Our house on the last day of the year

Part of one year down, and many more to come.  Make sure you check out ALL of these....including the burnt wires at the end.  You'll have to ask Curtis for all the details on this one! 

Love my new doorway...it was abt 26", now it is 42". Nice!!

Electrical outlets and switches almost done, plumbing in progress

Marcie and Trekker came to check out our house today.

Original brick inside the pantry

Main water shut-off, plumbing for the icemaker in my fridge

How many times can a person (previous owners, not us!) try to burn down a house?

 

This is the wire Curtis pulled out of the floor that started the fire above. Copper burned and all.

Awesome cabinet hardware

See...... now this is the fun stuff for me.  I saw this cabinet hardware and thought it would be pricey, but it actually isn't too bad. 

The Newest Addition to my Wishlist

I just have a minute because it is Christmas Eve and we are headed to visit Grandma Roche, then off to have dinner at Aunt Sylvia's.  

Brent & LeeAnn... the neighbors across the street.... wanted us to go to their son's home this morning so see how he did the island in his kitchen.  Neither one of us thought we would be interested, but Brent & LeeAnn are good friends and have great taste, so we went anyway.  And I am SO glad I did because it is just the thing I wanted.  Even though I didn't know I wanted it.  Yes, the patina will always be random and changing, but it actually looks really amazing.  And I love it. It fits perfectly with what I want my kitchen to be. 

The top of their island is copper.  I know, it sounds strange.  But it is beautiful!!!!  And in terms of price, very doable.  So, I think we just might go for it.

Building in the Kitchen

During the last week, there has actually been some construction going on in our house instead of demolition.  Part of the sub-floor is down, and the two walls are framed now.  And, Curtis has framed in the spot for my fridge.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch..... I have been busy trying to design my kitchen and get it drawn out for Curtis.  I just want to get to the fun stuff, like picking cabinets, appliances and tile.  And he doesn't want all the details yet, he just wants to know where to put things.  I had no idea that something as simple as where to put the microwave could be so difficult to figure out.  But.... I think I have it. 

Here are a few more pictures... not too exciting yet, but it will be a long time before there are cabinets, so hey, it is something. 

Re-doing the kitchen floor

The original floor, with just a little sag. 

 Curtis started laying the new kitchen floor today, and he started framing in one of the two walls where the cabinets will go, but I don't have pictures of that yet.  He figures that he will be able to do plumbing and electrical next week.

It is hard not to get too excited about the kitchen.... even with all of the new stuff, we are still a long way from being able to pick out cabinets and tile. 

Plumbing and electrical found under the kitchen floor

A nice thick layer of old concrete

Concrete , non-essential wires & pipe, old wood floor, gone.

 

 

 

New floor framed in.

After-Thanksgiving Day Sales

On the Saturday after, we were in Lowe's to pick up some things Curtis needs for the house.  While Curtis was running around getting what he needed, me and Janice were walking back to the appliance section.  I walked right on past the clearance rack and its little sign that said "everything 90% off lowest marked price."

What can I say? I am not a shopper. But Janice is. 

She stopped to look at some solar lights and she tried to get me to be interested, but they weren't my style, so I tried to continue on to the appliances. The next time she got my attention, she had a very nice beaded glass sconce that would be very pretty in my house.  I told her it would just be better if there were two of them, but she finally convinced me to take the light home, and if I didn't use it in my house, she would use it in hers. And at that price, I would have been crazy to argue.  

Original Price:  $88.20        Clearance Price:  $17.90    FINAL PRICE:  $1.79!!!!

So, I got the light, and Janice kept rummaging through that clearance rack. Me... I was getting bored fast.   Because I love shopping so much.  But while I was wandering aimlessly, waiting for Janice, I happened to look way up high in the lighting section, where I just happened to find THREE MORE lights.  And yes, the manager said they could all go for the same price of $1.79 each.  

Thank goodness for Janice..... I would have walked right  on by and never seen them. 

Destruction and Progress

There is been a lot going on in Hyrum and not so much on the blog.  Part of it… I am the Queen Procrastinator.  And part of it is…. I can just never keep up with Curtis.  

The good news is…… the roof is almost done.  Done enough that I don’t have to worry about the rain and snow getting in.  What a relief that is.  Wow, it looks so good.  And it didn’t get done a minute too soon….. he finished what had to be done on a Friday and it was immediately covered with several inches of snow.  

Now that the roof is done, there are several other things that need to be worked on.  So many it is hard to pick just one. 

 

Curtis finished taking down the entire ceiling in the kitchen…. Not just the wet stuff, but the entire thing.  He went through all of the insulation and pulled out the wet stuff, leaving the dry stuff there so we don’t have to replace it all.  We bought the cans for my lighting and they are roughly installed so I could have an idea where they would be and how many.  I am a very visual person and I just can’t imagine things like Curtis can.  

Then, Curtis went to work on demolishing the pantry. The pantry used to be the back porch on the old house.  The ceiling was still slanted and after fixing the roof, there was room to raise it up – and it is now higher even than the kitchen ceiling.  What a project that was!

When he removed the shelving and the ceiling in there, Curtis found where the washer and dryer used to be in there.  The electrical outlets were still in there, and still live!! During the demo, he also found the original wall of the porch was still there….. including the windows, glass and all!  Demo included tracing wires and finding out what the circuit panel powers.  Curtis has pulled wires, plumbing, you name it. 

Which then leads us back to the kitchen.

Curtis was trying to figure out where the plumbing entered the house and where to access all of the plumbing.  So, he pulled up the carpet and laminate floor.  He is so glad he did.  When he got down to the old floor, he found that a large corner of the kitchen has NO floor joists.  The floor is sagging quite a bit but you couldn’t tell because there was a thin layer of cement over the top to level it all out. 

Look closely at the wood floor under the blue door...... no floor joists, so the floor is sagging.

Part of the kitchen was about 10 inches of concrete.

The concrete was mixed with rocks, boards, paper, you name it.

It is kind interesting  when, in the same breath, Curtis says to bring a sledge hammer…. and the camera.

I will say, you just have to see the pictures. Part of the old floor was actually all concrete.   It is all gone now. And there was no crawl space, so he dug it all out and hauled the dirt to the garden spot in the back. 

We have always thought the bathroom located just off the living room was a little strange, so we planned on making part of it into a closet, and changing the access of the bathroom to the back of the house, near the kitchen.  So, when Curtis started tearing things out of the bathroom, we found another doorway.  That makes three now.    But this one is kind of cool….it has a bit of an arch made right in the brick, so we are going to try and save that. It will be nice back there….. enough space for six people to drop shoes and coats, and a small bathroom.    This is one part of the house that I almost have designed how I want it. 

The most recent surprise was found in the living room.  Curtis has been working on the floor in the kitchen, and naturally that includes the entry into the living room, which had some sag to it.  And….. that wall between the two rooms was SO  thick…. 28” thick!  Well, once you get into it, we found it was layers, like much of the rest of the house.   

Rock wall...gone.

First was the old original brick wall…..that part will stay.  It is about 14” thick. In the center is a thick layer of bricks and mortar to fill in space between what used to be a rock wall in the living room.  The final layer is a steel-framed wall covered in sheetrock and about 8-10 layers of wallpaper.

the rock wall that was buried between a brick wall on one side and sheetrock on the other.