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

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...

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...

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!

After a lull we got back at it a few weeks ago with a big project-we put in a new furnace! Back when we had our pre-purchase inspection done the inspector said the furnace was fine. Wrong . Within a few days after our move in we realized that the furnace wasn't working properly and we ended up using the pellet stove for the rest of winter. While we enjoy using the pellet stove it became tedious, (and expensive), to rely on it as our only heat source. Since the furnace was old and inefficient we decided to put in a new one, and Nick and his dad got it installed just in time for the cold weather to arrive! We've also started another project that I'm really excited about-converting a part of our 3-season, wrap around porch into a master bedroom walk-in closet! We love the porch, but the east side faces our neighbor's backyard and doesn't have a nice view. This area has a door connecting the porch to our bedroom and Nick came up with the brilliant idea to use this s...

We've been in a bit of a lull with the house and have been focusing on other things these past few weeks. Nick's still helping his sister quite a bit at her new house, and then he's been working on job sites that have required a lot of driving, (Petoskey, Ludington etc). Plus the back to school craziness has hit, as well as fall activities. However, Nick did find time to buy something he's been wanting for years-an old project truck. He found one that had been used as an advertising piece at an antique shop, that was going out of business, and he had a friend help him trailer it home from Battle Creek. It's a 1955 Ford F-600. What makes it unique is that it's an old Army vehicle and it has a lot of character under all the rust! It had been sitting behind Nick's parents barn since we bought it, but we decided to get it home last night. What an adventure that was! We had no idea if it was drive-able for any length of time, so Nick called his friend, Chuck,...

As summer flies by things continue to be busy over here. Along with the endless list that needs to be tackled on our house, Nick's also been helping his sister, Jessie, with her new house and has been spending a lot of time over there working on getting her new furnaces set up. There's a lot going on and it's easy to get overwhelmed by everything that needs to get done, but we're slowly making progress! We got our new refrigerator a few weeks ago and I love it! The one that came with the house had been vandalized by the previous owner, and it was also a style we really hated because it had such limited space. We got a 'door-in-door' style, and I love how big the freezer is and how many extra shelves the fridge has! I've been making decent progress on the back bluff, clearing brush and unearthing more pathways. I had a bit of a setback though, when I realized I was highly reactive to poison oak! Both of my legs are covered in it right now and the itchines...

One of the big pluses about our new house is that we have Grand River front property. Not only will this come into play down the road for re-sale value, but we're really excited to use this area for a kayak launch and then a fire pit/gathering area. However, the area down by the river is very wet and it was completely overgrown. One of our neighbors informed us that the previous two owners of our house tried to tame this area and both gave up. But, put a seemingly impossible challenge like this in front of my husband and it's game on! The first thing we did was figure out why it was so wet in some areas. We discovered that there's natural springs in numerous places, which is very cool, but tricky to work with. Nick's toying with the idea of building a ram pump down the road, but for now he's identifying where the water is flowing and then digging trenches and putting in drain tile. This is a very labor intensive project and little by little things are being set up...

A few days ago we experienced our first big summer storm at the new place, and we realized that all these pretty trees we have can be a big hazard in bad weather! We were fortunate to only have a few come down, compared to many of our Lamont neighbors who sustained much more serious damage, (including one house that had a fire), but our downed trees made a big mess and we have some damage to our roof that needs to be fixed now. Our patio furniture also took a beating and one of our chairs is beyond repair-bummer! We're assessing what needs to be done with some of the trees that are still standing near our house, to prevent this from happening again!

This old house certainly is keeping us on our toes! A few days ago Nick went into the basement to see if he could get the central air conditioner working and discovered that our basement floor was covered in standing water. The water heater had sprung a leak and it wasn't savable, so several hundred dollars later we have a new water heater, sigh..... Nick and his dad, Don, had to do some hard core demolition to make a concrete wall accommodate the new, larger sized vent that went along with the new heater. This got us up to current code. The draining of the old heater was a big hassle and we still have to drag the buckets of water out of the basement. We also discovered that the old heater was full of sand. There's a water filtration system in place for the house, but the filter looks like it hasn't been changed in years. Come to find out you're supposed to change it every 3 months! We have filters on the way from Amazon and hopefully we'll get that under control....

It's been a busy time over here, as Nick has continued to work on the roof and all the other things that go along with this large project. He's completely rebuilt our back porch and the new windows, door and siding are now up! The new siding is almost the same color as the painted siding on the rest of the house, it's crazy how close it matches! It looks a lot cleaner though, without the spots of peeling paint and fading. The new white edging really looks sharp as well. We'll be slowly replacing all the siding and trim on the house, and the similar colors will make the transition period less awkward. The roof is pretty much done, except for a bit of flashing that needs to be completed this weekend. Nick has also started installing fascia lighting by the back porch/back of house. This will really modernize things and make our back yard more accessible after dark. As Nick's working on these projects Alora's been hard at work planting flowers and making things ...