Living a dream come true.

Front view of my little house...trailer in the back. 

Jeff working under the back porch.

back porch 

back porch

Front porch

omg I love this part...the front porch and the living area

connected by the sliding glass windows gives you the feeling of

being inside and outside.

Transformer's. 

Jesse worked hard and a lot of hours hooking up

the power from the transformer to the house.   The light

company turned off the power while Jesse worked on it and

then returned hours later to restore the electricity.

The house is now hooked-up ! 

Peninsula Light guys

didn't like my flowers in front of their transformer.

this is the metal container that fits inside my flower box

under my kitchen window. 

for good drainage.

 

history continued ...

 

I last left off with progress being made on the Vaughn property. 

We now had county approval on the drive-way, septic, water

and power.  My son and his cat, Sammy, moved his ram shackled trailer

 from Tacoma to the property

 and the move was on !

 

I retired from Echo Lake Lodge to focus on the Colorado house

and make plans for building a house in Vaughn.  I made great friends and memories

during my time on this wonderful mountain...Mt. Evans.

 I continued to work with Andrew and in Special Education at the high school

while making plans to retire in May of 2010.

 

The first of four U-Haul truck loads was about to leave Colorado

and head for Washington State.

 

to be continued ...

 

 

 

 

Primed and ready

Gifts from my family

 

textured and ready for a coat of primer  

Tully is the name of  my painter, a photo of him will follow later.

He primed the entire inside of the house.

looks great !  Tully will be back to paint the inside and the

outside of the house when the appliances and cupboards

and fixtures are in place. 

The fireplace..

the square hole in the wall is the result of an audible

we had to make on my adorable wood burning stove. 

With only 880 square feet of living space,

 the wood burning stove would  have melted my roof....so,

 a Kozy Heat fireplace will now be installed.

And, here comes Matt and Sean to install that fireplace.

Matt will climb into the chimney area to install the

chimney pipe. 

followed by the chimney cap 

and now I have a chimney 

and, now I have a fireplace..Matt and Sean 

Looks a bit new age....needs a hearth,

accessories .. I'll  have to work on that.

 

In the meantime ...

Joe Millie has my cabinets and doors ready for my viewing.

They look  really good and I can't believe they are going into my new house. 

Maple wood, they are just lovely.  

kitchen drawers 

And, My Lazy Susan...or as Joe calls it... Lazy Sam.

Everything is complete and ready for installation, as soon

as the floors are in...a week or so.

 

history continued ...

 

I last off with my realtor finding a couple who wanted to buy my Colorado home,

but let me go back a smidge ...

while readying my house for the market, I directed my focus on the

Vaughn property, too.  My son and I decided we needed a garage to store everything

we would be bringing from Colorado and a place for him to start his work.

But, we needed a better drive-way, septic, water and power to just get started.

 

I hired Abba Backhoe and Dozing to begin the drive-way.  The lady who runs this

company, Pam, is competent and now a friend..she helped me with all of the county issues and permits, which were many !  The drive-way had to be so many feet across so Perma-built could

get their trucks up to build the garage.  The first attempt to widen the road was not good enough so Abba had to come back in and rework the road to satisfy the county regulations.  Along with widening the road they needed to put in a paved entry area.  This in itself took time and lot's of money...but at last the road was approved !

  Now, on to the septic, power and water.  The water hook up was easy as was the power....the septic, however, took two attempts to satisfy the county regulations. 

 

 Did I mention my neighbor was not happy about all of this?  I had been absent for over 35 years (always checking in when I was in the area and always telling them I would be back some day) but...I don't think they thought I would ever move back.

One early morning the bulldozing started and they knew I was about to start the building process.

Over time my neighbor got over it and welcomed the sun now shining through the trees in the area of the new drive-way.  The drive-way use to be narrow and dark and a car could barely make it up let alone a truck...we now had a beautiful drive, water, power and septic.  Perma-built could now come

in and build the garage.

A friend gave me the name of a builder in the area and we started to dialogue about building me

a house. 

 

to be continued ...

 

  

 

 

 

Meet the 'finishers' ... ready to paint !

A moment of thanks ...

to my beautiful and amazing Universe. 

last of the tyvek ! 

Jeff is under the tyvek carefully tacking it down

finishing the siding 

 

After Hank finished hanging the drywall,

Don and Daryl arrived on the job..they are the 'finishers' 

they enjoy their work 

and, 

just like all the folks working on my house, they were just great !

ready for the mudding and texturing 

looks awesome ! 

Now ready for priming...tomorrow.   I have chosen my exterior paint colors

and am very excited...now what color to paint the inside ??

Look at my porch and railings....so cute !!!!!

 

history continued ...

 

I last left off laying the ground work to ready my Colorado house for the market.

Bought a nice extension ladder to reach the high beams in the house so I could

caulk and repair and paint this beautiful 3,000 square foot house.  I spent many weeks

getting my house ready to dazzle the public and a possible buyer.  I first listed the house

on Craigslist and had a couple of folks come by who really liked the house but it had too many switchbacks and was too far away from the city, Denver. 

  No worries, I still had some work to do...but in the meantime, our economy was

starting to take a nose dive.  Fast.

I decided to hire a real estate agent to help sell my house.  After about a month

listening to her complain she only had a few for sale signs to put up and she did not

want to do open houses.....I fired her.   She was not happy but I was.  I found another agent, Louis, and he was all about advertising and open houses.

He found a couple who lived down the hill from me.   This was good, they already knew what

mountain living was all about.   They fell in love with the house and wanted to buy it.  They would

put their house on the market and the process would begin.  I was very excited and relieved because my retirement days were getting close and I needed to get things packed up and ready to head home to the pacific northwest.  

Little did I know.......what these potential buyers were really up to .........

 

to be continued ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snug as a bug in a rug. This is going to be one solid, warm comfy house !

Pat, the boss man, cleaning up after Hank's drywall session. 

Notice flying drywall out the top window...made for easy loading.

He did a nice job cleaning up.   Ready for taping and mudding. 

nook 

downstairs bathroom 

living room and kitchen

And, in the meantime outside, we have Jeff and Brian now

adding the lap siding. 

 

 

history continued ...

 

      I last left off with me, rapidly approaching retirement age.   And, after doing the numbers, I decided to retire at the earlier age, 62.  

 Yes, I could earn a little more money if I stayed employed until 65 or older, but after a little deliberation,  I decided to retire at the earlier age and henceforth....start to play.

 It was time to start thinking about the big move home to Washington State anyway

and to build that house I had been talking about for a very long time.

 

    My dad passed away in 2008, unfortunately, two years before I moved home.  He was a great guy.

He had a wonderful little home up in Blaine, Washington and I would have loved to have kept it,

but my budget wouldn't allow me two mortgages...so, I put it on the market and sold

the house to a nice family of four.  There was enough money left in the estate for me to buy my first brand new car.  A 2009 Subaru Outback, with a moon roof and leather seats. 

  Love this car !  Thanks, Dad-O.

 

Over the years, I collected numerous photos, magazine pictures and hundreds of

house plans. I put my favorite pictures and plans into a manila folder titled, Vaughn Bay.

 

With my decision to retire at 62, I started to lay the groundwork in placing my Colorado home on the market.  Just in time for the economy to go south....

 

to be continued ...