We’re back. Uncertainty is still with us, but I guess that’s always going to be the case. So, on to the blogging.

This was the eastern sky at around 7:30 pm EDT on Monday, Sept 7.

This was the same view at about the same time on Tuesday.

It had been raining a little and was still sprinkling up on the mountain. The bright clouds are quite high, since they are further in the distance than the darker clouds above them in the photo but they are still illuminated by the setting sun. The taller one might have been a weak storm, but the radar on my phone’s weather app didn’t show much happening down that way.

Not much has been happening with the new house. Neighbor John did some grading where the septic system was installed, and our well is now in. The well driller finished about three weeks ago at a depth of 310 feet, a flow of about five gallons per minute, and about 200 gallons in the well itself. That is slightly deeper than our current well (280 feet), and a lot shallower than our next-door-neighbor’s well, which is about 500 feet and produces about three gallons per minute. Hydrology escapes me.

I told the well driller not to install the pump since we don’t need it right away.

There was a rumor that our framer will start soon, but I haven’t actually heard anything from the framer himself. This puts us about a month and a half behind where I wanted to be on the new house.

The current house is coming along, although somewhat slowly. I have almost finished the lower section of wall in our downstairs den, a problem which has been delaying starting the flooring. This picture, taken Tuesday night, tells the story.

As you can see, the floor is bare concrete. The beam you can just see at the top of the photo has been sheathed in stained pine like the upstairs beams. There is a stack of flooring to the left of the stairs. The stair treads are finished and laid in place but not nailed. I have all the finished wood I need to complete the stairs. That should go reasonably quickly. The wainscoting on the far wall is what has taken so long. Here’s a closer shot where it joins the hearth.

The wainscoting is made from plywood beadboard. We used the same stain as on all the upstairs trim (Colonial Maple), but in the years since the upstairs was trimmed out, Colonial Maple has developed a redder hue.

The part of the process that took the longest time was finishing the wood. All the wood took multiple coats of stain, and then two coats of polyurethane.

The unfinished wood going up from the wainscoting will eventually be covered with stained boards, but I can do that after the flooring is done, and I really want to get the flooring installed.

The flooring is done in the bedroom right next to the den.

I haven’t finished installing the baseboards because I can’t hang the door because the flooring in the den is not done.

The downstairs bathroom is complete (yay!).

I am waiting to floor the bedroom closet to make sure we have enough flooring for the den. Once the floor is down in the den, I’ll do the closet. Then all we will lack to have a completely finished downstairs is a little trim around the sliding glass door, baseboards and three doors.