19 Jan 2017 – Sunny and high of 47°F!

We moved the mattress out of the camper into the basement bedroom on the 17th and spent our first night in the house.  It was awesome!  We were able to do this after all the work that has been completed on the house in the last two weeks.

First, they put in the carpet.carpet1

They also are almost completely done with the trim. The flooring is complete except for the stairs to the loft.

Trim in basement
Floor in basement before trim

Bathroom cabinets are in.  Most of the lights have been installed.

Master Bath sink
Lights in guest bath

And the grandest, most stupendest-est, awesome, bestest thing of all….. the wood stove is in and operational and heating the house!

Todd and Tony on the roof
Todd on the roof
Hole in the roof for stovepipe
Hole in the roof for stovepipe

Thanks to Todd and crew for the big and scary effort of installing the stove.  They had to climb all over the steep roof in the cold weather to make this happen and we definitely appreciate it.  The stove is a Woodstock Soapstone model with a catalytic converter and it burns wood all night, holding the main floor of the house at 75° easily.  If we aren’t running the ceiling fans, the loft could be converted to a sweat lodge. Todd has also installed transfer fans to circulate the heat to the basement and it has been about 65° at 5AM, which is warmer than the warmest nights in the camper this winter. Although it has been warmer this week during the day, the temperatures outside at night have been in the low 20’s.  The stove is working as advertised and we are quite pleased.

Reef feeding the fire
Burning stove!!!

The southern facing windows provide a ton of passive solar heat and the construction crew has had to open windows during the day to stay cool enough while they are working!

On other fronts, the Stagecoach Springs posse has been busy doing normal ranching chores.  All the babies born in December are getting big and strong and eating a ton of hay.  But HEY, that’s what they do!

It has been a long journey living in a camper for 285 days, the last 50 or so that have been frigidly cold, but we survived and now look forward to the final touches being completed on the house.  The next project will be moving all of our things out of storage.  That sounds fun, but God willing, this will be our final move.