Thursday, June 26, 2008

pickets

These pickets are really the last "big" thing to be done. There are still a few cosmetic things (paint and acid staining the concrete), but this is "it"!



Sunday, June 22, 2008

Lights!

GB and I went over after dinner because all of the lights are installed.

Take a look

Friday, June 20, 2008

Friday workday

Here's some progress shots of the house

The glass is in on the railings! it looks awesome!

Stairway railings are well on their way. Just waiting for pickets
More glass
Boys bathroom granite and tile
pickets on the outside stair landing
Chris and his guys have been working really hard on this road down to the lower part of the property. It looks great!

Boys burning wood, as usual
While GB worked hard doing a ditch for the generator exhaust....
I planted this one little palm (Wodyetia Bifurcata aka Foxtail Palm). Because my neck hurt.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

painting fun!

We have started bringing things over! Mostly we're working on the shed. We have a large and full-of-stuff shed here, and want a little more order in the new house. We took over an old metal desk for tools and stuff and Luka and I headed over on Sunday to paint it.

First, the house!
The downstairs ceiling is complete! It looks really nice, and I'm glad we did it.

Stairway railings are coming together. This is the view up to the front door
Stairs down to the pool are done! They look really nice!
This black piping will go under the pool deck and heat the pool. It's low tech and needs no energy!
Door to the downstairs bathroom.
I painted the desk with some leftover yellow paint from a previous job. Luka made a masterpiece!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Busy Friday Workday

We had a really busy Friday workday. I dropped Luka off with Therese and GB and I took Ra'am, Noam, Silas and Kairos to the land.
The boys started a fire right away to deal with the massive amounts of scrap wood we have.
GB and I spent the whole day meeting with vendors and running back and forth to town.

Our major accomplishment for the day was buying and installing most of the fish tank piping. It took 2 trips to the plumbing store, but we got most of it done :D

The boys.... they went down to the river and played. Then the saw that the prawns were doing some kind of odd behavior and coming up and out of the water. They brought up 5 or 6 of them and we cooked them up for dinner.


Even Luka held one when he got there in the afternoon!

And after all of the plumbing work, Luka was tired, dirty and sticky. So we gave him his first bath at the new house..... in the kitchen sink

Saturday, June 07, 2008

sometimes we just have fun

On Friday (our usual work day) GB, Ra'am and I had plans to plant banana trees and bromeliads. But GB had an excellent idea to go exploring and check out the nearby beach. We walked down thru the property and went to the river mouth just Hilo side of our river. We had a nice short hike down. Most of the "trail" down looked a lot like this.
I could hear waves, and this was my first glimpse out of the jungle towards the ocean.

The ocean!This is the small stream that goes into the ocean at this beach. And the beach??? Rocky with big waves and NOT swimming friendly.

Here you can see the fallen arch of Onomea Bay. If you've ever been there you know that this bay is always churned up and kinda violent looking (though breathtakingly beautiful). So it's no surprise that "our" beach is the same way.
We found a little structure, made from driftwood.

and a rock pit with some cairns
Then we hiked over towards where "our" stream enters the ocean. This beach was much the same, though the river is bigger than that first.



We headed back upriver and came upon this ancient looking rock wall done sans mortar. GB has seen it before, but it was my first time. It's too cool.And then for a cool dip in a waterfall!


I hurt my foot on the way to the pond, and the got out of planting banana trees.

Monday, June 02, 2008

Sunday working

GB had to drag me out of the house on Sunday to finish the phone line. I wasn't really in the mood to work, but glad I did!

We had to dig the last bits of the trench down to the house. Fortunately the ground was really soft there and the work was much easier than the previous time. Here's Ra'am at the end of it, when it was almost all done. He started at the bottom and me at the top.
Here we met. GB took a bunch of pics but this was the most flattering.... And for the record, I am not a tie-dye wearer, but for work I'll wear whatever.
We dug and then GB took the tractor and filled in the ditch with the dirt we took out and also with cinder.
The pool guys completed the wall that will face the pool.
twas a very productive day!

Friday was a work day

But we worked too hard to take any pictures of us working!

We laid more phone/DSL line, actually. It was hard work. We went from above the water tank to fairly close to the house. GB and I started and I picked up Ra'am after lunch and he joined us for the rest of the work! He was super helpful and it's great to have him out of school and more available!

While we worked, the bobcat guy came to pick up some lift thing that the guys no longer need. I guess the load was so front heavy that Gene and Duncan had to sit on the back of the bobcat to counterbalance it....



And the house!
Tom has been oiling the teak doors and they look fabulous! The carved ones were nice before, but the teak oil totally brings out the grain and shows the design so well.


This is an unfinished one for comparison. I think it's going to look really stunning with the dark oil on there.
And the wall on the pool deck is done. They took a flame thrower to some 1x6s and charred them- and then used those for texture along the wall. It looks really cool.

And I don't think I posted a picture of the koi pond cap- here's GB and Luka sitting on it. It looks great