operation footings

Yesterday, David got the big part of the basement footings framed up.  We did not get a photo afterwards but it looks nice.  Today he will finish framing for the two crawl spaces that we are putting in.  Next will come the rock to fill the voids and then the concrete.  Then it will feel like we are really getting things done.  Deer season does start on Monday though, that might throw a kink in our building project!  LOL  Jonathan mowed our yard and most of the neighbors yard.  He loves to mow but I also think he does not like to carry drywall so he kept mowing!  I finished getting everything out of the upstairs and vacuumed the floors so it would seem a bit cleaner.  It is ready for someone to just start pulling nails.  Anyone up for that job?  The girls cleaned up the drywall that David had pulled down in the dining room the night before.  He trys to destroy one room a night on his way by from work.  They did not finish their job so he told them they could not leave until it was done.  Thank the Lord for my "two" electric plug that allowed them to stay after dark and finish the job.  I will be going by today to take the updated photos but for now, here are some from yesterday.

dining room before done

jon's room

helping with footings

girls room

 

operation demolation day 4

Well, we are getting somewhere.  The kids and I were there for about 6 hours yesterday.  We got all the floors cleaned up that were full of drywall and insulation.  They worked very hard.  We finally found the secret to getting it all out in a timely fashion.  I purchased 4 of the type of tubs that restaurants use to clean off tables with.  They are big enough to hold a lot and yet small enough to not be too heavy for the girls.  One of us stood outside the window while the other 2 filled the tubs on the inside and put them in the window for the outside person to dump in the dumpster. Kind of like an assembly line.  It worked great!  The girls worked very hard and we got all the floors cleaned up.  Jonathan finished the upstairs and tore the rest of the insulation down and the rest of the drywall.  On Thursday when we go we should be able to get that cleaned up and use the shop vac to vacuum the floors up there!  Then will come the nail pulling so new insulation and dry wall can go up.  Of course that will be after all the wiring has been run and the plumbing for the new bathroom is done.  Hummm....think we are a long way off!  LOL  Here are some photos from yesterday.  Too tired when I got home last night to upload them.  :-)

This is the girls room all cleaned up

This is Jonathan's room almost finished

This is the dining room (our new "tub" assembly line)

Living room before we started yesterday

 

operation demolation day 3

Wow, what a day.  Might I start off with the fact that as I was sweeping upstairs by the window (where I have not yet swept) I saw something shinny.  Imagine my eyes as I looked down on the floor and saw my lost glasses just laying there.  Now let me explain.  I lost them in a lot of rotted insulation yesterday.  We looked for a long time but did not find them.  Today when I got there I did not even look for them but started shoveling insulation again.  I saw something sparkling on the floor and bent down to pick it up and lo and behold it was my glasses.  Yippe!!!!!!!  Thank you Lord for laying them right there for me to pick up.  He is such an awesome God!  We had some help today, what a blessing.  Because of the extra help we were able to get so much more done.  The huge burn pile was lit today and a lot of it was burned.  It literally burnt all day and still had to be put out before we came home.  We will start it up again the next time we are there.  We got most of the upstairs gutted and started on the downstairs.  The little girls had the job of picking up whatever we threw out the window for them to put on the burn pile.  They also had the job of picking up whatever was on the ground around the roll off container.  I think we got in a good hard days work.  I cooked sloppy joes over the open fire and we ate carrot sticks and fruit salad.  A whole box of Little Debbie Oatmeal cakes disappeared too.  I got to come home early and shower first.  You haven't seen dirty until you have gutted an old house!  Anyway, here are the photos from today.  David and the kids stayed for a couple of hours after I came home and they said they got the whole family room gutted.  YEAH!!!

master bedroom being gutted

looking into the living room

gutted out wood up in smoke

the "fire" man

sweeping the staircase

gutting the upstairs hallway

girls room almost gutted

picking up wood thrown out the window for fire

operation gear up for full day of work

Tomorrow we will spend the whole day working on gutting the property.  Hopefully we will get a lot done.  I would love to think that the whole upstairs will be done when we return home tomorrow night!  Unrealastic expectations? Maybe!  We will see.  There will be sloppy joes and apple pie cooked over the open fire if any of you are interested in "working for food".  LOL

operation demolation day 2

More of the same today.  Lots of drywall and insulation to take out.  YUCK is all I have to say.  Oh and to add to the excitement, I lost my glasses off the top of my head while I was working in the insulation.  Unless God just decided that He is very gracious and finds them for me on Thursday when I get there, I guess I will be getting a new pair on Saturday.  Thursday is a big day in the demolation.  We will be there all day long and try to get as much out as possible.  I went to look for the girls to help with a little bit of throwing away and here is where I found them!  Our children worked very hard today!  It will be good to have tomorrow off!

operation demolation

What a day!  We started the demolation upstairs in the girls room today.  I will have to say that it comes down faster than I thought it would.  It may be the fact that Jonathan had a friend helping and they seem to work faster when there are two of them.  Anyway, it is nasty is all I can say.  Lots of rotted insulation and drywall.  We discovered two ceilings.  So not just the ceiling tile but then another drywall ceiling.  It is going to be so great when it is all out and we can actually measure and see what we have.  We have just two weeks to have the whole thing gutted so they can pick up the roll off container.   Oh and just a side note.  We thought it would be good to have a couple of realtors come and let us know how much the house we are living in is worth so we could put it up for sale.  A couple of them came today.  This evening one called and wants to show our house on Thursday!  It is not even listed!  Anyway, not thinking that is such a great idea yet, but we will see.  It would be nice to sell if the people who have a house for sale next door to our new property would rent to us.  That would be a great plus to be right there and not have to go so far to work on the property.

