Catchin' Up

HI!

Just back from 10 days at beautiful Palm Desert, CA with great friends Anthony and Sue. This year was special since it was with our new friends and it was a sort of escape from the Denver winter. I have thoroughly enjoyed the winter ...... variable weather; one day cold, blowing snow, below zero, bad traffic, dirty car, bundled up, etc. Next day in the 50's and 60's, sunny, no wind, wearing shorts and a shirt, enjoying the outdoors. What a diversity.

Today is 63 degrees, bright and sunny. Forecast for tomorrow is for snow accumulations around 2", low of 15 or so and highs near freezing. Good day to stay inside and watch.

Deb's into her adventure, leaving me to fend for myself for the next six weeks or so. Today, I almost felt like I was back in CA. Trader Joe's opened it's first Colorado store about 2 miles from our downtown home.

I was there because I need to cook for myself. Up to now, I've been a pretty good prep chef to Deb's mastery of delicious and complicated dishes. I decided to dip back into our Sonoma cookbook and make the Tangy Black Bean Soup for dinner. So far so good, but tasting is a little ways off yet. It does smell like the soup Deb makes.

I learned a couple of things from cooking the is soup ..... 1) don't clean the floors in the kitchen until after you're done prepping, and 2) you can't get garlic smell of your hands if there's no stainless steel sink around!

Wish I could say that we've dug dirt on our new home; can't though. It feels like it's close though. Steve the Builder says that the permits might be issued soon and he's talking to his excavator ...... hopefully about digging our dirt! Now it's sit back and wait.

The reason I'm back into the Sonoma Cookbook, other than having to cook my own meals, is that Deb has inspired me to drop a few and get back into shape. I was really surprised, when I got to Denver in October, by the effects altitude had on my physical capabilities. Granted, I let go as we packed up the Alameda home and moved, but I expected to be able to do more without huffing and puffing as much. We exercised in Palm Desert at sea level and the difference was dramatic. I breezed through workouts that I would have worked hard at before we moved to higher ground. Coming back to Denver, I find I can do the amount of work that I want to with out hurting, and I actually feel good about my level of fitness again.

Advice (is worth what you paid for it) - if you go to higher ground and exercise, don't drink copious quantities of alcoholic beverages the first few days, drink lots (that's LOTS) of water to avoid headaches, and cut back on caffeine. That'll help, but still expect to feel the effects of altitude.

Have a great day!

Phil

Exterior Renderings of Our Home

HI!

Kat has done great work on the outside views of the home too. Here are four shots, starting with a southerly view.

From a little above and a little southeast of the home. The trees are nearly on the East property line.

Above, from the East side .....

Above, from the North, which is the back of the house. I'm standing in the courtyard that wraps the back from East to West. We recently decided to replace the three windows on the left with a 4-panel sliding glass door set that's about 9-1/2 feet long x 8 feet high. That'll provide even more light for the dining room and promote access from the kitchen / dining room to the back courtyard.

View from the West .... the courtyard continues to wrap around and there's a set of stairs that lead up to the rooftop deck where lots of gatherings will be held! That deck provides a great view down the valley to Chatfield Reservoir and, past that, to the lights of Denver in the distance. In front of the double door is a deck that's off the master bedroom.

Snowy Day It' Gonna Be A Snowy Day ....

HI!

This is more like it! Snow and cooler weather - maybe below zero tonite. Right now it's about 5 degrees and we've bundled up to go to Deb's writing class. Then out to Roxborough Park to get mail and return library books. Ho Hum activities, but part of daily life.

Woke up this morning to an outside temperature in the low single digits, bright sunny weather, and frost on the windows. The moisture inside the house freezes each night, and as the sun hits the windows, the ice melts and evaporates. The patterns of the ice are as pretty as any snowflake!

It looks like we have an approved Building Envelope Adjustment, and we've submitted to Douglas County for building permits. The people who have done this before tell us that it'll take about three weeks for the building permits to be issued. Then we can dig ground ..... in the middle of a Denver winter.

We've hired an architect to help us visualize the inside of the house. As soon as I can figure out how to do it, I'll post some of her renderings so everyone can see, and comment on, the home we've designed!

I'll just mention in passing that the Denver Broncos lost the Superbowl football game last Sunday. The other team played great defense and disrupted the Broncos' offense from the very first play of the game. Denver's defense was adequate but not outstanding, so I'm guessing that next season will see a Denver team that's faster and more agressive on defense. Having said that, it's just a game and there's no sense getting too emotional about it. Watching the game was a great chance to share time with friends!

Interior Views of the Home

HI!

We're moving from using the construction drawings to design the home to using perspective "models" of the interior of the home for design work. Here's an example - a view of the kitchen from the Great Room.

We hired an architect, Kat, to help us out using a program call Sketch Up. She took the construction drawings and converted them to 3-D images. She sits with us and we "walk" through the home looking at everything as we go. She even has the capability of changing colors and textures.

What a great tool! We were having a lot of difficulty "seeing" in our mind's eye, the spiral staircase and the back lit bottle wall. There was a platform part way up, the stair case curves up and to the right and the wall contains back lit bottles. How was that going to look?

Here's Kat's rendition of that area:

Her work helps us visualize what we've designed, and as everyone knows, re-design it based on things we've heard or seen!

This post is a big THANKS! to Kat for her efforts. Very much appreciated, very much more than we'd ever hoped to get!