Heat!

Getting the wood stove installed and ready turned out to be a fairly involved process.  First, we had to get the corner finished and tiled.  Thanks to some amazing help from Chris Kesslering and, of course, Scott Dunn, we managed to get that done!  The backsplash is slate and the floor tile is porcelain.

 Scott working on the slate backsplash

Chris working on the floor tile

The finished corner!

We wanted to put the wood stove on a platform to make it easier to load, easier to sit by the fire and to gain some storage underneath.  From that vague description, Jeremy created an amazing piece of incredibly functional and sturdy furniture.  First, he made the pieces out of 3/4" furniture plywood.
Then I stained all the pieces a dark walnut so they would more closely match the eventual window sills in the living room.  After the stain, they all got 2 coats of polyurethane to seal them up.

Platform pieces being sealed

With the pieces finished, it was time to assemble the platform!  Once it was together, Jeremy tiled the top of it and then made cedar trim to match the other cedar details in the house.  The finished platform is perfect!

 Platform assembled and tiled - ready for the wood stove!

 Finished platform with cedar trim

In the midst of working on all this, we found a really cool wood stove on Craigslist.  It is unlike anything we've seen before but it was the right price and so we decided to give it a try.  With the platform done, we set the wood stove and started piping the flu.  Over the course of a few hours and with more help from Scott Dunn, we got the flu installed.  Let me tell you, after a week of temperatures in the 50's in the house, that fire felt amazing!

We had been "heating" the house with candles and terra cotta pots for a couple of weeks.  It was more than a little cold!

 Jeremy and Scott making the flu connections

Heat!!

 Here is our cool little Morso stove.  It has been remarkably functional and efficient, not to mention being beautiful!

With heat in the house, we were finally able to get back to focusing on the stairs and the rest of the downstairs.  Before the stairs can go in, the tall walls in the living room had to get the drywall finished, be painted and have trim installed.  We also had to get the ceiling fan installed in the living room so that the rolling scaffolding could get taken down to make room for the stairs.  First, we did drywall.  I finally got to cut my teeth with a mud knife in addition to my already developed sanding skills.

 The "short" living room wall mudded (its only 13 feet tall).

Between Scott and I, we got all the drywall in the laundry room, dining room and living room finished and sanded.  I spent Thanksgiving day sanding drywall and masking off all the wood for paint. 

Laundry room masked for painting

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, my Mother and Stepfather, Connie and Frank Bondurant, came up to help for the day.  Mom, Catherine and I managed to get all 3 rooms primed and painted while Frank, Jeremy and Jacob got 2 walls of drywall done in the kitchen.  As a bonus, we harvested the 15 rabbits we have been putting off for the last month.  It was an amazingly productive and exhausting day.

I got to paint the tall wall (19 feet) and look down on the other 2!

 Catherine had fun with the super extension roller.

Here are 3 of the 15 rabbits we harvested that day.  It went fast with 3 of us!

We were all pooped after all that.  A sit down was in order!

Since then, we have completed the trim on both tall living room walls and Jeremy has started work on the stairs.  The stair runners are 3x10's and the treads are also, so this will be a serious staircase when its all done!

Treads cut and ready for sanding.

Here is the template for the runners in place. 

We got the ceiling fan hung on Wednesday of this week so we can start disassembling the scaffolding finally!  It will be nice to have the space back and not have that very visible piece of construction equipment sitting in the living room anymore.  Getting up on a wobbly ladder on top of wobbly scaffolding was a bit intense though.  Everyone was happy when that job was done!

Ceiling fan going in!

Next we will be working to finish the stairs, get the propane connected to the hot water and get the storage/utility room ready for tile.  Bit by bit, it's coming together!