Moving day.

This is a significant day… our last post on this blog website. We are not putting down our "pens", we are moving to a brand new home built by the Artist for Applewood. It was a ton of work but in the end very rewarding. It took almost as long as building a real house... four months! We built a very nice room for the blog right in our new Applewood website. It was time to change for many reasons. It was tough. But in the end.. anything worthwhile is not without some pain. …

Loft play.

We finished our barn loft project last week. It was a quick creative project for the crew. We had to meet a deadline for a scheduled party. Deadlines keep you focused. That's a good thing! 

The Carpenter and I headed over to do clean-up after the crew left. While I picked up tools and trash.. the Carpenter cut leftover scrap wood for our summer camping vacation. Nothing goes to waste on our projects. We received some assistance from the little honorary apprentice carpenter on the site, as well as one of his sisters. They loaded a mountain of cut wood scraps into the back of one of our trash trailers really fast. Faster then I would have. …

Harvest.

We are in our harvest time. Projects we bid on have come in, while we continue to bid more. It's our busy time. We have slow times, but even then we stay busy chasing project details. 

We are just completing a small bath remodel, and today brought our sub crew on to build a loft in a barn. The Carpenter was looking forward to today. Starting a creative project and working with subs we don't get to spend time with on a weekly basis. …

Soon.

A lot of ordinary business activities have been going on for the past few weeks. Maybe hardly worth a post. But we're keeping it real right? We've been finishing up projects– built a small deck last week and started a bath remodel yesterday. The Carpenter continues to be busier then prudent juggling the stuff he juggles. …

Between.

20799 page views!! Thank you to all who follow this blog. Since we started in July 2012 we've written 292 posts! It hasn't always been easy to find something "constructive" to be a worthy read. Along the way, I've found more material to write about from our unique experience as owners of a small construction company, rather then just sharing regurgitated information that someone else gathered. Unless.. something really strikes me as brilliant to pass along. maybe. …

Clean up.

Clean complete at our Hyde project! A couple of trash cans.. all that's left of someone's roof sitting at our curb. Part of every project is cleaning up, returning the space to the way we found it.. but better. It's been almost a week or so it seems that the Carpenter, myself and our lead Carpenter gathered the stuff of our trade and started trips back to the cabinet shop. …

Quiet.

Things have been pretty quiet around here. The Carpenter has been working longer days wrapping up our Hyde Avenue re-roof project– which turned out to be a lot more then just re-roofing a home. And by re-roofing I mean.. removal of the entire roof… every. single. truss. …

On the "home"stretch!

It's the final week at our Hyde Avenue reroof project. This job came about because of last year's huge snow fall season amount, which caused the roof rafters to sag under the load. The rafters were built wrong. 

The project title doesn't really speak to the diverse amount of work that has been done in the past two months! We started out by tearing off the roof, area by area. It was the dead of winter. Usually the worst time to take this type of project on. We could have had many "nuisance snow" events. (In Minnesota we don't usually get blizzards and when it's bitter cold it's just too cold to snow heavy), so we anticipated a number of 2-6" snows. Didn't happen. Thankful. …

Clean-up.

A field of debris showed up when the white disappeared, during our unusually warm weather last week at the Hyde Ave project. Enter… the clean-up queen. Donning my old faithful wellies and warm gloves I headed to the job site.

I'm good at clean-up. I tap into my organizational task oriented self and get moving. How much can I get done in two hours of concentrated effort? What areas can I tackle and make a difference in that time span? What tools can I use to minimize bending over.. and over. …

It's been a busy week and it's only Monday! Actually our work week started yesterday. The Carpenter got a text about lighting from the Hyde Ave project… and off he headed to the job site. Then he headed over to the electrical contractors house. I was making red beans and rice with sausage for dinner. 

I should be used to this by now. …

Time to pick color!

I headed up to the Hyde Avenue project to do a color consult for the interior of the home. I arrived to a very busy project site. The insulating company was there. Our crew was running around finishing up details to the exterior of the home- trims, soffits, facia etc. Whatever needed to be done to put a house back together that has undergone a roof re-do. The roof is on, tar papered and ready for shingles which are scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday. …

Icing on the cake.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal and evening in a kitchen we built, this past Saturday night. Two years ago we were working on our Craftsman Project. To accommodate a brand new kitchen, a two story addition was built. We worked with Imagine Kitchens http://imaginekitchens.com to bring the kitchen design to life. …

Unknowns.

Another Saturday is upon us. The Carpenter started the day with a customer meeting at our Hyde Ave reroof project regarding their fireplace.. not their roof. I would prefer he not "work" on Saturdays but sometimes it's the only time a customer can meet. …

With heart.

It has been a rocky week. We've been dealing with brutal temps which stopped the outside work, crew illness and death in one of our sub's family. It's taken some juggling but we've managed to keep part of the crew going on our small bath remodel during the days the bitter won. …

Embracing old.

We attended the Carpenter's childhood church's final service last weekend. It is shutting its doors. Going the way of so many small churches. 

I spent some time walking around and just looking at all the rooms and areas that I remembered from years ago. We had our wedding reception at this church. The Carpenter's Grandmother Pearl was a charter member. The Carpenter's parents were married there. I've attended bridal showers and funerals there. Memories. …

The stuff of life.

I wish I had some impressive project photos to post. You know.. the latest trending style, expensive, innovative, photos to showcase our abilities and experience as a company. But I don't right now. It's just the way it rolls.

Currently we are on a small bathroom remodel as well as starting a large roof replacement project. Well the roof replacement will be interesting to share. Last winter we had a ton of snow and the weight of it bowed a home's roof trusses. We will be taking the roof off completely. Installing brand new trusses. …

This and That.

Slices of pie.
Accounting. I'm taking over our Quickbooks work for Applewood. I mentioned previously, changes for 2015 that will help our office run smoother. Well this is a big change for us. We have been using Quickbooks, the Carpenter just doesn't have the time to keep on top of it.

Enter moi. I've been receiving Quickbooks training and so far so good. I am surprised. I thought it would be harder. It's quit intuitive and visually appealing. So for this artist, that is a very good thing! I'm excited to be able to help the Carpenter. Lighten his load just a bit. 

We rocked it!

Last weekend I put together another volunteer work day to help one of my organizing clients paint the interior of her home. After I set the day up I start getting feelings of misgiving. Everyone is so busy.. who has the time to do this? Why do I keep doing this? …

Small but mighty.

2015 is going to be the year of the "apple". A lot has been going on behind the scenes I can't share here yet. But watch for future updates! We've been in business since 1983 and have weathered much over the years. We got hit hard by the housing market crash in 2007 (like so many builders) but we prevailed and have continued on. …

Chocolate bitter is better.

It's been a battle of bitter for the past couple of weeks. Bitter cold. Now I like bitter… in chocolate. Not in my weather. December was unusually warm and misty. We actually saw green grass for much of that month! January… has been quite miserable for the crew. And unfortunately the way our projects have rolled… we're outside right now. Last week alone we had to cancel three days of work due to extremely cold temps. …