Building a Stone Wall Inside Our Self-Built Mountain Home

Right off the bat, we want to address the wildfire situation near our property. Those fires, unfortunately, have continued to get closer and grow a lot bigger. We do have some windy, gusty conditions in the forecast tonight and tomorrow, so we will keep you updated on that. But regardless of that situation, we are continuing to work towards getting in this house. This is a bit of a crazy day. We've got plumbers that are going to be coming in and out. The kids' school year has started, so we are schooling inside the house now. And Jeremy and I are starting on one of the final projects in the house, one that we're really excited about, which is the stone wall inside our great room. It's a project we've been planning and talking about for a long time, and we cannot wait to finally get that wall complete. This is adhesive and this is stone. Stone, adhesive. Yeah. You said this one's light and this one's heavy? Yeah, the adhesive's heavy. Perfect. I will meet you inside with that adhesive. Thanks, Mama. Poor little lady friend. I'll save you. Oh, thank you. You're such a gentleman. I've been heavy. Ready to see yourself? You excited? Yeah, I'm actually excited to see what it looks like full size, not the small little sample pieces. It's white. Look at that. That's weird. It's the back side. Yeah. Looked funny for a second. I was like, what? There we go. Let's see this other color, Mama. For our front wall project, Melissa and I selected a man-made faux stone. It's almost a set of tiles. They're all rectangular and square in shape. Basically, there are two color combination sets here. Each set has three colors within it, so we will end up with a total of six different colors up on this wall. There's some artistic liberties that come along with this, so much like everything else we've done in here, we'll have Melissa make her selections as we go before casing things up on the wall. And in order to get things actually stuck onto the wall, what you do is you take the adhesive that is provided along with the product, you slap it across the back side, and simply squish everything off to the wall. So we'll get some drop cloths put down so we don't ruin a brand new floor, and get to work. We ready? Yes. All right, on you with the colors. All right, I'm just gonna lay out all of the colors, and then we will pick from there. Every time with you. So we're starting right in the corner. Let's start on this side. I want to get all of our cut ends up against the wall. Okay, do we want a wide piece or a thin piece? It's your call, Mama. This is all you. Not only in my color line, but I know my Magnolia wife over here can get it done, so I'm gonna defer to you. I do love her. So again, I am frosting a cupcake here, not buttering toast, right? Okay, not to freak you out, but do you know how many cupcakes I've frosted in my lifetime? None. That would be the correct answer, yes. I don't mean to be critical, but if you worked at my bakery, I'd fire you. No, stop trying to lick everything. There you go, there's one. What do you think? There's no going back now. No, you're committed. All right, I think it's gonna be fantastic. Does that one piece look sexy? It looks so sexy. More! Okay, you go. Buttercream. I've been watching the Great British Baking Show. New slimy bottoms. I'm gonna frost this like a pro. I feel like all my years of making PBJs nearly every day is finally paying off. That shape works for you? That skill set is just really coming in handy right now. First roll has been set, placed against the wall. Things are looking good so far. We are checking to make sure that everything is level as we go. Not that it matters so much because you do have a little leeway with this product. But we have come and reached the point that we're gonna be butted up against this wall here so we're having to trim all of these pieces when we don't have the proper amount of space. We're also gonna have to trim around all these windows and face plates as well. So we're gonna head back out, use our handy dandy angle grinder and get this thing cut. We do have a lot of concrete in our lives. Yes, we do. Did you choose wisely? I chose great. To start on this side? Yeah. Mama, I'm gonna need you to butter my brain. Wow, look at you. Despite having a very late start to the day, we managed to get a decent amount of this stone put up on the wall. It's a very straightforward and easy installation. So we're happy and ecstatic about that part of it. And I think it looks good. It's different for our house and the feel of the room but I like it. What do you think? I love it. I think that it's nice and bright but it's still warm and it's just a different surface. We wanted a lot of different textures and surfaces. Definitely achieving that with this. So now that we got a little bit of it up, I brought over my samples that I had picked out for possibilities for the backsplash in the kitchen and the bathroom. It's two separate colors. We'd probably mix and match them. They would be really nice and easy to wipe and keep clean because they are tile. The one thing I don't really like about it is that it looks like tile and I wanted something that looks more like natural stone. Yeah, the colors for sure would work. The finished surface is what we're a little unsure about. So if we decide to go with using the same product that we were working with here today in the kitchen and in the bathrooms, we would have to seal it up tremendously, repeatedly, multiple times because it is very porous. It is man-made and you run the risk of having it stained if you get spaghetti sauce or