Driveways going in

First let's start with painting. We started painting the sewing room this weekend, but got interrupted by the tile guys. No picture yet of the tile. So, we decided to start painting the study. Got that done but no pictures yet. We were going to do some faux finishing but couldn't get it exactly right so just stopped. We will get back to the sewing room tomorrow since the tile guys have grouted the hallway and it should be ready to walk on tomorrow.

We got the driveways laid out on Monday and by today they already had most of the forms in and the aggregate for the concrete in place, except for the motorhome drive. They will have to take out some trees there first.

We also decided to have a patio poured while they were pouring so this is the layout. It will go around the tree with a well for the tree. We are having Ochre put into the concrete so it will be a goldish tan color. They won't be pouring anything until next Wed because they have to have a special truck for pouring colored concrete!! Whatever.

They actually had this part finished yesterday afternoon while we were painting. The ony water faucet is next to the drive so when we went out to wash up our paint stuff, we were surprised to find this. They really don't waste any time here!

We are having a driveway across the front corner of the lot and this is from the front of the house. They are still in the process of leveling the aggregate and now putting in the sideway forms.

The above shot is of the driveway entering the side street. I'm not sure the length of this drive, but would guess at least 130 feet.

We are having a curved sidewalk and they are discussing how to put the "s" shape into the walkway. The workers are very helpful and friendly. Great group of guys.


Tomorrow we will get pictures of the tile and hopefully a painted sewing room.

Oh, it was 100 deg today!

Not even Aug yet!

Sandy

Trim Work and Belton Lake

First we have to start with the cats. They are getting very bored sitting in this mh. Thunder likes to lay above the sofa and sleep. Puddles was in a funk for about a week and was hidding a lot and not talking. She actually slept in the shower one day so got a picture as she was waking up and ready to get out. I think she wants a bath.

The painters have finished their spraying and trim work. The molding in the master bedroom was creating lots of problems due to the angles so we decided to lower the molding and we will put rope lighting behind to shine on the ceiling. This treatment goes all around the room to the door. Oh well, another change order!!

The great room trim below and some of the foyer. When we first saw the paint they had everything painted the wall color (even the trim) so it didn't look dark enough to me, but now with the trim painted (color called homemade biscuit) it looks dark enough.

They have hung the garage doors but haven't painted them yet. I think they will be the color of the trim around the outside of the house. Hopefully we will get to lay the driveway out Monday.

We finally got all the paperwork to get the boat registered so went up to Temple, TX to take care of that and there is a good lake up near there called Belton Lake. It is very clean and large. This "TN" emblem was on a floating dock thing. Of course, Terry thinks it's TX, but it's the TN colors. TX colors are burnt orange. I'm believing it's TN.

The shoreline is very rocky as you can see in this photo. There aren't any weeds to fish but lots of down wood, trees, etc. The water is very clean and the temp of the water is 90 deg!!

The schoolers were coming up and I got some shots of them. Terry was very excited about that and was wearing his arm out trying to get them to bite. We chased them around the point. They were coming up everywhere all around the boat. There was lots of noise from them flopping on the water. It was cool.




He finally caught one. They are hybrid bass. On the small side, but lots of fun. He did catch a couple nice largemouth bass, also, but not in the schoolers.

Another shot of the lake. We were about 20 miles from the boat ramp up the river at this point. It was a really nice day. We swam quite a bit also to cool off. It is really nice to have a ladder on the back of the boat to get back in. The other two boats didn't have this feature which was a problem.

I liked this shot of the shore with the really large boulders. You see lots of this type of shore on the lakes in south central Texas, lots of limestone. They have very hard water here and we will have to get a water softener system to keep the pipes and faucets from getting gunk in them. We are also getting a reverse osmosis system for the refrigerator water and ice.

Well, that's it for now.

Sandy

Moon and fishing

The moon was up this morning when I first looked out. This was about 6:30 am so I had to get a picture. It was really cool. We usually walk in the morning before it gets too hot, so this morning the moon was out, we saw a hot air balloon and two rabbits. It was a good morning. We got back by 7:50 so it wasn't too hot, only about 80 deg!! We walk thru a local subdivision next to the rv park and loop thru all the streets. It takes us about 50 minutes and I guess is about 3 miles in total.

