It’s been a gloriously lazy week at the homestead. For me, at least! We finally finished packing and moving our household goods from Olympia and have them with us. Not that we can access it very easily in the packed container, but we could if we had the need and desire to rummage through it all. It’s funny, when the container was delivered, Pat was certain we’d be able to keep a nice walkway through the whole length to make it simple to get to things! Hahahahaha! I think he was forgetting that in Illinois we were living in a 2600 square foot house with about 2000 square feet of basement available (and mostly used) for storage and crafting. I got a sneak picture of the conex before he closed it after the last trip. A walkway – hilarious!

Do you remember my mentioning flexibility in the last post? Well, it pays off! This week the contractor let us know that because we’re having all of the plumbing replaced, the bathrooms now have to meet new construction codes. This isn’t a problem as far as electrical and plumbing standards go, but we were having a problem with clearance. The toilet and sink were too close to each other in the half bathroom design, and the toilet in the main bathroom was too close to the shower door. So, the contractor sent us some new drawings for us to approve and well, I wasn’t happy. I was already not getting a tub and now I was going to have to do a neo-angle or round corner shower. Let’s just say those are definitely not my favorite shower designs. We talked it over and I was reaching the point that losing the half bathroom was worth it if it meant I could have a regular shower. Not even the tub, but just a regular, rectangular, walk-in shower. In his normal fashion, the contractor says he’ll see what he can come up with and VOILA, I have a half bath AND A TUB!! Oh, the luxury!! I was some stupid sort of excited over this, let me tell you. I’m losing a bit of room out of the laundry/flex space, but it will be worth it!

Aside from these details, the demo work continues and the cleaning out of the crawl space has begun. When we had a structural engineer check out the foundation, he exited the crawl space and said, “I was going to tell you that you have everything but the kitchen sink down there, but there is actually a kitchen sink down there.” For real? I guess I’ll see it when they pull it out, but the small amount they’ve brought out already has made Pat a happy man. A big piece of metal cable never put such a grin on a man’s face. Plus, these cool glass bottles.

We’ve also had some fun wildlife interactions this week. The Rufus hummingbirds here are total thugs. First one decided the inside of Pat’s car looked interesting and I had to rescue it when it freaked out and scrunched itself in the corner of the dash and windshield. And then their fearlessness of my presence near the feeder led me to see how far I could go with them. Here’s a few photos of what we were able to capture. I really don’t have words to describe my joy.

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And this doe has decided we are at least semi-trustworthy. She was visiting, just watching us, and then decided it was time to curl up and relax for a bit.

So next is waiting for permit approval on electrical and plumbing, and hopefully having the foundation repaired within the next month. After the foundation, more of the interior work like drywalling can begin! For now, I’m going to continue relaxing outside in the breeze with the pup and maybe spin a little more yarn.