Ouray Yoga™

Wow! It has been a long time since I blogged about a trip. F'ing Covid.  Ghost Ranch Corral It's not that I haven't travelled, I have travelled, but all for necessary things. From Corvallis, to Boise, to Logan, to Salt Lake City to Home. All in an effort to bring home my eldest from OSU, and show my middle possible colleges of the West. My middle wants to be west of the Continental Divide (maybe Front Range -- if she must) and she has always loved horses; however, she never became a proper cowgirl -- likely because her father is an L.A. city slicker. But, she is not ruling out the opportunity to meet a handsome young cowboy (or Aggie as the case may prove to be). More importantly, she wants to find her inner history-buff, education slinging, surfing, cowgirl. Drive-by Campus Tours Marcy Street What I didn't do is blog about my trips, because they were not American sightseeing tours. I failed to take the time to appreciate the Great Basin wonders. It wasn't play tim...

Repurposed sink going into modified school desk, See previous blog Well, I have had a wonderful response to people enjoying my blog. I usually update when I visit, but things are getting down to the wire, so I probably won't go down again until I move, so I thought I'd share some of the progress via John' experience. And for those asking me why? My simple answer is:  Lifestyle. We purchased the house in October 2014 and yet the reno goes on... Family Room, just loving the wood tones.  Cleaned up kitchen with countertops in! Waiting for backsplash Yes, it's an old home, historic even, but the bigger portion of the pie went into renovating the 1970's updates and not the bones of the 1880's home. Our biggest complaint is most of the labor force is overpriced for skill set and/or they don't deliver on service. It is our experience that we are getting charged Boulder prices for labor; which is okay for Boulder because there is a good chance the person coming into...

Future Masterbath Countertop - yes - Go Buffs !  We really can't complain about our working spring break, considering that only a few weekends before we had a 3-day break at the Broadmoor. So, I will temper my weary wining and callous complaints; and by callous, I mean literal callouses on my hands. Oops! Couldn't find the floor tile before purchase of paint. Went too dark with the gray kid's bath wall had to re-paint the entire room. Lost another 1/2 day. From my drive over the Continental Divide, I arrived to a cleaned-up work site with giddy contractors. They were excited to see my response to all that has been accomplished. It's good to have power. The work crew consists of my husband, a good ol' friend who is both giving and gifted and a very petite day-laborer, who normally works local kitchens during the high season in Ouray. We are so thankful to have Dave and Emilio, and Emilio's wife who also washes my guy's laundry and makes some pretty incredible...

A little departure from the home reno. My hubs and I travelled down to Austin for the American Craft Spirits Association convention/trade show. Fortunately for us, we have friends that love us enough to drive 3 hours from Dallas and spend an evening with us and show us around. (Helps that her mom lives here, so a good little visit on the home front for her, too.) During my walk to Corepower, Marathoners were everywhere! In deep background is Pink Capital Building. Frost Bank Building to the right.  Our totally awesome friends gave us the drive-by tour of Austin. The city is nestled on Lake Austin, part of the Seven Highland Lakes of the lower Colorado River (a damn system, if you ask me). This makes for lots and lots of rowing. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency and, since our cheap room wasn't ready, they upgraded us to a river view. YAY! I was in the room more since it was a distillers convention and I was not a participant. Our host first drove us down to the State Capital building...

Unfortunately, we had to fire our main carpenter. Now, I am not going to call him our General, our GC or even our contractor because he was never The Lead however much he thought he was. And there-in lays the problem. He was planning on charging us, not only for his hourly rate but also an 8% oversight rate on his own work. And not only his but that of all other contractors including the ones we brought in. Now, we get that most home construction projects need a head honcho and we even agree that some of the subs need organization and timing. We even agreed to his 8% on the subs he contracted in; however, he wanted to see our budget from the loan and he was working so slow that he was taking twice as long as many repairs should have taken. Bummer for him, we have over 30 years combined experience in apartment management and sub-contractor maintenance, and we have a pretty good idea of how long things should take. We gave him the heave-ho. So where does that leave us? Scrambling a littl...

 Phase one: Tear-out carpets, curtains and dated cabinets; move some walls and create the ever desired "Open Concept." We have learned that Dave and Mary Wood enjoyed entertaining and were a huge asset to the community. We hope to follow in there footsteps. View from the Family Room into the kitchen, we are down to the studs! The Kitchen was very dark, nestled between two load bearing walls. On the right, through the studs, is a sunroom with a nice large window. On the left (green wall) is the formal living room, with a nice bay window. We have decided to open up both walls and insert beams. Let there be LIGHT!  I am guessing this is ArtDeco 1920s wall paper. Discovered behind drywall in the guest bath. We had open this wall due to a suspicious bulge in the wall, we found a black mold condensation problem from steam pipes from the coal/steam radiator system. Once this is all replaced and repaired, I plan to either have the wall paper recreated or handpainted.  The masterb...