We've been busy...

I finally have a night to post an update and I don't have any up-to-date pictures of the new house! Everything I have is a month old. I guess I will post some anyway, but these are really not current. Right now the house is stripped down to the studs. There is no plaster and no lathe left. The floors that needed to be replaced have been removed, joists repaired, and new subfloor installed. Most of the framing is done - new walls and doorways where they should be, and old walls and doorways removed. A lot of work has been done to level ceilings and level floors.

Andy started stripping vinyl from the outside of the house this week, and stripping paint as well. It's good weather for outside work right now. We were happy to see that our front porch columns were intact under the vinyl siding. They will need some trim at the top and bottom, but that's all.

Things are a little slow at the moment because our carpenter has gone off to another job, and we can't begin electrical and plumbing until the interior framing is completely done. We are going to give someone else we know a call this week and see if he's available to help. If not, there's plenty that can be done while we wait for the carpenter to come back.

We are now budgeting about $30k more than we had originally planned for this house. Between missing foundations, rotten joists, unexpected contractors fees, and gigantic rotten trees, we have run into some unexpected expenses. Our original budget was a best case scenario, though, and I am not too worried about the extra money. Home prices in the neighborhood are doing very well, and we have plenty of wiggle room.

I posted some floor plans below. Basically we are going back to what the original floor plan would have been, with the addition of bathrooms and closets, of course. Also knocking down a lot of walls to give it a more open feel. Houses this old always had every room closed off so that a fire could be lit only in those rooms that needed them.

So that's what's going on with the house. Everything else is fine. School is fine, my job is fine, the dogs are fine. Not much going on with our house - we spent most of the day today stripping our new old front door. As in new to us but old in general. It still needs a lot of work. No photos of that, sorry.

I will try to post another update when I can. It will be easier when I don't have to do homework on Sunday nights anymore (that should be over in a couple of weeks).

Becky