The tub is BACK! Here are a couple of photos of the big move back in mid-October, with big thanks again going out to our helpers. Some of them helped us move it into place originally and they STILL showed up for this awkward heavy job. Y’all are the best!
It has taken awhile to get the tub fired up again because enough shed structure had to be built to run new wiring to plug it in. The wiring became the next thing to do once materials for the roof had been ordered and the wait for their delivery began… and as it turns out, wiring was the perfect sized job for a roofing delivery window- those panels arrived just yesterday.
I haven’t had a chance to try out the new location just yet, but here’s Morgan enjoying his first soak, checking out the new vantage point.
new tub location
This particular spot hasn’t gotten much love from us in terms of landscaping. Once upon a time it was where our three-bin compost storage was. Then it was a place where we stored all the stuff that needs a shed but doesn’t yet have one (you can see where we moved it- the orchard ladder and scaffolding to the right in the photo). Eventually the slope to the left in the photo will be dug out and carted away, but for at least a few years we will have to work on beautifying it as it is. For this mid-winter moment, just sitting in a tub of hot water for as long as we want to is a beautiful thing.
You may recall that last winter we had our peninsula finished in a lovely big slab of granite. We have been enjoying that quite a bit, but the wall below it remained unfinished plywood.
We had several ideas for the wall finish- tile? Wallpaper? Paint? And then Morgan did a cool job for someone using repurposed copper roofing tiles they had picked up at Second Use Building Materials. There were enough left over that he was able to buy some for our little job, and voila!
Bird poop patina
Once installed it kind of disappeared, which is what would normally happen with a space like that. Morgan pulled a bit of LED lighting out of the cabinets (pretty sure we got it from a white elephant exchange a few years ago), installed that, and now we have this fun, fancy, under-the-counter once-somebody’s-roof situation going on.
The year draws to an end, and I feel compelled to wrap it up like I always do…
Let’s start with Huck, this was a big year for him. He fell in love, got mono, went to prom, graduated from high school, turned 18, started freshman year at the University of Washington, and voted for the first time. He continued to do WW1 re-enactment with PNW Great War (you can find him in the photos because he is always the tallest in the bunch). He kept his job at Jack’s Fish Spot in the Pike Place Market throughout the school year and summer, and is still working there most Saturdays; stop by and say hi if you can brave the tourist throngs. Along with all of the excitement of big firsts came the pain of big transitions- his sweetie (Frankie) went to Japan for a gap year in September, all of his other friends scattered to the post-high-school winds, the University of Washington is a huge school and the workload is no joke. Even the job at the Market saw some big turnover as people moved on to other things, so he lost his connections at the surrounding shops. Having him at home instead of the dorms means we are present for those growing pains for better and for worse. We are happy to have him here with us where we can love him and support him every day, and try to balance the instinct to protect him from pain with the understanding that there is a lot to be learned in the struggle.
Here are some of my favorite photos of Huck this year.
Morgan’s big highlight this year was a trek from south to north through the Olympic National Park in August. I dropped him and our buddy Marc off at the North Fork Quinault River trailhead after a pleasant night spent at the historic Quinault Lodge, and they walked up that river into one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the world. They made their way out following the Elwha, a river restored to its wild self after dam removal in 2012 and 2014. Marc’s sweetie picked them up (after about 6 days of walking) at the Elwha ranger station and we had a nice bit of restoration ourselves at an AirBNB on Lake Sutherland before heading back home.
Morgan continues to keep busy building stuff for other people and then using that money to build stuff for us. Stay tuned, I swear there will be a glorious shed post coming soon…ish.
If you follow my Instagram or FaceBook accounts you will have seen photos from the various little jaunts we take- from Mt. Baker to Portland, Fort Columbia to San Juan Island and back again to the Long Beach Peninsula. This year’s camping picks included Kanaskat-Palmer and Rainbow Falls State Parks. We have been exploring our state parks for many years and are rarely disappointed with what we find, especially if it’s in good company.
