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.

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:

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.

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.

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:

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: