operation packing

I guess this is as much a part of Operation Broadwell as working on the house itself is.  Our house is supposedly sold (inspection will be next week) if they don't find anything too major wrong with it.  They should't, because we have renovated this one pretty much all the way from ground up.  Anyway, so yesterday started the packing.  I did all the Christmas tubs and clothing tubs in the basement.  They are already moved over to the new house.  Later on I did all the wall hanging things on the bottom floor of the house.  Those things will go to the storage rental.  Anything that I will not need until I get totally moved in will go there.  For those of you who know me very well, you will know that I am a very organized person so this will probably make me crazy.  I hate all the mess all over.  But I guess you have to have a mess so that you can get it all done.  Fun times!!!  We also were able to purchase a good used refrigerator yesterday from Craigslist.  It will go in the basement of the other house so we can have some food over there and not have to carry it back and forth. 

operation house sold ~ rooftop

It has been a while since I last blogged.  It seems the past couple of weeks are a blur.  Our house in Emden appears to be sold with the inspection being scheduled for January 3rd and closing scheduled for January 18th.  If all goes as planned, we have exactly 25 days to be moved.....somewhere!  No, I have no idea where we will go.  I am hoping for a miracle and that we will be able to move into the basement of the Broadwell house while we continue to renovate.  What an adventure!  So, as if the race was not already on to get the house completely sealed up, it is now.  We will need to completely seal and paint the basement to be ready to move in there.  Of course there will be no water, so we will still have the port-a-potty outside, which will be interesting.  I opened the door the other day to find about two inches of snow in there.  Exciting times ahead!  So on to what we have been up to.  We have finished the floors and walls to the additions.  The roof is on and mostly covered.  Hopefully this week we will have the house totally sealed up where the snow and rain will be kept out completely.  Did I mention that my living room has snow in it from the blowing blizzard we had last week?  :-)  Anyway, once it is sealed up, David will order the steal for the roof and put the windows in so we have some light to work by.   We also took the wood stove we bought back and exchanged it for another.  Something was definately wrong with it.  Every time we closed the door completely, the fire would go out.  The new one works great and we can get it up to 500 degrees within a half hour to forty-five minutes.  It is toasty warm in the basement now and a huge blessing to be able to go there to get warm.  In one of my many trips to Menards, I found a great tool.  A contractor's pencil that does not have to be sharpened.  It is quickly becoming one of my favorite things.  It does not dull very fast at all and stays sharp.  At this point there is not a lot for the girls to do but take trash to the burn pile as we tear out things.  They spend their days getting muddy, riding their bikes or just drawing and reading in the camper.  I often find one of them asleep in there when I go to look for them.  Oh, I forgot to mention that David bought me an interesting torch thing to dry block with so that Jonathan could tar the basement outside.  What a job, but it is done and we can now lay pipe and get the dirt back in. I was really hoping to get some grass planeted before the ground got frozen solid.  We will see how that goes for me.  LOL




bedroom addition floors

bedroom addition roof

basement addition floor

putting on floor joists

adding faceboard

helpers

preparing for roof

wall being built

more walls

walls about done



sheeting going on

walls almost done

roof going on

partially covered

drying the block

taring the block

still coals after 14 hours!  YEAH!!!

one of my favorite tools

 

sleeping beauty

 

operation back to work

It seems like forever since we worked on the house.  David had knee surgery and is just now getting back to where he can move around a little bit. I really think he is trying to do too much but guess you can't keep a good man down.  On Monday, we went out to the property after school and set the camper back up in the outbuilding so we would have a place to sit when we are there and the girls can do their homework.  Reese spent the afternoon with us playing with the girls. David got the chimney top put on and then fired up the wood stove for the first time.  Didn't have dry enough wood in it so it only got up to about 250.  He went back yesterday and fired it up again and was able to get it to over 500 with no problem so I guess that is done.  Now to seal the house up so we can use it!  The kids and I stayed home yesterday but David went over and finished the block pieces around the window so he can start on the floor today.  Today will be a very long day for all of us!  I have to get supplies and the men folk will be working to get the floor joist started so maybe tomorrow we will have floors and be ready for walls!  Exciting times!  Oh, and my glass block window photo... that was from a couple of weeks ago but I forgot to upload it!

Reese spent the afternoon playing with the girls

my first block window in the crawl space

the first fire

the chimney cap