Moving right along!

I'm starting on the 'move' to the new bedroom. First off was an effort to organize my closet. This is what I came up with.

I am terrible with my shoes. The old closet upstairs was tiny. Each time I organized it, I ended up stacking shoes.

The shoes would eventually become jumbled and I'd simply open the door and blindly toss my boots in...shutting the door swiftly hoping they'd stay put.

Now? I used some blocks and some leftover floor planks to build a mini shelf. My shoes are now organized in their new space. I hope to keep things that way.

The room is being cleared of all the things that were stored there. I dragged all this out of the closets yesterday and actually found places for it all.

I moved our clothes into the new 'in the wall' dresser and found places for all the 'stuff' that has been stored willy nilly while we re did the living room and painted.

Old dressers were purged and moved to the basement. I stored items in them and used masking tape to label what was in the drawers.

The upstairs 'spare' room was a disaster. I spent most of the morning pushing things around and washing walls and ceilings.

It is now ready for company. Which I will have the first weekend in November. My ex 4H 'kid' will be coming with her hubby and her children for a visit.

I am almost ready to move our bed from the other bedroom to the new room downstairs.

Doin' the happy Dance!

Sorry, I didn't take any photos of that disaster area. But I am reforming it into my New Arsty Phartsy Studio of Creativity.

Well, that is what I hope.

I'll even be getting a Futon for moments of relaxation whist the artsy mind overworks. And of course a spot for Morris to relax and observe.

The woodwork is done!

Here is the living room wall as it looked on August 19th. The new drywall was in place and Rich was preparing the wood to put up.

Here is the wall as of yesterday evening before supper!

What a huge difference the wood makes. The brick is a past memory now. Along with the old chimney and dark paneling.

Here is a reminder of what it used to look like.

The brick area was pretty unusable. But we lived with it for so many years.

Rich has to install a new cabin heater soon as our mornings are getting chilly already.

Yesterday I started clear coating the wood as I'd finished the chair rail in the dining area.

I pulled the carpeting from the stair landing. I'd like to put something other than carpet down.  I'm thinking about what options we have.

I have an idea for right now but Rich wasn't sure he liked it.
I want to just paint the wood white to make it brighter and easier to keep clean.

He says it is extra work and I say it will save us a bit of work as we won't have to address the ugly stair syndrome for a bit longer.

The next thing on our list is sanding the patches in the drywall on the ceiling and getting it texture painted.

I'm not sure where to go on this step. Buy textured paint? Hire it done? It isn't a large area, but it is the next step.

Rich is going to call our contractor now so he can come back and finish framing in the windows.

We need to pull the carpeting in the living room too and we will replace the carpet with the same type of flooring as the downstairs bedroom has.

Morris is handling this quite well for an old dog. He likes to lay on the covered couch and supervise with a hedgehog toy.

I still have some small areas to paint as you can see behind Morris.

One step at a time. It goes slower when we have to juggle work, farm work, and everyday life. But I am enjoying the transformation completely.

I keep reminding myself that this ...

was how it used to be!

The cabinet is in and settling up.

The hole to the right of the red door was where we decided to have a 'in the wall dresser' built.

And it came!

Morris gives it a once over. He is our quality assurance dog. He seemed to approve.

When Kurt built this he didn't realize that he had picked out the same exact wood that we were using on the 'old' part of the house. Pine Wainscoting.

The dresser looks fantastic. A big nod to Rich for the idea and Kurt for his input also. Kurt thought we could put a closet in this area, and Rich wondered about an 'in the wall dresser' to save space in our little downstairs bedroom.

Perfect. Wonderful work and craftsmanship!

While Rich and I looked over the expenditures for our remodel, Kurt installed these ceramic pulls.

I really like them. They are called Pumpkin Ceramic pulls. I'll probably have then on the rest of the cabinets as I find them easy to use.

We looked over our final budget and of course as with most remodels, items went over budget and Kurt went through everything with us before he gave us some privacy to look at it and talk to him about it.

