The guy who we hired to spray the urethane insulating foam onto the outside of the quonset was the single most frustrating person we had to deal with on this house. After the third or fourth time he didn't come on the day he said he would, Christina was just about ready to strangle him. Anyway, he did eventually come and finish the job. The overspray got everywhere... the uncovered parts of the forklift now sparkle in the sun with little micro-drops of urethane!

The house is finally holding heat the way it should.

(In this pic you can also see the burly new front tires on the forklift!)

Not long after the foam was done, we got the plaster team back to do the final coat on the exterior. We added quite a bit of Charcoal dye to the plaster, so the exterior is pretty dark. It's already been referred to as the Goth House.... Hmm...... I think Gear Box is better. With the exception of the front door, the exterior of the house is now totally done.

(Oh boy, look at those tires!)



The interior is getting closer and closer, too. In both of these pics you can see that the interior plaster is now done. More than anything else so far, this step really unified the interior into one finished visual space.

The floor of the loft above is also now done, thanks to Christina's hours of back-breaking sanding and sealing.

The room below the loft, where I'm standing, will be my room.... or perhaps more accurately, the repository for my tons of stuff!



Two views of the kitchen. The kitchen has no walls, it's just one part of the main room. The countertops will be poured concrete. In these two pictures they have been framed and the concrete formwork has been done. The piano-shaped counter has a square-shaped inset, which is where the stove will go. This counter will also serve as the dining table. Christina apparently just can't wait to start cooking!

Next up, bathroom!

The building permit and the loan money for the shop are now both in hand! Ground-breaking on the shop within weeks!

Wow, not a single blog update between February 7th and March 5th! When will I be demoted from blogger to miscreant?



For our 2-year anniversary, we decided to be bold and daring and not work on the house for a day. Instead we took a drive through some rural areas surrounding Taos, and came across some interesting stuff.

After one look at this crumbling adobe house, Christina decided that she had designed our house all wrong. And I sort of fell in love with this crumbling adobe hardware store. What were we thinking making out buildings out of such durable materials like metal?



Another thing one sees in rural New Mexico is lots of dead animals. There's something so beautiful about them, don't you think? For some reason that bobcat was strung up on a fence, like a warning...... To other bobcats? To trespassers? That didn't stop us from bringing it home and cutting off its head and putting it in a bucket of water. (No, we're not satanists, we just like skulls.)



We decided to hire professional plasterers to plaster the outside of the house. Foklifts, when fitted with scaffold planks, make really awesome mobile work platforms. The plastering team took entire wheel-barrow loads of plaster up with them on the lift, and they plastered the whole outside in one day. In fact, less than a whole day; the bottom picture was taken after they left on that same day. However, don't get too excited; that is just the first coat, and we're not even ready for the first coat of interior plaster yet.....




The interior is coming along, though. The first two pictures are of the same wall, before and after sheet-rocking. I discovered I'm really good at sheet-rock.... who knew? I'll really miss seeing all that plumbing all the time. This wall separates the kitchen from the bathroom, and so I suppose you're wondering why the hell there's a big hole in the wall, right? For a fish-tank, of course!

The bottom picture shows..... that the house is a mess.


Note to self: When moving scaffolding by yourself, remove large heavy objects from the planks above you. Because if you don't remove things like cordless drills, they can fall off the scaffolding and hit you in the head, which really hurts.


That is what the sky and the house looked like at sunset tonight. Really. It almost made me forget about the annoying electrical short in my truck. Actually it did make me forget, for about a minute.

Oh, and I turned in my building permit application for the shop today... a big feat considering how much paperwork was involved. Hopefully we'll be breaking ground on the shop within 4 to 6 weeks. Man will that be exciting. Start making your plans now to come out to Taos and help me build the shop, everyone! Seeya soon!