Gingerhawk Construction Update – August 2020

By Laura Weatherbee | September 9, 2020 |

It's been a long journey, but Gingerhawk is getting close to completion. At the end of August, we road-tripped from San Diego to Washington State to get things polished and ready for visitors. Honestly, things were not quite as finished as we would have liked. There's still a lot that needs to happen to get the place in tip-top shape, but we plan to spend a whole month here to get as much done as we can. A silver lining to the COVID-19 situation is that I can take all my classes online this term, which gave us the flexibility to stay here awhile longer. Let's see how things were looking shortly before we arrived. First up, let's take a look at the exterior. Not much has happened here since our last update in July. It still needs to be painted, and we've got another blog post all about that coming up soon.

There's been more progress on the interior, but it's always darkest before the dawn. The house is looking a hot mess since there is tape and plastic everywhere to protect from the painting and staining work being done.

The doors and windows are all framed in knotty alder wood, which I'm really happy with. It adds a lot of character to the house and gives it that cozy mountain house feel we were going for. They still need to be stained though. We chose Early American for the stain which will give it a warm, honey brown look.

The fireplace is coming along. To be honest, it's a little more ginormous than we had imagined. You can't tell how big it is from the pictures, but when we arrived we were like "Uh oh, where is the TV gonna go?" Even though Gingerhawk is meant to be a relaxing retreat, we do feel that a TV is an important element for our guests. What if people want to have a family movie night, or get together for a big game? In any case, we still need to resolve this issue.

You can get an idea of the layout of the great room here with the loft space above. The crew is working late to get the place clean for our arrival.

The floors are finally in place and that's a big update. We decided to go with luxury vinyl flooring instead of hardwood, and I was really nervous about that choice. It was a tough decision, but honestly we were pretty maxed out on our budget and the luxury vinyl flooring was considerably cheaper. Pricing was the main reason we chose vinyl flooring, but it also has advantages over hardwood in that it is super durable, waterproof, scratch resistant etc. Since this will be a rental property and we have radiant floor heating (which means little tubes of water running all underneath the floors), durability was really important. We need these floors to withstand a beating, and not buckle or warp if they get wet from snowy boots and what not. I was a little nervous when I saw this picture because I was worried the floors would look fake. But I'm happy to report they look much nicer in person especially with rugs and furniture in place. Of course there is something really rich and authentic about hardwood floors, and in my heart I wish we could have chosen them. But still I think we made a good choice, and I'm happy with how the floors turned out.

Here's a peak into the guest bathroom. This will be the the double sink vanity. There is a pocket door to the right that leads to the toilet and shower area.

Now let's take a look at the primary bathroom. (By the way, we're calling it the primary suite now as opposed to the master suite to phase out any racist terminology). The double vanity is coming along, and the tiles are being installed.

And voila, she's almost complete. We still need to add mirrors and get the glass shower door installed, but the bathroom is fully functional. There's a cozy steam shower and a ginormous soaking tub big enough for two. To be honest, the bathtub might be a little TOO big. It takes a long time to fill up, and I feel like I'm mounting a horse to climb in. It's a lovely tub, but I also want to make sure it's safe and comfortable for guests to use. We've been so busy since arriving at Gingerhawk that we've barely had a chance to use it, so we'll see how it goes once it gets more use.

And last but not least, are you ready to see the sauna in the bathhouse? We teased about this in our last update, but now we're ready to share the pics. It's all done and super cozy made with cedar walls and teak flooring. There's a big window that looks right into the forest, and we can't wait to try it out. Ok stay tuned for more updates coming soon. We are currently at Gingerhawk and working hard to get things ready.