Old House by the River

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 ...