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!

Remodeling, Part 2

The addition is now finished and we are all done except for framing a few windows.
That will be done after we have replaced the old dark paneling with light pine wood.

Yesterday and today we took down the bricks that covered a section of the west wall. It was where the previous owner had a wood stove when he first owned the house.

What he told us. He had a chimney fire and converted over to LP because the Fire Department is all volunteer and slow to respond.

We found that he had bricked over the fire damage. And while it was a bit concerning to see it, no structural damage had occurred.

This chimney fire occurred about 30 years ago and the previous owner died about 12 years ago.

The weather cooperated and it was cool enough to have windows open and a fan in one to suck out the dust.

And here are a few views of the outside of the rest of the house, I believe Lori Skoog wanted to see what it looked like.
So I remembered to take them for you Lori!

North Side Entrance and bedroom.

 We have some serious landscaping and grading to do yet!

East side of the house and the pile of bricks we were removing.

Part 2 of the Little House Remodel is ongoing. The exterior and addition portions are done and it looks fantastic.

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'.