Monthly Archives: June 2012

Jun23

Life is good today

Posted on June 23, 2012 by whoopydoopy

*Singing the song from Annie* I think I’m gonna like it here!

Deconstruction is almost finished in the upper level of the new house. The only thing left is for me to go around and finish pulling nails. Which doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t real hard, but it take a lot of time. I’m looking forward to getting it done so we can start putting this place back together.

Yesterday we got the windows picked out, we are again going with a manufacturer from MN. They are called Thermo-Tech and I think that they will be a good fit for us. We are ordering the windows for everywhere upstairs except the kitchen…we still don’t have that planned out.

My dad has been out helping and it sounds like both of our moms are going to help out this coming week when hubby is gone. We are so appreciative of the help – every hour spent is one less hour that we have to put in and that makes us GRATEFUL. :) Love you guys.

Hubs is out right now picking up supplies for the next couple of weeks – we are going to start framing and getting the place sealed up which I am SUPER excited for. Sounds like we will have lots of help next weekend as well so we’re trying to get everything done that we need to so our helpers will have projects to help with!

Headed back out there today – looks like it will be another nice day! I can’t wait to be living out there! :)

I took some quick snaps of the sunset last night – beautiful! And the sky was amazing yesterday evening too – truly, life is good!

Jun18

Our Mice Have a Gambling Problem

Posted on June 18, 2012 by whoopydoopy

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Oh the surprises just don’t stop around here! Hubby and I have been working diligently at the farm (still seems weird calling it that – we have to come up with a name soon) and I feel like each wall has held some kind of exciting surprise.

I’m past the point of getting upset – especially when we take down sheetrock and find things like this stashed in the walls between the 2X4s.

There were about 8 dice of varying sizes stashed in a nice little bed. Along with a boingy phone cord, golf tee, sucker stick, peach pit, a few other unidentifiable objects, and a lot of turds. What a nice little home. I’m sure those mice just had a great setup there in the wall. But come on now. Seriously…SERIOUSLY?!

They also had a lovely little nest on the top of the range vent. YUCK. any mice in the kitchen YUCK YUCK YUCK. Mice anywhere is really quite disgusting. I’m not even sure these were mice here…do mice collect things or is it some other critter? I don’t know. I probably don’t WANT to know…

So, the common discovery of mouse/squirrel/chipmunk/???? chewed areas along with the finding of about half a dozen squirrel nests so far in the attic has led us to the decision that we are going to gut ev.er.ry.thing. It was not planned for and certainly we will have to re-do our budget and live in a mess for a while, but we both feel like it is the only way to do.

We are keeping the fridge though…and the washer and dryer unless the previous owners end up needing them. That is it though. Pretty much everything else will be gone. We are looking into new heating/cooling systems. There was radiant ceiling heat installed which has been coming down as we’ve been taking the ceiling and insulation down. It it a real bugger to get down.

The plaster sticks to it in chunks and then when you are pulling on the wires they swing at hit you in the nose. (totally happened to me) Or your husband is on the ladder hammering and sends a chunk of ceiling on a crash course with your ankle bone. (totally happened to me). Anyhoots. If you don’t pull out all of the wire, it is next to impossible to get the sheetrock down because it is all stuck together. And then on top of that, an unholy amount of nails was used while hanging the sheeetrock. I mean CRAZY amounts of nails. In the bathroom, I could 27 nail on ONE 2X4 in about 2.5 feet. Do you know how insane that is?!

One day at a time…breathe.

Everything is a process. But we are making progress. We are. Totally. (That is me giving myself a pep talk…)

A co-worker of husbands went out last week and helped him gut the upstairs bathroom. I think we’ve decided to stick with one large bathroom instead of splitting it into a master bath and half bath. We are clean bathroom people and really don’t mind if other peeps use our toilet. :) It does make me a little sad though, looking at the beautiful bathroom we just finished at our house in town and then having to start over again. So this picture is standing in the master bedroom, the left part is the bathroom, living space beyond that, and then the wall to the right is the kitchen.

We’ve also made progress in the kitchen. We took a few of the cabinets out (found some more HUGE holes chewed in the walls) and will hopefully have it all gutted tomorrow. Sounds like my papa is going to come out and help hubby tomorrow which will be great. Oh and speaking of, Happy Father’s Day to the World’s Greatest Dad! Love you! :) So I know that husband will appreciate the help! We’ve just got so much to do!

Well, I feel like I’ve been talking a lot. What is new in the world out there beyond my home remodeling project? We did get out to the lake for a bit for my niece’s bday party. Had a fun little celebration and we regained “favorite aunt and uncle status” with our gift. At least I’m pretty sure we did…have pics on the camera, but that is at work.

And super good news – the first day of summer is coming up! Anybody have anything planned?! No? Well you should come help at our new place. We’re having a demo party and it will be SO much fun!

LOVIES!!!

