Moving Along

The first and third walls here will be replaced (too many repairs needed). The center wall is one I was able to save.

Finally...

Finally we have been able to start moving onto another room in the house. We are tackling the bedroom next ours which is a room I love because it is so bright. It had charming yellow flowered wallpaper in it. However, it still needed to come down due to it being old and worn. The color yellow really did this room justice though and so we have plans to stay with that color when we paint. I patched one of the walls that had a big gouge in the plaster. To my amazement, I did a pretty good job. We will now need to replace only two walls and the ceiling. This was decided of course after I took down the wallpaper. While I was stripping wallpaper, I decided to go ahead and do the next room as well. Greg had started to tear this room apart in the very beginning and used it to access the pipes for the bathroom which is right next door.  This room had paneling, wallpaper and acoustic ceiling tiles in it. Now, it too is almost ready for repairing the walls or adding new ones.

Piles of stripped wallpaper.

This wall will be replaced.

Scraping off wallpaper.

Greg's bathroom pipes.

Almost ready to do wall repairs in room #3.

Stay tuned for how these rooms clean up.

A Productive Weekend

Goals Accomplished and More

It was a rough start to our visit to the farm this weekend due to a lost wallet. However, all turned out well and we were finally on our way.We arrived around 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. I mowed and it took about 2 hours. Greg worked on the electricity in the master bedroom hooking up the dimmer to the fan light.  When I was done mowing I also fixed some more cracks on our second bedroom and stripped the carpet in another bedroom. This was the "More" listed above.  The carpeting that was down left black rubbery padding on the wood floor that did not want to come up with the carpet. I sprayed it with water and scraped it off with a large scraper. This worked really well and to my amazement I got it all off and we got the carpet out of the house. It was a short weekend but very productive. After that Greg and I hung three pieces of drywall in the second bedroom. We decided that we did enough and cleaned up our mess before leaving on Sunday.

Our first sheet of drywall on the old chimney wall.

Hanging drywall is an art. We are learning. The use of two deadman devices works great after Greg and I lift it onto two ladders.

Cutting drywall.

Even screwing drywall is an art. You must make sure the screw sets into the drywall so that when you mud you can cover the screw completely.

Greg did a much better job of this in this room.

Water, Electric, and More.

Took Friday off of work so we had a three day weekend on the farm.  In the past, that meant just an extra day struggling in the bathroom.  But with the bathroom done, it seems like things are moving along more quickly.

On Friday morning, after a good nights sleep in the teardrop, I started with the water.  As you can see from many pictures of the farm, we have yellow rock everywhere.

No surprise, it is also in the water. The drain pipes I removed were FILLED with the yellow rock, and water left sitting in a bucket leaves the yellow sediment at the bottom.

*Normally, I would insert a picture here of the bathtub filled with yellow water, but the only one we have is one with a person bathing.  If it is Laurie, she wouldn't want me to post it here, and if it is me, you wouldn't want to see it*

So I bought, and inserted this weekend, an inline filter.  It actually went well, and I finished quickly.

Well, with that task done, I quickly moved on to the next.  A few weeks ago, in a storm, wind took off about 7 shingles from a ridge on the roof.  I know enough about roofing to make the repair, but the steepness of the roof, and the height of our home did make me pause.  Added to this, is Laurie's constant belief that I will hurt myself in ordinary tasks, and cannot be trusted (Okay, there was the incident with the circular saw, and well, lets just move on).

The actual work did not take long, and I was done in about an hour, but It was high, and steep, and well, it is done.

The rest of the weekend was spent mowing the lawn, watering trees, working on the garden and.....

The master bedroom has been completed.  That means that working a few weekends a month, for 3 months, has given us updated plumbing, a new bathroom, 6 outlets upstairs when there were none, and two roomsx completed and rewired.

In any job of this size, it is REALLY easy to get frustrated with how long things are taking.  Laurie and I both have dreams of the house done, a few dogs, chickens, and sheep.  A horse or two, and a pony for the grand kids.  Steers grazing.

And Artists.

Artists everywhere, painting, sculpting, exchanging ideas, and community.

But I digress.

When the dreams run deep, it is hard to see all the steps needed to reach those dreams, and to take them patiently.

But we will.

-Greg