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Anyone remember where we left off in the bathroom? Filled with ladders and buckets of joint compound, that’s where. It’s now painted a lilac purple, and all plumbing and light fixtures are installed and operational.
I should have snapped a quick shot tonight before we left… but I forgot the camera today. We’ve now installed an over-john cabinet, toilet paper holder, towel bars, and shower curtain.
Of course, the fridge is now in the bathroom, too, filling in the footprint where the stacked washer/dryer will go… it will stay there until the wood floors are finished. The linen cabinet works well for food and plates while all the cabinets are AWOL from the kitchen.
We stayed overnight last night (Saturday) and I even got to be the first one to shower in the new tub! What a treat, truly.
More bits and pieces as we speed toward moving day. I was looking at the calendar and realizing that we only have a month until our goal date.
I’ve had the inkling for awhile that we aren’t going to make that August 1 goal. But it’s okay. I would prefer to be living in the new place when school starts, but even if we don’t make that goal, it will be okay.
We can stay in our current house through December for sure, and it’s looking like that deadline may be extended to March 2010.
The header has been reinforced…
With Howard’s permission, the kids got to play in the large machinery. Howard fashioned us a driveway!
Eventually, the garage will be built attached to the house, with bedrooms above it, we hope. Doesn’t look like our initial budget will include enough to get it built this year. So we’re looking into getting remote car starters for the winter instead…
The next photo shows the path through the yard to the electrical pole. We are having the lines buried along with our upgrade in service.
Work on the roof has officially started, one section at a time. We are tearing off down to the roof boards–covered by layers of asphalt shingles and wood shakes–and putting all new plywood down.
To the left is my faithful and brave cousin Brian. He’s up for anything. I wonder if he knows how much we appreciate that. And behind him, yes, that’s Sean on the roof. (He hasn’t been cleared by the surgeon to go back to work yet.) Our crazy friend Andy is taking a break and watching here, but don’t let it fool you. He’s an animal when it comes to destruction.
I forgot to grab the camera the day that my cousin Neal joined the roofing crew. After he took a tour of our place and came up from the basement, he made a comment that I loved.
He said that our house was just like all the cars he’s ever owned. Crappy on the outside but totally rebuilt from within.
It made me smile, because it’s so true. And it felt nice to hear the genuine acknowledgment of all the hard work we’ve done on the house’s systems. So thank you for that Neal.
Little by little, we make progress in the bathroom as well. Here’s the framing for the dropped ceiling above the shower. It will make room for installing a vent and light as well as the dryer vent duct work:
Yes, it’s a toilet. It even flushes. Yes, it’s a door. It opens and closes. The simple pleasures.
Yes, that’s a container of screws sitting on the toilet tank.
Chad returned and worked his magic over the stairs: No more heads bonking! Woo hoo!
Is is a secret passageway into the bedroom? Or just a neat little slide?
Spreading the grout felt a bit like what I imagine it’s like to smear poop all over the floor. Well, it sure LOOKED like poo.
One thing is done.
I think I need to do a better job of recognizing the small finished pieces that make up the whole. Soon enough, they will all add up…
I ended my Memorial weekend feeling absolutely blessed. Blessed by fabulous friendships and by God’s amazing and humbling synchronicity at work as we charge ahead.
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We have bartered a wood stove for window installation (and are getting the windows at a deep discount besides!).
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The labor for our roof tear off and installation is being donated.
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The application for a permit for our driveway has been approved, mostly because of who we know.
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The labor for our stairway installation is being donated.
Each one of these items has a long involved story to explain how they came about. The point of all of it is so clear: We are being blessed!
I also have to interject a few words about partnership and marriage. I have felt for a long time that this project is one giant metaphor for me and Sean and us taking time and energy to rebuild our life together. Moving forward prayerfully and intentionally. Establishing new financial habits. Being kind and respectful partners with a common goal: a safe, functional, spirit-filled home for our family. Few goals are so worthy!!
With that said, we were blessed this past weekend with a visit from the Malveys, who maintain a permanent spot on our list of our favorite people in the entire world.
I get giddy when we have plans to visit and our time together is never enough. Thanks for your help with everything this past weekend Malveys! I have a few more pictures I didn’t manage to get resized last night with this round, so keep an eye out for another round of Memorial Day shots!
Sean, Craig, Me and Lori hanging out on the stoop:
The ceiling above the stairs… or where the stairs USED to be!