Jun10

Skanky to Swanky Progress

Posted on June 10, 2012 by whoopydoopy

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We made some pretty big steps forward in the demolition process this past week. Husband has done the largest majority of it by far, but I’ve been able to help with a few things. Mainly cleaning up the messes he makes and hauling the debris out to the dumpster. (Our first roll-away is full, we are hoping to get another one tomorrow)

Saturday we got a pretty early start and some of my family came out to help with the dirty work. It was HOT and we were all nice and sweaty from tearing down walls. It is a lot of work! We ended up calling it a day pretty early and headed out to Pickerel Hills to go for the first swim of the summer. The lake was a little bit chilly but it felt really refreshing after working in the heat. We ended up staying over night – the thought of coming back into town to our non-air conditioned house was not really appealing. Plus one of my sisters was there with her two boys and my grandma too, so we got to hang out and enjoy the company – and a great grilled dinner al fresco!

Sunday we headed back out to the farm to start working on plans. We got a few things figured out, took some measurements, tossed around a bunch more ideas, drew on the floors and walls with chalk, had lunch, and came home.

Here are a couple of pictures of what is going on right now. We took out the closet at the top of the stairs and the walls that separated the bedrooms. This is the north side of the house and will become the living room. Husband also came up with the most AMAZING idea for the west wall, but I’m not quite ready to spill the beans on that yet. Anyhoots, here are a few pics.

So these first ones are standing in the kitchen looking north. If you take a right, the stairs are there and to the left is a hallway and the bathroom.

And here it is now with the closet/bedroom walls gone.

That opens it up a little, doesn’t it? So now we have to figure out a window configuration for that north wall. We know we want nice big windows, but we also want some that will open. (We are open window kind of people!) I think we will probably end up with a mix of fixed picture windows, transoms, and casement windows. WHO KNOWS! Send me all of your great ideas though…

And now here is another set of pics. These are taken facing north east kind of back towards the staircase. The door in this first one is open and blocking the stairs, but just imagine that it weren’t, the stairs are right there.

And here is the current “during” view. If you look in the closet above, you can see those two white horizontal boards to use as a reference. The window is facing north, the stairs east.

Big changes, right? Good changes I hope…

Plans for this week are to get the rest of the ceiling and insulation ripped out and gutted, install some extra support in the ceiling, get some professionals out to help us decide on a heating system and windows, and who knows what else! Maybe we will get some of the windows and door ordered?! Don’t know but it is starting to get exciting!!!

Jun8

So this is paradise….(?)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by whoopydoopy

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Our new house is disgusting.

There is really no other way to put it at this point it time. Seriously fowl.

Husband and I are to the point where we just laugh every time we find another hole or access point for mice.

The good news (ha) is that it SEEMS that the entry way is the main place they are getting in and we are kind of sure that we can remedy that situation.

We’ve been ripping down walls and making plans up as we go. I am really excited to see how it will all turn out – when I think about what it can become, it takes some of the sting out of what it is right now. (which is a stinky mess)

So, we will continue to fight the good fight and hope for the best. We actually do quite well flying by the seat of our pants. :)

Sounds like we might have some reinforcements this weekend which will be awesome! Hope to have some pics of the progress posted soon.

Have a wonderful weekend – sounds like it will be WARM up here!

Jun4

Mishka. Mooshka. Mickey….

Posted on June 4, 2012 by whoopydoopy

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mouse.

Or to be more correct, mice.

Last Friday was the official closing date for our new dream place. We went out to the property to do a final walk-through before closing and were quite surprised to find that the couple living there was quite obviously still living there. They had clearly been doing some packing, there were boxes stacked around and stuff strewn about in a manner that suggests packing. But all of the furniture was still there, closets still had stuff in them…they were by no means ready for us to do the final walk-through. So we hemmed and hawed about closing (which was scheduled to happen in about 3o minutes) and decided to go ahead and do it even though they weren’t moved out. We gave them until the next evening to have their stuff out of the house…the outside items are still up for debate.

The closing went just fine, signing our lives away gets easier every time. Saturday evening we headed out to check on the house and get started on a game plan. Well, they were definitely further along than the previous day but still not moved out. We called and talked to them and they told us they would be out the following morning. Since we were out there already we decided to look around and enjoy it a little bit.

Ok – so I feel like I need to side/back track here. When we pulled up into the yard, there was a truck and trailer there. The trailer was in the garage and the truck was hooked up to it. They had closed the garage door down to the tongue of the trailer. Well, we walk into the garage and the door from the garage to the house was wide open! I was shocked considering the wildlife that is out there – who knows what could have (or did) wander into the house?! So, I’m thinking yep, there are mice here for sure. Well, I figure that there is no sense giving them a clear shot into the house I would close the door. HA. There is a huge gap under the whole door – a freaking rat could fit under there. YIKES. Add that onto the project list.

At any rate, we went back out again on Sunday and they were moved out of the house. We started ripping out the carpet, padding, and all that goes along with it.

Uh – it was SO disgustingly dirty in there! BUT instead of complaining about it, here are some before pictures.

View to the North