New this week

The beginnings of a pump house, and Gareld mowed some of the tall grass.

This is the place.

This is where we are putting the house. I will take pictures from this same spot as the project develops so you can follow the changes.

This is a start on preparing the ground for the foundation. Gareld is on his dad's dozer. My dad is getting his big bulldozer ready to come over and move a lot of dirt around, cut in the road, build the rock wall and mow over the weeds.

Just For Fun

We drove out to Camp Elkana Friday to look at this little number. Then we went back and forth all weekend on whether to get it or not. We'd decide yes one minute then practicality would say no. We both like it a lot. It's vintage so Morgan can use it for Sisters on the Fly camp outs until she finds just the right trailer. Jeremy liked it. Nephew Dylan liked it. We will never find another one like this so I called last night and they still had it. Meant to be, I say. We drove out tonight to bring it home.

My head is already swirling with ideas on how to decorate this space. It can't be too girly cuz Gareld might pull it behind his '63 Nova too.

PAINTING PARTY

I told Gary that I would be out there helping as soon as he had something ready for me to paint. Finally one room is ready so I bought a sprayer and he painted. (all part of the plan:) I had to follow him around with the paint can because the hoses were't very long. This is the primer stage. I did paint on the color today. It's looking good.

Robins egg blue? you ask. Well it really isn't this light when it dries. I used the color of Gareld's pellet stove as the color to base all others off of since it is a strange turquoise. This is the bathroom of the shop. I'll work some of this color into the sports room too since I bought two gallons and it only took one.

I can paint and take pictures at the same time.

LUCKY ME

Oh, lucky day! I love it when I get there first for the best find of the day. There were only 4 yard sales listed in the paper for Union and I had already went to one of them yesterday. I headed out anyway and just drove up and down town. I followed a sign to a sale by a nice little old couple and look what I scored for $25. A sweet piece like this would sell for about $400 up at a show like Farm Chicks. The lady shared some history, too. I loaded it up and came home.

Inside the box. The little old lady I bought it from said as far back as the early 40's she remembers her mom had this in her kitchen as her flour box. Many loaves of bread were rolled out on top of this box. The aprons below also came from her.

Sweet deals. The aprons were 25 cents each. The shoe trees 10 cents for all. Brown Bag cookie mold 50 cents. Heart shaped box with silver lid 50 cents. Pie plate 25 cents and measuring/shaker $1.50.

The One

We made a decision. It is a done deal. The house has been ordered. We found the one. This is a drawing of the front of the house. We went through a long process deciding on this major purchase. Two years ago I was dead set against a manufactured home. I didn't want a "trailer". We didn't even consider it an option. I didn't like the low roof line, the flat fronts, the boxy look, horizontal stripes don't look good on anyone. We looked at log cabin kits. We searched the Internet for home builders. We talked to local contractors. We checked out Adair and Reality Homes who come and build inexpensively on your land. A place from Bend will even build a shell or a super shell and you do the finish work yourselves. We got real close with the Adair people. Gareld kept looking at trailers on line and you really could find some pretty cheap but they still look like trailers. We drove to Hermiston one weekend to tour manufactured homes. Once you step inside they are gorgeous!! It started me thinking they might not be so bad. We came back to La Grande and the dealer here. We had all the floor plans and started pouring over them. We had a dollar figure in mind that we didn't want to go over. We narrowed it down to one Adair home and one manufactured home. Then we looked at pros and cons of each option.
One day as I was driving out of the Walmart parking lot I looked over at the trailer place and they had a brand new house sitting there with the cutest front I have seen on a trailer. I drove right over and toured it. It was "tiny" but the salesman said that front could be added to any of the floor plans. He ordered us a drawing of it on the plan we had decided on. We thought we had finally found the one we wanted. Then it came down to loan papers, mortgage companies and lots of paperwork. We also wanted to get the most house for our money. I started getting an uneasy feeling about tying up the property in a loan. Or the possibility of something bad happening like losing a job or one of us dying and losing everything while waiting for an estate to settle (morbid I know but we aren't getting any younger).
AND I didn't want to be house poor. I have to go to New York a couple times a year! So we pulled in the reigns. How big of house do we need anyway? We were plenty comfortable in the Hibbert's chicken coop for two months! Plus we have a gigantic shop with an apartment in the back and a camp trailer or two sitting around. Soooo....to finish a long story, we got the "tiny" house. Two baths is more than we had for the last twenty years anyway. We are happy the deciding part is over.

Oops! I'm not going to type all that again and I don't know how to get rid of this extra one.

Here's the floor plan. One of the things we really wanted was the living room at the back of the house so Gareld could sit in his recliner and watch the mountain behind us. There are so many deer, elk and turkey that enjoy the property, too. We did splurge and get the optional master bath with the nice tub!

Treats

What a treat it was. I LOVE this show!

This is the line for those who already bought tickets. Last year 4000 people bought tickets for the Saturday show and it took so long to get through the line. This year they pre-sold tickets on Friday afternoon for a couple hours to speed up the entry process. It worked better.

This "cake" started the day in one booth called "Let Them Eat Cake" then later I saw it in another booth. Don't know if it was bought to be resold or if they had two booths.

I like these fabric flower pins with buttons and lace.

Morgan liked these bags with the real glasses on the owls.

Unique items from some talented vendors.

They go all out on booth decorating at this show. It's fun to look at them and get ideas.

Something for Gareld to make for me. A cute outdoor couch in the back half of an old car. I believe there's a car up on Della's property that would work just fine.

Property Progress

Dad and Gareld have been working on the other two doors and I have painted one of them. Gareld has also been working on the bathroom fixtures but decided before he goes any further we need to paint so I started the primer today. We are going to get a sprayer so it will go smoother and faster. That board we are painting over is rough. We have finally settled on a house. More on that later but I can tell you Gareld's shop is bigger than the house. =)