floorboards (she hates gourds)

Melvin and Hannah helps us out on putting together our kitchen floor. Thanks guys

best albums 2007

album art for bill calahan's, woke up on a whaleheart











top 10 of 2007

artists:
bill calahan
white stripes
st vincient
grinderman
okkervil river
thurston moore
deerhunter
various, "i'm not there" snoundtrack
the blow
arcade fire

honorable mentions
feist
lcd soundsystem
spoon
battles


watch annie clark shred in this video, she's amazing!

when a tree falls...

...when a tree falls on a house and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? hell yes it does! it makes the sound of cash registers cha-chinging from the insurance money. and here we have our roof back. those cranky old doug-firs did there best, but thanks to state farm and bill, tony and guys at mastercraft construction we got out roof back

sunnyside

some more pictures of the trusses from different views, a shot of our huge 5-foot garden window from the backyard and ashlee presiding like an angel. we had a sunroom put onto the house -- notice the large windows. with the trees that crushed our house gone, we have a pretty open sky to the southwest, so we figured we should take advantage of it. as bob pajich remarked, 'oh, looks like your new opium den." -okay, put me on the fda shortrack to get it going!

raindrops keep falling...

sissor trusses are amazing! we now have almost 17ft of ceiling at the apex. much thanks to ace-architect, pat donaldson, up in portland with the spiffy suggestion. the rise of the roof will also match the front of the house, so it may actuallly look like a real house instead of the dilapedated tetris pattern of old.

back from the dead

well, it's been a very very long time, but the anxiety and depression of our destroyed house was unbearable, so we've waited a long time to update this blog with any relevant news. of course a little laziness crept in and we have had some progress in the last few months. i'll fast forward through it as if it happened in a few days instead of ONE YEAR.

here are pictures of the exterior walls going up -- our first signs of progress after problems were found with the foundation, which kept any repairs from happening until the city could inspect, and engineers could devise..

DISASTER strikes!

..and when i say say strikes, i mean clobbers! oh dear. the next few months will be interesting as our 'fixer-upper' has flabergastered into a 'fixer-way-upper' and certainly no longer a do-it-yourself endevour. looks like almost every rafter in the attic has been cracked or snapped completely. two trees total came down in a wicked wind storm that came across the entire pacific northwest thrusday night. two doug firs came down ontop of our house, one of which might likely having been the tallest in our neighborhood -- nearly 100 feet tall and other not small by any means around 70 feet tall. initially, the triage assesment called for a crain to pull the big guys off, but cranes are expensive and the arbor company is thinking of cutting small pieces off at a time. it will be an engineering feat in itself to remove the timber without causing more damgae. tomorrow will be revealing on that end. no one was hurt and by a mild stroke of luck both cars were out of the driveway, and somehow my motorbike dodged a bullet as well as ashlee's cute bicycle cruiser. not the same can be said for my cruiser and a thrid spare bicycle that took a wallop in the house's adjoined storage shed that suffered the most visible damage. the event actually turned itself into an oppurtunity to meet some of our neighbors and nearly one out of three cars driving by stopped and uttered something in the realm of of "...ohhhh my..." with some strangers even taking picutres. the local paper might come by tomorrow. what can i a say, maybe a glib paraphrased cliche, you need to walk through valleys/ to climb a great mountain/ so that someday you may see the view that inspires... -whew, that was a corny one.

-stay tunned the saga certainly will continue.