Illinois Stories | Nauvoo Cabins

Okay folks, here is the story that was on PUBLIC T.V. station. It may take a while to load. It was fun making. It is a very wide angle lens and oh well, here I look bigger then I am...so that when folks see me, they may say, "hey, Irene, you've lost weight?" ha. I should do that for sure anyway.

healing of water's ceremony 18 May 2010

Here shows the Grandmother's and a few guys that are here for the "healing of the Waters" ceremony..........this took place all over the world.......this is the widest place on the Mississippi...and across from my house also. This is walking distance from our house. Can you find Sue?
This is a famous drum maker. made over 6,000 drums, taught classes all over the world. His name is Rising Sun

Here is Rising Sun and Tomasi vising in our house. He was a Marine Helicopter pilot.
and here the three of us...this was a beautiful day............

Welcome in today. 16 May 2010

someone remarked, "hey, where's that log bed you've talked about? sooooooooo here's my addition for today, the 18th of May. a wonderful comfy bed.
and the place for my coo coo clock, but I need to find someone to make it work again. A darling grandchild jerked the chain after the birdie came out and did her coo cooing and this little dolly said, "come out and sing again"...jam up. but it is perfect for this wall....
Our computer desks. Vicki planned this one. I love it. and yeah, too much of messy papers here, but hey, it's behind a wall...ha...around in back of the instruments. way cool plan.
the other part of the desk, Tomasi's side. he has an open window to the living room.
my gurgling fish and glass turtle....
I just found this corner cupboard and some of my Aunt's treasures on it....yep, using these too.
OKAY, now I'll welcome you into my house.....this evening. this is the cool door that I got on ebay the beginning of last summer. THIS WAS SAPOSED TO BE THE FIRST ONE ON THIS ENTRY....I'll get with Jamie Steen and get it right.....check back in a few days. ha.
these are out of order and if I spent a pile of time..........I'd put them in order. This is my lovely bathtube. Out this window in the morning.........I see a secluded little dirt area with rocks on it and many times a little cardinal family come and visit. I love taking a bath here. In the night I often use my fun candles. you can see on the window sill some antique bottles. One is a KICKAPOO Cough syrup round bottle. I had no IDEA that there was a real tribe of Natives that are named KICKAPOO. I found that bottle the first time I walked on the land that we bought in Hawaii so many years ago.....I was walking down to the stream.
well, here's the lovely sink. love this sink. found it for $50.00 leaning against some old building that WAS an antique shop in Nabraska on our way home from Utah 2 summers ago. (I know they run about $1,000 on ebay as I was looking for one like this) no one was there, so Tomasi and I found out who owned it and this old hippy guy comes out in another place and said it was $50.00. SOLD...gave him cash and we put it in our van. one heavy sink. but deep and what I like. yep. beautiful view out this window. I'm going to make a curtain for the front, old fashioned like.
and this gorgious stove. nope, STILL not hooked up yet, so using my round electric fry pan, and two rice cookers and a bread maker. It takes a long time for Tony to get to getting stuffs done.
here is an extension of my pantry. yep, I got one of those shelf reliance things too....gonna put more curtains.....gotta unpack my materials.
and a lovely sunset for you to look at..........
a better picture of my little throw away cupboard that I'v filled with my Aunt Vernie's dishes. this is what we're eating on now and nope, don't use the dishwasher....just me and my lovely sink. ha. I'm grateful that Tomasi appreciates eating on nice dishes too.
and my table cleared off and the view is fantabulous. always changing. and some of the birds are real characters. I want to get a spy glass. Tomasi and I often get out our binoculars....
When you open the front door, this is what you see right off. yep, a new real tree and she'll GROW up to the roof....I love real plants.
this room I've not been able to work in much as it's been the "catch all" room. what overflows from the kitchen etc. but it will be my sewing room and I'll get it organized and send more pictues when I accomplish that big feat. whew.
here is this WONDERFUL TABLE that Dave made fro me from these antique logs. He took these to the lumber mill and had one side cut smooth, and then the other side, the same. the BOLTED these together, hid the bold with a plug of wood and smoothed it over. The trunk of the tree that is under this table was saved from being put in the fire. I love this table. I serve food on it and we do mostly buffet style when we have parties....so this is perrrrrrrrrfect.
Okay, this is my bedroom dresser...and my little rocker. My favorite sister in law, Barbie Holmes painted the picture above for my mother.....I love her art work. (she's my only sister in law and my brother is a very lucky man to have been married to her for 45 years)
still in my bedroom. cherry wood floors....I love this mirror set up as a great place to put on my eyeball make up in the morning with morning light. ahhhhhhhhh, the view out these windows. and the sounds at night....God's Orchestra.
This lovely clock was ment for this space. I found it at a parking lot garage sale for $15.00...oh what a find. keeps perfect time. (I wish I did!) ha.
This is showing the upstairs log railing that Dave did. Tomasi is going to varnish them this week or next.
and the QUEEN SIZE BED waiting for my guests....when the grand children come, they will have to bring their sleeping bags.
this shows the stairs going up to the loft. and where I put the big glass ball. and the little love seat.
this lovely love seat I got at some used furniture store in Fort Madison. it has very good wood pin and tenion and I can recover it when I want to.

This is the sun going down and shinning on the instruments soooooooooo lovely like. Tomasi sits on the little log stook and plays his auto harp and guitar....I play my dulcimer with him when folks come............we love playing music together.
and so you'll all have to come and visit us someday. more updates will come as I do more stuffs. oh, the wood madallion I wrote about when I did it, but it's 71 pieces...and one point goes "true north". Dave had a compass and so he helped me do that.....It's Ease, West, North and South going in windy directions............but still getting there.

Skylight up again.

