Welcome to 33 Basin St.

Wrapped up with work for the spring...time to start working on the river!

Siding Finished!

Finally finished the largest project of the spring - siding the south and west sides of the house. The chinking will happen this summer and fall, giving the new boards a chance to dry and shrink a bit.

More finishing touches

We're currently working on finishing our siding, and we'll have pictures of that in a few days. Meanwhile, here are a couple of pics of some final touches we've been working on.

Stairway tread carpets.



New window and baseboard trim in the basement spare bedroom.



Kurt and Gayle Selisch (our good friends we used to work for on the Middle Fork) gave us this beautiful antique frig as a house warming gift. Kurt built cedar shelves inside.

Bedroom "Closets"

To keep construction simple (and cheap), we opted for open bedroom shelving rather that your typical built in closet. Whether this actually saved any time or money, I'm not sure...but hindsight is 20/20. We finally got around to building the shelves, and they turned out pretty well considering Chris' crude carpentry skills!

Basement organization

Everyday since we moved in we give thanks for the walk out basement. It is our main entrance and exit, and in the winter it was so nice to walk in with snowy boots, unload our ski gear in the "locker room" and leave all that snow, dirt, and gear out of our main living area. Now in mud season, the mud room is living up to its name. We've always wished for a house that matches our lifestyle and we finally have it!

It's also been easy to let it become a catch all for all the accumulated stuff from the contruction process and also the stuff we haven't unpacked. Paint cans were stacked next to the washer and dryer, the guest bedroom became a tool shop, and the future bathroom was the master storage room for all our leftover building materials.

We found some perfect used cabinets from the thrift store - they were pulled from Blockbuster that went out of business in Hailey. With the cabinet space, we were able to organize our tools. Thanks to lots of consolidation and a truckload of junk to be hauled away, the basement is (mostly) organized!

Details...

With the rest of our siding 1-2 weeks out and too much snow for ladders anyhow, we've been tackling small indoor projects...mostly small details to make our place feel more like home.

A new living room rug from IKEA.

Painted basement guest bedroom.

New bedside tables and lamps.

Office Space

No not the movie. We're back from our spring vacation and it's time to resume work on the house. Although it wasn't the highest priority, it was nice to buff out the office/desk area with a new bookshelf from IKEA and some paint on the file cabinet to match. We're starting with some other smaller projects to get back in the groove. Sara's painting the guest bedroom in the basement, and I cleaned the chimney and installed some new chimney braces.

Finishing the siding is the most important, but sounds like we'll be waiting a 1-2 weeks for the material. Plenty to do until then and we'll try to keep posting to the blog.

North Cascades Ski Trip

After our winter work wrapped up, we took a road trip out to the Pacific Northwest. After a long and snowy winter, we heard the weather there was usually nice this time of year. Not.

We intended to do the 4-day Forbidden Traverse in North Cascades National Park in Washington. We figured we needed 2 days of good weather out of the planned 4 days to negotiate the complex glacier sections. We got one. Oh well, we still had a great time and took full advantage of the bluebird day skiing in Boston Basin.

Crossing a pile of trees blown over in an avalanche in the low elevation rain forest.



The incredible vertical relief on the NE face of Johannesburg Peak.



The Quien Sabe Glacier and countless peaks.



Rapelling down from Sharksfin Col.



A happy Sara in front of Forbidden Peak.



Good turns on the shoulder of Sahale.



Sunset on sweet turns below Sahale Peak.

Why we live here...

Now that things are finally slowing down with the house, Sara and I actually had some time to go skiing. We skied from the house two days in a row, altough it was hard to motivate in the sub-zero temps. The second day, we got going early and climbed above the inversion before it burned off. Beautiful!

Finishing touches...kitchen and desk

We wanted something a little fancier for a desk, but for the time being we did something simple and cheap. With a file cabinet, ashelf built from leftover trim, and an IKEA butcherblock counter that matches the kitchen, we built a decent, functional desk.

Also, did some finishing touches in the kitchen. Added a third shelf to the left of the sink, and added metal rails to the right of the sink for hanging utensils and such. You'll also notice the spice racks.