Heading for Home

Today I packed up my little car, and P + T and I headed for home.

It was pretty emotional for me.  The last few days had been a bit of a flurry of activity.  I was welding like mad, and got some nice little 'extras' made that will give a little extra bit of a custom edge to the house.

Ms. Client, aka Farmer Jo, has a collection of horse shoes that she has found on the property over the several years they have lived there.  I cut one in half and made her a pair of coat hooks out of it.

I also made some bathroom accessories.  Those three are towel bars, and the two long ones are the stair handrails.

This is a combination grab bar and toilet roll holder.

I like that all these pieces are made out of the same material as the guardrails.  All of them will be plated with a brushed nickel finish, to match the bathroom faucets.

Sunday morning it was extremely dramatic outside, as the sun was coming up.  The sky in the West was black, but the East was totally clear.

I got some last pictures of the interior as well.

Then, last night, I discovered something really great about the house.

All along, I've been excited about how the sunlight comes in from the East in the morning and you can watch it move around the room throughout the day.

Here it is, in the early morning, just as the sun is coming over the hilltops to the East:

Well, last night we had a big, beautiful full moon, rising in the Eastern sky...

... and you could see the same light patterns that you see with the sun, only they were projected by the moonlight onto the living room wall.

(The bright green light squares are from the big bright outdoor light at the barn, on the other side of the house.)  

I'm really not supposed to admit that I didn't plan that, but I have to come clean and confess that I didn't expect moonlight making patterns in the house like that.  It does give me another tool to add to my bag of tricks, however.  The challenge now is to figure out how to really exploit it in my next design.

Last night it rained, thundered, and lightninged all night long.  This morning, after various delays, we finally got away at around 12 or 12:30.  It was hard to leave.  This house is so special to me, and the countryside in which it's located is some of most beautiful I've ever seen.  Getting to live there for 2 1/2 months and do all this was really an amazing experience.

But, it's time to move on.  In some respects I feel like this experience has changed me, but I think it would be more accurate to say that I gave gotten to know certain aspects of myself much better than I ever did before.  

I think the drive back is really going to be about reflecting on the time I spent in Tennessee, and contemplating the impact all of this could/will have on my future.

Tonight we're camped out at the Motel 6 in some little town just West of Little Rock.  Turns out we're in a dry county here.  Good thing I came prepared with my own little pint of Knob Creek.  (Shout out to Farmer Jo for helping make that happen! :))

My goal for tomorrow is to get all the way to Tucumcari, NM.  I guess I better get some sleep if that's going to happen.  Goodnight!