Almost exactly one year ago, I let you know that I was going to be stepping away due to the fact that we were about to move to a new state. Well… it’s been a ride.

Over the course of the summer months, we slowly transitioned our lives and our worldly chattel to southeast Oregon, a high desert rural area near the California border where we’re surrounded by national parks and national forests.

The Engineer moved first so she could start work for her new company and lay the groundwork for me to follow with the animals and our stuff. After she arrived, we discovered that this part of the country was in the throes of a housing shortage that almost makes Seattle’s seem tame. There weren’t any apartments to rent nor many houses to be had for love or money. Hotels were hopped, couches were surfed, and eventually we found first a small apartment (allowing me to finally move down with the critters) and finally get the search for a new Artisan Residence under way.

It took all summer and into the fall to find ourselves a 1970’s fixer-upper, which is about as different from the rambling old Victorian we were moving out of as it’s possible to be. The place hadn’t been updated since it was built in 1971, so that ate up the rest of the year… honestly I can’t believe that a whole year has passed since last we had time to chat about 16th century concerns.

Leaving out time for the injuries I mentioned, I spent that time getting the house from this:

To this:

And, of course, we’re not done yet. Unfortunately, there this global contagion thing going on and it’s made life difficult for scheduling tradesmen to come in a handle those tasks that I’m not qualified to undertake.

But there’s a whole other blog in that process that has nothing to do with 16th century trades. Maybe the Engineer and I will start a home renovation blog so that if you notice a gap here, you can wander over there and see what’s distracting me this week.

In the meantime, I’ve managed to turn a dank old garage and a corner of the family makerspace into a place where I can get this project back on track.

I’m seriously going to talk to the Engineer about that home reno blog. There’s got to be someone out there talking about how to make a house into a comfortable artisan residence.

More soon.

(I promise.)

Scott