Finishing Touches...

While there still remain a few bits and pieces of trim work to do the majority of the renovations are complete. Sure there are a few trim pieces yet to be placed or replaced. And there is a door or two to set, but the finishing of the wall behind the wood stove is symbolic of wrapping this 2+ year project up.

At the top of the wall you might notice my grandfather's lumber saw.  I remember working with him cutting down trees with a two man saw that seems to have disappeared over the years. But this one remains.  While my generation was raised in the 1960s suburban sprawl, the saw is nevertheless symbolic of the traditions and love of the family for the more rustic and rural lifestyle, where hard work endured rather than long hours put in is valued, and personal honesty and integrity mean more than personal connections.

On the bathroom wall is a photocopy (I have stained with tea to look old and framed in a birdseye maple frame my father made) of a brochure for Coe's Screw Wrenches.  The wrenches belonged to one of Carol's great-great grandfathers.  We've decorated the entire cabin with toys belonging to grandparents and other antiques as well as wood carved items from the various countries in which we have lived and worked, as a reminder to our children and grandchildren of whence they've come. But I digress...

 

Back to the woodstove wall. As previously mentioned (in this prior post) we used a faux stone which provided better adhesion to the cement board than natural stone would.  It's called Valley Forge Fieldstone. We used a mortar type of caulk between the stones to mimic the mortar look we wanted and left a smaller space between the stones than is usually the case in such applications.

But another real blessing in all of this was the kindness that capped off our finishing touches.  Just the other day, a local person I've grown to respect deeply dropped a very generous almost 2 facecords load of the most beautiful hickory, cut and split.

The blessing of rural life is how much people care for each other.  Back at the beginning of this post I mentioned the rural lifestyle. There are those that will never get it.  They'll refer to us as hillbillies whether were flat-landers or not. They'll accuse us of living in such places as this to avoid the "real life" of cities and suburbs.

But my response is always a - "Nope. We're not hiding. We're not avoiding. We're living an authentic sustainable life which few city dwellers could EVER endure and will likely NEVER understand. It's culture shock sustained for them. 

We can live on what we get, and rejoice in how the Lord provides without the nonsense of "entitlement." It was 12 degrees this morning.  I lit a fire (greenhouse gasses be cursed) sat back to enjoy a cup of coffee and praised the Lord for His Gracious Mercy.

Hallelujah. Amen!