The Freeville Earthship: Weekly Update #8

It's been 2 months now since the crew and apprentices packed up and drove away leaving us with an amazing skeleton of a house, but a lot of finish work for me and Chad... we've worked non-stop on it ever since (with teaching as a side-job). ; )
This week Chad finished off some beautiful dark-stained trim around the kitchen peninsula while I scrubbed the newly-grouted floor. On Wednesday our countertops were installed! We moved the refrigerator in the house in preparation to have it installed by our electrician. We built little boxes/shelves to fill some tire space in the corner of our bedroom (I think I forgot to take a picture of this).
This weekend we had many great visitors! On Friday Chad's dad, Gary, came for the day to help out around the house. He cleaned out our barn/garage that had been packed with building materials for the last 9 months. On Saturday my dad, Will, arrived and he laid cans all day long, almost finishing the final can wall! I worked on the bottle walls that line our living room doorway. Later in the day, Chad's cousin Jon arrived with two friends Josh and Wallace. The four of them packed out the upper parts of our bedroom wall, and then we all went out for Mexican.
On Sunday my mom Char came and brought a ton of yummy snacks and a dinner for us. Our friend Van came down from Cazenovia College and he and my mom continued to pack out the upper walls of our bedroom and the back hallway. Dori, an apprentice from our 3-week build, stopped in to see the place after 2 months, and helped me by scrubbing the parts of the granite floor I hadn't yet done. Chad had several high school students over to build the chicken coop, and Mikayla and Mike also helped Van and my mom pack out in the back hallway. We also had a surprise visit from Nick, another apprentice from the summer, and his three friends to see the 'ship. All the while I cut to size the countertop backsplash, glued it on, and put in our tile backsplash... rainforest granite, our favorite!
We're excited for this week, because our electrician will hook up the fridge, and on Tuesday our washer, dryer, and dishwasher will be delivered, as well as our propane tank. Then they'll hook up our stove and dryer to the propane! Then our kitchen will be completely finished!!!
Our next steps before we move in is to finish packing out so that we can put the final plaster coats on the tire wall, and to pour the floor in the front hallway. Ahh!