Thanksgiving 2010 building project

We are putting in a tile hearth for the wood-burning stove.  Right now there's no heat because the furnace hasn't been installed yet, so we have tented off the area where we'll be working to try to warm things up a bit.  We are using space heaters and electric blankets to keep the floor and tile warm, since you don't want your thinset or grout to freeze before it has a chance to dry.

We're going to fill the area under the roof in with foam insulation, then cover it with tongue and groove aspen.  We will be building the staircase railings ourselves.

Applying the thinset, then the cement board that goes under the tile.  In spite of the space heaters, it was pretty cold.

We had cut and laid out the tile before driving up to Colorado, so at least we didn't have to do that on the job site.  When we started mixing the thinset, we discovered that we had left the mixing paddle at home, so we ended up mixing with a piece of board.  Sometimes you just have to improvise.  This was on Thanksgiving afternoon, and of course there were no stores open (actually there are no stores near Cuchara anyway).  We made a trip to the hardware store the next day.

After laying out the cement board, we let it dry overnight with several electric blankets on top.  We also put the tiles on top of the cement board to get them warmed up for the next day.  Then on Friday we laid the tile, and put it to bed with the electric blankets.

 It turned out pretty good, it's time to grout!

 Linda and I did the grouting, while Don made encouraging noises. 

It seems to me that there MUST be an easier way to make sure you get the grout all the way down into the cracks!

 We're done, it looks beautiful!

 I can't wait to see this with a wood stove sitting on top.

 This will be the kitchen, with the mud room behind.

This is the upstairs bathroom, complete with bathtub.

This is the basement.  The furnace will be installed in the equipment room (behind the studs).  The furnace stores heat in dense ceramic bricks, then releases the heat to warm the house.

The stairs going up from the basement.  They have a motion sensor so the garage light comes on whenever someone goes down the stairs.

 Another view of the equipment room.

Building the house part 4

Almost ready to put the roof on.  This is the gable for the garage entrance.

And now we have the standing seam roof!  Just in time, it's starting to snow!

These windows are for the two guest bedrooms.

We'll be painting the outside doors green to match the roof.  Eventually we may replace them with handmade doors, but for now they'll be fine.

The crew caulked and stained the outside of the house and also the inside corners since that all needed to be done before the winter.  We'll do the rest of the inside ourselves.

We are using tongue and groove aspen for the ceiling.  We'll also have foam insulation in between the roof and the ceiling to keep things nice and warm inside.

These upper level windows don't open, but they will be great for letting lots of light inside the cabin.  The windows on the back side will open, so we can get good air flow into the bedrooms.

One of the bedroom windows.

The staircase up to the mud room.  The smaller window is in the kitchen, over the sink.  The double window is in the living room.

Linda is really excited, this is the first time she's seen the house since the logs went up!

Cuchara is having a really mild Thanksgiving, most of the snow has melted and it's getting up into the 50's in the daytime.  Still down in the 20's at night, though.  We have come up to do a little work over the Thanksgiving holiday.

 Lots of wood left over for carving!

 The garage door works already, seeing it go up and down is a thing of beauty!



Cuchara/LaVeta area recreation

There are loads of recreational activities to do in the Cuchara/LaVeta area.  The LaVeta Mountaineer is a one-day excursion train that travels between LaVeta and Alamosa.  It looks like it would be fun, we plan on doing it sometime.  They do have a website:

Colorado Rio Grande Scenic Railroad

Another fun thing to do in the area is to visit the Sand Dunes, near Alamosa.  They are really incredible, but take your sunscreen and wear a good pair of shoes that you can walk in sand with!  They go for miles and miles.  We visited this place first back in the 1960's.  We still have some movies of David, my youngest brother, crying because they wouldn't let him climb!  Below is a picture of my niece Molly (David's oldest child), with her mom Leslie.  It was EXTREMELY windy the day these pictures were taken.

 David, with sons (my nephews) Ian and Chris.

 Now David is crying because he wants to go back to the car but the boys aren't ready to leave yet!

 Sand is really hard to run on!

It used to be a national monument, but now the Sand Dunes have been named a National Park.  They also have a website:
Great Sand Dunes National Park

There are lots of other things to do around Cuchara, but so far we haven't had a chance to do much because we spend all our time working on the cabin!  Eventually we'll get around to them, though.  There's lots of hiking, fishing, horseback riding, and they are now building a new zip line and alpine coaster.  They also plan to reopen the ski area.  Really looking forward to that!  There are also many good trails that you can cross-country ski.