Category Archives: House Renovation

Renovation: Week 24

Wow! What a week. (Click here for all of this week’s photos) On Sunday afternoon, we walked into the house and saw this:

Yes, over the weekend, the cabinet makers had installed the cabinets earlier than expected! I never expected that I would get excited about kitchen cabinets, but I sure was. They look great.

My grandma’s china cabinet is back up in the dining room. They’ve removed the tile from the dining room, exposing the wood floor underneath. The floor restoration people have spent some time doing some patching already.

Doors and doorjams are starting to go in. Trim is arriving. And the wood in the wall alongside one of the staircases has been seamlessly extended.

It’s exciting. (photos here)

And check this out:

That hunk of ice is the exhaust from our furnace. No joke! The furnace is so efficient that, when its running, it’s a moist and slightly warm breeze blowing out of that exhaust pipe. In winter, it condenses and drips down below, forming an ice hunk.

Renovation: Weeks 19-22

It’s been a few weeks since my last house update.

I’ve posted some new photos of the project.

The new insulation has been sprayed. It’s a foam type of insulation that dries solid. It not only acts as an insulator, but also as a sealant, filling in little cracks that could let air in and out of the house. In some places it is up to 12 inches thick — mostly in the attic.

After that, work on the drywall began. By this point, it’s pretty much done and interior painting should be starting this week. After the painting, the next thing will be the floor restoration.

Concrete work got started last week. The porches are being re-built now, and in the photo below, you can see the forms starting to be in place for them.

So the appearance of the interior has changed dramatically over the past few weeks, mainly because there are now walls there.

Here’s the usual sample photo:

Renovation: Week 18

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a renovation update. Things have been going on, but not much that is all that impressive with photos.

We’ve had electrical work going on. The new water and propane lines have been trenched in. New ductwork is in progress. New electrical and phone service will be trenched in this week or next.

In the past week, the new siding has started going up, and the sheetrock is supposed to start going up on Monday.

So there is some quite visible change going on now! Click here for the pictures.

Renovation: Weeks 10-12

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted photos of our renovation project. We’ve been very busy, and I’ll write about that sometime soon, too.

But anyway, I’ve now posted photos of weeks 10 – 12 of the renovation.

Some of the highlights include: new windows, a new roof, two new staircases, three old oil heaters removed from the attic (some still with oil in them), and a little joking around from the workers.

Click above to see all of the photos.

Here are two samples from this set. First, how the house looks from the oustide now:

And this one:

Someone found that old commode from the attic. They put it on the dirt pile, and put a bucket under it for good measure.

Nobody actually used it.

That we know of.

Renovation: Weeks 8-9

We’ve been very busy lately, so I’m a bit behind on renovation updates.

I’ve posted the photos for weeks 8 and 9. The new kitchen is starting to take shape!

We’re also going to get a nice heating/air system. My great uncle, who is doing that work for us, came up with a 3-zone system. We’ll have one furnace & AC, but three temperature sensors. There will be motorized dampers in the ducts that are controlled by that system, so we can direct hot or cold air only where it needs to be. We’ll break even on it now because we can make do with a smaller AC and furnace, and will save money over the long run due to lower utility bills.

We also learned that the wood floors in pretty much the entire house can be saved, so that’ll be nice, too.

Here’s a sample:

Click here for the rest.

Renovation Update: Weeks 6-7

The big news out at the farm this week is the foundation on the house. In 6 days of work, the foundation people have already demolished the old foundation, leveled up the house, dug out the area for the new foundation (which is digging down and out to expand the foundation to cover the whole house), and poured the walls. So the house is now sitting on new walls.

Here are some photos of the foundation work in progress.

Fire updates

Whew. Lots has been going on the past couple of days.

First, many thanks to all that sent us e-mails, comments, and notes. We appreciate it! It’s nice to have people the care.

Next, in addition to the first set of fire photos I posted, I have now added more photos: a second set of fire photos. Note that there are two pages to that as well.

I’ve also added some photos to the Grandpa’s Farm set — this shows what things looked like back in April, before the fire. The buildings that burned are the barn, calf barn, and chicken house.

On to the updates…

Monday I went out to the farm first thing in the morning. Some areas were still smoldering — basically wherever there was hay. It was a bit concerning. I went up to the 2nd floor in the house and took some photos of the yard.

I headed on in to work. Later in the evening, I went back out to check on things. Two fire fighters were back out there with a fire truck dousing the remaining smoldering areas. Apparently the fire fighters had been checking on the place intermittently all day and had been out there with water earlier as well.

The Goessel Fire Dept. is an all-volunteer department. These people aren’t getting paid for this, and they do an EXCELLENT job. Someone was out at 1AM Monday, again at 10AM Monday, then twice more with the truck. They did all this on their own — I hadn’t asked them to. It is amazing how much these people care about the community and taking care of fires.

I also never knew how long bales of hay burn.

Here’s one of the new photos:

Renovation: Weeks 3 – 5

Well, it’s been a few weeks since my last update, but I was still out there once a week taking pictures. The changes have been less dramatic — but then it’s hard to get as dramatic as tearing off the kitchen and pulling off a chunk of a house.

So check out the week 3-5 photos. Note there are two pages of photos.

The lath and plaster is all down. So it looks really empty inside.

The foundation work starts Thursday and continues for about 2 weeks. Then the reconstruction will begin.

Here’s this week’s highlight:

It’s an old wagon that was in the chicken house. Because of the pickup that was in there, I had never been able to get a good picture of it before.

Week 2 (ending Jul 8)

The big news this week: the kitchen is gone and the wash house was saved!

On Monday, I went out to take the week 1 pictures and clear out some junk from the wash house.

Workers started Wednesday. We thought we’d have to tear down the wash house, but they managed to save it! It’ll make a nice outbuilding somewhere.

They pulled down the kitchen/bathroom. So things are looking very different already.

Check out the week 2 photos. Here’s a sample:

Renovation: Week 1

I’m a week late in posting these, so pretend this was posted July 1.

We bought the place on June 27. The next day, somebody was already out removing the chimney from the house. Then over the weekend, dad and I went out there to remove the chimney from the wash house.

Our contractor happened by while we were out. He had heard that some concrete blocks would be available at an auction, so he bought them for us for $2 for the whole lot. Should save us some money.

Photos of the place after week 1 are now available.

Here’s one, featuring a vulture sitting on top of the barn: