Many Thanks

We'd hoped to finish the house in time for Thanksgiving; its incompleteness did not dissuade us from eating there! Here Mom and Nona are making final preparations for a Thanksgiving dinner among the saws and compressors... It was delicious.
We worked hard over the weekend, too. Here, Matt is laying the first strip of hardwood flooring in the big room, with help from Dad. (Mom helped, too, AND took the picture...)
So that we could work (and eat!) into the night, Matt and Dad installed more of the lightbulbs. Dad stood up high on the loft to put bulbs on the pole; Matt screwed them in.
Mom enjoyed the beautiful day, working at sanding and painting more of the interior doors.
Dad's big project for the weekend marked the end of another era in Julian: he took down the old treehouse. Seeing it come down was strangely sad--it had remained as part of Grandpa's legacy there. But, even though it wasn't built by his own hands, the new house stands as a continuing testimony to the legacy of lessons he passed along to his kids and grandkids.
We kept working on Friday and Saturday, too--Emily started installing a handrail in the stairs.
With a little help, I tiled and grouted the upstairs shower--here it is, midway.
Phil and Shan hung doorway trim upstairs, and installed baseboard in all the rooms that will be carpeted. We're now ready for carpet installation--the measurements were taken on Friday, and an appointment made for mid-December.
They were a great team--measuring and cutting, hanging and lacquering.
Our friend Lea came up on Friday evening, too--on Saturday she did a whole lot of little things, like painting this little box that Dad built to hide the vent duct. (You can see bits of our Thanksgiving table stowed away in the cabinets, too...)
Saturday, we woke to a strange sight: snow!
Enjoying the big, gloopy snowflakes through the beautiful big windows, we celebrated what a cool space the house is. Now, we just look forward to trading saws and compressors for sofas and coffeetables.
Soon!

(And, along that thought, we had a visit from the county inspector on Wednesday; his list of things to do was pretty close to ours, so we're feeling very good. We're on our way.)