We went fishing on Thursday at Georgetown Lake. This lake is about 1 mile from our house and about 5 miles from where we are staying now. This fish is the 3rd Texas bass so far and was caught on a spinnerbait amongst the trees. The day was cloudy and only around 90 deg. The sun came out about 4 pm so we went swimming before we headed back to the rv. There aren't too many boats on the lake during the week so it's pretty nice. There are three Corps of Engineers Parks on the lake and two have camping. The only have electric and water and a dump station for sewer so we haven't camped there yet.
The shot below is of Terry's spinnerbait stuck in the tree. You can see it in the center of the picture (white). This happens quite a lot in these trees. Also, these trees are the reason we have a scratch on the new motor. When the wind is blowing it makes it hard to get around the trees without bumping into them. Also the motor is on a jack plate so it sticks out away from the boat so it makes it hard for the back seater to keep the motor off the trees!!

The next shot is of the birds sitting in the trees. There were lots of them so had to get a picture.
Also, as you can see from the "tire" picture, the water here was very high when they had a lot of flooding. It's pretty amazing as you look around the lake and see the water line from the floods. It looks like it was at least 40 feet higher than now. Of course, now there hasn't been any rain and they are 8 or 9 inches below for rain fall this year. We had a rain storm last Monday while we were at Belton Lake (about 30 miles north). Fortunately we had just got off the water before the rain hit. We were covering up the boat and the rain, wind and hail started. We got the cover partially on and then sat in the car while it stormed. It lasted about 30 minutes and then it was amazing how much water was on the cover in puddles. I think we could have put some fish in those puddles and fished from the side of the boat. Of course we got soaked while we were dumping the water off of the top and it was COLD water!! It dropped the temp about 20 degs.

The view below is of the San Gabriel River as it comes back to the main lake body. Lots of trees as you can see. This was late in the day and you can see the sky is coming out and the sun is ready to pop out and heat things up. We were pretty much thru fishing at this point and ready to go riding and hunting more fish. We did see lots of schoolers on the lake but didn't hook any. We got some of the schoolers on Belton Lake on Monday and that was fun.

Another view of the river coming into the main lake. There is a boat in the distance (center of river) running around the lake. We see just as many fishing boats here as ski boats or pleasure boats. A good mix. So far there haven't been any of those big wake jumpers, but we don't go out on the weekend.


I call this picture "When the Fat Lady Sings". I had my Ipod in my pocket and was singing along to the music. Terry was getting a kick out of my singing. Too bad he couldn't hear the music!!

We dropped by the house yesterday afternoon and they are working on the trim. The doors below are going from the hallway into the study. All of the closet shelving has been done now and they will finish the trim and moldings this weekend and start on the painting and tile work this next week. The cabinets are about 2 weeks out according to Spencer (our foreman/supervisor). We are still on schedule for at Sept. 29 closing or thereabouts. Hopefully sooner because Terry has to be somewhere in the middle of the country in Oct for a fishing tournament.

Well, hope you all are having a good July. More later. Sandy

Stucco on house

Yesterday after the market we went by the house to see the progress. They actually had the stucco finished. Here are several views. We had a troweled stucco with texture instead of just flat. You can see the texture in the next photo at the corner of the master bath.

We really liked the two toned stucco and it matches the mortar perfectly!! The foundation will get a color wash also with the same color as the stucco trim and mortar.

They have finished with the texturing on the sheetrock and the painter and trim guys are next. The cabinets will be another couple of weeks. Hopefully they will order the materials for the rv space this week and that will start in a couple of weeks. Can't wait to see how they are doing that!!
Another view of the back porch with the columns rocked.

We have four ceilings that are 11 feet and this one is in the breakfast area. Things are coming along and hopefully will be in before October. Hope you are are having a great July.

Sandy

Georgetown Market Day

Yesterday was "Second Saturday" in Georgetown. There is a local market on the square and they close off one of the side streets for the vendors. There were plants for sale, hats, clothing, jewelry, crafts, pasta, and our favorite salsas and jellies. It was a gorgeous day about 90 with a breeze and very sunny. The square reminds me a lot of my home town with the courthouse in the middle. This view is from the market (see the tents) with the "scales of justice" on top of the dome. This is the 5th courthouse built since Georgetown became the county seat of Williamson County in 1894. There is a nice museum on the square of the history of the county. In September there will be a Chisholm Trail Wagon drive down the square with a cook off. Dutch oven cooking is very big in Texas so I'm expecting lots of good stuff to eat. The store fronts are very unique and of course are only two stories.