Folks, this is Sterling Peterson up putting the skylight that has waited all winter long to be put up. Remember when I wrote of the devil wind that came the night before Halloween and sucked up the skylight because it was not fastened down good? well all winter long we had a good plywood with heavy black plastic over it and now the Yurt roof has her light in the middle again. Thank you Sterling for doing this....ahhhhhhhhhhh, the see the clouds roll by in the day, to hear the rain ...........and sometimes see the stars.............I love this roof as well....

You will see many pictures below and some older ones as well. We have progressed sooooooo much and soooo love living in this house. thank you for visiting. You will know you've "caught up" with all that I've done today when you come to the picture of the little red Cardinal that I took pictures of when we lived on 1730 Mulholland.

finishing with barn wood/sanding cherry wood floors.

Here is Sterling Peterson putting on the little pieces of barn wood that has been beveled and artistically put into place. He has this compresser and a small nail gun and bamb bamb and bamb...I love this "art work". If our Kamaka friend saw this done in Hawaii, he's say the same thing about it as he did for all our "white painting" of the junk woods we put up our "temporary house" we built in Hawaii, "white paint covers a multitude of sins"...well so does barn wood and it looks sooooooooooooo great. Thank you Sterling.
How cool is this? wayyyyyyyy cool to me. using the barn wood for the openings to the bedrooms and other rooms. yep, been power washed and this is great sturdy wood. soooooooo rustic.
more of the same. I'm going to take more pictures, but this is a beginning of catching up on the pictures that I've had in my camera. It will take you a while to go though all of the pictures I've posted today, but I'm so glad that I've had time to do this Sunday.
We sooooooooooooo love our Napoleon Fire place. This is major heat we've had in this house while building all winter long. Oh yeah, we've had some area heaters to as to not freeze the paints and other things....but my darling little Frankie Ficus tree died that Vicki brought from Las Vegas...........She has since got me another one and we've planted her and she's doing great....her name will be Frances. I'll take her picture laters.
This picture is blurry because it was FLYING DUST TO THE MAX....and here is Vicki on the cherry wood floors sanding 'em down. We could find no sander that could sand these.....they were just tooooooooooo uneven....wayyyyyyyyy hard. Darren was on one sander and Vicki on this big monster hand sander. Yep, it's mine, but I've given it to Dave. The whole house was filled with Cherry wood dust. I'm sooooooooo glad we got the oak flooring for the big round part of the house.

bringing in the BIG LOG

Here is the log that is named by Dave, "The man from Snowy River". The day they brought him in it was snowing outside, and the river was frozen and Daren had named the other lovely log, "Jessica". Dave had me cut a foundation for this log on my scroll saw, hard to see here and I wish I'd thought of someone taking my picture.
Here Dave is chiseling away and making this work....it's all in his head how he is going to do it, but to the rest of us, a mystery. Then it's done and zowie, "how cool is that?" we all say.
Dave had cut open some of the floor under this log before they set it in and put some big 2X6's in and had it sitting on the rock below...........so the post will never sink. this is good.
We are all glad that this post is FINALLY in...as it's sat on the porch for all last summer (I sanded this guy) and all winter.
Cute Tomasi, has just finished putting up our mail box and our planter cart that I had him bring from our other house. nope, not moved in yet here, but getting closer. not many folks put their mail box ON A TREE...I just figured that I didn't have to have a post to dig...and these trees don't grow very fast. ha.

for your info. our snail mail address is.

2639 N. Sycamore Haven Dr.
Nauvoo, Illinois
62354

my roomie from Provo 1962-1963

Here is Carolyn and Flake Boone. They are serving a mission in Misouri and came to Nauvoo for a day to see us. I was just thrilled to see them. When I first met Carolyn, she had broken up with some guy and was moping around. When we went to a Stake conference, I had Carolyn with me and saw Flake leaning up against a wall to the entry. I said, "Now Carolyn, here is a wonderful TALL guy that you'll have some fun with"..........and was the matchmaker here. He has built a dome in Hawaii, and many other houses...their last house is in Snowflake, Arizona.....out of logs that he has cut and peeled himself. Someday after their mission, we'll go down and see their place.

Tony Winchester

Here is a close by neighbor that FINALLY got around to hooking up my hot water heater. I am so very grateful. He works full time in Keokuk, Iowa. I'm still waiting for him to hook up the gas stove. yep, we have all the parts, and yep, it's all outfitted for the Liquid Propane tank. He also "someday" hook up our gas furnace ............ahhhhhhhh, the JOYS OF HOT WATER. I am now very spoiled with lovely hot baths and Tomasi in the shower. I'll write more on those laters.

more stuffs getting done....

Here is Darren using the sander that I rented for the oak flooring. He ordered and I got some paist something that covered a bunch of the gapes.....and then this sander sanded stuffs smooth.
Here is Sue Stanton that is vacuming this part of my kitchen as we were getting ready to move in and we were FAR FROM READY, but no longer could we pay rent AND mortgage. So when we moved in, we had one sink with running water and one toilet.
Here's Dave using the last of the big logs for the railing. This is ONE BIG DRILL PRESS. I just had to have this record of Dave doing this. way hard.....not loud, just steady. It's a heavy beast and all of us were glad when Dave was done with this part of making the railings...then we could move this beast out and sand floors. whew.
you can see Dave smiling...........he loves this work. Again, good Darren helping to hold that big old log.........these are Aspen logs from Parley's Canyon, Utah. There were in a fire around a cabin that was Dave's Uncle's cabin. I sanded 60% of these logs.
This is the Licensed Illinois Plumber that came to put this all together. oh yeah.....I still owe his company......still waiting for the "tax return stimulus" that was supposed to come months ago. sigh.