So, it's been a while since I've communicated anything.
We had a appraisal last week and it was a little lower than we hoped. Oh well, we'll work that out.
We hoped for the final appraisal today. We have

Finally, we finished the brown coat today. I'm beat; more later.

I finished the brown coat on the bale walls inside yesterday. What a relief!!! The stairway came out beautiful, though I made a bit of a mess even though I masked the walls and floor.

The mixer sprung a leak yesterday also. Damn.

I just need to finish the brown coat on the porch and balcony. 1-2 more days then good by mixer for a while (at least until we are ready to do the color coat outside).

We are nearing the end of the brown coat. It is going a little faster than I thought. It is just Michelle and I so it is still a bit slow. We finished Ruby's room yesterday, inserting the black walnut window sill, as in Julia's room. It looks amazing.

Today we do the stairwell. That will be a challenge since the top part runs up 1.5 floors. Then we'll finish the balcony by our bedroom and finally the porch; which means we need to install the front door. I wish Ken will be here for that.

The house is looking better every day.

I can't wait to be done with the brown coat and start putting on the clay.

The basement is mostly complete: toilet, tub, sinks, stove, refrigerator, beds. We've been sleeping here for two weeks. It's great to be here, though a little challenging since it is still a construction site.

Finally. The basement stucco is complete. The main room is finished with sahara tan clay and the kitchen in abiqu red. Michelle started sealing it yesterday.

We are hoping to be finished with the basement by the end of the month. Then we move in!

Michelle decided to try some clay stucco on one of the main floor walls that had a brown coat on it. So on Sunday she and Roman set to work. The clay mixed up easy and went on easy. Roman used a rubber float on it then went over that with a steel trowel. BEAUTIFUL!!!

We used a light green color on the west wall. There are some pictures of it in the Images section under May.

I am so happy that I convinced Gary to hire out the drywall. The crew that descended into the house finished in 1.5days what it would have taken us months to complete! Thank you! I am so happy!

The Olivera Family (Roman, Karen, Micah, and Evnagelina) showed up last week end to help us work on the scratch coat inside. Evangelina watched the girls while the rest of us worked on stucco. We got the whole inside scratched!!!

Thank you Oliveras!

I started insulating the attic this weekend. It took most of a day to get ready to insulate and most of a day to do the ceiling in Julia's room.

We are using Ultra Touch from Bonded Logic. It is mostly recycled denim and other cotton fiber, treated with a borate solution. It is nice to work with, though tough to cut.