It’s been way too long since I’ve shared an update of our building project, the barn with built-in apartment on our country property in Indiana. This is partly due to lots of days spent at the construction site. When I return home, I’m too tired to work on a blog post, and my other days are crammed with running the rest of my life (family, job, writing, etc…). Anyway, things have progressed nicely, and we hope to be able to “move in” come summer.

This is what it looked like when the snow left. The other shell was done before winter came, and pretty much all work since then has been on putting in the second floor with the apartment and finishing the inside.

Most days, it looks like this now. Doors open, and construction stuff everywhere. The porch is where the apartment is going in.
Conferences with the crew are still a constant.
And I still love the patterns found on a construction site; here the cabin of the caterpillar up close.

The inside of the barn without the caterpillar. On top of the storage loft: stacks of insulation material.
Inside the apartment, we had stud “walls” for quite some time while all the wiring and pipes were put in. Now they are slowly getting closed up. 

I love the lines and symmetry of the electrical wiring as well as the texture of the insulation. And I think it’s kind of fun to know what’s inside the walls, what makes it all work in the end. But it does mean deciding where every outlet goes, how each light is switched, where each faucet, thermostat, volume control, etc. are positioned. And most of that you can’t really decide until you stand in the actual space.

This will be the future main bathroom with what my husband calls “Annette’s” tub because I love taking baths and insisted on having a tub.
The kitchen counter will run along this window where the podium with the plans is right now.
The living area seen from where the kitchen will be. Beyond those windows is the porch.

A few days later, in that very same kitchen/living room, the tubing for the in-floor heating is put in, and the chimney for the cast iron stove is installed.
And, as usual, various contractor vans are parked out front, their wondrous worlds of tools and supplies on display.