A Mini Tour

I have not had much free time to write lately because trying to put the house together while working full time keeps me pretty busy. We still have a lot of boxes around and no idea where to put the contents.  My daughter, when visiting recently, asked how it was possible to move from an apartment into a house and actually have less room. Not sure, but apparently we did it!   Actually it's because we had a lot of storage at our former dwelling place - a full attic, two story garage and two story barn out back.   Here at the new place we have no out-buildings at all, an attic with no floor (just insulation above the ceiling) and there were only two closets in the whole house, one downstairs and one upstairs. So, the first thing Mac did was build a closet in the master and one in my son's room.

As I write this, he is outside constructing a small shed to keep the recycling bins and the lawnmower in to keep them out of the rain. It hasn't solved the whole problem but we've made a start.  Here is what the upstairs looks like right now.  Scroll down a few posts to see the pictures from a couple of months ago for comparison.




Here is what the hallway Mac built looks like now. He still has to put the window trim and the radiator cover on.

Here's the new half bath.

This is the little bedroom where my daughter will stay when she visits. We were calling it the office until we realized there won't be room for a desk if we keep the bed in it, and of course we want her to have someplace to sleep when she comes to stay over. And there is a small stand of shelving and a T.V. as well.
We had to take space from the two smaller bedrooms to carve out the half bath and the hallway.

This is the master bedroom.  The skylight has not gone in yet - that has to wait until Mac does the roof.  But it will be right over the bed.  Here too we still have to do all the window trim.

Although most of the work we have done has been upstairs, as you can see it is still a work in progress. 
The downstairs is another matter entirely.  We really have not done anything to it.  Because the frame of the house needed such extensive repairs, we didn't have nearly enough money to do what we needed to.  There is still much that needs to be done and because of time and financial constraints, it will take years.  But at least it is livable.
Here are some shots of the kitchen.

...And our little deck out back.

Mac is planning to demo it, maybe next year and build a patio instead.   It was not done correctly in the first place and because of that, it's causing problems with the sill of the house, but for now it's nice to have a place to sit out there.



 I would show you the parlor and living room, but they are not too photogenic right now.  We have most of our furniture crammed into the parlor, because Mac has all his tools and table saws and building supplies in the living room.   He needs a space to work that's out of the weather and as previously mentioned, we have no garage or barn yet.   He intends to build one as soon as our budget allows, which may be a long time away.  We also have an in-ground pool, but it has not been operational for many years and is over grown with grapevine and bittersweet.  There are cattails and reeds growing in the bottom of it and it is currently serving as a frog nursery.  Mac says he hopes to get it back in shape and running by 2014.  I'll post some photos of it soon for the curious.

All things considered, I feel very blessed.  I now have everything I ever wanted in life.  How many people get that?

We Finally Moved

Well Hell did not come, neither did high water, and neither did the carpet when it was supposed to. We were delayed yet again, but finally were able to move in on the 22nd of April.
There is still a ton of work to be done. The biggest problem we are facing is a lack of storage here at the new place. We are living out of boxes and every free moment is spent trying to unpack and figure out where to put things. Because Mac spent so much time getting this place ready, he got behind in his work. He is trying to catch up and is juggling three jobs at the moment, so he's been working nights and weekends as well as days, and it is slow going for work here at home.
There is still a lot to be done, but I will post some pictures of our progress in a few days.