Good Evening, All. The work on the house continues in fits and starts. We got so much done in three days, and I started to feel very optimistic…then my hubby has to go back to work and can only work on it during the nights. This is our good friend and godsend, Gary, helping out with the master bedroom closet project. We got the old one ripped out and the new one framed and the exterior door removed and boarded over. It was a door to nowhere really, kind of a strange place for it to be. Not one door to the back acres, but this one located about 5 feet from a 3 foot stone wall drop off. Someone wasn’t planning that with much care. We are adding a French door to the living room to gain access to the back of the house, where the plan is to eventually be adding an outdoor kitchen and sitting area. Looking forward to having a comfortable place to do my outdoor canning in the summer time. Nothing like canning 35 quarts of tomatoes and sauce on a 95 degree day. Done it more than once, so the outdoor space will be awesome to have.
Bathroom renovations have hit a large snag. For a VERY long time, the water from the sink faucet was leaking down into the sub floor and joists below it. Oh, someone tried to fix it with duct tape at one point, and when it didn’t work, they apparently just didn’t concern themselves with that annoying little leak. The depressing story in short is that a large part of the floor needs to be ripped out and replaced, along with a few of the joists. We haven’t assessed the full scope of damage yet, we started ripping out the rotted boards, which are crumbling like powder in our hands. The other rather interesting thing is that there are about 5 layers of flooring under the subfloor. We have no idea why there is so much sub-sub flooring, but it’s creating quite a mess to deal with having all of those layers rotted and falling apart. What we thought would be a simple shower install has turned ugly, but well, that’s the way it is with old houses. I think I’ve mentioned this before to you, right? Once you open up old wounds, you get the horns of the bull. Now, we’re not scared of that type of thing, but we’re also not familiar with how to deal with it all.
Enter Gary. He’s been such a huge help for us, he KNOWS old houses. His home is an ancient, beautiful place that he saved from complete disrepair years ago, and it is one of the nicest houses in our town, which is known for its antique homes. He has been not only an incredible font of knowledge, but he’s very, very handy with tools and can just walk in and know what needs to be done. This is a huge benefit to us because…I mentioned we’re new to some of this, right? But he patiently teaches us a lot of things and has lent a hand without us needing to ask. That’s true friendship in my book. And, he’s also the kind of person who expects nothing in return for his kindnesses. A gem of a guy. Oh, and he’s also the crazy guy who handled the very challenging purchase for us as he’s also our realtor.
The boys have been lending their hand to the reno as well. I tasked them with chosing their paint colors and painting their rooms themselves. Now they are 12 and 14, and have never handled anything like this before. So, I gave them lessons on taping their woodwork and windows, how to use the paint brush, how to roll the paint on in a W first on the wall and then smooth it out from there. They worked together in each room to get them done. Now, mind you, as this is their first time doing anything like this, it isn’t perfect. But they really worked together as a team, stuck to the tasks and over the course of two days got their rooms looking 100% better than they did when they started out! I am very proud of them for all their efforts, and they feel proud of themselves for having an important part in how their rooms turn out. They both chose white walls, my youngest wanted a blue ceiling and they look clean, fresh and ready for some posters.
My husband has been working diligently on the wiring for the kitchen. It’s getting a lot of updated wiring done so that we can have a light switch that actually turns on lights when you flip it, and I can plug more than one appliance in at a time. You know, pesky things like that. I, unfortunately, didn’t get a picture of him doing this, but I will. Keeping up with pictures and the reno has been a little challenging. I keep forgetting to take the pictures during the long days. My husband has never wired anything like this before, but he’s been teaching himself the codes and Gary has been lending his knowledge and they are getting it done.
My good friend from away asked me today how the reno was going. I told him it’s going well, but that I am very much looking forward to the first night I’m sitting on the couch with my hubby in our newly wired and painted living room, enjoying a glass of wine, watching the fire in the fireplace and looking out our new French doors to the back acres. Yep, really trying to keep my eye on that prize when I feel frustrated or completely overwhelmed, which does happen. The help we were hoping to get from a contractor on some of the projects is going by the wayside because we have to pay $4,500 to take down trees that are dangerous to the house. Big, old, money-sucking trees and since we have a new roof, we don’t want to take chances with waiting on that. So, we’re really handling the entire reno ourselves, and we’ll get by with a little help from our friend.
Grace Note Homestead 