OCT 20 UPDATE: A way to make an entrance

Dave got the stairs into the house painted over the weekend. They look pretty good, even if he did build them in the dark!

Up close you can see that he was painting quickly, as he dripped paint on the stringers (the wood under the stairs). I suggested just painting the stringers, too, but he said that pressure-treated wood isn't supposed to be painted for a year or so, as it is still a bit damp from whatever they treated it with and needs some time to cure.

At least we don't have to worry as much about the chemicals they use on that lumber anymore -- lumber treated after 2004 shouldn't have arsenic in it. But if you have wood structures made before that, they are likely to have arsenic on them -- my sister had some playground equipment in their backyard tested (the tests are done by sending a swipe to the Environmental Quality Institute, where Dave worked while we lived in Asheville, N.C.) and found that their swingset was in the highest category of arsenic levels.

... Dave and I did some plotting in the new house after the kids fell asleep last night. We sure found a lot to disagree about! I think the problem is I've been reading all sorts of design books and blogs, while he's been reading carpentry and electrical guides, and I think different people write them and they don't read each others' books.

I was going down the list of where I want all the lights in the kitchen, for example, and I could just see in Dave's eyes the computations of just how complicated I was making things. Why couldn't we just have a light in the middle of the ceiling in the kitchen and call it good? he asked. Well, because every time we wanted to work at the counters, we would cuss because our shadows blocked the light and we couldn't see what we were doing. (There are no lights under the cupboards in the old farmhouse now, and I always end up working at the kitchen table.)

We also disagree about whether a vent over the stove is necessary. It's probably not necessary, but it seems to me that having one is a good idea when our floor plan is so open. Anybody else have any thoughts on this? And anyone know if they always have to vent to the outside? It seems to me one apartment I lived in had a vent that just cycled air through some sort of charcoal filter.

... We've decided what kind of alternate heating we're going to have, at least in the short term. (This is in addition to the wood stove, which should be our main source of heat.) Baseboard heaters are the cheapest, easiest option, so we'll have them at least for a while. If we eventually decide to invest in a heat pump, we could take out the baseboard heaters and not be out too much money, or time and effort.

But we were standing in the bathroom debating how we were going to heat it -- even considering (again) moving the wall so we could put a heater against one of the walls -- when it occurred to me that the best option was the one that I wanted in the first place: heat under my feet! So we decided to at least do radiant floor heating in the bathroom. We are still discussing that for the dining room and kitchen.
... We decided to leave the walls as they've been framed up in the bathroom, and just put a little table in that window nook. It could have a tall, narrow column of drawers under the table on the west side, leaving enough room for a little stool on the right. Then we'd set a mirror on the table, and we ladies of the household would have a place to sit and make ourselves beautiful, in addition to the mirror space above the vanity. I also like the fact that the stool could be pulled out while the kids are in the bath, so whoever is giving the bath has a place to sit that's not the toilet.


... Speaking of bathtime, I told Dave we had to record this bath of Erik's, since it's one of the only ones he hasn't cried through. The secret? Giving him a bath in the living room, in front of the space heater. A warm baby is a happy baby! (I knew this before, but I seemed to always underestimate how cold they get, how quickly.)

... My dad has been suffering from another cold for a few days now, and Sofia, Erik and I are all coming down with it. Erik and I can tough it out -- it's just a cold for us -- but colds can send both Sofia and my dad to the hospital, so we're hoping we don't have that kind of news to report in the near future!

OCT. 14 UPDATE: Stairs

Hello again, all, after a week's hiatus!

A weekend trip to Iowa that was preceded by some general fatigue kept me from blogging recently, and I'm starting this too late in the evening to write much tonight, but just to let you all know that we haven't given up and decided to revert this back to a granary:

Dave is now working on the stairs into the addition. All that's left is the railing; then, hopefully, we'll still have a day or two of painting weather, as this will last longer if we get it protected in some way before winter.

These stairs need to last a few years, but eventually, I want a nice deck that takes up this whole corner. (Putting that in now would have taken more structural support -- as well as lumber, time, and money -- than Dave wanted to work on right now.)

Did you notice Dave's orange stocking cap? Two things of note: First, it's definitely stocking-cap weather here now -- after spending a weekend in Iowa where I was regretting not packing shorts for the kids, it feels mighty cool here. And second, resident-only pheasant hunting season has started here. Not that Dave fears getting shot in the yard -- I think he just likes having fashion (such that it is) to match the season.