Yes, we went with solid pine doors for the interior doors and got the nicer trim for the windows. We added a water softener, the trim for the gables went over budget. When Kurt broke it down it all made perfect sense.

We went over the bottom line and decided we could handle it without going to the bank.

Now the rest of the interior work is up to us. That is coming along a bit more slowly than if we had 3 guys working on it of course.
But it will look fantastic once it is done.

The old paneling has been removed. Now if the weather would straighten up, we'd be able to open up the house and remove the rest of the brick. 

Rich counted something like 300+ bricks that needed to be taken out.

To keep some costs down at the moment, I got creative and used some pine crates to make my linen tower. If I replace the crates, it will have to be a custom built one.
We might even modify these crates to make one.

However, I sort of like this idea and it is handy to be able to grab towels, hand towels, and washcloths in the same room! A lot better than having it all in the coat closet on a shelf!

I have a behind the toilet stand that a neighbor gave me that is used.
It needs a bit of clean up and with a paint job it will help with the bathroom storage.

My husband wants the bathroom to stay white, and I almost agree with him. I'd like to add my own little touches of course,...what woman doesn't?

I did add the personalized shower curtain. One person made a comment that it was 'too' dark. I don't know about that. But I do know that I can change over to my white lace one or my country graphic one any time the mood strikes me and they will all look nice.

Finally, a view of the porch side of the house from the garden. The other side is still a mess and needs to be graded again and black dirt brought in and seeded.

With these gully washers of rains this month, there are wash outs and a lot of erosion in the yard.

However, this side still looks quite beautiful.

So onward we go into the next step of 'self interior remodeling'.

Moving along

Remember this?

It is starting to look like this:

I can't believe the difference this is making! It looks fantastic.

When my husband first presented me with this idea, I was a huge skeptic.

Not so any more!

Well it did go from this:

To this!

The trim on the beam across the top of the photo has now been finished also.


In the new little bedroom we are awaiting the built in dresser to be put in. Kurt estimated it would be ready last Friday, but then said it would be delayed.

At this point we are moving things out of the living room and into other areas, like the small downstairs bedroom and into the basement for storage while we work on the living room and dining area.

Morris was a huge help to me while I used a light coat of Acrylic sealer on the basement hand rails.

The basement is nothing to write home about yet, but it is cool, dry, and a convenient place to store things out of the way now until we build some shelving.

All this work is tough on a little dog who has to constantly supervise.

We'll probably do inside work today after chores. Our area is currently experiencing an 'Excessive Heat Warning'. 

It's all about doors!

As you can see, the doors are being installed and framed in. The washer and dryer now reside behind two beautiful pine doors.

[Here is this are pre remodel]

We hung a sheet across the bathroom door for privacy and it worked pretty well.
That too has been replaced.

A very special door got installed for the basement entrance. It is a spoon carved door. I have no idea how old it is, but I know that it was the front door to the farmhouse where my husband's father was born.

It is in the ... not quite finished room. The whole in the wall is going to be a dresser that is being built into the wall. 

The living room paneling is going to be pulled down and replaced by light pine beadboard. The carpet will come up and the flooring will be the same as the flooring in the room pictured below.

Behind the red door is the stairwell to the basement.
More about that and what I plan to do with it later.

The Red Door.

I had a shower curtain made from one of my favorite photos of a place called Baxter Hollow.
I felt it would look neat as a full graphic...

The photo doesn't quite do it justice, but when a person looks into the bathroom it appears as if you are peering into Otter Creek minus the sounds of the water running over the rocks of course.

Our 'front' and back doors have matching storm doors and 'disappearing' screen doors that match the barn red shakes in the peaks.

The doors are all framed in now, but I didn't have a good photo of that.

Soon we move to the stair well, where I plan on putting a finish on the railings and getting started on organizing things.

For the time being we have started to move things out of the living room area in prep for us getting ready to work in there. Boards are cut to start putting in the chair rails in the dining area.

Morris has been supervising this work.

