Author Archives: cstults

We’ve been preoccupied with our wreath and garland business, forestry work, and travel for the last two months, so this blog post is a bit overdue. Back in October, we took on a big Earth-moving project. The whole East side of the building had been in a bumpy incomplete state with seasonal dust bowls andContinue reading “Rocktober Fest! (Part 1)”

The day finally came. We moved out of our White Salmon house! We packed everything up and hired movers for the heavy lifting. They managed to get most of our stuff in one truck load; however, they left a few heavy items for us to deal with, like the welding table. We eventually got everythingContinue reading “Mooving In”

The office was the last remaining room without a floor. The room had been locked up and forgotten about for nearly a year. Now that we have stairs, it made sense to finish the floor up there. We had completed the plywood subfloor back when we framed the whole building (which was in January 2022Continue reading “The Office”

We’ve had our typical dry, sunny summer, but unlike some previous years, we haven’t had too many smokey days. In fact, most of the smoke in the air was from our new smoker! This pellet smoker is great. We have ribs and chicken thighs dialed in. Although we didn’t have many wildfires in the area,Continue reading “Smokin’ Hot”

We put our last piece of siding up over Labor Day weekend! It’s been a long time coming. Looking at back at Labor Day 2021, we were here… We were energetic, full of gumption and had no cats. By the following summer, the exterior structure was complete and ready for siding. We got 5 cratesContinue reading “Labor of Love?”

As you all know, we’ve had the toilet and most fixtures in the shop bathroom since January. Sam installed the faucets and finished caulking around the tub and shower surround, so it was ready for use. We just needed a shower curtain. I spent hours searching for a manly shower curtain. I didn’t know whatContinue reading “The Manity and Big Blue”

No, we didn’t really build a she-shed. It’s a package shed! To spare the UPS man a mile-long drive up to our building, we built a shed to receive packages by the main road. It has a roof to protect boxes from the elements. No one likes to pick up soggy cardboard. We started constructingContinue reading “He Said, She Shed”

We finally got around to building the main staircase which goes from the ground floor to the office. If you recall, we built the upper set of stairs last year, leading from the second story (office) up to the attic. Since then, we have been using a scissor lift (and the cats a ladder) toContinue reading “Stair Masters”

We accomplished another big milestone in the shop. We set up the woodworking tools and dust collection system! The shop will be divided into several zones for woodworking, metalworking, brewing, etc. Having the woodworking tools confined to a space makes it more efficient to move a wood board from machine to machine. It also makesContinue reading “Left in the Dust”

Fun challenge! – Count the number of references to The Doors songs in this post. (Title does not count.) I thought ordering doors would be easy. Boy, was I wrong. It all started nearly two years ago when I couldn’t find exterior doors to match our French doors and windows. Apparently the design selection ofContinue reading “Doors”