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.

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.

Christmas in the new house with Becka and Peter

Becka and Peter came up from Salt Lake City to celebrate Christmas with us in the new house. We ate and drank more than we should have, but what else would you do for the holiday?

Here's a photo of us enjoying mimosas in front of the Charlie Brown tree...

Mostly done and mostly moved in!!

In a mad crunch to get moved in before Christmas, we worked double-time to wrap things up and get moved in. We finished some last minute plumbing, installed the clawfoot tub, got the propane cook stove hooked up, and built some bathroom closet shelving.

It has been a very long and tiring process, especially towards the end when we both started working. But so worth it!

We still have lots to do, but the rest can be done at a more human pace. We need to a bunch of paint touch up, organize the kitchen, get the bedroom carpeted, and do some organization in the basement. The house is very liveable meanwhile, and it feels great to be in!

Kitchen mostly complete but still a mess. We just ordered more IKEA stuff to make another shelf to the left of the window, and to add some rails and hooks to the right.



Dining room. We are going to add a small desk to the left of the table, we have the countertop but need to find some cabinets to put it on.



Living room. Need a floor lamp and rug but looking good! The stove cranks out the heat and we've had more trouble with the house getting too hot.



Bedroom - not quite finished yet. Still waiting on carpet, and need to build closet/shelves. Color is very off in this photo, it's much more blue.



The shower rules! Lots of space, feels roomy with the shorter wall and window, good light, plenty of places to set your beer. No overspray over the short wall so far.



Still hard to believe we fit a clawfoot tub and decent sized stall shower in this small space, yet it doesn't feel cramped ... at least we don't think so!



Bathroom closet shelving I built with leftover bamboo flooring.

Kitchen

Ben, Elissa, and Dan came out from Bozeman last weekend and helped us finish the kitchen, stain windows, and install the last of the trim. As you can see, moving the fridge was a blast! The kitchen turned out really cool, at least in our opinion - we like the commercial feel. We have some final plumbing details to take care of, but we're very close to moving in.

Getting close!

Been too busy to post anything lately, but it will make our progress seem all the more substantial! We're getting close and hope to be moved in before Christmas. Sean has finished almost all the trim, except for the bedroom - we ran out of wood and we're going to use a different color. The shower is tiled, the toilet is installed, and we've begun working on the kitchen. We still need to plumb the bathroom vanity and install the clawfoot tub, trim and carpet the bedroom, and finish the kitchen. As you'll see below, our kitchen is very unique - the metal shelving instead of cabinets saved a ton of money and we actually like it better. It gives it a somewhat commercial feel. We'll be topping them with butcherblock counters to tie it into the feel of the rest of the house.

Paint, floor, and stove

Finally feels like we're making headway. Over the last 5 days, we've got most of the the main floor painted, with a special thanks to Sean's girlfriend Donna - who was a huge help and painter extraordinaire. Sean has made fast work of the bamboo flooring and is well over half done. Now that the floor is done and the walls painted near the stove, we were able to move the stove into place and hook up the chimney. We haven't fired up the stove yet, but will in the next day or two!

FINALLY!! Taped and textured.

It's been a while since we've posted anything, but to be honest not much has happened in the recent weeks. We reached our first snafu of the whole process - the drywall taping and texturing. We got some friends to help us, but not being professionals it was taking too long. After two weeks, we were still not done and it became clear we had to call in reinforcements. On Friday, the pros finished up and today we sanded and did a LOT of vacuuming. From the time the sheetrock was hung until the texture was done took three weeks - so we easily lost two. BUT, things move on and Sara and a friend are starting to put on primer this afternoon. We should have the painting complete soon, and then (in theory) things should start going pretty quick.

Propane installed and first snow!

Mysteriously, our neighborhood picked up about a foot of snow, while there was only about 4" in Stanley, and much less in Ketchum. It was good to see the house and yard covered in a blanket of white. The snow made it easier to drag our propane tank up the hill. We will use propane only for our cook stove, so a tank this big should last a while.

Main floor sheetrock almost done

Sara and our Stanley friend Jake cranked on the sheetrock last week and got the main floor almost done. We rented a sheetrock lift again and did most of the basement ceiling this weekend. Hopefully by the end of the week, things will be mudded and taped.

Siding done for the winter

The siding was a much slower and labor intensive process than we envisioned, and we ended up running out of wood too - possibly, maybe due to a miscalculation on my part? We ended up with a lot more waste than I imagined as well, with all the cutting around windows. Anyhow, Bob and Sean got the two hardest sides of the house done, and the ones you see from the driveway. We'll probably have to wait until spring to finish, but what's completed now looks great.

Plumbing inspection passed!

Congrats to Sara for passing her plumbing inspection! I've come to realize that plumbing is way harder than wiring. Here's a photo of our new water heater, thrilling I know. But the exciting part is that we have a hot water outdoor spigot.

Ceiling sheetrock

I started work this week at the avalanche center, and couldn't think of a better way to celebrate my first weekend than by hanging sheetrock on the ceiling. Being inexperienced drywallers to say the least, can't say this was the easiest place to start. But I guess the ceiling drywall is ALWAYS done first...

We rented a sheetrock lift which was a godsend, or we just called it "God" for short. It took some getting used to, and the miracles it performed were always just shy of perfect. I guess we should call it "god" without the capital G. Anyhow, after two days we had finished the ceiling except in the bathroom where Sara's plumbing vents need to stay exposed for her inspection. I thought recessed lights were the best thing since sliced bread - easy to install and nice light. We figured out their downside when we had to cut out all the damn holes, and the trim doesn't allow for much slop.

You can see from one of the photos that we got our chimney installed a few days ago.

"Aerial" Shot

A week ago we had borrowed a lift used for tree trimming to install the siding, and I took the opportunity early one morning to take the lift as high as it would go (50 feet or so) to take some unique shots. Note these are older photos, and much more siding has been installed since.