... Here it is, the much anticipated ...

... MONSTER SQUASH PHOTO! And no, if you're wondering, that's not Photoshopped.


Here's a shot with Dave and Sofia in the picture so you can get some idea of the scale. I have to say, these squash just make me laugh to look at them!

So how many ways can you serve a squash? Baked squash, sauteed squash, squash soup ...

OCT 6 UPDATE: Pumpkin picking

I took Sofia and Erik to a pumpkin picking event on Sunday afternoon. Sofia got a nice small pumpkin to take home, as did Erik, and the organizers had set up different harvest scenes all around so you could take pictures of the kids. This is the best photo we got (taken by my sister):

Yes -- smiling mom, smiling daughter ... screaming son. Ah, well.

Dave was working at home for the afternoon and finally finished insulating that addition. Yay! I was getting sick of writing about that, since there's no point in taking pictures of a dark crawlspace. But it needed to be done, and now it's done.

I think the next thing is the stairs into the house -- that also needs to be done before the ground freezes. Then it's back to the wiring.

One thing we need to decide before we do the wiring is what our alternate heating system is going to be. Dave's been looking into an electric heat pump, the kind that apparently work in a house without ductwork. I don't know much about it at this point.

I've been trying to talk Dave into putting in something like WarmTiles under the tiles we are going to install in the dining room and kitchen. He says the dining room at least should be the warmest room in the house, really, with the woodstove there ... but I say heat goes up, and the floor is likely to be cold, even if the rest of the room is warm. Hopefully the tiles will be warmed by the sun in our passive solar design, but the sun doesn't shine all the time. (I looked up how many days of sun we can expect in South Dakota in November: 3.)

And I need to get back to the bathroom discussion at some point. I've gotten lots of suggestions now for the window/wall/nook problem! Some of them won't work, through no fault of the suggestion givers, but because of problems with the layout I apparently didn't explain very well.

But I'll save that for another post. For now, here are a few more random pictures:

... This is Sofia's latest pastime -- I hear, "Mommy, can I hold Erik?" several times a day. I don't mind -- it lasts a few minutes, long enough that I can stir the soup or run to the bathroom or whatever.


... And you get to see this one just because it made me laugh. What a look!


Some of the last produce from the garden: marigolds, eggplant, tomatoes, and would-you-look-at-the-girth-of-those carrots! I was impressed.

... Of course, that's nothing compared to the squash we're producing. I had one photo in the blog before; I'll have to get out to the garden and grab another photo of the "squash that got away."

OCT. 3 UPDATE: Playing in the dirt

Not much has seemed blog-worthy around here lately -- for the most part, Dave has still been working on installing and insulating the skirting around the crawlspace, which I've already told you about a few times and makes for a pretty dark photo.

Yesterday he got a little time to play on the tractor and get some mowing done.


And today he was playing in the dirt -- banking dirt around the addition, evening out where the electrician dug to bring in the wire, etc. Then he laid down some landscaping fabric and started piling rocks on them so there isn't dirt right next to the house that could splash up during a good rain. I like the look of it! (Sorry the photo's so dark. It gets dark much earlier now, and we didn't get out right away to get the photo taken.)

... The weather has been gorgeous the last two days! I've strapped baby into the baby carrier and put Sofia in the stroller and gone walking each day. Glorious!

... Our renter is harvesting the soybeans now. If I hadn't seen them in the field when we were out walking, or heard the machines from the yard, I'd still know they were harvesting from the ladybugs that are crowding on our windows now! (They always search for new homes after they are evicted from the soybeans, for those of you who haven't lived next to a soybean field. The ladybugs, and some mean little black bug that bites -- they appear after the harvest, too.)

... Dad came home from the hospital on Monday. He snuck out on all of us to mow the ditches on Wednesday afternoon. I guess he's feeling OK! Though he does have a stuffy nose again, he says. We're hoping and praying he doesn't get a cold again.

... We're taking the kids to the Gypsy Day parade tomorrow. Sofia will be happy that this time there's candy with the parade!

... I saw that IKEA kitchens are on sale through November. I'm hoping we can get to that point while the sale is still on! I'm pretty much set on an IKEA kitchen. They are not that expensive, and the designers have really thought about how to make things accessible and organized. (I need all the help I can get on that last one.) Here's the kind of cupboard doors I like (from the IKEA web site):
Click on this to get the bigger picture -- the doors look like old-fashioned beadboard.

Lots to do before our kitchen looks like that, unfortunately!