Progress, Plans, and Ponderings

A bit more than a week ago, a surgeon redesigned the layout of my internal organs.  He removed some original equipment, so there is a fear my resale value has fallen.

But I hired him for the remodel, and agreed with the plan.  I do not plan to sell myself anytime soon anyway.

But sitting at home, giving my body time to heal, gives me time to look at some of the progress we have made recently, look at the plans for the rest of the year, and just let my mind wander about this farm house, the land, and our responsibilities as current owners.  This most likely will stretch out over a few posts (not sure how many yet), so stay tuned!

                                                                    My Biggest Issue

When we first toured the house before purchase, as we looked at all the water damage, the destroyed walls and ceilings, and the old plumbing and heating system, there was one item that really bothered me.  The whole house was original wood work, except for a doorway added to the top of the stairs.

 

I hated that door.  And after thinking about it for a bit, I also realized that the plywood above the stairs was out of place. I needed to take it out.  So as we are fixing up the upper hallway, I was finally able to get rid of that evil door.

Yes, that is the original post where the banister used to end.  It is now missing about 6 inches, and is also missing the top.  But we can deal with this.  The whole stairway has a less cramped feeling now that we have opened it up.  This should increase a bit as we take out the old plaster, which as you can all see, has a few problems, and replace it with thinner drywall. 

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.

Back to Work

Making Progress

Well, once the question about the birds was answered it was time to get back to work on the farm. I always have certain goals in mind of what I want to accomplish. If I can accomplish most of those goals than I know we are making progress. With that said, I would have to say it was a productive weekend. 

My goals

1.) Finish preparing the rock wall garden.

2.) Texture paint the bedroom ceiling.

3.) Mow the lawn.

4.) Water the trees.

5.) Put the baseboards up in the bedroom.

Well, I accomplished all of these goals except the ceiling is not done. I ran out of paint. I guess I did not learn the lesson I passed onto my readers last time (always buy more than you think you need and then take the extra back).  

In addition to completing my goals I also accomplished a few more tasks that were not goals.

Take a look!

A homemade Christmas gift is now hanging on the inside of the bathroom door for robes, towels etc.

After hours of sponge painting a textured ceiling I felt compelled to be creative. I added a wall painting in the bathroom above the tub.

The base boards are now up in the bedroom.

As you can see, some outlets have been completed too, thanks to Greg.

 

Completed rock wall garden; ready for planting. The end dirt will be filled in with grass.

The last highlight of this trip was that Greg finally got the bathtub fixed; no leaks.  We actually took a bath!