The House Project: The Early Days

For those of you who don't know, my husband and I are the proud owners of a house that has been an ongoing project for years. We moved into a fifth wheel a year ago as we prepared to move on to the more disruptive parts of the remodel, such as the addition, new roof, new rock on the exterior, etc. We couldn't stay in the house, and felt our money was better spent on a trailer than somebody else's pocket in the form of a rent check. Last summer I started posting pictures on photobucket for family and friends who wanted to see the progress on the house, but now I am feeling the urge to blog about it! My next several posts will be geared toward telling the story of our journey with the "House Project" over the past year. As we move forward with remodeling the interior this summer (the "fun part" for me!) I will update progress with more blog entries!

Although our plan was to move forward with some work on our house during spring break, we really haven't done much on it this week. We did open up the soffit to make minor changes in the wiring of some external lights, but other than that all we've done is plan ahead and try to organize what needs to be done next when we have money to spend on it.

So how about the beginning? Well, when I met Bruce in 2008 he already owned the house, and had already refinished one of the bedrooms and demolished a bathroom as well as the interior of another bedroom, the living room, and the dining area. I believe he had also removed the furnace and AC, rearranged the floor plan a bit in the front of the house to turn a hallway into more usable bedroom/living room space, and replaced the hot water heater. Oh yeah, and rewired a good portion of the electrical...

My point is that I walked in on a work in progress. His company had him staying in a rental house for work most of the time, so he spent little enough time there that the state of his house didn't bother him, and it gave him something to do in his spare time. Well, needless to say, after I came into the picture and thoughts of a family entered his head, the project morphed to the point where we are basically rebuilding the house! By the time all is said and done, the only original parts of the house left will be most of the foundation (we had to re-pour a section and put in two additions) and some of the original framing! I can't seem to find a good "before" picture, but here is one through the car window, another I took last June right after the exterior had been demolished, and one I took from the back during the demolition process.

You can see the not-so-attractive pink cement brick, and you can barely see the horrible orange front door! It's all gone now... Here are some current pictures!

Since those pictures were taken, the front door and trim has been stained so it looks much better. As you can see we still need garage doors, but other than a few things, the exterior is pretty much finished!

Before we really laid into it last summer, Bruce and I had finished remodeling the front bathroom and demolished the kitchen. For a period of time before we moved into the fifth wheel we lived in the front wing of the house with the finished bathroom, but no kitchen. I got pretty creative with a hot plate, microwave, and toaster oven! The fifth wheel is nice because I actually have a small oven and stove as well as a kitchen sink, but needless to say I can't wait to be back in the house with my dream kitchen! (Check out my previous blog post about Trailer Life)

My next entry will focus on the demolition and foundation. It was an exciting process to watch, and after years of planning it made the distant dream start to take shape and become reality!