Victoria's Cottage - Western Montana

altaoaks · February 06, 2011, 03:44:00 PM

abbea, a truely heartfelt congratulations to you and your gang! i am loving your pics, and they are so inspiring. your home just keeps getting better and better. you inspire me.

duncanshannon · February 07, 2011, 12:06:30 AM

Gorgeous place! What did you use for your railings?? (I want to put those in my house!)

February 08, 2011, 04:30:28 PM

We fabricated the posts and had them powder coated. The railings are just 3/8" raw steel cut to length and threaded at each end. We talked about powder coating them also but decided to pricey and left them raw. I figure a little wax and they would be good. Plus the spotty rust adds to the over all feel

Pat · February 08, 2011, 04:58:37 PM

Living Room & Master Bedroom

Upstairs Guest room & Master Bedroom

duncanshannon · February 08, 2011, 05:04:55 PM

Cool. Are the horizontal pieces then screwed to the posts? Can you post a couple detail pics? I'm thinking I want to recreate them. What was the cost for those? Saw one place on the net that created sometimg similar (perhaps a bit fancier) for $250 / foot!!

Also, is that a cork floor in your main level bedroom?

March 01, 2011, 01:17:11 AM

looks great! I haven't read the whole thread yet, but I think you must be a cabinetmaker, a hot rodder, or a watchmaker judging by your attention to detail

Pat · October 29, 2011, 09:20:37 AM

Its been awhile. I am not sure where the time goes but we have begun to settle into our little piece of paradise in western Montana.
summer - fall 2011
Spent the summer cleaning up and modifying the loft a little bit and adding important items like snow guards and gutters. It was another glorious summer after a really wet and cold and long spring. The wild flowers were as good as anyone can remember. No fires until late in the summer which was a nice break. Got to watch them across the valley which is the only way to have a forest fire. Met more neighbors and ran out of well water in early September. Neighbors all shipped in to help and learned a wonder lesson. Apparently there is a little reset button on the well pump to the cistern and it only took 10 days of trucking 200 gallons at a time to figure this little ditty out. So the good news is we did have plenty of water. I am going to try to update some photos if I can remember how

Pat · October 29, 2011, 10:08:20 AM

Okay here is the first trial of new photos. Like I said we have started to settle in.
My first big victory.
We chose not to get TV and surprisingly you really don't miss it until you go out to a bar or dinner and you become like a moth to light, but we needed to have internet so there was a potential issue being high up on the mountain.
I had a Verizon stick which didn't work too well (maybe Sunday mornings it was okay) and I needed a better solution because I have to communicate with work.

So Alltel had a deal on unlimited data stick ($60/mnth) and when AT&T took them over it grandfathered in. I gamble and signed up and when the AT&T 3G took over the signal was there but really weak. Enter the Wilson Electronics booster.
First I got a mobile one which worked great to test the concept and then we upgraded to an amplifier and indoor antenna and my internet rocks. To top it all off I can take my stick on the road and get internet when traveling. I only add this because I am sure I am not alone with this issue. The alternative is expensive local service that are not as fast. I mostly get 1.5-2.5MB download.

Okay on to some updated photos.
alot of you have asked for the floor plans and I have some basic PDF's which I will try to upload if it works. Not sure.

The lovely lady in one of the photos is my wife Christine aka Teeny who is in charge of making all the knapweed and thistle go away and restore the land back to what it was before we disturbed it.

We also have some photos of our resident moose (is it meese)

from last winter. I need to find them.

Pat · October 29, 2011, 10:10:44 AM

Kelly Ridge Road

Target practice from years gone by

First Art

Master Bedroom and MB Loft

Main Loft and LR below
We cut the cantilever section back 24" . Big improvement

October 29, 2011, 10:41:42 AM

More Living Room and Kitchen

The Lovely Mrs Brocks

Pat · October 29, 2011, 10:52:11 AM

A link to the finished kitchen.

https://s830.photobucket.com/albums/zz223/abbeap/Kitchen%20Finished/

A collage photo

Pat · October 29, 2011, 11:00:26 AM

John
Is it possible to make like thumb nails in Photobucket and then post them so that if you click on the photo you get a bigger version

Sassy · October 29, 2011, 02:09:44 PM

Gorgeous!!! The kitchen looks like an ideal set-up - beautiful work throughout - I am sure you & your wife are thoroughly enjoying it

I traversed our 20 acres, pulling up thistle

Also carried a 5 gallon sprayer on my back w/Round-Up the 1st couple years & sprayed the upper part of our property for poison oak & star thistle... didn't do much good except for give me exercise

John Raabe · October 29, 2011, 05:47:24 PM

Abbea:

I went into Photobucket and there is a thing calle sub-albums which wouldn't work for me. However, you might be able to set up a sub-album with the thumbnails that then could be clicked on to view. The thumbnails wouldn't show on the page posting I don't think.

I think the way you are doing it probably looks better and actually works.

Handsome photos of a great project!

October 31, 2011, 08:32:51 AM

One of the perks is that I am in the business of cabinet hardware and the manufacturers donated most of the products for our kitchen
Blum donated all of the drawer materials including the lift for the door above the refrigerator and the automatic Servo-drive for the waste drawer (not shown)
Wilsonart gave us the solid surface Gilbraltar for the counter tops.
Hera contributed the 17 LED lights for the shelving
and Berenson gave us all the decorative hardware

All the drawers are the from Tandembox Intivo which is a new product line form Blum.
They are all soft and self closing so when me and the missus have a disagreement because I left the drawer open again and I slam them closed. No banging
The corner drawers are called Space Corners and is a vast improvement from the old lazy susan corners. Especially as we age. I probably like this feature the best

We chose to only have shelving and no wall cabinets.
Theory being that we will have less junk
The lighting is from Hera and they are dimable LED's

Kris · November 12, 2011, 11:30:50 AM

your place is really nice!....love the large windows and view.....

henderson · November 12, 2011, 09:06:52 PM

Very beatiful place you have. How are the shelveshung in the kitchen?

DevilDogSixEight · November 12, 2011, 10:01:24 PM

Well, I had my heart set on the 24' Universal, but after seeing this Victoria's cottage, I think I'd rather build this plan.

It has the master BR on the main floor which I really like.

I have three daughters and the twins want their own room - they've been together for 15 years. I don't know if they really want their own rooms or not - we'll see. Regardless, I think I could make the upstairs work out into three bedrooms. I will have to really look at the plans. The wife would like about 10' added to the back of it too.

Pat, you've given me some wonderful ideas.

JB

lecoq · November 13, 2011, 08:43:49 PM

WOW...simply amazing workmanship!!