Finishing Touches

The carpet was installed earlier this week in the 4th bedroom and new family/toy room. The girls have been in these spaces almost nonstop the last few days! There are two more windows to trim and transition pieces yet for the floor.

We also have the light fixtures up, but not running yet as the new panel comes in next week and will not run not only these lights, but also the heat sources for these rooms and the entire house. Speaking of electric, our provider sent a crew out this week to tighten the overhead wire (a good 3 feet higher!) and cut back some large branches overhanging the wire. Looks nice! Also this week, we had a new pressure tank for the well installed. It should be maintenance free and more efficient.

The house is coming together exactly as we pictured it when we bought it last fall. Just in time to move. YES! Move...again! Jake had an unexpected but too-good-to-pass-up job offer with a district about 2 hours from here. Too long to commute! Rather than sell, we found a great family from our church to rent it and we, in turn, found a house to rent where we're moving to. We're very happy with all the work we've done and know that our investment will pay off someday. :)

Quality and Quickly

This stuff is amazing! We had the spray foamers out a few weeks ago. It'll be a night and day difference in the ground level living area. Where we had to close it off last winter because it was too cold to use (I mean really, even if the girls had their winter gear on they couldn't play in the toy room!), this winter it should be a comfortable space addition.

Mia and Adi displaying the finished work. We had them spray along the edges of the ceiling as well. Since the 2nd floor of the house overhangs there, it should also help with any heat loss in the upstairs bedrooms.

Outside Work

While the inside work is at a bit of a standstill, the outside work is progressing nicely. Our acreage includes about 4 acres of dense pines. While calling area loggers, we realized pretty quickly that they were worthless and that we'd be lucky to find someone to take them without charging us. We got lucky!



This company has a buyer for pulp wood and has agreed to take our trees. We may even walk away with a couple hundred dollars to put toward the bathroom!

Looking north from our smaller shed. The logger is taking every other row of the pines per directions from the DNR forester who said our woods needed thinning. This shot was taken after the cutting.

We did have the logger clear-cut from the bigger shed to the smaller shed. We'll get this area good and cleaned up and plant a few fruit trees.

It's amazing to see the setting sun through the trees! By the time this shot was taken, they had gotten about equal with the pole shed; just getting into the thick stuff to the north. That smaller pile is 2x4 worthy- cool. Jake suspects it will take them about 7 or 8 days total to get all that we want cut. The logger also took a big one from the middle of the front yard (that blocked what little sun we get facing south), one too close to the garage, and one in a weird spot in the back yard.

Here you can see the clear cut section better (and the setting sun!). They've got about 4 piles like this now (which will be taken later by truck). We figure it will take us (ie Jake) nearly all summer to clean out the "leftovers". The loggers leave about the top 8 feet of each tree, as well as all of the branches they cut off. We already have a big burn pile started, but will surely add more and more and more.

Or FREE WOOD to whoever wants to come and clean it out! :)

All night long

Another example of the previous homeowners doing things a bit-less-than-up-to-code.

I was putting the little ones to sleep. Jake was putting the bigger kids to bed.

I hear a thump thump motorish sound. At first I thought it was our silly neighbor who revs his engines late into the night (yes, we have one of those). But it sounded too consistent, so I called to Jake to check it out.

I hear him stomp downstairs and a few minutes later he's back up, "The sump pump quit. I'm going to try to fix it."

Nearly two hours later, he has it all apart and realizes that the actual sump pump was buried in mud and could not be fixed. He had taken a gallon bucket and scooped out the water into two 5 gallon buckets he dumped outside. Six times he had to do this to get all the water out.

Our sump pump runs about every hour and a half. (I don't completely understand. See, the basement has a beaver system (like drain tiles) that empties into the sump pump. But the sump pump hole, about 4 feet down, hits mud and water seeps in which the pump has to pump out. To me, closing up the pump would take care of that problem, but then I guess the beaver system would not have anyplace to drain to.)

Aaaanyway, Jake came to bed and set his alarm for an hour and half later so he could go empty it again. 60 gallons. Up the stairs. Outside. Took him 45 minutes.

Back to bed for another 90 minutes.

Back downstairs to 60 more gallons.

Ridiculous.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Of course we were coming on Sunday morning so nothing was open until 8am.

One more time.

He arrived at Home Depot at 8am sharp.

He came home before the 90 mintures were up (I told him it was very unlikely that I'd start hauling buckets!) and installed a new sump pump. The right way. With a layer of gravel. A container for the pump to sit in with drain holes. More gravel. A beautiful job, really.

And it takes the sump pump 60 seconds to empty the water.

We're focusing on the bright side: that we caught it, the basement didn't flood, Jake was able to take a well-deserved Sunday nap rather than stumble through work, and we have a nice new sump pump.

Nice work honey.

Framing and Plumbing

Part 1 of a 2 part plumbing job. Yesterday Knutson Plumbing came out and redid the drain system for the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. They moved some stuff around so we can relocate the toilet and shower. They cleaned up some pipes that hung low in the ceiling and brought others in closer to the wall. They did a great job and will be back after we frame to relocate supply lines and hook everything back up again.

And Jay with Integrity framed in our future guest bedroom and family room. It's so much easier to visualize the space with almost-walls in place! This shot is looking from the guest bedroom into the family room. That leather couch back there is for sale for $100 by the way...