operation roll off container

The roll off container was placed in it's spot today (the biggest one we could get).  It will remain there for 21 days (7 of which I was given free just for asking). It was really cool to watch the guy unload it from the truck, very slowly and with percise placement exactly where my husband wanted it.  It was amazing!  It is time for the demolation to begin.  Wow, what a job!  Everything must be gutted from the inside.  There is lots of drywall, insulation and ceiling tile to take down.  There will be cabinets to remove and walls to take out, bathtubs to break up and sinks to unhook.  How exciting that we are to this part.  How frustrating that we don't have 10 children to help with the tear out!  LOL  We have moved the camper into the outbuilding and set it up so that we can "camp" out if we need to for a day or so (saving us lots of gas money).  We need to get the water turned on and the electric and gas hooked up so we can have access to a hot shower and we will be set.  By the way, Jonathan mowed the grass again last night and it only took him an hour to mow the whole property complete with mowing around all the trees!  YEAH!!!  Today, David will pick up what he needs to start building the footings for the basement and crawl spaces.  Next will come block and then,  the additions will begin to take form. 

operation finished digging

Well the digging is complete for both additions to the new house.  The sidewalks have all be taken out and the bushes with the "yucky" red berries that children smash all over are gone.  Sorry birds!
The backhoe goes back to its owner tomorrow.  I can truly say that my husband enjoyed every minute of running it!  LOL  Tonight while he was doing the last of the digging, the children and I went over to the other side of town and picked 20 gallon of apples from a friends tree.  They were big beautiful cooking apples.  The first pot of applesauce will go in tomorrow. 

 

 

operation dig the basement

Today was an exciting day when David brought in the backhoe and began to dig the basement in the front of the house.  Then he realized that he would take down the front porch with the bucket also.  Oh my, you will have to see the video on the bar to the side to watch the porch come down.  The girls spend the day picking up grass clippings and Jonathan and I spent the day getting all the wood out of the house that was on the floor and putting it in the burn pile.  We are going to have one big bon fire when the water gets hooked up and we can burn that pile.  We had a couple of helpers for a while today.  They were a blessing. 

 

 

 

 

 

                                     

 

Then we saved the best for last....the port-a-potty came yesterday!  We are all ready for company now.

 

 

operation extra information

I called the Logan county assessor today to see if they could give me any more information about the property we purchased.  They could only tell me that it changed hands in 1977 and again in 1997 when it sold for $81,000.  They could not even tell me the age of the home. Well don't underestimate the local farmers and word of mouth.  We had a farmer drop by late this afternoon and let us know  that the house we bought was built in the early 1940's by the man's grandfather that we used to rent from.  Wow, it is such a small world.  It was constructed from the lumber salvaged from a church that was torn down.  David got on the phone and called our former landlord to find that indeed he had rollerskated in the basement as a kid.  We were also told by our former landlord that the well we pumped water from last night used to have the best tasting water around.  Might need to check into that to see what they would charge us to dig it a little deeper if need be so we could use it for our household water usage.  Tomorrow comes the beginning of the digging.  Exciting times!  There will be a kettle of chili and some home made yeast rolls for lunch tomorrow along with a big fruit salad and brownies for dessert.  Come on over and lend a helping hand if you have some extra time.

operation clean up

We continued the yard clean up last night with David on a friends skid steer.  He was having too much fun!  Jonathan rode the new mower for the first time and re-cut the grass that had already been cut so that it might get a bit shorter.  I think the girls might just be raking on Saturday.  Awe, the girls.  They pumped the pump until they finally got water to come out!  Talk about exciting, just see the videos on the side bar if you want to watch the zeal.  Me, I was privileged to just stand and chat with some home folk that stopped in.  I think I am going to like it here!

operation ownership

Well, it is ours!  Our dream home renovations started last night after closing by taking the mower over and mowing the grass.  We learned how to use the zero turn mower out in the open field and I became confident enough that I even mowed around the trees. Trees, yes, lots of trees.  I love trees! Now, don't ask me if I remember how to start the thing today but yesterday was good!  LOL The children picked up sticks and trash while we mowed the big part of the yard before getting around the house itself and the outbuildings. The property looks so much better.  Then after about 3 hours of that we headed for Thorton's where everyone was treated to a slushi!  Here are a couple of photos after mowing most of the property.  We still have some tall weeds to do next time we are there but most of it is done.  We also took a burn barrel over so we could start burning things that could be burnt.  The kids had fun throwing their yard finds in and watching the different colors of flame be produced. 

 

operation purchase a mower and draw up a plan

Early this morning we set out to purchase a mower for the property.  We had so many to call about and look at.  We finally narrowed it down based on what had and hadn't been sold by the time we called.  A few of those "too good to be true" mowers out there were gone weeks ago and the adds not removed.  Lots of mowers three hours away.  We finally settled on a 2009 Cub Cadet RZT50 with a Kawasaki 22 hp motor and a 50" deck.  Might I add, zero turn!  Jonathan is so excited.  I am just hoping he doesn't run into the house.  LOL 

 

 

 

Back home again from taking measurements at the house, my husband has graph paper in hand and begins to design our dream home with the big open living space we have always wanted.  How ever exciting it is to know that he has the knowledge to do it himself.  It will save us so much money and take us further on our journey to become debt free.