Another Sea Glass Fanatic!



This is Glass Beach on Kauai, amazing huh?



I just learned that my cousin Carol is another avid sea glass collector!  And she uses her nuggets so creatively.  She happens to live on Long Island Sound in an area that appears to have a vein of glass treasures. Amy and I need to take a little trip! In the meantime, I'm enjoying her posts and her creative use of sea glass.  http://seaglasssundays.blogspot.com/

In the meantime, we found a use for all the old brown sea glass spoils. They will go in the  narrow drain under the big bow window. Fun!  I'll post a picture next week!

Punch List!

What an exciting day! As we walked through the house with Jim, we sensed the impending completion of our house. A year of planning and over a year of construction have gone by! We're so close to completion that Jim suggested we do a preliminary punch list, so he could address issues before the final cleaning.

Since we were here on Sunday, the driveway has been paved with a stamped border that has a "bottom of the ocean " feel.

The exterior has been painted except for a little trim.



The showers have doors.




The loo has a light; can you guess what / who may have inspired this?





And the appliances are going in



Here's a little video clip taken as we wandered through the downstairs. I apologize for the turning of the camera!  

 :()

Next week the stairs go in and we'll get our first inspection!  If all goes perfectly well, we should be able to move in next month!

As the dust clears on the inside




 




Can you spot the real nugget?


It was a great day to go up to the house, and Amy joined us there. It's been a while since she visited; and the first time she saw her countertop.


Amy found the sea glass in this picture a couple days ago at Discovery Park. It is a beautiful chunk!





Off for more treasures!



It's now time for the garden!  What do you think?

Actually this pretty garden belongs to our neighbors down the street, John and Trish Coan. We came upon them as they were weeding and assessing the damage from our tough winter. Their garden is 4 years old, and just continues to look better and better.

 






Current state of the landscape



Most of the work has taken place outside this week. The drainfield is in; the driveway removed in preparation for a new one. The concrete porch looks great.

This is where we'd like to put the bocce court. But first, we'll have to check to see if there's any money left in the building fund.

All of the gardeners  I've interviewed have had great ideas, and all are keen on creating a landscape that is hardy, drought-tolerant, easy to maintain, and fun!
The breakthrough inside the house is that we now have water and septic!

Bye bye, porta potty!






Making a place for the refridge!



This just in......

Jim just sent this picture to show us the work on the drainfield. I didn't realize our property could accomodate so much equipment!  Looks like it's time to start planting soon!   More to follow on Sunday.......

A busy week at Camano

Jim warned us that in the end everything will come together fast. There are many signs that tell me we're there.

Take the activities this week:

Monday- finish up stair treads; general clean-up

Tuesday- pour concrete porch, install island countertop, install closet rods.

Wednesday- move gravel in preparation for the drainfield dig.

Thursday- dig drainfield under the watchful eye of our archeologist, and (hopefully no) other interested parties. :)

Friday- finish drainfield, begin to demo asphalt driveway.

The only things left before the inspection are railings, exterior paint, and the punchlist!

Due to the vagaries of our NW weather, it turned out to be a beautiful day, so I packed a picnic and headed up to check things out.

I sat on the bulkhead, eating lunch while  eagles circled overhead and realized that this place is looking less and less like a construction site and more like our old yard.

The concrete guys began pouring at 8:30 and were just finishing up surfacing the porch. Beautiful job!





Ouch!



Aaron arrived with the island countertop to replace the one that had fallen on bad times. What a job, and what a slab! The surface is very interesting, a mix of very finely ground bits of recycled glass, with a few larger ones and even some tiny bits of mirror glass thrown in. He calls it post-industrial waste.



Dave continues to get this job done. Thanks!

Light effects

Tools of the trade

 While the finish carpenter was doing a masterful job on the stair treads,  Dave was pulling the clear adhesive off the windows. "This will let more light in," he chuckled.

Light has been at a premium in the Northwest for the past few months. I heard today that we had 41 days in a row where sun was not in the forecast. And we've already had our usual amount of April rain! We're all getting a little batty as a result, so today brought a welcome change.



My future perch!



 Bright sunlight played off the surfaces inside and out! 



Laundry/ Pantry/ Studio





The hardwood floors are in and covered!







The master bath was awash in light.

Spring has arrived on Camano!

After a soggy, gray winter and a lot of driving back and forth to Camano with windshield wipers in overdrive; today was a very welcome change.


How, you ask?



First of all, our favorite produce market, Schuh's, has just opened! Everything looked so fresh and yummy! They are based in Mt Vernon and have a presence in Stanwood as well as farmers markets around Seattle. Watch for them!







Snow geese honked overhead, heading south.



And strawberries from Schuh's were beautiful and not imported!

You may ask, weren't you just at the house? Yes, but final details need to be hammered out.  An unanticipated glitch with the bamboo stair treads required some extra work and our approval. And they look really nice. Jim appears to have fingers crossed on left hand while showing Jeff the solution.





Methinks we have a good solution!



But what I didn't expect was that all our beach buddies were going to be there today! Our next-door neighbors, Greg and Gigi  were up for the weekend and it was so good to see them both. As Gigi and I sat talking on the windowseat, I spotted Julie, her Mom, Dodie,  Carolyn,  and Nancy driving by!

We're all so close in the summer; then Fall comes and we're in different worlds. It was great to see everyone today. Julie's mom, Dodie is 94 and has some amazing memories of the beach from her younger days. Hopefully she'll have a wonderful summer here this year.

Gigi and I are testing the window seat and catching up