2012 With the Fabians Christmas Letter

2012 With the Fabians

Let’s start with last Christmas, which extended into February.  Brent and Mandy visited from Anchorage in January.  Then Rhiannon, Mike, Carter, and Ella came in February.  No problem!  It was a good reason to leave the Christmas tree and décor up longer!  Brad joined his brother in Anchorage for the summer.  We got to dog sit Otto.  Brad is back in Helena, but we still get to keep Otto…for now!

July brought company from PA.  Dave’s mother (now 90 yrs old!) and her husband, Gerry, rode the train to Spokane and we picked them up there.  We had a wonderful visit there with Brandon, Rhiannon, Mike, Carter, and Ella before returning home.  We loved having Mom and Gerry here!  Brandon finishes his degree this month, in Exercise Science.  2013 will bring us grandbaby #3!  Carter and Ella will be welcoming a baby brother in March.

In the spring we did our kitchen remodel.  We designed the kitchen of our dreams, lots of hickory cabinets, extra-wide island, double ovens, French door fridge, new flooring for kitchen, dining room, entry, and both bathrooms, and tons of counter space.  We love every inch of it!  In the process, Dave’s bathroom also got a new toilet, vanity, and sink.  Dave also built a retaining wall by our parking area and reinforced the balcony support in the living room.  In his spare time Dave loaded 6 cords of firewood onto the porches and “practiced” using his tractor.

Dave spent a lot of time this year with doctors, the orthopedic surgeon in particular.  In May we found out he needed both hips and one knee replaced.  In June he had the left hip replaced, in September the right hip, and December 18^th the right knee.  The surgeon’s office worked hard with us to get them all in this calendar year so we only had to pay one deductible.  The hips are doing great and we are expecting a good outcome for the knee also.  He has shoulder problems too and will have physical therapy in conjunction with his knee therapy.  He is looking forward to retiring, hopefully December 2013.

LaDonna quilted as much as she could this year, including a couple of table runners, several baby quilts, a wall hanging, and two queen-sized quilts.  However, the quilt want-to-do list continues to grow!  So much fabric, so little time!  She wants to retire too, so she can quilt more.  Unfortunately, that won’t be until about 2025!  She stays in contact with family and friends, far and near, via facebook.  Feel free to friend her, LaDonna Todd Fabian.  You can also see pictures of the quilts and kitchen there!

As we approach the end of another year, we think of you and are thankful for our relationships.  After all, without relationships we aren’t really living.  The most important relationship is the one with Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate this time each year.  We pray that each of you have or will begin a relationship with Him and that you will grow closer to Him each day of 2013.

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and may God bless you greatly in 2013!

Fall 2010 decks and Summer 2011 siding

I'm a "little" behind updating the blog! That's because there hasn't been a lot of progress over the past year. Here's where we are:

Last fall we had to get decks built for both of the living room doors or the insurance company would cancel us. The decks are done and temporary boards are up for railings. Porches were going to get done this year but other things took precedence. Maybe next year!

The west deck from the yard. It's 12x16 ft.

The west deck from the doorway.


The east deck from the doorway. It's 8x12ft.

The east deck from the yard. Since the woodstove is just inside this door, the main purpose of this deck will be firewood storage.

This spring we decided to get siding on the house to protect our investment. After several evenings meeting with siding reps, we decided on American Remodeling. Great product! Lousy service! They started on May 5th and they still aren't finished! Their Montana office (and installers) are in Billings. It seems that they just don't want to make that 200 mile trip and stay away from home more than a day or two at a time! First it was weather problems. We can understand delays for that. Then one installer needed eye surgery and that caused a delay. And they ran out of materials twice and had to wait for deliveries. They were here Friday, with plans to stay in town until it was finished. It was the first time they were back since right after July 4th weekend! Well, some of the materials were the wrong color so now they have to wait for another delivery! At this point I'm just hoping they are finished before the snow flies! Not only have they not been here to finish, they have left piles of scraps all other the yard, along with their personal trash such as water bottles and fast food trash! Very disappointed in the service!

