July 10, 2017

All Moved In

It's hard to believe that my last post was nearly 3 months ago.  The last picture of that post was of me getting stiches in my hand, and I'm continuing that trend by posting a picture of me with a makeshift eyepatch after I got something stuck in my eyeball.  All is well now, and there was no damage done - there was a small piece of metal embedded in it, but the eye doctor got it right out. 


Me sporting the latest trend in eyepatch wear - painter's tape chic

We successfully moved from our rental house to the farmhouse at the end of April.  We've moved a number of times, and have a pretty good routine down, so I wasn't all that worried.  As we approached the move date, the weather forecast appeared like it was going to rain pretty intensely the entire weekend, so I disrupted the routine and just started taking loads of boxes and furniture and dumping them in the new garage.  It did end up raining the entire weekend, which turned the yard and walkway to the house into a muddy mess that we had to walk through to get in.  I don't have any pictures from that weekend, and honestly, it may have been the most frustrating part of this whole project.

Fortunately for me, we had a few people (Chelsea, Mom, Dad, Seth, and Steve Miller) swoop in to help us get stuff moved, and then Vanessa did an amazing job getting everything organized and making order of the chaos.

There was an issue with the drywall installers that resulted in a delay the week prior, so we couldn't bring any of our furniture into the house, because the installers had to come back to finish the downstairs after we moved in. So everything went into the garage.


Right now we have a few remaining supplies and some storage items in the garage, but we basically had this space set up like a giant living room - couches, chairs, dressers, tables, lamps, and boxes of all of the stuff we needed access to.

The first weeks being in the house were great, because for 7 months I had been leaving work and going to work on the house, only to come home after Vanessa and the kids had gone to bed. We had no sink, stove, or way to cook other than a microwave, our fridge was in the garage, and our downstairs was a construction zone filled with drywall dust, but finally we were all back together.

We quickly got tired of doing the dishes in the bathtub - there's something about sitting in a tub filled with dirty dishes that just ruins the whole "relaxing" bath thing. . . . I probably shouldn't have tried to both bathe and wash dishes at the same time.  Also, trying to cook in only the crockpot and microwave wasn't all that great, so we ate out a lot.

Within a couple of weeks, we got the sink and stove installed, and the refrigerator and microwave moved in from the garage.  That was a game changer.  We've now been in the house about 10 weeks, have moved out of CJ's bedroom and into our own (he was sleeping in the guest room for the first 6 weeks), and have slowed down a bit to enjoy this amazing house a property.  The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, we really have not experienced any issues with bugs or mosquitoes. There is typically a slight cool breeze that's really refreshing blowing across the yard, and the house and land is flooded with sunlight, all the time.  It's peaceful, quiet, serene, and feels like we are living in a resort (that's still under construction) If you want to see some great pictures of more of those things, check out Vanessa's blog: https://alongthewayinohio.blogspot.com/.

Ok, so I've rambled on enough, it's time for some pictures.


This was the original downstairs bathroom/hallway/laundry room. We had just started demolition.

This was demolition well under way.  We planned on making the front area a small powder room, and converting the back into a master bathroom and walk-in closet.

This is the view into the back part of that space from our bedroom.  The unfinished area on the left will be a walk-in shower, and the area on the right will be a bathtub, and the vanity/sinks. The doorway is to the closet.

 A view into the closet.

 The powder room. I just completed the sink plumbing this past weekend, and now we are fully operational.


I used this sink as an opportunity to test out my old finish spray gun, as well as testing out how to do a cement counter top.  Vanessa has several pictures of the work in progress on her site.
This was the master bedroom just as demo was getting started.

This is the new master bedroom. The window trim will be painted white eventually.

Another angle on the master bedroom.






Vanessa found these 2 cool old doors that I am in the process of restoring for us to use on the bedroom and powder rooms. I have one of them done, and the other needed a lot of work, so it's not quite done yet.

Here's the door in place, and the powder room with it's temporary door. We really need to get a sign that says "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" that can be hung when it's occupied.




This was the original kitchen and living room area




This is the new, open-concept, kitchen and living area.  The kitchen still needs finished, all that remains for the living room is paint on the walls, and trim.  We love our ceilings restored to the original 10' height (pre-renovation they were less than 8').  I splurged and added an in-ceiling 7.1 surround sound system.  It is awesome!

We also got a great deal on pre-finished, hand-scraped, solid hickory floors from lumber liquidators.  Even though I refinished some of the floors upstairs, the cost was virtually the same, with much less mess.  We are really pleased with how these turned out.

I'll be back to share more pictures, stories, and hopefully no more injuries.

Chris