#30 - Hey Jess, How's The House Project Coming Along?!

Oh, hey!  Wanna know what's going on in our neck of the woods?

I'm neglecting my people tonight to write instead.  I declared this a no dinner night...fend for yourselves, just please choose something from each food group.  If you want to have a slice of salami, some broccoli, some applesauce and some cheerios with milk...fine by me. But no, yogurt still isn't a fruit.  Your foods don't even have to "match"  (This is probably how Eric Carle got the idea for The Very Hungry Caterpillar) It's been a long time since I've played the Dinner Ban card...so I'm playing it tonight in the name of not doing dishes AGAIN and I'm making time to write instead.  These are all cell phone pics, and my cell phone isn't very happy to be a camera, so bear with me . . .

Mid Spring

Right now it's raining.  Earlier today it was beautifully sunny and Matt was outside caulking the siding!  The entire side of the house with the dormer on it is ready to paint!  We decided a while back that it would should probably complete the inside of the house before working on the siding, trim, gutters, etc.  Until the carpenter bees came out to play.  A few weeks ago, Matt noticed sawdust -- a lot, a lot, a lot of sawdust -- on the shingles.

Back of house in progress

Family Room side in progress

Master bedroom side in progress

I helped hold siding, my mom helped hold a few rows of siding . . . 

And then, since I wasn't always always readily available (b/c of cooking, running kids, etc etc etc), Matt made my replacement.  And used this for the remainder of the siding hanging!

And sure enough, springtime sprung and the creatures and critters were on the move and the carpenter bees were EATING OUR HOUSE.  I gave my family a speech about "You cannot use the working toilets in the new part of the house until we move in because I am not cleaning toilets in a house I'm not even using.  Do. Not. Even. Consider. Using these toilets.  They are invisible, they do not exist."  I forgot to give the bees the speech.  They could have at least waited until our house was FINISHED before they started to eat it and destroy it.  Matthew 6:19 paraphrase/application..."store up for yourselves treasures in heaven because the bees will destroy your stuff on earth."

You might be able to see the sawdust on the shingles right under the roofline of the dormer...

So away went the plans to focus on the inside, and Operation Hurry The Heck Up and Beat the Bees At Their Own Game came into play.  Incidentally, I have been terribly forgetful lately -- there are so so so many things rattling around in my brain and even though I fully knew why we moved to the outdoor work instead of the indoor, I have forgotten that detail about 3 different times.  During my own internal thoughts or in my conversations with other people...I have actually thought or said..."Well, he's working on the outside now...but I have no idea why, because we were planning to finish the inside more"  And 2 days later... "OH YEAH! THE BEES."  More than once.

Today: Ready for paint!

This project -- THANKFULLY -- has not been stressful in general.  Don't get me wrong -- there have been tense moments, and some disagreements an actual fight or two or twelve -- but in general, it's not a major intense stressor.  It's more like a nagging, tickling cough.  But, it is consuming a lot of my brain power - I'm not sure why--I'm not even doing most of the work.  I only do 10% of minor tasks and errand running.  Matt does the rest.  And what isn't consumed in brain power is consumed in time (obviously).  We knew this would be the case, I'm not complaining.  I'm just saying -- it's important to know -- to keep it real.  It's a GOOD project, but not always butterflies and rainbows (except for this day. That's our neighbor's house, because you couldn't actually see the rainbow over our new roofline in order for me to get our own house in the shot.  ha.)

Today

Today

It's a construction site FOR SURE!

So here's the scoop on the outside:
-The bees have been stopped in their tracks, and some were even buried alive inside the soffit.
-The siding is up on the lower half.  The lower siding is paintable siding and will require painting and maintenance through the years.
-The gable ends will be sided with vinyl cedar shake siding (identical to the gable ends of our 1964 house) because we wanted very low-maintenance materials on the high-high parts of the house.  Once they're installed we should be able to ignore them for a good long while. We love low-maintenance stuff we can ignore! (we also love high-maintenance stuff that can't be ignored, like our children, but that's about it in that category.)

The back TODAY!

-The dormer is just about finished!  Just needs to be painted!

Today

-Gutters will be installed on Monday!

-The yard will leveled, and the giant gravel pile cleaned up sometime soon as well!