something like that up on your backsplash. So we'll see where it goes. We're going to continue to do research and see whether or not this is a suitable option for the look that we're trying to achieve. I am getting my online grocery order ready for pickup and holy cow, these prices. I swear, whether it's grocery shopping, gas, or our favorite restaurants, inflation is hitting all of us really hard. But thanks to Upside, we can lessen that blow. Upside is an incredible app for anyone that buys gas, groceries, or dines out. With every purchase, I'm earning cash back thanks to Upside. To get started, download the free Upside app in the App Store or Google Play. Use our promo code, Good Simple, and get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. As our kids get older, our grocery bills and our dining out bills are only getting bigger. Plus, moving all the way out here, we have definitely been driving more. So with Upside, we are getting cash back on things that we're buying anyway. And I know what you're thinking, it's too good to be true, but we use it and it actually works exactly as they say. All you do is check in at the business, pay as usual with your credit or debit card, and get paid. Even if you have credit card rewards or loyalty programs, you're still going to want the Upside app. Not only can you double dip, but with Upside, you can earn three times more cash back. The coolest thing is I can cash out at any time to my bank account, my PayPal, or even an e-gift card to Amazon and other brands. I've been having all of our cash back put on Amazon e-gift cards so I can buy things that I already need for the new house. It is total guilt-free shopping, which is my favorite kind of shopping. To try it for yourself, download the free Upside app and use code, Good Simple, to get $5 or more off your first purchase of $10 or more. This morning, we've been bouncing between getting the wall started and our homeschool day. The kids just got wrapped up, so now Jeremy and I are really going to grind on this wall. It's taking a little bit longer than we anticipated when we started the project. It's taking a lot longer than Jeremy and I anticipated when we started the project, but we're going to work really hard today and maybe we can get started on the other side. We're going to get this wall done and it's going to look fantastic. It's going to look fantastic, Jeremy. Better. Fantastic. It's going to take 60 hours to complete it, but it'll look good. It'll look fantastic. This is going to be our last major project Are we going to call it at this project? Yeah, I guess it is. It's true. That's crazy. There's still more to do. We're going to get backsplashes up. Our shower. Shower needs to be completed. The bathroom needs to be done. I think we'll be in when we're getting all that stuff done. So yeah, this will probably be the last, very last major project that we bang out here. All right, it is taking quite a while, but we have all the stone up here on the front half of the front wall here in the great room. Does that make sense? I'm rolling with it. Anyway, that's looking great. Our house, however, has gone from looking like a Cabela's and it's kind of morphed into more of like a medieval times. You remember that restaurant, Melissa? Crappy pizza restaurant? Yeah. Let me get my joust on. Jeremy is making a cut and we got some mail today. We actually found one of those little cast iron stoves that I found when we were visiting Mountain Stove with the little pot. So as soon as I got back from there, I went to eBay and I had to find one and we did. We found one that was identical. So Kira's really excited about it because we said we'd try to find her one. It's something that I played with when I was a little girl and so I was super psyched to find one so that my own little girl could play with one. Today was a really long work day. We did not get as much done as we had hoped but it feels really good to be doing a project together again. It does, yeah. It's been a while since you and I worked on something and unfortunately we don't have a whole lot to show for it but I promise you it is not for a lack of effort or trying. We busted our butts all day. It's just that these little tiles that we're working with are really tiny as far as coverage goes and then like half of them need to be cut. Maybe a third of them need like very intricate detailed cuts. So it's just it's been a slow growth. Yeah, but we will get there. This is the last major project that we're going to do before we move into the house. Is what we've determined. Right. Just because we've kind of reached a point in the build now to where the house is like 90% done and as it stands we've been bouncing back and forth. We're still living in the tiny home in the shop in the barn there but we wake up, we come in here. Homeschooling is now being done in here. We have toilets in here. So the majority of the day we're in here. This is where, yeah, our time is being spent. Right, yeah. And it feels like everything is 90% done but nothing is 100% done. That's the plumbing, the electrical, now the HVAC, the propane. We turned on our HVAC system two days ago and it instantly overheated. So something is wrong with the brand new heat pump unit that is outside. So we're going to probably be removing that, getting a new one. So it's just we can't mark anything off the list. Everything is almost done, nothing is complete. Yeah, so the heat pump situation is very frustrating. Propane is going in in a couple weeks. What else are we missing? We need mattresses and furniture in here. Not that we need those to be living in here but the