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Catching up #4 Office Renovation

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
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Catching Up #3 All the Trees Come Down!

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!
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Catching Up #2 Guest Bathroom & a Visitor

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
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Catching Up #1 Stairs & a Door

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
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The Master Closet is Done & Reflecting on a Year

Over the past few months we've been working on converting some of the 3-season porch into a master bedroom walk-in closet. It's been a low priority project and Nick has worked on it as he's had extra time. It's now almost finished-we just need to buy more baskets for the top shelves, for off-season storage, and I'd like to get a couple of larger floor baskets for my jeans and such. I was able to eliminate my dresser, which frees up space in our bedroom, and we now have our old closet available for storage, which will be a big help! February 5th also marked our one year anniversary of living in our house. To mark the occasion Nick and I watched the GoPro video Nick had taken when we did our initial walk through, after we took possession. It was hard to re-live that moment, but it was also a great reminder of how much we've accomplished in just a year's time! We've made so many improvements already, increasing the value of our house and also making it ou
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Another Unexpected Project

We keep running into unexpected projects as we continue to get settled into our new house. With the record breaking cold temps we've been having, the bathroom that the kids use froze up. We started having them use the upstairs bathroom, but that toilet has had issues ever since we moved in, and within a few flushes that toilet was offline as well. We do have a master bathroom, but having the kids, (and neighbor kids and friends), walk through our bedroom got old fast, especially since our bedroom is a part of our closet project and is a messy construction zone right now. Because of this Nick and his dad decided to finally figure out what was going on with the upstairs toilet. First they had to cut the bolts off, since they were completely rusted over. Then Don spent quite a bit of time with his hand/arm down the sewage drain pipe, (note to self: get Don a really nice Father's Day gift this year), and then Nick messed around with the old toilet to see if there was something c
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Closet Update & Christmas Decorating!

It was a busy holiday weekend as we worked on our closet project and then Nick also helped roof his sister's new garage.  We didn't have time to get everything done that we wanted to accomplish, but we did make a bit of progress. We got the exterior wall strengthened, insulated and dry-walled. We also got the ceiling insulated. Epic selfie LOL! *** This time last year we were in the middle of our selling/buying chaos and we decided to not do a traditional Christmas. We didn't set up a tree or any decorations. We didn't even do wrapped gifts. So this year we wanted to spend some time decorating and setting up the tree that we bought for our new house!
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