New Marineau in Clan and not much on the Hill

I haven't been to Mystery Hill in a week. The cement floor in the garage got done but it rained the night it was poured, so unfortunately it's not as perfectly smooth as Seb would like. I say "good nuff"... its a garage after all! The garage is almost framed and Seb has been working on the front porch. Next we do the screened porch. All of these need to get done so we can get the steel roof on before the snow comes. Then the doors and windows get installed.

The property and the house continue to amaze me. I'm making small steps on design decisions and its all good. That's one advantage of this pace, I have lots of time to consider my options.

On a completely different track, Seb and I got to meet our new nephew "Luca" on Saturday night. At ten days old, he was pretty darn fabulous. I thought Chloe was small but she's a heavy weight in comparison! He's a sleepy quiet agreeable baby. Even scared Uncle Seb was happy to hold him.

Mystery Hill - getting ready for cement in garage

On Saturday, I dropped by the Hill with Seb's lunch and took a few pictures. The first thing to note is that the second floor of the garage is almost finished including the shed dormer. This room is going to be an amazing space, although we have no immediate plans to do anything with it. You'll also note that the garage is a major storage area for wood. On Sunday, Seb and I cleared it out to get ready for the cement work which happens today.

Cat Guarding Food

Here's Murphy keeping an eye out for cat food thieves. He finds the best way to guard the food is a fully physical approach. Here he manages to combine guard duty with some relaxation time.

Details, details...

It occurred to me today that when it comes to reporting on Mystery Hill, I'm all about appearances. And as such, I blog on the visual changes at the property. But there might be people who read my blog instead of Seb's because he never updates his (not even to link to mine...) and at least, with mine, they get some news on our progress.

So for this audience in particular, I have this to say: We have electricity at the site. We also have two wells. (Two are required for geo thermal heating.) And even better, the water pressure is very good, as measured in gallons per minute or some such thing. I really have no idea what I'm talking about. If Seb read my blog, he could post a comment to correct and augment my posting. Don't hold your breath :-)

We also have a quote (read expensive) for our septic system. To meet code, you have to meet standards based on number of toilets with no measure for number of inhabitants. In other words, our 4 bathroom house will have a very large system for two occupants :-)

Time to eat more bran. (Ack, can you believe I just said that?)

Jacob A's 7th...

One of my brother-in-laws is turning 7 years old this week. He only speaks French. But despite our differences in age and language, we manage really well. We spent a few hours together yesterday afternoon, mostly shopping and running errands. (Nous allon a la magasin pour cafe. Apres ca, nous allons a la magasin pour video). He says my french is not that bad. Not so bad that he needs to learn English. Here he is pictured with Murphy in a box and at dinner at Mexi's.

More from the Hill....

I was at Mystery Hill today in my ongoing quest for the perfect colour for siding. (Sad when the kid working the desk at the paint store recognizes you and welcomes you with "Again?") Yesterday we tried a derivative of Iron Mountain with less brown in the formula but the result came off very green. Today I bought a gallon of the original Iron Mountain and painted the garage wall. I became optimistic about IM a few days ago when the construction team used my colour panels for, of all things, construction. So there is a piece of IM over the front door and I realized that I like it on its own, as opposed to in comparison to other colours. Anyways, unless something significant occurs, we're going the Iron Mountain road.

These pictures show the progress on the house this week. The two main areas of progress -- the second floor of the garage is underway. Yippee! And the cement was poured for the screen porch floors and for the soner (sp?) tubes holding up the various decks and porches.

Imagine it finished, with a steel roof and Iron Mountain (aka dark gray) siding. Fabulous... :-)