It’s been a while since I posted. Lots of progress on the house. As you can see from the picture, the exterior is up and most of the framing is done. There are a few things that need to be addressed, but overall the framers should finish on Tuesday. There is a laminated beam that goes above the garage door that should arrive today and get installed. The house gets wrapped in the next few days and prepped for stucco. Our plumbers start tomorrow or Wednesday with the inside plumbing.
We have a lot of decisions to make on plumbing. For the water heater, the plan was to get a hybrid, but the cost is crazy expensive. I’m thinking it might make sense to have a gas heater installed in the garage as it’ll be a lot cheaper. I need to talk to our plumbers about it. And a gas heater will take up a lot less space. Today we get an HVAC estimate and I’m going to talk to my GC about the wall for the outdoor fireplace. I have to have our framers put up one more cabinet board in the kitchen.
As we’re getting dark brown windows, we’re thinking that the trim on the house should be dark brown, and the stucco should be a lighter cream color. Apparently, the lighter stucco colors perform better in the weather here and also are easier to maintain. We have a list of stuff we need to get figured out ASAP, so this week will be decision making week. Cabinets and plumbing fixtures are the big choices. We’re going with all Dacor kitchen fixtures to the tune of $40k ish, and that’s not out of normal range. These should last 20 years, and they are what Wendy wants – so the kitchen will be a show place. We’re doing a darker kitchen, graphite appliances with dark counter tops. There are so many windows that face West that the kitchen has a ton of natural light.
On a personal note, I’m trying one of those constant glucose monitoring devices that is tied into my Oura ring. It’s actually helping as I’m monitoring my glucose more carefully and trying to avoid glucose spikes. The data enables me to walk and burn glucose when I’m having a spike, and it tells me what the food I just ate does to my glucose levels. For example, we had a healthy dinner last night, chicken, beans and salad. I had a glucose spike, and it was from the mango dressing on the chicken and the salad dressing and Orzo pasta. Not something I would have expected. Data will always drive outcomes – so I’m learning what my body does with food and how to control the diabetes better and drive down the A1C.
Today is about planting some pots around the RV so we can repel the Flys. The trailer is letting in Flys somewhere and it’s impossible to find where they are coming into the living space. My guess is around the slide outs. The sport is killing them with the fly zapper, repelling them with stinky plants and trapping the outside with some fly traps. I probably have about 15 to 20 of them in the afternoon in the living space. They come from the rancher next door so we’re working on planting lemongrass along the fence line. Good for the cows and repels the Flys. And we’re going to plant some plants to attract the birds, which will eat the Flys. Always something when living in the country.
I’ll empty the garage so I can find the planting pots today and get the Lavendar and lemon grass planted around the trailer. That should help repel some of the Flys.
Well, time to do my exercises and feed my dogs. Then for personal grooming! Take care and more later.
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