kids need to be sleeping comfortably at the very least. Yeah, we're not quite there yet but we are very, very, very close. And we are very excited about it. So we're going to rest tonight and we're going to be back out here first thing in the morning and hopefully we can get quite a ways up that wall. Today we have a very welcome to break from the smoke. The fires, however, are still growing and still burning. We'll give you an update on that in a bit but for now we are going to continue working up this wall. Our plan is to finish this up tomorrow. Two days. Two more days. I am almost to the point where I can't reach. I'm familiar with that problem. Yeah, that'll happen. I've got to find that step ladder. I'm using this one. I need it. So here you go, Mom. I got you something. Oh, thanks. Stop reaching it. Tippy toe now. That'll get me up a couple more rows. Butterfly in the sky. I can go twice as high. Take a look. It's in a book. It's Reading Rainbow. Reading Rainbow. I loved Reading Rainbow. Every Friday was Reading Rainbow day in the second grade. It's the Star Trek guy. Yeah, it is the Star Trek guy. Notch piece. I got to cut it out. Let me stick it up there. That is not correct. That does not look right. What the heck? That was my perfect piece. It's like the siding all over again. Take two. Oh no, I suck again. At least it's too shallow this time. I can fix it. Third time's a charm. Here we go. Watch this magic. Like a Tetris piece. It's like that long one that you needed. It's been another eight hour day. Again, we did not get as far as we wanted to, but we did get up and around the window. Jeremy is just getting a few more pieces stuck up there and we're going to call it a night. We need to go rest. Tomorrow we have something else planned. Something special that we've been wanting to do all week. The mask. Hey, you're picking my spot, dude. Come on here, bring your big buff arms. I can't see. Ready? Okay, ready? No, mom's a cougar, not a panther. Are we ready? Everyone collected? Okay. Today we have decided to step away from the stonewall project and set a day aside to get Jeremy back in the saddle again. He has not been on a horse since spring and that is unacceptable. It's been a while, but before we do that, we wanted to give you a very brief update on the fires that have been burning here locally. We got a lot of messages and a lot of concern that was expressed to us about everything that's going on. You'll be happy to find out that we are still currently safe. We are not in an evacuation zone. The fire, as you can tell, is still burning behind us. We actually can't see it because there is so much smoke today. So if any major changes take place, we'll be sure to give you guys another update. Before we actually get saddles on the horses, we wanted to quickly talk to you about our annual pediatric toy drive that we are doing. So we're going to be opening up the adoptive family and the toy drive list through Amazon on October 1st and we'll let you guys know. But last week we went live and you guys already started donating to the fundraiser portion of this whole thing. So last year we raised $20,000. This year we are hoping to raise $30,000. I think we can do it. And during the live Kaimani chimed up and said if we reach the goal of $30,000, he will shave his head live. And then not to be one-upped by his son, Jeremy also said that he would shave his head if we can reach that goal. So I think we can do it. And if you guys want to contribute to ACOIN, which is the American Children's Cancer Organization Inland Northwest, you can either mail a check to our PO box. Make sure that you make it out to ACOIN, A-C-C-O-I-N, and we will be delivering all of those checks in person when we deliver the toys. Or you can give directly to our PayPal account. We will be collecting one lump sum through PayPal. And then we will be writing them one check when we go and drop off the toys. So I think we can reach that goal. We appreciate you guys so much. Now let's get some saddles on those horses. So Lexi got a new saddle and it is squeaky and stiff. And I hate new tack, but we're going to break it in. We made a plan to ride horses today because we knew that our stonewall project would be complete and we would finally have a day off. And he's back. Well, neither fell into place, but we decided to ride horses anyway. Projects can wait, but life, life should never wait. A huge part of me is going to miss these long work days where Jeremy and I are together working towards our goal. The past two years have brought us so many different accomplishments and stand back and smile moments. The kind of moments that we rarely shared together before this build. And it's a little sad to think that our big mountain, this dream that we've had all of these years will be complete. Which one of us has done this before? The brown one. My body won't stop jiggling. But then as we ride horses together, I'm reminded of why we moved out here in the first place. We didn't come out here just to build a house. We came here to live, to spend time with our children as they grow and to finally get horses, to grow our own food and to truly experience what it is to live. Before we finally decided to jump all in, I feared leaving our old life because I was constantly thinking of all the things that would change for us. And now that we're here, I am once again carrying around that feeling as we start to look at a new chapter. But isn't that just so often the way that it goes? We resist change because we think about all the things that we must give up instead of focusing on all the many things that we are about to gain.