To - - - day. Agh.

Here's the scoop on the inside:

We picked up our flooring in Southern Ohio several weeks ago.  It worked out perfectly...we were able to borrow a trailer, drop our kids off at school, head to Southern Ohio, have a lunch date, pick up the flooring (26 boxes of flooring!), and head home. My mom was able to pick the kids up from school, so she kept them for the evening.  So, we unloaded the trailer, box by box. Then returned to trailer to its owner who happens to live near where we went to college, so we had a dinner date on the same day! 

We visited our old stomping grounds where we met, fell in love, got engaged, etc etc.  It's close enough that we could do this on a fairly regular basis...but it's far enough away that we never do.  No matter how frequently (or infrequently!) we visit that town, the walk down memory lane is special.  The cheesy breadsticks with ranch---a staple in my college diet-- are more special.

And now--many moons later-- we're in the middle of this process and we like each other even more than we did back then...and also still alive because neither of us has killed the other one over the placement of electrical outlets, or the color of walls so we're doing alright.

The flooring needed a good 2 weeks to acclimate, so to play it safe we gave it 100.  (give or take).

The day we brought home the flooring.

The sink area of the master bath is mostly finished.  All we need to do is paint or caulk that edge where the grey grout shows over the top of the tile back splash. I love how it all turned out.  I love the mirror the most.  It brings me joy.  The floor tile grout ended up being a lot lighter than we wanted, so we overcompensated on the back splash grout and it was really really really dark upon installation.  Thankfully, once it dried, it ended up being a lot lighter, but we were both kinda nervous about that.

The shower is ready for tile (due to the rain outside Matt is getting that prepped as we speak.)

The faucets are in, the toilets are working!  The plumbing passed the main inspection, but we did not know that a part of that inspection was also checking shower heads.  Neither shower head is installed yet, so once shower heads go in, the inspector will come back and sign off on that part of it.

The walnut tree that Matt cut down has been drying in my uncle's kiln and I believe it's ready to roll as soon as Matt is ready for it.

So what's left on the inside?
-wood flooring in the family room and master bedroom, master closets
-shower tile
-baseboards
-stair treads
-railing

We're so close!  Christmas 2018 is our new target.  I think that's pretty generous and we'll feel like superheros when we come in way before that.

Matt has been working so diligently.  He comes home from work, and works until very late at night.  I am NOT a night person at all.  But, it's such a conundrum!!  These are the hard parts I never even thought about.  How can I in good conscience curl up on the couch at 9:00/9:30 p.m. when he's sawing and hammering and building the house of our dreams.  It feels so wrong. (And he still even has time to do little projects with the kids, like removing the roof from a craft store wooden house so Ezra can use it for his Legos.  And taking the kids fishing, etc. etc. etc.)

 So usually, I wrap up my household tasks for the evening, shuffle the kids off to bed and just stay standing.  I don't necessarily do anything good. And I frequently check in with him to see if he needs a hand. But mostly, I just make sure I'm standing. Sometimes I perch on the tall chairs we have in the kitchen. Perched on tall chairs also feels close to productive standing.  Or at least very close to being able to spring into action.

If I'm standing, I'm playing fair.*  I stay standing and walk in circles and putter around or water flowers or fold laundry until he finally turns out the lights out there and comes inside to make a warm cup of tea and "wind down" for a minute.  And by wind down it's usually both of us sitting down on the couch for all of 5 seconds to "watch the news" before we conk out (I had to google the spelling of conk.  never have I ever used that in writing before) and go to bed.  (*This is all my own mental insanity.  Matt would not actually care if I sat down. At all.)

What's going to be really exciting is when we can curl up on the couch in our new beautiful family room and look back on all the memories of this project.  It's been rich and full.  We're getting close to the end.  I never dreamed we'd still be going strong in June, but I have a pretty good feeling that it's an In Like A Lion Out Like A Lamb project, and when we least expect it, we'll look at each other and say..."Oh, hey.  I think that was the last thing on the list! Let's move in!"

Thankfully, nature can be bothersome...(the bees!), but overall it's a sweet gift in the middle of wasteland.  In spite of the construction, spring came 'round again and we had these pretty little wildflowers along the foundation.

I cannot wait to move in!