My new favorite picture.
In the interest of preserving our lawnmower blades, we had a contest to see who could pick up the most sticks out of the yard. Complete with cheesy prizes! (Photos forthcoming.)
The kids formed alliances, in true reality TV style. J and L formed a team:
Against J, C, W, and A. Forces to be reckoned with for sure!
After a Saturday full of destruction and a Sunday full of mud and tape, the tile floor is installed at last… the plan is to apply grout this coming weekend. My knees and back will live a happy and complete life if I never install tile again.
This is the east side of the house, where we would like to put in a driveway and an attached garage.
The south side of the house faces the backyard. We scavenged the screen from our current house so that we can get some bug-free air flow through the house.
The bathroom door waiting to be installed. A mess.
The pine boards are coming down. No more sauna stairway. Yay!
Of course, the roof has been leaking for heaven knows how long and the removal of the pine revealed moldy plaster. This sorta brought me down, although I wasn’t terribly surprised.
Sean has been having knee trouble and our calendar has been filled with a plethera of family and church and school events. Combined, this means that work has stalled out a bit at the new house.
The good news is that the deadline to be out of our current house has been extended to December. We would still love to be living in the new house before school starts in the fall, but we do have some breathing room in case that becomes an impossibility.
The only things we’ve accomplished in the past couple of weeks are puttering sorts of projects. The drains have been assembled and I discovered that I should have installed the bathroom door before I put in the cement board on the floor… ergh. Modification and rework. The bane of my existence. And a reality of working on an old house when you don’t really know what you’re doing.
A fresh dumpster is in place for some more destruction, but we really need to get that darned bathroom working before we make an all-out call for help.
Phase one is the bathroom. Believe me, that’s enough. Once we finish that, we can move on to phase two projects: roof, windows, and stairs. Phase three involves the rest of the interior finishing. Electrical updating and sheetrocking bedrooms. Paint, carpet, trim. Sanding and finishing the floors.
I feel so far away from painting anything. I can’t even begin to think about color schemes and decorating.
Because of Sean’s knee and the amount of work involved in a full tear off of asphalt and wood shakes on a 12/12 pitch with all new underlayment required, we are getting bids on the roof. And we talked to our friendly local excavator about roughing in the new driveway, even though we won’t have a garage built for awhile.
Right now the driveway is shared with our neighbors. They seem like lovely people but since we’re planning to build a garage on the opposite side of the property anyway, it only makes sense to put in our own driveway.
We are tapping a resource on some windows for a deep discount… and another resource for helping us to rebuild the stairs…
Too many irons in the fire!
Meanwhile, the kids have been busy exploring the new yard. We put up some swings in an ancient ash tree in the front yard for them to fight over. Spring blooming has revealed two large clusters of lilacs and a mature apple tree. That makes me smile (makes Sean cringe).
New and old maples, pines, and birches spatter the perimeter. There’s a huge old nut tree of some kind in the front too. I wish I had more tree knowledge!
Well, enough of this rambling post. Lots of stuff in the works, nothing getting finished… this is the state of things.
Yes, there’s a hole where the toilet will be! And a hole for the heat duct. The cement board is installed and ready for the tile.
The washer and dryer will be stacked next to the chimney wall, with a linen cabinet to the left of the outlet (between the tub and the washer/dryer).
Not all of the electrical work was finished when the inspector showed up last week, so we can’t finish putting up the drywall quite yet.
Look! A light switch to the right… this is the back of the new bathroom wall. It works a light in the ceiling of the living room where there was no light fixture before.
I realize we’re not changing the face of the planet or anything, but man it feels nice to put something together and turn on a switch and have it work!
The next shot documents some exploratory destruction. We are going to rip out and replace the stairs and we needed to see if we could tear out this little spot for more head room… looks like it used to be a small storage cavity.
Newspapers lined the floor… since 1961. We saw headlines featuring JFK. And Martin Luther King, Jr. marching and getting arrested along with his fellow ‘negroes’.
How do you spell linoleum? Not sure. But Sean tore some out of the big kids’ bedroom. I wonder if we should be trying to spell asbestos…
There is plywood on the floor! O Happy Day! The new chimney is complete, too, which means we have heat again.
A new wall in the making. Studs included! (As opposed to the hack job of sticks inside the wall previously.) Note the new electrical wire being run and that fancy three-stud corner I figured out how to do from the internet.
A new header for the doorway between the living room and kitchen.