North side


West side living room
Note that they took the railings down so it was unsafe to use the decks ALL SUMMER!!!
Grrrrrr!!!


South side


East side.
You can see on the right, it is still red. That's the part they need to finish with siding. They also need to finish some of the fascia and other trim work. They said they will be back Wednesday. I'm not holding my breath!

Hearth and Wood Stove

We spent the past week trying to get a hearth done before the wood stove showed up yesterday. It was no small job- 6'6" x 10'6". It includes the entryway also and should be big enough to contain most of the mess from the firewood!

Sunday, June 20th, Brent helped do the dry run layout of tiles and cut the cement board to size.

Then came mortar and placement of the cement board. It was a chore for Dave to get the cement board screwed down. A chair and pillow helped. (Some Father's Day!)


The next day I mortared while Dave placed the tiles. We both were sore from crawling around on the floor and our evenings were pretty busy the rest of the week so we took a few days off before grouting.

Friday night the 25th we had to get the gout done, so back on the floor we went. I squeezed the gout out of a "tube" (improvised with a ziploc bag) and Dave smushed it into the grout lines. The clean-up was very time consuming. I cleaned a tile, tossed the sponge to Dave, he rinsed it and tossed it back for me to clean another tile. We did this to the whole area 3 times. I later did it a couple more times to get the grout remnants off the tile.

Yesterday they brought the stove and installed it. It has one looooong stovepipe!

Jan-Mar 2010

It's been quite awhile since I've added to the blog. The construction progress has been slow. We have just been enjoying using this vast amount of space!


The kitchen countertops were installed at Christmas time. The red cabinet in the background is the color I intend to paint all of the ugly metal avocado green cabinets!

The bathroom now has a door, medicine cabinet (and mirror, yeah!!!!), and towel rods.

The upstairs bedrooms have been cleared of things that don't belong in bedrooms so that they are usable bedrooms.

The upstairs storage room however is almost full!

The dormer area is all painted. It took me 3 weekends to get the primer and 2 coats of paint on everything!
We are in the process of installing the railings on the balcony and stairs. Dave has the rest of the pieces cut. He just need to sand them (the time consuming part!) then we can install them, which is the easy part!

Week 24 moving in

In the past week, the dormer was sheetrocked. Tape and texture is in the process. The plumber and electrician were here today and moved the pressure tank and hot water heater. The electrician also installed the ceiling fans, stove outlet, and pretty much finished up the the electric. We love these ceiling fans! The plumber finally got water connected to the new kitchen and bathroom. We didn't have kitchen plumbing for the past 10 days! The contractor finished installing the kitchen countertops today too. There was a lot of work going on here today!

This Christmas tree is 7.5 ft tall. In my living room at my old house it looked really big. In this living room it looks miniature!

Week 23 counters

The kitchen sink counter was attached to the cabinets.

The other countertops are sitting in place but aren't attached yet.
This 1/2 wall was built by Dave yesterday while I was enjoying a Nutcracker performance in town. You can barely see where the stove is located in the background. That placement was unacceptable to both of us. We intended to have the stove in the island (when we can afford cabinets!) The electrician said they can't put a stove outlet in the floor so Dave built a wall for them to wire the stove in the island area. The plumber is supposed to be here tomorrow and hopefully the electrician will be here Wednesday.

Week 22 more deconstruction

We didn't expect them to take out the kitchen wall until Monday. We planned to empty everything out this weekend. Oh well, they did it for us! Unfortunately, they had to add it to the already crowded old living room!

This is the current state of the living room. Yuck!!!!! See why we needed an addition! Looks like something from one of those "Clean Sweep" type TV shows!

Here is the old kitchen. Under the window was the stove. You can see the water pipes from the sink coming up through the floor.

This is the new view when you come in the kitchen door.

My view from the new kitchen sink location.