July 5, 2015. Dog Days of Summer - Things are slowing down a bit.

For the past couple of weeks and for the next few weeks the changes won't be quite so dramatic. The sub-trades have been in completing the crack filling, painting, plumbing, electrical and tiling. This is, however, the first time that the formerly barn and carriage house (now garage and...part of the house) have become accessible from the main house. We've been walking outside to get in until a couple days ago.  Again, I'll let the pictures explain what I mean.

This isn't officially part of this year's renovation project but I did just paint the pillars of the gazebo over the hot tub so I thought it deserved to be included.

You can see the piece of plywood (leaning against the wall in the hallway) that was the temporary barrier between us and the renovations. All the crack filling is complete and a coat of primer has been put on the walls. When you look down this hall you're actually looking into the barn at the end of it. From the opening of that hallway to the far wall is about 40 ft.

This was taken after I walked down the hallway and into the area that opens up into the laundry/utility area. There will be a counter under the window and an island in the center of the room. The dog shower is in the corner (done with ocean stone tile on the floor and it will have white subway tiles up the wall). A set of stairs will be installed in front of the door leading into the barn. The barn itself is actually two feet higher than the carriage house. Once through that doorway you're in our Costco room (where we'll store bulk items - like the kind you get at Costco).

I'm standing in the Costco room as I take this picture into the laundry room and down the hall into the main house. That doorway will be opened up a bit more and the plan right now is to make it an arch. We qualify all plans for the house given that we don't know what we're going to find structurally once we start tearing down walls.

You've probably seen this before but I just love our new barn and like showing new pictures of it.

This is in the barn too. This is my newly created studio. The sink was hooked up a couple weeks ago and my dear friend, Andrew, gave me a pottery wheel that I refurbished and set up. My shelving units hold my tools and pots that are drying and also create the wall that separates my studio from the rest of the garage.

Here's my new pottery wheel all set up. I covered our newly painted walls to try to protect them from any mud that may get splashed around.

Shameless self promotion. So far I've been involved in one sale. I branded myself and set up my little booth. The sale was just my pottery classmates and I but it was fun. I sold $62.37 worth of pottery. Unfortunately I bought $62.00 worth of pottery from my classmates. My business model needs some work.

Here's the completed carriage house. The cedar shingles are all up and the windows and doors are all installed. The light golden brown of the shingles will take on the same grey hue as the other ones on the barn over the next couple of years. The ones we put on the cabana during the deck project two years ago are almost completely grey already. That palette in front of my car (and a smaller one in front of it - you can just see the corner of it) is what 3000 lbs of porcelain floor tiles look like. We calculated that the kitchen and laundry area will need about 1100 square feet of tiles. Our designer found ones that she (and we) liked but they were in Dartmouth. We asked them if we'd be able to go get them instead of having them shipped down. They laughed and told us that many tiles would weigh 3000 lbs. To put that in perspective - our truck only weighs 5000 lbs.

Here is our new kitchen entrance with a new garden door. The kitchen windows are all being replaced and where you see shutters right now will also be a new window. There will be extension posts attached to the tops of the stone pillars and a pergola will be built there. I plan to cut a hole in the concrete below each pillar and plant some Wisteria that will crawl up the pillars and wrap around the pergola. That will take a couple years but should be spectacular once it's established.