All of the corners have benches to sit on under shade trees. It's very homey feeling. One of our favorite restaurants is Romeo's. They have great Italian food. We discovered this place while we were here in January but we haven't been there since we got back here in June. They were giving away lunch coupons so we will probably go there this week for lunch (one free entree). They also have pizza, homemade basil tomato soup, lots of pasta dishes, etc. Yummy place. This is a view of the courthouse from their front door. You can see the tents in the background on the left where the market is being held.

As I stated before, this vendor had our favorite stuff. Lots of things made with jalepeno peppers and things made with habanero peppers. They had everything for tasting so we bought raspberry habanero jelly, honey mustard with habanero, habanero salsa, and a habanero vegetable mixture (carrots, cauliflower, onions, peppers, etc.) This picture is of the salsa, hot sauce, mustard section of the table. Below is the front of the exhibit with the jellies. They had blackberry, peach, raspberry, blueberry, etc. made without any hot or with jalepeno or habanero. Since we like hot stuff, we liked the habanero spiced products the best. This company is out of San Antonio and this was the first time they were here in Georgetown. Good for us!!

Mustard and hot sauce!!

Here I am in front of Romeo's drinking the free lemonade they had for visitors, and holding my bag of goodies from Shayne Sauces'.

Below you can see the benches in the shade at the street corner next to Romeo's.

A few of the buildings have this need roof line and this happens to be Romeo's. There are others around the square. some of their crosswalks are bricked as you can see in the foreground.

Another shot of the square and the buildings on this side. It was a busy day.

Well, I hoped you enjoyed our new little Texas town.

Sandy

Sunset and Motorhome

Last night we had some showers roll thru (which lasted about 2 minutes) and then afterwards the sunset was nice. So here we sit in San Gabriel RV Park. As you can see we have lots of shade trees to the east (behind the coach) which gives us lots of shade until about 1 pm. We also have a tree next to us that gives us shade well into the afternoon. This sunset was out our front window facing west. It was very nice and cooled us down to the upper 70's. It gets down to high 60's at night so by the time we get up and go walking it's already around 71 or so. We try to walk between 7 and 8 am. Sunrise here is 6:30 am which is very unlike the northwest at around 4:30 am.

They have finished sheetrocking in the house and this is a view of the ceiling in the master bedroom. They are beginning to mud the seams now. Also, the outside rock is coming along very nicely.

For all those people who know about color in mortar, we added color so the walls wouldn't look too light. The rock is a flagstone called texas mix and the mortar color is texas tan. We will be putting Ochre in the driveways, sidewalks and on the back porch. The front porch will be the same flagstone that is on the house.

There are always lots of guys working on the house. I think there were at least 10 to 12 guys yesterday doing the rock walls and mudding on the inside.

Well, we are getting ready for lunch now so I'll get more posted later in the week. Hopefully, we will get the paperwork today for the boat and can get it registered so we can go fishing.

Enjoy. Sandy

Rock on House

Well, the sheetrock and outside rock work has begun. The kitchen is just about completely sheetrocked in this picture.




The sewing room is almost done also. Of course, they have to cut out around the windows.

The rock work is going pretty fast. We think they have to let the mortar dry before they go higher up the wall. The mortar has color in it but will dry a lot lighter than shown in these photos.

Most of the workers are Mexican and don't speak English very well but they are very hard workers. At least it's not over 100 deg this week, just in the low 90's.

Spencer and me during the pre drywall inspection. He is our site supervisor.

The pile of rock for the house before they started rocking the walls. It is not as gold as the house down the street which we like.

The insulation truck in the back of the house.

A view before they started the rock work. The stucco will go on after all the inside sheetrock is finished. The stucco guy doesn't like to start until all the hammering, etc. is done on the inside walls.


Well, that's it for now. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We just watched the Nationwide race and had hot dogs and corn on the cob. Also, we had ice cream with strawberries and blueberries, therefore, it was red, white and blue!

More later. Sandy