Old House by the River

One of our biggest projects to date was our recent office remodel. We started tearing this room apart when we were fixing the sagging roof, back during our roofing project , and it sat sealed off for a while while we focused on other things. Finishing this room entailed fixing a cracked sewer pipe in the wall, putting in all new insulation, replacing some of the interior walls and the ceiling with new drywall; all new flooring, framing in two new sets of double doors and trimming these areas; building an area for the fridge to recess in, making custom beams for the ceiling, electrical for new outlets and installing lighting into the ceiling, and then new base and ceiling trim, (matching this to the existing knotty pine that we wanted to keep ended up being a big hassle!). We also needed to run internet cables inside the exterior wall into the basement, which meant ripping apart the wall and completely rebuilding it from the outside, (giving us a jump start on our upcoming siding proj

We spent the long Memorial Day weekend taking more trees down, including the massive maple tree that was causing most of the shade in our side yard and preventing grass from growing. This was a huge project involving family and friends and it was so much work! Our yard looks a lot better now though without the trees and we're finally starting to get a yard!

Our guest bathroom was hideous-the flooring was cracked, the walls were painted purple and blue and there was a bare sink with no mirror. We didn't want to spend too much time or money on this area yet, since it will most likely be ripped out and completely redone when we do our kitchen project down the road, but we wanted to spruce it up and make it more usable for guests. We put in new flooring, a vanity and sink, a mirror and then we painted the walls and trim white. We also had an interesting visitor one evening. We had been hearing scratching in our fireplace chimney on and off for a few days and thought it was a bat that had gotten stuck, (the vent was closed so nothing was coming into our room). Finally we had enough and Nick and his dad went in-come to find out it was a flying squirrel! Cutest thing, very friendly and once the vent was opened he climbed down the pull chain and went into the cardboard box we had laid out. We were able to release him outsid

Wow, time flies and it's been over a year since I last updated this blog. Nick got a new job and is working 6 days a week right now, and the kids started a year round school program, so life is busy busy! We've still managed to fit in a few projects though including our office renovation, an epic tree removal project, adding stairs down to the river, a quick guest bathroom update, putting in our new back door and then starting our huge siding project. We also had a visitor come down our bedroom fireplace, which made for a few exciting hours! Looking forward to the fall, we'll be continuing on with the siding project, grinding stumps, finishing our small back porch and then moving the rest of our stuff from the in-laws to our house or selling it. Whew! Stairs down to the River New Back Door