Back to the house.......

Got home on Monday to find that JJ (Jimmy's godson,) and his friend that we hired for the last big push to finish the house, had done all the re-bar and tubing for the radiant heat on the downstairs back porch.....ready for pouring cement.

Quick trip!

Friday before noon we left for a quick trip to Ft.Worth for the wedding of our
SORTA child....beautiful little Leanne Black. Rick's daughter. After some line dancing and cutting the cake, at Billy Bob's, Club 81...we had to get going,
Leaving early for Lubbock to pick up the crown molding and corbels, etc. for the house. Back to Alto and parked by 5:00pm.

In the meantime.....we've ordered the elevator and chose the stain color for the ceiling beams.....

YAY! They started the American Clay!....

They started applying the American Clay on the ceiling......it looks really great, but while cleaning up the machine hopper at the end of the day....it broke.
So if you've ever seen "Ferris Buehler's Day Off" it feels kinda like that......false start!
Supposed to get the parts on Monday, so stay tuned for more results.....

Black Walnut Fireplace Mantels.....

Next was choosing the fireplace mantels.
Gorgeous, huh?

Next was the tongue and groove ceilings on the front and back porches!

With friend, David.

Last Day of Skiing!

A friend from Ft. Worth, David, came to get the last days of skiing in for the season......the snow was melting fast with days in the 50s and 60s....but ther was still enough for fun!

Beams are in!

The beams in my barrel ceiling of the main room are in.....now just have to stain them!

Showers and tubs are ready for the tile!

Spring Skiing at Ski Apache.........

Okay, this picture wasn't taken this year....but it was one of the past years!

Thinset.........

Thursday, (my birthday), the contractor from Albuquerque who does the Thinset (self-levelling concrete, very thin, like muddy water) drove down and they poured the last stage, covering up Jimmy's tubing......

Feeding the deer!

I looked out on day to see about a dozen of my minions waiting for me outside the bus, so I walked over and got the bucket of food.
They are still a little skittish, but this one little brave buck (8points, by my count) just looked me in the eye and walked right up and ate right out of my bucket! I was sooooo sweet. I wanted to pet him, but I thought he might freak out and hurt me with those antlers!

Elevinia, Blanca and Vicente Fox!

Totally out of the blue, Elevinia (my sorta daughter) and Blanca, my friend, were at Hulen Mall in Fort Worth and ran into Vicente Fox! (the former president of Mexico)

Final tubing

The final tubing is done upstairs and waiting for the thinset concrete to be poured.

Finally seeing some progress......

They have started stuccoing the outside of the house, the inside of the house is being painted with the first coat of Kilz, prepping for the American clay (Plaster), and Jimmy is measuring the outside walls for the stone around the edges, the stucco has to cure for a month before they add the color.
And last, but not least....my first kitchen cabinet!!! The rest are in the garage, waiting, but this one has a toe kick on the base for the central vacuum system.

unloading the granite.......

With the help of Bobby Serna's granite grabber thingie....Jimmy, Paul, Donald and Jay.....and the Backhoe, they unloaded the granite slabs into a "rack"
they built...boy, I didn't realize how pretty, in the sunlight, they were!!

Pictures of some of the granite..........

 

Have Granite will travel!

Jimmy and our friend Paul, left out for Vegas on Monday morning, got to the granite shop and got loaded on Tuesday and are headed home via Albuquerque, so they can pick up the bags of American Clay (a sort of plaster for the inside of the house) and be home on Wednesday.

Railings arrived!

Today was a busy day....they brought my railings up from El Paso.
Found a great company named "ELITE", they do wroght iron, etc.
they are great.....nice design work and really fast. I wanted classy, but not too "frou frou".
Jimmy had forgotten to tell them that the floor level ws going to be different because of the Radiant floor heat tubing.....so they popped out a welder and fixed it! really cool...I think we'll be using them in the future.

Rack for Granite slabs!

Jimmy welded together a rack of steel to carry the granite slabs back from Las Vegas that we found when were at the builder's convention. We borrowed the flatbed trailer from a friend and bolted the steel to the floor. Jimmy is planning to pick up 9 slabs (what'd'ya want to bet he shows up with 10?) Our friend from Santa Teresa, Paul, is going along for the ride.

Front door arrives

Got my front door in today!

Tape and Bedding finishing touches.............

Sheetrock being done!

Choosing tiles and colors for the bathrooms.....Whew! What a chore!