FINALLY….the Reveal!

We have been in the house now since right before Thanksgiving, and it’s finally finished enough (and I’m finally getting around to it) to show it off.  We had everyone over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lauren said that having everyone together in the new house felt like we had rented a vacation home somewhere because it was so nice and comfortable.

We don’t have the outside stairs done yet, so the only way up is the basement stairs (which are still in the finishing process) through all of the boxes that are still unpacked. :)

But when you get up the stairs you are greeted by this:

My favorite room in the house.

We used the old porch all the time, so we just made it a couple feet bigger and put the kitchen in it.

I absolutely love how it turned out.

Since we had a galley kitchen before, we had to purchase a couple cabinets for the corners, but you can’t even tell which are old and which are the new ones.

This empty space on the far wall will have my office/work things eventually. It will be a great space for future families to do homework or have a small office area.

Right next to the kitchen is the laundry/pantry (my second favorite room). It’s not real big, but we used every bit of the space.

As you go down the super long hallway

here is the first bathroom

And a bedroom (we will use this as office storage and crafty things). Right now it’s a catch all of things I don’t know where to put away.

And a bedroom

And another bedroom. We will use this as the grandkids room. It’s really nice to have this one at the end of the hallway. The adults can be in the living room and the kids clear at the end of the hallway and it’s nice and quiet.

And the master bedroom (I’ve never had a master bedroom before!)

The master closet

And the master bath

I love the floors in the master bath (given to us free!)

And the main room. In case you missed it before, these were 100 year old barn beams that we turned into flooring. This photo really doesn’t show how beautiful they really are. Love them!

I still need to unpack many many boxes, and get pictures hung, but overall I think it turned out great. As with anything, there are a couple things we would have done differently, but overall I love the way it turned out. Especially since we came in around $10,000 under budget!  What do you think?

It’s crunch time!

Right now it’s 30◦ out with a 17◦ wind chill. It’s November, so what do we expect? That’s all fine and dandy, except we are STILL in the camper. :(  The camper is heated underneath, but it’s still basically just a trailer and it’s getting harder to keep it warm. 

So that means that it’s crunch time for the house.

All of the rooms are painted and ready for flooring.  The tile in the shower and bathtub are done. Tomorrow the floor tile in the bathrooms will be laid and ready to be grouted. We got the floor tile donated to us from an overage of another job, so we had to just match for wall tiles. This was harder then we thought it would be on a strict budget, though. It would have been just fine if we could spend whatever we wanted, but harder to match colors cheaply. We lucked out and found a wall tile for only $0.69 each for one bathroom that worked perfectly, and $0.99 for the other.

The Assistant Park Ranger’s dad had a 100+ year old barn that he was tearing down that had 8”x8”x18-22’ beams. We took them to a sawmill who re-sawed them into rough boards, then we had a woodworker, Fishsticks Millwork out of Janesville, plane and tongue & groove them into 5” widths. 

Some of the wood still has the mortise & peg holes, and the nail holes. I don’t think the woodworker really knew what he was getting into, as he went through several blades hitting old nails in the wood. He still kept to his original bid, though, which was wonderful. The cost came in about the same as a low end carpet at the local Menard’s or Home Depot at just over $2.00 psf, and should last as long as the house does, unlike that same low end carpeting.

Joe came down yesterday to help lay the floor.

Lauren also came today to help.

It’s going to look WONDERFUL.

The extra cabinets that we had to order will be here Tuesday so we can finish the kitchen and bathrooms, and we should have carpet in the bedrooms late this week.  Matt and Erin are taking a 4-day weekend to come help at the end of this week.

Even if it’s not completely finished, one way or the other……we ARE moving in next week.

October update

I haven’t been too good about updating lately, so here is October all in one. :)

New puppy: we have had Bode/Bodi/Bodhi (now….how do I spell it?)  for 3 1/2 weeks now, and its getting better. I think it’s helped to be in the camper for potty training because he can’t get too far away from us. He goes to the door now almost every time he needs out. We have had very very few accidents. YEAH!!

Tai still doesn’t like him much, but that’s also getting better. I think once he stops the puppy biting it will be better. Bode just wants to play with Tai, and Tai isn’t having much of that.

Joe, Al and I went to Des Moines to a pumpkin farm with Matt, Erin & Ryleigh and Janelle. I think the big boys had the most fun.

We went to Joe & Lauren’s for Halloween. I didn’t get a photo of Lauren’s pumpkin, but it was cute. Very Pinteresting!

Lauren’s parents came over later in the evening. With their dog Olive, we had 5 Chinese Crested dogs in the house all at once.

House: We still aren’t in the house. Ugh!!!!! We did paint it this last week, and hopefully we will be in by the weekend of the 15th. Wish us luck, I’m very very ready to be out of the camper.

This is the laundry room. I think it’s a fun color (it’s actually a little darker then this shows). If you have to do laundry, you might as well make it cheerful, right?

We should have a couple weeks of busy days and hopefully the next photos will be of the finished house with furniture in it!

More progress

The exterior of the house is almost done. The siding and roof and windows are now complete.

They are now working on the HVAC and electrical. Ideally the insulation guys will be here the end of next week, then HOPEFULLY drywall the following week.

It’s coming along, but can’t come soon enough for me. One of the propane tanks in the camper went empty sometime over night last night. We woke up at 5:30 to 47 degrees inside.  UGGHHH!

Progress

We are finally seeing some progress!

They said they should be shingling by Thursday or so.