So we finally got around to buying this little place away from the bustle of the valley, somewhere to get a bit of peace and quiet and relax. OK, I'll be honest - we ran out of room for books and Bridget's collections of pottery. Er and my tools. Oh, my tools...
Out along where Hwy 132 crosses 49 is a little town (Hah! Hamlet in UK terms) called Coulterville. It has a neat museum, a few shops including a couple of quite nice antique stores and a couple of decent places to eat, the Hotel Jeffrey and er, that's about it. There is a nice little community centre with a secondhand book trading bookcase, a cemetary and about one hundred people.
We lived up on a hill (in fact it's apparently the base of Bald Mountain) on a five acre plot with nice views and lots of trees. Here are a few pictures of the house and surroundings. We sold the house in 2002 in preparation for moving to British Columbia.
The view from the driveway of the front of the house
Looking up at the back of the house from a little way down the hill
From the same spot, looking west over Penon Blanco. This is pretty much the view from my 'office' when I'm working there. Stare at it and weep, cubicleers.
I have a nice little (32ft x 16ft) workshop building that was originally half shop and half apartment; the builders of the house lived there whilst building the main house. It must have been pretty rough; 16ft square, climb a ladder to a 'shelf' at the wall/roof break level to sleep. Nice old wood burning stove though - it should go nicely in some suitable house someday. I've stripped out all the apartment stuff to make room for my machines and workbench.
This first picture is looking towards the apartment end, you can see the stove and the beam that was a support for the sleeping shelf. The large planks on the floor are 16ft 14" x 2" old pine and were used for shelving! I'm slowly turning them into furniture, including for example this bed:-
Tongue and groove panels, 3" square legs with stopped chamfers, very solid, very comfy.
This next shot shows my X31 and ShopTask
And lastly looking to the door end; double doors on both sides make it easy to handle those 16ft planks - apart from the weight!