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. 

Untold wealth

We have now owned our dream homestead for 4 months.  As you can read in other posts it was a Gordon Van Tine super fixer upper, and we have 5 years to complete it.  There were no big completions this weekend, but the rain has put me in a reflective mood.  I would like to look at how truly blessed I am.

I truly am the richest man in the world.

I have a loving family.  I have my Beautiful wife, Laurie, who shares my dreams, and whom I am able to work beside day in and day out. While I love art, she is a fantastic artist and art teacher.

(You can find her art teacher blog at http://pledlspalette.blogspot.com/)

 I have 5 wonderful children, two of which will be giving us our first grandchildren within the next six months. I have my loving parents, brothers and sisters, who love me as much as I love them.

I have a job I love, managing a program for seniors with Alzheimer’s, where I plan to work until I retire. 

(The Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Waukesha, WI takes place this weekend.  Please consider donating to help the cause!!  http://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=11638&pg=personal&px=14532767 )

And then when I retire……It becomes a farm!

Our remodeling is going great!!  In 4 months we have completed 2 rooms, which include all new plumbing and electric.  We have started 3 other rooms, all slowly moving to completion.  We have started reclaiming the property, with paths leading to newly planted trees, and others leading back into the 15 acres. 

Thank you for visiting to keep up with our progress.  Since a furnace for the home is not planned until next year, or maybe the year after, things will be closed up over winter, with lots of time to plan for new progress in spring.

No amount of money could make my life any better!

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.

Getting There... Slowly but surely

Making Progress

Well when I look at all we have done on the farm so far since we have owned it for a little over two months, I feel like we have done a lot! The bathroom and our bedroom are nearly finished, we planted many trees and about half are doing well, we mowed paths to get to our fields and we are building rock gardens in front of the porch. I will be transplanting some peonies, day lilies and other plants from here, and/or some bulbs in September. 

However, when we look at the amount of work we still have to do on the farm it can seem a bit overwhelming. We must remember, we have five years and it will get done.

Here is a picture that shows some progress that was made on our bedroom this weekend.

I call this hand painted wallpaper; silver, white and gray trees. I figured since I can, I would just paint the image I want on the wall rather than mess with wallpaper. It looks like wallpaper, right? This was very easy!

New curtain rods and I washed the shear white curtains that came with the house for a fresh look. The wall color is called Morning Walk - a very light greenish, gray color.

It will look much better when the base boards are put back up and the carpeting is put in.

Next, Greg needs to do the electric in this room, put up a ceiling fan and light and a textured ceiling.

Our Rock Walls for our Flower Garden

A sweet surprise met me as I walked outside. A Mom and her kittens crossing through our yard. This little guy was having trouble keeping up and he stopped moving once he saw me. So Greg picked him up and carried him across the street where Mom and siblings went. I hope they found each other.