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.

Dealing with Delays

Things are not real great right now.  We are a few weeks behind schedule with the new house.  We had hoped to move in on the first of April, but due to circumstances beyond our control, delays happened.  The new move date is the fifteenth.  We were looking like we were right on target and then....the plasterer blew us off today.  If he comes tomorrow, which he said he would, it will still take him until late Thursday to finish (if all goes well)
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Because the plaster then has to "cure" for three days, that means we have to cancel the big painting weekend we had planned.  My sister and her husband, our daughter and her beau, and my younger brother had all offered to come and help us get the painting done this coming Saturday and Sunday, but now the walls won't be ready.  I also had to postpone the carpet install until next Wednesday.  

Here you see the walls with blueboard installed, waiting for the plasterer.  It sure looks different from a few weeks ago, doesn't it?  Mac created a hallway between the two small bedrooms, and took out two big windows, replacing them with smaller ones which fit better in the spaces.  These two  rooms will have pocket doors so we don't have to lose any living space to the door swing areas.

That's Mac in the shot above.  He looks really tired these days.  He has been going from his day job straight to the house and staying until after midnight for months now.  He needs a vacation.  Here, he is plotting out how to pull up the floor in the upstairs master bedroom to add a supporting beam.  He saw it bounce as my tiny niece was jumping on it last weekend, and decided he couldn't live with himself unless he pulled up the sub-floor and rectified it, which he did in record time, finishing it in the wee hours of this morning.  He worked like a madman to be ready for the plasterer, and then the guy stood us up today.

On a very bright note, my brother has donated all our paint (gallons and gallons of it!) and my sister and her husband went over to the home center and astonishingly, paid (in full!) for the carpet we'd ordered!  I am so lucky to have such a caring, generous family - we have come to realize during this ordeal that they are truly our best friends, and we so appreciate all the help they have given us. 

 
We are determined to stay with our deadline for moving.  The only thing we can do now is for me to take next week off from work to try and get it all done, so I'm going to talk to my boss and see if I can get the time.  We are moving in on the fifteenth of April, come hell or high water.  The next time I write we will be in our new home.  Wish us well!