A couple of our favorite summer festivals fired up again in a mid-Covid mellow way. We returned to Critical NW in July, the annual mini-burn held these days at a private campground in Granite Falls. We were this year’s keepers of the event’s much-loved Critical Costume Closet. Having never worked retail, I enjoyed playing “shop” with thousands of garments donated from the community it serves. Morgan and I have given many very choice items to the Closet over the years, and it’s always super fun to see people walking around wearing your old favorite things. This year, that feeling expanded to feel like ALL of the closet was ours; we hung each piece, sometimes styling it on a mannequin, only to see it later walking around on a happy customer, occasionally just as we styled it :). The best! Unfortunately, lots of our camp (including Morgan) came home from that event with the dreaded Covid, but as our buddy Andrew said, “At least we got it doing something fun and not just shopping at Fred Meyer.” Too true. At the end of the event I passed on the mantle of Closet Coordinator and kept a bunch of fun new memories and outfits. In August we headed back to our friend Shelly’s Electric Sky art camp on the Skykomish River, an annual opportunity to find collaborators for future projects and experiment with integrating technology into art. It’s also an art show with projects installed and displayed for locals and travelers alike, and an opportunity to camp with friends by the river. This year’s theme was Midsummer Night’s Tempest, so we made fairy houses for the trees.
Over Halloween we took a not so little jaunt to New Orleans, LA with some friends. This was a belated 50th birthday celebration for me, a travel treat to somewhere we had never been. NOLA did not disappoint- the city is old and beautiful and the spirits there aren’t just from bottles. History and creativity abound, and if we are lucky we will go back to experience the many wonderful things we couldn’t fit into this trip.
My bodywork practice continues to feed my body and soul. It’s been 29 years and I am still learning. People ask me whether I get tired, and yes, of course I do. I need care and attention just like everyone else. I am writing this post from my bed, where I have basically been stuck for the past 5 days waiting out a not-terrible case (my first!) of the Coronavirus. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to do that now, with four vaccine doses in my system, in this big beautiful room that used to be our living room. I’m feeling better, got out today into the yard to move my body around and am allowed back out into the larger world with a mask on tomorrow.
This bedroom fills with light and has excellent views.
I don’t want to blithely skip over the hard parts for me and for Morgan and pretend that 2022 was nothing but sunshine and good times, because it definitely was not. It’s tough being a human! We have big feelings, we get confused, frustrated, angry, lost, caught in our stories, we land in places where our coping strategies don’t seem to work. We are happy to have each other here, where we can love and support each other every day, and try to balance the instinct to protect ourselves from pain with the understanding that there is a lot to be learned in the struggle.
The big house project of the summer finally got underway last month. You know how it goes. At any rate, Morgan is building a sort of shop addition, a covered deck with a shed/closet on the east side where we can put our sports and camping gear, big tools, off-season gear, and gardening equipment.
Hot tub move thanks to friends! Thank you so much, friends!
Right now that stuff is either in the old kitchen (which will someday be a bathroom and laundry room), in a cramped attic space above the shop, taking up precious floor space in the shop, or tucked into a corner of the yard. This is what happens when you turn your old basement into a living space.
Steps to stairs.
Throughout this project there have been many glorious moments when things find their forever homes, as with our craft and office cabinets. This structure will likely potentiate several of those moments, and I will do my best to share them with you as they arrive.
❤️ Morgan’s notes in the landing pad. ❤️
In the meantime, one concrete piece of the structure has been completed, and we can now run up and down stairs on the east side of the house instead of slipping and sliding on the muddy slope we had there. Check out the step lights in the side of the house, finally united with their true purpose.
Morgan showing off the alternative to a slippery slope.
Tell you what, there’s nothing like global crisis after global crisis slamming through the news to make your house project seem like a ridiculous indulgence. Here we are though, trying to make something beautiful and frankly working pretty hard for it, so I will go ahead and share it with you.
When we had our quartz countertops put in we had planned for a natural stone piece on the peninsula bar. The contractor nixed our choice for not being solid enough for the task, so we pivoted.
We thought we might use a piece of live-edge cedar newly harvested from Chris and Carol’s place in Bellingham. Not wide enough. We tacked it on for temporary use and pivoted again.
