July is one of our most favorite months of the year! Laird’s birthday (July 3) kicks off a month of celebrations including my birthday (July 12) and our wedding anniversary (July 15). We also have a bunch of family birthdays and anniversaries during the month too! Oh - and don’t forget 4th of July - one of our favorite holidays!

We’ll look forward to 2021 when we can (hopefully) have some bigger celebrations and, of course, spend some time in our home state of Michigan.

We honestly were hoping to have drywall by the end of July, but as we should have anticipated, everything takes longer than expected.

Our electrician hasn’t been able to to spend as much time on our project as we would have hoped. He was wrapping up another job and then started working for the County, so he’s understandably busy. He has been able to provide great direction on the layout of our project, stopping by a couple of hours each week for the last 2 weeks. Kelsey has been able to follow his instructions and pull wire and install boxes. Each week we think we’re almost done, but there always seems to be a bit more to do.

I know I have been surprised by the complexities that go into wiring a home. We’re trying to think of absolutely every location where we want lights and outlets and it frankly gets a bit overwhelming. Right now, we’re finishing up pulling wire for thermostats and important stuff like smoke and CO2 detectors.

Exterior outlet and light location! If it looks high, don’t worry, it’s not. We’ll eventually have a little deck that will be right above the flashing.

One thing we won’t have...a doorbell! We’re going for an intentionally simple house and in our experience, doorbells always seem to break. Instead, we’ve got this cool claddagh door knocker that will remind us of our family trip to Ireland a few years ago. I’m not in love with our front door, but hopefully once we paint it blue and hang this cutie up, it will look nice.

Black claddagh door knocker that we found at Van Dyke’s Restorers.

We celebrated my 38th birthday with work at the house, then my favorite summer dessert - angel food cake, berries and whipped cream! 39 will look a bit different, I’m sure.

The birthday girl and the boys. Corbin definitely wanted to have his picture taken that day…

Angel food cake, strawberries, raspberries and coconut whipped cream!

Later that week, we celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary! We’ve done some cool things for anniversaries in the past - one our most memorable spending #5 camped on a mountainside in the Pyrenees in advance of one of the mountain top finishing stages at the Tour de France. We stocked up on essentials at the little grocery store in Ax-les-Thermes - baguettes, jam, cookies, and wine - borrowed pillows and blankets from the condo we rented, and slept in our tiny Fiat 500. The next day, we got to be part of the crowd where the riders are so close to the fans. It was awesome.

Flashback! Celebrating our 5th Anniversary watching a stage of the Tour de France!

This year was awesome too, in a different sort of way - finalizing outlet locations in our office and loft and going to Cameez in Dillon for frozen yogurt as a family. We promise we’ll do something extra special for #15 in 2021!

In the meantime, Kelsey has finished most of our remaining rough framing projects. He has a handful of little jobs to do (installing new brackets on the glulam beams, adding some blocking below the location for the spiral staircase, etc) and is closing in on having those items done. You can’t have a rough framing inspection done before the rough electrical is done. The inspectors want to see how the studs have been cut to accommodate pipes and wires to make sure no structural damage has been done.

One super positive thing that happened this month was that our fireplace was installed! We purchased our fireplace from Western Fireplace Supply in Avon and they were awesome to work with! We had thought about having a wood burning fireplace, but after much deliberation, decided to go with gas. Flipping a switch for warmth and ambiance sounds pretty nice. We selected the ProBuilder 42 Clean Face fireplace from Xtrodinair. It fits the chimney perfectly and will make an amazing statement when you first enter our home. We’ll be building our mantle out of wood leftover from my parent’s home build in the 90s. The oak is from trees my parents cut down on my grandparent’s property. So, definitely sentimental! We’ll also use this same oak for our open shelving in the kitchen.

Corbin showing off Kelsey’s rough framing for the fireplace!

July is typically vacation time for us - including time in Michigan with our families. With construction we needed to modify our plans a little bit. Instead, we camped one night at Heaton Bay campground in Frisco and then were lucky enough to get invited to spend a night at our friend’s cabin outside of Grand Lake. Both mini vacations were nice breaks! We have one more local camping night coming up in early August.

The view from our campsite at Heaton Bay.

Laird’s first time solo kayaking! We stayed at our friend’s cabin that is just outside of Grand Lake.

While it feels like electrical will never end, we know we’re almost there! However, on Wednesday we encountered a little hiccup. Kelsey broke a finger on his right hand! He’s in a cast to his mid-forearm and may need to have a pin put in! Ugh.

Believe it or not, this is NOT a construction injury. He actually tripped over a large tool box at the plumbing store and ran into a door frame. He must have hit really hard and at just the right angle. He’s trying to circulate a story about rescuing a child or old lady from a moose, but you know the true story.

Not ideal. As he so optimistically put it, “At least we’re not installing SIP panels on the roof like we were last summer!” We know he can safely pull wire and do some tasks like that, but it will be a challenge for a few weeks while he’s healing. Look out, yours truly may need to be a quick study on some items so we can keep moving!

Mom and Dad will be back in Colorado in September, so we’re really hoping to have drywall installed by the time they return. Then, Mom and I can paint, Dad can help with trim, lighting fixture installs, and fun stuff like vanities and kitchen cabinets!

What’s coming up next?

Finish the rough electrical - we sure hope this is done by August 7.
Finish some additional plumbing - gas line for stove/fireplace, venting, boiler, and manifold install. Our friend who is a plumber will be back on August 3 and 4 to assist with these important projects.
Have the county do a rough framing, rough electrical, and rough plumbing inspection. This is a super important one, obviously.
Install foam insulation and sound insulation before drywall.
Hang and finish drywall. Our drywaller is just waiting on the word to order material and finalize an install date, ideally in mid-to-late August. We are fortunate that we have the budget to hire someone for this big project!
Install the gray board and batten siding above the glulam beam on the south side. Kelsey has one little section done and it looks great!
Finish the trim around the windows above our panoramic door. Kelsey is hoping to do some of this exterior work during the drywall install, broken finger pending. He may need to quickly learn how to use the nail gun in his left hand!
Stain cedar for exterior soffit and install (this will be above the glulam beam on the south side, the big overhang on the front). We’ll order this wood once we have a better idea of when drywall will be installed.

Here are a few other photos from our project and life during the last couple weeks of July.