More Progress on the Guest Cottage...

The construction is almost done! The kitchen appliances are installed, and just a little trim work remains. That bare spot to the right of the stove will be filled with a book case. The area is designed so that if we ever want to connect the 'man cave' with the guest cottage, we can just pop through the wall and put a door in that area.



The man cave is pretty much done. Those doors are closet doors for the guest cottage, and then it just needs a good cleaning. The vinyl floor looks amazingly like tile; I'm so happy that it didn't come out looking cheap. Pool table, dart board, TV, and music equipment/storage space to follow...



The living/dining area just needs a good cleaning now, as do the bathroom and bedrooms.



Now we have to get out there and buy some beds so we can have guests!

More Progress on the Guest Cottage

They're putting down the flooring in the guest cottage now so I thought I'd take some pictures so we'll remember what it looked like in progress.



They also carpeted the bedrooms. This carpet came as a special deal so I didn't really pick it, but it's perfect for not showing red clay stains (now a central preoccupation of my life).



A view of the kitchen with the partial floor. They're coming tomorrow to do the plumbing in the bathroom, which will just about finish it, and to put in the kitchen sink, which isn't currently cut out. We hope to have appliances by Friday.



It's so nice to see it coming together finally...

Guest Cottage - Cabinets Are In

The guest cottage is moving along...the carpenters came to install the kitchen cabinets and countertop today. The cabinets are stock cabinets from Lowe's, and the countertop is a stock laminate. Nothing custom, but I'm still really pleased with how it came out.

The brown strips on the floor are the wood laminate that's going to be in the kitchen and living area. We decided on stainless-steel-look for the appliances and for the sink, which isn't cut into the counterop yet.



Below is a view from the kitchen out toward the French doors in the living area. The box you see is the vanity for the bathroom.



A view of the guest cottage from the outside. I wanted a 'before' picture to remind us what it looked like before everything was done and we landscape it. (That gray around the French doors will be painted brown at some point, and a gable window will be installed above the doors to ventilate the attic.)



We're excited at the prospect of having it done, and not having workmen coming and going all the time. The flooring is supposed to get done early next week, and we're told the whole thing might be done by the end of next week. I'll be happy if it's done the following week.

We still have to furnish it but we should be ready for visitors by the end of May.

Having Fun in the Springtime

The goats are frisky these days. They're playing more. As you can imagine, they play a little more roughly than you or I would. (Well, I can't speak for you, but I don't normally head-butt people when I'm playing with them.) The two females charge each other and bang horns. Little Ben's horns aren't big enough to do that yet, so he just play-fights with them.



They do appear to be having fun, but of course I'm sure in goat world it all has some serious sociological meaning.



Or maybe not...sometimes it's just fun to bully the little guy.



Of course, little guys grow up to return the favor pretty fast. Watch your back, Miss Arlene.

What's really fun is watching them on the boat dock. They love it there. Around dusk every night they retire there for the evening. You can heard their big cloddy hooves banging on the wood as they rough-house a bit, then they each settle into a corner and fall asleep.

Unfortunately, I go down around 8:30 every evening to put Gus in his stall for the night, and they assume that means I'm going to feed them. (It never means I'm going to feed them, but hope springs eternal.) So I start out for the stall, then I hear the hooves start clanging on the dock, and then shortly after that there are eager little goat faces pushing at my empty hands....then disappointed, betrayed little goat faces tugging at my heartstrings, but never quite enough for me to go get food for them.

The property we bought came with a 30' X 60' unfinished 'workshop.' We decided to leave a third of it unfinished for storage, convert the middle third into a rec room (pool table and music room), and then finish off the last third as a guest area, with two bedrooms, a bath, a kitchenette, and a living/dining area. The windows in the picture above belong to the guest area, and the two big windows are for the living/dining area.

This will be the view from those windows. We'll eventually get it landscaped, but it's still pretty now, isn't it?

The little brown house is a play house the original owner built for this daughter. He tried to move it, but couldn't, so we got to keep it.

We hope to be ready for visitors in about a month.