And he is happy to have most of the living room to lounge in again.

And so we are going!

Still waiting

It is so hard to imagine how things changed for our house!

Right now we are on a holding pattern waiting for the trim and 2 interior doors to come in.

Meanwhile, I am still 'unpacking' the old kitchen and getting used to the 'new' kitchen.

Last night I was able to cook a very nice meal. I'd received Turnips from my 'up the hill' or Upstairs neighbor and sauteed them with an onion from our garden.

I made Southern Fried Chicken but did it in strips. I did it the old fashioned way and actually used my Kindle on the countertop to read and follow a recipe.

At least as much as I cared to follow it. I have a habit of modifying things to my own way.

This was a pretty big accomplishment for me. For the past 20 years I really did not like to cook in our incredibly small cramped kitchen. I found out what a luxury it was to be able to spread the items out!

We had supper in our eating area and then settled in on the porch. 
I'd picked flowers from our garden to add a bit of my 'touch'.

The next room that we have to work on is the eating area. The old dark siding that goes around the lower half of the wall is going.
It will be replaced with pine 'beadboard' which will be nice and light...and airy.

The carpet in the living room will be torn out and we'll be putting the same flooring as what we had installed in the downstairs bedroom to match.


Here is a snapshot of the sample...

It will be fun and very weathered looking.

The work outside in the yard has yet to begin. We'll be doing most of that ourselves. But the task looks pretty daunting right at the moment.

Almost done!

Thursday the guys showed up and started to work as usual.

Another fellow and his small crew came and installed gutters and downspouts. They did their work and off they went. We now have gutters and downspouts to help direct the rainfall.

Kurt and his team went at the house with gusto.

They built the stair railing to the basement finished off the kitchen floor, and put my washer, dryer, and stove into place.

Suddenly I had a kitchen!

After they left for the long Holiday weekend I started to unpack things and put them away.

I was giddy with excitement to use my new washing machine. Wow, have washers come along way since in the past 20 years!

I got out my old wooden soda crate that I'd re-furbished and set it up on the counter to hold my spices.

It does its job well and even looks great! I want to keep the counter as free from clutter as possible. Of course the old Ritz can will hold coffee, and the golden chicken will have cookies!

The only thing left now is the trim around the windows and the new doors. One for the bathroom [currently we are using a sheet tacked to the wall] and one for the closet just opposite the bathroom.

We are still working on storage for the bathroom. Right now I have some wooden crates stacked for the storage of towels and toilet paper. I just got a little organizer to put in the top crate so I can start to unpack another tote of 'stuff'.

Now I have to figure out where I want to put things. The kitchen is SO huge compared to what I am used to.

Here are a couple of views of the kitchen.

This is the new door and the new entry/mud room/ kitchen area. The shot doesn't show the area where we will hang our coats and take off our boots.
We are still working on ideas for a bench/storage area.
My goal is to keep it clean and simple though.

The other half of the counter the door handle to the fridge is at my side.
For the first time since June 5th I made a nice supper and was surprised at how much room I had!
I was able to lay out plates on the counter and serve the meal up.
Do you recall what the old kitchen looked like?

Yes, I think I'd call this a great improvement.

This week I'll get some more shots of the other portions of construction. I'll get shots of the basement, the stairs, and more after I get the area cleaned up a bit.

My grand daughter has been staying with us this week and learning how to ride our mule Fred so I've been pretty busy.

Oh...here is the eating area.
Well, we haven't really been using it as we've been eating our meals out on the porch.

Plus, dear husband has to clean his 'stuff' off from the table. I took this shot after cleaning the kitchen floor. I have to figure out a good spot for the mop and floor 'duster' I use.

The cubby hole around the washer and dryer will get trim also with a folding door.

The trim and the rest of the work should be completed by next week, Friday.

I can say so far that this work has been worth all of the small growing pains that we had dealing with the construction.
Finally!

We have the living room and the old part of the house to finish off now to make our little cottage look nice and new!