CJ & Autumn Miller

Alan & Sam of Teeple Cabinets & Construction arrived in Port Alsworth Thursday night to begin installing our custom kitchen cabinets. They made the maple cabinets & butcher block counters in their shop in town which arrived on the last charter. You'll have to come visit to see the beautiful insides. We are more than pleased & I can't wait to move in!

We are at such a fun stage on the house. CJ & I are able to be heavily involved & we are seeing the rooms come to life. In February we mudded screw holes & sanded drywall in preparation for painting. I picked out paint colors from some samples I grabbed last time I was in Anchorage & ordered paint over the phone from Home Depot. When paint arrived, CJ & I spent a week of afternoons painting the living room, downstairs hall, kitchen & study. Ralph, David & Kiska installed the tongue & groove wood ceilings in the living room, study, solarium & our bedroom. Beam work went up shortly after & then all the wood & doors were sprayed with clear coat. CJ & I learned to tile & have been spending our afternoons covered with mortar & grout. Today I will tackle grouting the guest bathroom as CJ constructs a wood stove platform for the living room. Working at the house along with our normal jobs has proven to be exhausting, but very rewarding. It is so great to invest in our own home.

    Our winter travels have been wonderful, but I suffered the consequences. January was a key time logistically on the house. Our last charter full of house supplies is scheduled to arrive in Port Alsworth within the week & large amounts of effort went into picking out everything on board. That said, things have gone wrong. We walked in the door from Utah with 12 messages on the machine about our appliances & flooring & tile & lost delivery trucks & whatever else. My kitchen range, a LaZBoy chair & an ottoman were dropped off in the wrong remote village & they were charging us for holding them there. We lost a valuable worker to Anchorage for the birth & recovery of his premature son. I realized I ordered three square feet of tile for the guest bathroom instead of thirty, and there were fraudulent charges on our credit card. It is not a good time to be without a credit card.  I've never been that forceful on the phone before. I've never spent this much money before, and it's never been so obvious how much I needed God's help with anxiety & priorities.  

       Now we are starting to surface. We spend our free time picking out paint & sanding drywall mud, but we are learning to be content, thankful & blessed. I'm beginning to understand the stress of building a house.