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!

Moving along!

 Future spice rack on counter

Everyone likes to pose here!

Morris with the new cabinets, sub-floor and sample of the flooring next to him.

The kitchen isn't finished but it is all rapidly coming together. This is just a quick catch up to yesterday's work.

Siding. Done.

The top photo is a shot from the east side of the house.

The second one is the west side of the house.

Now I took these same photos and put blue over the original house so you can find it.

What a difference right?

I may still let my critters graze in the yard once in a while though, just for old times sake!

Today after the siding was finished. The counter tops came, the kitchen cabinets came, and the flooring came. The washer and dryer were delivered too. We had to put them in the shed.

Now the intense inside work starts.

I made the best of things. I had nothing prepared for supper so I ventured into the garden and picked lettuce, beets, onions, kale, and made up a salad with a left over chicken breast.
And we ate on our new counter top.

Now wasn't that fun?

Goodbye bathroom and entryway...

Morris assists as I take the last items out of the nearly empty backroom/utility room/mudroom/entryway.

Yes, it has served all of those purposes over 20 some years. Monday morning the water heater and the ancient washer will bid adieu also.

I have mixed feelings about this, I think I am happy but then I am a bit nervous about the whole thing.

The old outer wall of the house is coming apart as well as this little room.

Tonight we take our last showers in the old bathroom.  It too will be torn out tomorrow.

Goodness knows we really needed an updated bathroom.  But it was functional and we were used to it.

Now we are faced with going to pick out a new vanity and perhaps a linen tower.

It seems that after the remodel I will actually be able to keep spare towels inside the bathroom and not in the coat closet!
That will be interesting!

Last but not least.  The kitchen.  I leave for a midnight shift in a bit and will get back after the workers arrive in the morning.  I wasn't sure how much destruction they were going to wreak on our little place so I cleaned out the cabinets also.

I can't say that I will miss the ugly z-brick on the tiny work space.  But this all is on the same wall to be removed and changed.

I assume I will have time to move the coffee maker toaster and microwave before they start in on that.

However, we are down to just a few dishes and living on the bare minimum we could possibly could and still able to make regular meals.  It gets interesting when we need something, I have to recall which plastic storage tub it is in and then go digging.  

So tomorrow this portion is changing:

The window behind the closet lettering is the bathroom window on the original house....

Lest we forget what the old place looked like.

Picking floor, cabinets, countertops, and doors!

I want to give Artie of Johnson's One Stop for doing such hard work yesterday.  His ideas were helpful and he kept us from making a mess of things.

We are going to go with the Light Hickory Cabinets with a rather simple front.
Here is a sample of what it will look like. Mind you this is not our kitchen design itself.

The flooring will be a lighter color as the countertops will be a dark color.  I went with a greyish colored wood laminate floor.

It will cover the mudroom floor, the kitchen and eating area.

There is enough warmth in it to pick up on the hickory and the designs in the counter top.

I posted this photo before. 

The bathroom will have a stone look to it. The shower and toilet will be white and I may even pick white for the vanity.

Again there is enough texture to make it interesting yet it will work with the colors I pick for accents.

However, the bedroom floor is my win-win. I saw it, I liked it and I always wanted something fun and interesting.  

Rustic!  Looks like a barn floor!

I think the flooring will make me a happy person.
Here is a sample of the old worn out kitchen floor.  
We have peeled all loose stick 'em tiles and in my opinion it was always ugly ugly. But we knew we'd eventually change it.

I'll see if I can find the doors that we'll be putting on the house. Rich had decided green, I wanted barn red.
Guess who won?

I like barn red, I like red. The gables on the house will have barn red shakers.  Isn't that cool?
I hope so.

I'll be living here a long time I hope!

Eating Area and Wallpaper...ugh!

Today we started on the 'eating' area of our little house. I took a break from removing wall paper as I'd gotten to Rich's corner and stared at his stuff.

What on earth would we do with all of that stuff?

It is piled in broken down boxes and no matter how I tried over the years, I could never get him to totally clean up and put away the Stuff.

Of course we live in a Tiny House and when stuff accumulates, it needs to be weeded out and put somewhere.  However, this tiny house has no extra storage.  
For the remodeling, I started last year packing away any extra Stuff that I could.  
I stored it in a shed in plastic tubs.

Yesterday I handed Rich a large plastic tub and let him go at it.
He cleared just enough Stuff so that I could move the table and get at the wall.

You are looking at an area where the flooring will be replaced, ... we are pulling up the old tiling as we go along.  The brown wood will we replaced with a very light colored almost blonde wood.
The windows of course will be replaced and ... AND! No wallpaper!
I'm considering colors for the walls now.

The Stuff will reside somewhere else and I am thinking of getting a corner cabinet of some sort for Rich to put all of the paperwork Stuff that he keeps [and rarely looks at] into and out of sight.

We are doing a wood laminate floor and there will be so much more storage once the remodel is done.

So there it is.  Ugly as all get out right now, but perhaps cute as a button once it is finished.

The cabinets will be hickory and I would like a very very light light green for the walls.

When I was a kid we rented a house that had a putrid green paint on the kitchen walls and white cabinets.  I recall washing those walls and wishing the paint would fall off.  It never did.

So why would I even consider it again?  I think I can find a nice light green/grey color.  I don't think I want white in the kitchen section.

Maybe off white in the eating section?  That sure would brighten things up!

Well off to peel more wall paper and sort through more stuff.

A Little Bit about the Little House

I looked up the Appraisal from 1998 and found the following information about our Little House...in our Big Woods.

The Little House was built in 1982.
The house currently measures 20X26 downstairs with a half story upstairs.
According to the appraisal the downstairs has 520 square feet and the upstairs has 312 square feet.

Part of the remodel will consist of changing the bathroom.  

It really does need a face lift and has for a long time.  

A huge part of the remodel will be the addition on the north side.  This will add space for a 'real' functioning kitchen.  I will add that I have made this one do since 1996.

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is the whole kitchen.

Here it is from the back entry.

And a view from the 'dining' area.

You might be saying that this is a small space and you are quite right.  We love our Little House.
But I really am tired of brown.  The brown Zbrick, the dark brown cupboards, the pretty ugly wall paper and the brown brown brown ugly ugly flooring.

I'll refer back to these photos later as things change.  But you just have to agree we do live in a beautiful spot.

We are secluded and enjoy our privacy.

I've been sorting and tossing stuff I have in the kitchen and it is amazing the amount of 'stuff' that a person has and doesn't use.  So this process of the remodel is also consisting of me going through all parts of the house and doing a serious sorting job.

I bought some large plastic tubs with lids to move things into during the process. Since I've never gone through an actual remodel before, I'm not sure exactly what to expect.

However I will say that Kurt & Jesse [Crooked Creek Construction, LLC] have been very good at helping me visualize what will happen as we go along.

I need to take some photos from the north side of the house so you can see what it looks like currently.  

I'll be doing that for my next update.