Reward for late nights

A fabulous sunset, our reward for working late at the building site.

Bathroom - only grout remains

The bathroom is tiled, complete with marble trim. Only grouting remains, and, well, a sink and toilet would be helpful.















Remy did a bang-up job, and we're thrilled with the results. His trim around the window and posts is perfect, more than we could have hoped for, and certainly more than we could have achieved without the skill of the master.




We shudder to think about how close we came to attempting the tiling ourselves. Thank you for saving us, Remy!

Back at it - electricians at work

Our faithful electricians have been hard at work, hanging fixtures, installing plugs and switches. They are hoping to have electricity in the house by end of next week.

Christmas Break

We didn't know what to do with ourselves on Christmas break. The house building has ruined us, making it difficult to disconnect from the relentless thrill of owner building. Fortunately, our family offers a prime lure, and we enjoyed time with our loved ones.

Recreation on Florida waterways

We took a little break to go canoeing and kayaking on the Santa Fe river with Remy and Remy visiting from Germany.


After a night of camping on the land, we went fishing at Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast.

Here are happy boys with the catch of the day, a stingray.

Granite chosen at last

Our declaration as we jumped into the car for Saturday's trip to Jacksonville was, "We will not leave there until we have chosen our granite!" This one is called "African Tapestry." After a dizzying look at all the gorgeous stones, we decided that they would all look beautiful. Let's hope it works out.

The stone has a gray-beige background with serene swirls which are more subtle than shown in the pictures.

It is a relief to have one more decision behind us. What painful pleasure to equip our home with the bare necessities, or luxurious necessities as in this case.

Weekend work

After a morning's trip to view granite in Orlando, we returned to the building site to several small jobs. We stained some wood, chain saw milled a few planks of the pine that was lightning struck, burned some brush piles, and attempted hanging an interior door. After lots of tedious leveling, we decided we needed longer nails to secure the frame. We also decided that we have a lot to learn about hanging doors.



We filled some cracks in the "accent wall" that we're painting. It's looking nice.




And the cabinets are almost in. They're carefully connected to the wall, to the floor and to each other, leveled and leveled again, ready for the granite installer to make a template this week.