STEPPING STONES

Several weeks ago, we had visitors to Manzanita - Brad and his little family came to visit.. in the pouring rain...  It really was an amazing weekend.

I was trying to figure out activities for the girls to be involved in that would be something lasting and permanent.  I came up with the idea of making stepping stones.  We already have one stepping stone made from a sunflower that Rand grew, so this was an addition.

Here's a couple of pictures of the stones the girls made...  Didn't quite turn out like we expected, but we had fun.

At the end of it all, we had four stepping stones made with coloured glasss and sea shells.. and a Damma with cement packed under her nails...  Had a blast!

Cheri

It's all about the dirt right now.

This weekend we made some significant progress.  We are waiting for the power to be put into the site so we picked a 675 sq. ft. of roofing materials on Friday and took them down to Manzanita on Saturday.  That's about 2,000 lbs. of plywood and steel roofing materials!  We stayed overnight at the Blue Pines motel in Panguitch and today we fired up the backhoe and moved three full-sized trees out of the space that's going to be for the garage.

Then we started digging into the place where the basement will sit for the cabin.  There's a lot of dirt to move.

We expected the power to be put in last Friday, but the contractor didn't show up yet.  We'll be calling him in the morning for an update.  The real estate business has gone crazy and all the contractors are so busy, none of them will commit to our project.  We've asked for bids from about a dozen of them.,

The adventure goes on, ever so slowly right now. . . .

Jim & Cheri

STAINED GLASS WITH ENGINEERS.....

Many years ago, when Jim and I were first married, we did all sorts of things together, and with each new adventure, I realized that working with an engineer is a completely different experience.

For example, cooking a meal with an engineer is... different... and through this experience, I always giggled saying that I should write a book called, "Cooking with Engineers"...  and there are follow up books called, "Traveling with Engineers", "Vacations with Engineers", "Raising Children with Engineers"... just seems there is a completely different mindset.

Well, as you know, we are building a cabin and I really wanted to put some of my stained glass work in the different rooms.  I have done stained glass for years, and I think it looks beautiful with sunshine flowing through the different panels of coloured glass.

So, I designed a large piece to go into the main floor bathroom... It's actually two panels of glass, side by side, with one pattern flowing into the other.  The pattern is sunflowers, so I am imagining the bright yellows and greens lighting up this room.

This might not make sense to you, but just go with me on this...  this is what the original pattern looks like...

(With the pattern, you place the glass over top, and cut each individual glass piece and then solder them together with lead.. you can use foil, but I prefer lead.  These particular pieces are about 3 feet tall.  Doesn't look like much right now, but as I start building, I'll update the pictures....)

I put the patterns together, and asked Jim to give me exact dimensions to make sure the two panels actually fit. Now, I've been doing this for years, and I kinda know what I'm doing.  The house that we built on the south bench in Provo had transoms all through it.  So, this isn't my first rodeo.  It's straight forward... make the pattern, pick out the glass, cut the glass, solder together, have it insulated, install in house...

...this is where the "working with engineers" part comes in...  giggle.

This is what Jim gave me after we discussed the windows...  He says we have to calculate the wood to hold up the loft so it doesn't crush the windows and there has to be a beam between the windows.  Duh. . . . So now there's 10 freakin inches between my two windows.

 

When did this get so freakin' complicated...  I've never seen so many calculations...  I told him that I had glass pieces put into my house on Washington Avenue, and he told me that Carl Moore, our framer must have hated me... WHAT?  Well not really.  The framer hated me?  He never said anything of the sort.. and we're still friends on facebook!!!  But he did have to cut into the house to put my windows in. . . .

I just like working with glass...  Didn't realize it was so complicated...

Cheri