Temporary cedar.
We thought we might use the beautiful live-edge walnut bar from a friend’s old business. Also not wide enough but Morgan had a plan to use bronze to make it bigger. A really cool plan. But also a lot of work and time and ultimately not really less expensive than going back to the drawing board for stone.
Check out this crazy stone!!!
If you have never chosen natural stone, it’s pretty fun. We went to Meta Marble and Granite (among other spots) in Georgetown on our contractor’s recommendation, and walked through the stacks, admiring the amazing things the earth has made. So many beautiful and wild things… I wanted something with dramatic seams, but my tastes were expensive.
Our slab
In the end, I found a slab of granite that was reasonably priced and has more subtle flair. It looks pretty boring in the big photo, but when you get close there’s depth and glamour in it. It picks up the speckle of our ground concrete floor and the colors of the cabinets and the quartz. It’s pretty cool.
Speckle and sparkle
I then successfully lobbied Morgan to make that choice with me- perhaps the greatest feat of this particular project.
He wanted that top slab that makes your eyes go 👀
We got our new full strength counter complete with waterfall edge on Friday. We can now put our knees under the bar and eat. Hooray! Now to finish that wall underneath it…
Welcome to the Hammershack Report 2021 year in review. Here’s what it looked like for us:
The year started on a hopeful note. Due to the nature of my work I was able to get my first dose of the Moderna vaccine in early January, which added immunization to my pre-screening, masking, and cleaning protocols and made me feel much safer about working, especially as the pandemic raged around us. After my second dose I was able to hug my nephew Gus for the first time– truly a moment of great joy!
Huck and Morgan got their jabs in April, shortly after we returned from our humble spring break road trip to Fields Spring State Park in the far southeastern corner of the state. We had the entire park to ourselves, as we were in a shoulder season between cross country skiing and summer blooms, so it was us, the kind and earnest rangers, and a thousand woodpeckers.
Morgan and I got out on some little camping trips and adventures with friends to other spots over the summer, leaving Huck behind. He was working, but honestly, his attitude at Fields Spring would have made me want to leave him at home anyway. I get it-16/17-year-olds don’t love hanging out with their parents all the time. The feeling can be mutual.
Big news around the house is the new roof, which you can check out in a previous post. The rains are changing here (as they are all over the planet) and it feels good to have gotten a new lid before our record-breaking fall precipitation. Speaking of record-breaking, you will certainly have heard of or experienced the insane heat dome we experienced in June. It was unpleasant and disconcerting. We got past it, but did we really get past it? I did what I could to help our plants, but some got burnt and one wonders what will thrive here in the coming decades.
burnt rhododendronburnt blueberryburnt fernChickens used to fertilize the garden beds.You can buy chicken poop, you know?
We gave our chickens away this year. They were fun, we had them for about a dozen years (not the same birds) and enjoyed their weird company and their eggs. But they took up a lot of space, and our yard has gotten crowded in that time with everything getting big and filling in. They attract rats, require food even when they don’t lay, and we had a lot of issues last winter with our automated systems, so Morgan consented to letting them go. I missed them for a hot minute, but I do not miss them anymore. We found some folks excited to take the equipment, and another person happy to have the hens. Everybody wins! For more photos of home and garden life, go here.
Kung Fu in the park
dress like your teacher day
snowboarding
WW1 re-enactment in Belfair
working in the Market
Cold War era re-enactment
Huck’s junior year was entirely online. He did… fine? I mean, he got good grades, kept a virtual social life, kept working out either zooming with kung fu buddies or in-person as the pandemic allowed. His re-enactment hobby continued to bloom.
