Texas update

We arrived two weeks ago, and I have been reminded several times that I need to update the blog. But we really haven’t done anything exciting to write about! So I thought I would just put a few of the photos that I took the last few days to let you see what you’ve all been missing. :)

Al has of course been fishing as often as possible.

Unfortunately it was too windy a few days last week, so he couldn’t fish. But plenty of people found things to do in the wind.

It was a perfect day for kites.

Maybe a little wind surfing?

We went to a nice quilt show.

I never tire of watching the dolphins and seeing the other local wildlife.

This morning we went for a walk and found this:

Everywhere around town you can see these perfect sand balls. They might be on top of a sign, or in the corner of a local bar, or on the beach. They are perfectly round and by the same person. Last year there was an article in the local paper about the guy. He just enjoys doing them. Whatever his reason, I just enjoy seeing them.

Happy Birthday!!

Today is our baby’s birthday.

Except he’s not a baby anymore. :(

Happy Birthday Matt! Love you.

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?

Before & After

Before….

After….

Before….

After….

Before….

After….

Ugh! I was hoping we would get blessed with a winter like last year, guess not. BUT we will have a white Christmas!

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.