One Sixty: The Time Is Now, And the Place?

The Time Is Now, And the Place?

Well - despite me being stupid, this weekend was quite productive.... Yes, Friday night I got completely sloshed and was hung over on the couch, sick as a dog for 90% of Saturday. Mike was furious, seeing as how he had to finish cleaning the cement out of the mudroom himself... plus the weight of it all broke the skid steere bucket in half. Believe me, I wasn't too happy with myself either.

Luckily, by Saturday evening I was right as rain again and started packing up all our belongings for the move-out.

Sunday we really cooked! Especially with the added daylight of the spring forward time change. Mike began fixing the bucket while I packed up the rest of our neccessities. Then, we did one last load of dishes and shut down the furnace. We hooked the old chimney up to the skid steere and pulled it down in two peices. (Some incredibly cool video there by the way.)

We then used the lawn tractor trailer to carry the chimney peices in back of the garage to pile up. The large peices we dragged out with the skid steere.

Once that was cleaned up, we disconnected the water heater and took it out of the basement with the skid steere. (More cool video.) That thing is heavy! It actually fell off the forks once.. but only dented a little. It was stressful, a little dangerous, but we made it safe 'n sound.

At the end of the day, we packed up the cats and moved back into Mike's parents' house. I'm grateful to be able to stay there... I'm just worried about the cats... stupid dogs. Not that I don't like dogs - but these two are untrained and very rude if I do say so. And I'm worried about the cats peeing on the carpet - I don't know what it is about their carpet that the cats don't like - but it happened last time we lived there. Maybe just dog smell... anyway

Then, last night Mike's friend Hal stopped by and they got the oil tank out of the basement. I had a meeting soooo... no cool video this time.

Tonight Mike's going to disconnect the septic and Friday the water department is coming to shut off the water.... after that, it's just the hay bales and silt wall... hopefully we can do that on Wed.

Blog Story

My now husband Mike and I purchased this quaint home back in spring of 2004 - our first home - and, being the handy folks we are, expected to have the entire thing renovated in about a year or so.

And here we still are... renovating away.

This house needed a complete overhaul. Its plaster walls were uninsulated, its attic floor covered in 2" of bat guano, its basement - dirt and snakes, its exterior - asbestos siding, and lead paint windows in every room. The electric had not been updated and light sockets hung bare from the ceiling. Plumbing featured cast iron radiators - and only one for the entire upstairs.

We began by gutting almost the entire house from top to bottom. (sans bathroom - we needed to pee) We rebuilt the entire upstairs, with a new floor (not new carpet or wood - the once unstable framing underneath) and turned 3 small rooms into two. We reinvented the downstairs by turning a closet into a hallway and eliminating interior exterior windows and doors from old half-assed additions.

New insulation, windows, electrical wiring (including phone and CAT-5 internet), plumbing and baseboards, and drywall were all added.

We purchased kitchen cabinets from a yard sale. (None existed previously.) Our families helped us replace and purchase new appliances including the once also missing washer & dryer.

Then we had the entire house lifted - straight into the air - dug out the dirt, and had a real basement foundation poured. We updated our oil tank and burner and created heating zones.

Outside, we took down trees and planted grass. We dug out an awkward hill to create a 2nd part to the driveway and used the rocks our house once sat on as a retaining wall. We electrified and repainted the garage.

And of course, we spent many an hour on finish work like paint, trim, closet doors, lighting fixtures, hardwood floors, curtain rods, dimmer switches, and many other things everyone else takes for granted. We are still working to complete all this final finishing, but happy to report that we are FINALLY nearing completion of all little things in all rooms!

In 2008 we began overhauling the exterior by creating a new french door entryway and building a farmer's porch and garage addition. We replaced our roof and then stripped off our siding and replaced with new clapboards. We then planted two new flowering trees and a maple in the front yard - our first major landscape purchases. I'm happy to report that here in 2011, the porch is nearing completion and the back yard is on the road to recovery with some new loam and grass. More plantings soon to come!

In 2012 we plan to attack the last MAJOR (emphasis on major) job in the house - the dreaded BATHROOM! We plan to first add a second bathroom in the basement. Then, demolish our current bathroom and rebuild it, adding a second bathroom on top for the upstairs.

And that pretty much brings you up to date. The battle continues day to day as we try and complete everything.