A view looking into the guest room with the new window installed. In this space, we have electrical and lighting yet to do, spray-in foam on the exterior walls, drywall and finishing, and flooring.

New Window and Door

Jay with Integrity of Rochester came back for more! He installed a new garage access door and a window in our will-be guest bedroom.

This is the wall pre-window.

We also had a cement-cutter out to prep the floors for our new plumbing plan.

Back to it

Well it's been awhile since our last post. This is not because we haven't wanted to get stuff done, we just have been short on two things: time and money. Jake had time this last wkd as the girls and I went on a minivacation with my parents and brother. He got ALOT done without us being the usual distractions (we are, by the way, distractions he welcomes). :)



Ok, the former "shag room." We still call it that even though there is not smidge of shag in sight. It will be the family room eventually.

This whole space (the "shag room") was a garage converted (very poorly) to living space by the previous (original) owners. They must have done it about 30 years ago (judging by the shag and paneling) and it really needs alot of "behind the walls" updating. Like, new electrical, new insulation (all of the pink fiber glass and white foam will be taken out and we're going to spray foam the exterior walls), some new duct work, and new lighting. We're also thinking new windows since it is ground level.

Here are some more views of the space previously. And worry not about our children, this space and its exposed insulation is completely closed off from the rest of the house.

Did my amazing husband stop with that room? Oh no! He jumped right into the laundry/bath off the entry way. After framing in the exterior concrete wall, adding a pocket door, and hiding the previously exposed plumbing, we're going to make this space bigger, add a nice walk-in shower (a tub won't fit), a new vanity/sink and new toilet. In addition, it will have all new flooring that will tie in with the entry way (cork we're thinking would be warm, stylish, and "green"). Our only point of contention is the ceiling. Jake wants a suspended ceiling (ugliest things ever, I think), and while I understand the need with all of the pipes to the upstairs bath, I am pushing for a white beadboard ceiling...still accessible, replaceable, and much, MUCH better looking. Stay tuned to see who wins this one. :)

Again, more demo

A coat closet off the entry way. When we moved in, we immediately converted it to a pantry/storage closet. Now that my snazzy new pantry is complete (see below), this closet is comin' out.

Gone, just like that!

But why stop there? My parents came to visit for a wkd in January and chipped right in at chipping away the floor.

Then the shower...we (a family of 6) used this bitty shower daily (well, not all at once; you know what I mean) when the upstairs bath was under construction. Time for it to go to make room for our bigger plans.

Still to go: the rest of the ceiling above the washer/dryer and the rest of the drywall beside it, the old vinyl flooring, the cabinet there and another above the toilet, and though you can't see it from here, another wall.

Pantry

We used to have 2 sets of stairs that led down to the same level of the house and ended up about 6 feet away from each other- waste of space! So we took out the stairs (which opened up the area above them in the bathroom and that project really deserves some better pictures...later) and added a pantry on the kitchen level.

How else do you get out stairs? A chainsaw!

After drywalling and rearranging some elctrical to add a motion sensor light, here is our new pantry/girl's art/project supply closet! I think, looking at the picture, that one more shelf would fit in there...hmm....

New Entryway!

Ok, a bit behind. The house had a nice size entry way (foyer?) off the front door. The walls were covered in paneling, the floor was faux pebbles, and this built-in planter (pictured belowed) had real dirt (very dirty, musty dirt) and fake plants. By the time this picture was taken, I (actually my mom) had cleaned out the dirt and put in my real potted plants. Anyway, Jake got busy taking the paneling down. There was drywall underneath that, so he left it in place with a bit of patching. He did all the mudding, taping, and sanding. Then I primed and painted (a nice yellowish/tan called Buttered Up). The Advanced Woods Class at school needed some projects, so we gave them sketches of what we had in mind, purchased the wood, and voila! A snazzy, extremely practical entry way.

The planter is gone! These are mine and Jake's cubbies and our coat hooks. A wide bench is planned for below the hooks to make more "sitting and putting shoes on" room. Yes, missing a vent cover up there... The cubbies are birch with a dark stain called Jacobean.

A cubbie for each girl and coat hooks. Have 6 more hooks to add on the end for guests. Would also like to add a low shoe shelf about 6 inches above the floor, the length of the wall, to double the shoe space. The angle of this picture doesn't show it, but these cubbies are centered on the wall.

We have yet to add a new floor in here and a heat source. The ceiling is already lowish and the front door (which also needs to be replaced) is already shorter than normal. Soooo we're thinking a vinyl directly on the concrete and baseboard heat. We had wanted infloor heat here, but I don't think the height issues of the space will allow it. Check back later for the rest of the work we've been doing in the this space.

Words on Walls

I've been adding insprirations around the house as we get the painting done in each area. Here are the wallwords I've painted so far:



Our BR (same quote, same frames as previous house, different arrangement and different color scheme).

One of my favorite quotes also used in the other house.

In this house it runs the length of hte hallway highlighting 8x10s of the girls.

I think there is room for two more frames...

More Words on the Walls

E & O's room.

Bathroom.

Living room (same exact set up as our previous house; what can I say? It works!).

Accent wall in living room (again, similar set up to our other house; different font and different arrangment, but close).