The lack of actual social contact with humans concerned us. A friend of ours helped him get a job at the Pike Place Market this summer which was just the ticket- a lot of social skills needed to work at a busy fishmonger’s stall in the peak of tourist season. He has continued to work there on the weekends through the school year, which makes him a very busy guy. In-person school started in August, and it is an obvious relief to Huck and his peers to see each other again. He is applying to universities but not fully committed to the idea of going to one just yet. Who knows what the future holds? The world is his oyster! More photos of Huck in 2021 here.
men’s weekend at Surprise Laketesting the hammock systemsummer in the yardclimbing the Brothersbeing silly at Schafersnow day priorities
Morgan’s work fixing up other people’s homes in order to fix up ours continues. He did a bit of backpacking this summer with friends, getting to one of the peaks of The Brothers of the Olympic Mountain range this fall. His new hammock system was a success, and he is now preparing himself for snow adventure by taking avalanche safety classes. His guitar repertoire grew, and most recently he’s been taking himself through an online course in beginning banjo, thanks to the gift of said instrument by his cousin, Noelle.
dahlias are delightfulBevin at workbeing silly in Skykomishsnow dayworking the vinyardHalloween
My business was a big focus for me this year. After 28 years I decided it was time to share the bounty and try to help a newer massage therapist jump start their career. Bevin Keely, LMP became Thrive Together Healing Arts, PLLC and I invited Jennifer Keller to join me in my office as a mentee and renter. She uses the space when I am not there, I help her with her marketing and with bodywork questions and generally support her growth and well-being as a massage therapist. This transition took countless hours of invisible-to-you multilayered tasks, but I have a shiny new website and tax structure and am pleased with how it is going. My own work continues to deepen and I remain grateful to have found something I love to do that challenges and sustains me.
There were things this year that rocked us hard- the sudden loss of a dear friend and then a family member, scary medical events for people we care about. I may take some time to write about the feelings of 2021, but in the interest of keeping this “newsy”, I will do that in a different post. For now, just know that our connection with you brings meaning and joy into our lives, and we look forward to fostering that connection in the new year.
Rain is falling steadily this morning on our new roof. I wish I could say that we had it all buttoned up before we had any rain at all, considering the long and rainless summer we had, but there were a few days of stress and tarp management as Morgan got the last bits done last week.
Rain on the metal roof (sound way up to hear it!).
For whatever reasons, the metal order was hard to get placed and then took many weeks to deliver. Subsequent orders for replacement parts followed the same slow path, and other people’s jobs (for Morgan) got squeezed in while we were waiting.
New sheathing, gable repairs, bunch of stuff you will never see that will keep this roof strong for another 50 years.
There is a bit more yet to do- mainly crimping, which requires the supplier to respond about their fancy tool- but we are waterproof and looking sharp. Feeling very relieved, as that roof had needed replacement the entire time we have lived here, and should now be all set for the rest of our lives. Thank you, Morgan!!!
We really wanted to wait on this project until after all the glamorous stuff got done; it isn’t part of our permit and it’s money and time we could be putting to use finishing that out. However, a slowly spreading stain on our old bedroom ceiling started to drip and crumble on those heavy soaker rain days and our priorities shifted, just like that.
Exposed
So here we are, tearing the roof off in a sunny stretch and fixing the sags, the rot, the parts that got no love the last time someone did this- whenever that was.
Seattle in June is not a guaranteed sun fest, so there is urgency in the pace, long exhausting days for Morgan, who as usual decided to tackle it himself (with a little help from some friends).
This way those sags and rotten bits get properly addressed, and we save a lot of money, some of which we will spend on upgrading to metal. We fantasized about the newfangled solar shingles being sold out there but it seemed out of reach and maybe ill-advised for our particular situation. A metal roof will set us up for big solar panels when we are ready, so it is a step in the right direction. The metal has an ordering lead time that likely means this project will be two-phased: tear-off, repair and shore up, sheath and then waterproof is phase one. Phase two is metal.
Right this moment we are in the middle of it all with our top wide open to the elements, sunlight streaming in where darkness and wasps usually rule. The forecast looks good for at least a week, let’s hope they got it right!
I woke up a couple of months ago and announced that I couldn’t take it anymore. We have been sleeping in a squishy old double bed that was Huck’s until he grew out of it. It was a temporary (2 years now) arrangement that had reached my limit. We had decided that the next bed we bought would be king-sized, but that could only happen if we finished converting the old living room into a bedroom because our existing bedroom would not accommodate anything larger than a queen. Morgan loves me; he got to work.
