July 18 - Getting Settled In

July 18 was Carlson's first night to stay in the hostel.  Karen had been busy sewing new curtains for every room; Dan, making curtain rods.  The day was spent putting beds together (finding all the matching parts for each bed), finding linens and making the beds, and moving personal items as well as kitchen stuff from CMF where they'd been staying over to UBAC.  Here's how that day looked.

Karen puts finishing touches on one of MANY new curtains

An example of the beautiful curtains specially made for the new hostel

Time to start moving furniture into place... and figure out where to put what!  Some pieces that had been used for kitchen storage are no longer needed for that purpose, so can be placed in the living area.

Newly re-finished dining table - like new!

This beautiful cabinet used to hold tupperware and kitchen items (with masking tape labels on the drawers).  Now re-finished, it stands in the space between the front entry and the inside stairway for a new purpose.

The 2 fridges and small freezer were cleaned well and moved into position in the new kitchen.  It took a few days to figure out why plugging all 3 in at once tripped breakers -- just one of the many glitches to work out in a newly constructed building.

Fridges and freezer in the new kitchen

Meanwhile, downstairs on the bottom level, tile was being laid - the final stage in tiling.  "But you said the tile was all done!" you may say.  True, we weren't planning to tile the bottom floor just yet, but oh well, sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand was thinking and at least it'll all be done! 

The last place to tile: recreation and laundry rooms on the bottom floor

And outside, landscaping continues.  Along the front of the house a retaining wall is built - made from cement blocks that one of the masons had been making for several weeks right here on our property.  No Lowes or Home Depot here to buy them ready-made.

Retaining walls to the left and in front of the front entrance

Fabrication of cement block for construction and landscaping