you are getting plenty of counter space. With your gift of hospitality it seems right to have plenty of counters! And I love the 20 bookcases. Greet Allan and the kids for me. We'll be praying for the election coming up.

Bob