As I said in my last post, this was maybe the easiest conversion we will make in this project, but there was still a lot to do. Wiring, patching plaster, covering the doorway to the old kitchen, patching and refinishing the floor, and of course painting. Then there’s furnishing, window treatments, and actually moving in to be done!
All of this displaced Huck’s virtual school and workout station to the dining room where he set up his new desktop computer which took over most of the table. While we enjoyed seeing him a lot more and interacting with him around whatever game he was into, it also meant that we had to compete for audio space if we wanted to watch TV, listen to music, or talk. This meant that rather than taking the time to paint our old bedroom or unearth and refinish the fir floors in there we left the 20-year-old paint job and replaced the ratty old wall-to-wall with some carpet tiles and called it good for now.
Our old bedroom is now a virtual schoolroom and workout space.
We have more work to truly complete the transitions upstairs— doors and door trims need painting, some furniture needs to be shuffled around, art needs to go up— but this weekend we are taking a breather. We are sleeping in the new room! It’s so cool! Annnd… the mattress we ordered to fulfill our king-sized dreams will not likely be delivered for several weeks, so we are still on that crummy double bed floating on a gigantic bed frame. The anticipation is killing me! But whatever, I am more than fine; what a joy to have this fresh perspective to wake to for this new year.
Small mattress, large frame.What I woke to this morning.
Well, my friends, let me tell you a tale of showing the scars of actual history, of acknowledging what has been while turning towards what will be, and of using the remants of the old to make something new.
In which a doorway disappears, but its ghost remains visible.
Having moved into our new living room downstairs, we are transforming the old living room into a bedroom. This is the simplest small job in the very complicated large job, but it did require covering what was the door between kitchen and living room and patching a lot of plaster. The old plaster has a texture, and while Morgan is usually a perfectionist prone to spending too much time trying to get it just right, he has recent been heard saying, “Dying time is coming, I want to enjoy this house before I go.” Indeed. Plus, this little 1924 bungalow was never a fancy home; the original plaster work shows all kinds of funky lines and splotches, and it seemed silly to obsess over something we will mostly hide with furniture and art.
In which a hole that used to be a vent to a long-lost heating system (before our time) gets a skin graft from the old kitchen floor.
Longtime readers may recall the hole in the floor that for a time was a direct shot to the outdoors. We assume there was some kind of heating system that it served before our time, but for us it had always been a dust bunny nest and place where small things gathered to be lost. A plywood patch has been adequately serving to fill the hole but it was time for integration. If I understand Morgan correctly, there is continuous fir flooring underneath whatever other surfaces we walk upon in this house, so he decided to take some from under the two layers of linoleum of the old kitchen/future bathroom where we won’t be needing it. The wood there has been covered for at least sixty years (based on that first layer of linoleum) if not longer, and was covered in a tarry substance, so it wasn’t going to look exactly the same without a lot of work or a stain job. There are also a couple of spots that got really beat up by a rolling chair and tons of dings and dashes in the existing floor that no amount of stain or work could really hide. We decided we are fine letting the patch stand out. There was a hole there, that happened. Life has been happening here, no obscuring that.
And life will continue to happen here, higher power of your choice willing. I am listening to a book by Steven Pinker right now called Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. He reminds us that if the news were written over longer spans of time, say 50 years, rather than updated every single second of the day, it would be rather more upbeat. Morgan reminds me, however, that if we are complacent progress does not happen. Why change something if it feels to you like it’s working well enough? So here we are, looking for that sweet spot between enough information to stay engaged in the issues of our time and not so much that we shut down in overwhelm.
We didn’t tear this house down and start from scratch because we couldn’t pay that kind of price up front and would have had nowhere to live while rebuilding. We knew that it would be a slow and steady project, with long pauses and some pain. Nevertheless, I continue to see the usefulness of prying up the layers of linoleum and uncovering the sturdy wood below. I enjoy the reward of transformation that much more because I have put in the love and attention and held my vision for so long.
May we hold a collective vision of peace and abundance for all, may we see the humanity of those we disagree with, and may we find solid ground together from which to build a better tomorrow.
Hammershack Report 