Progress!!!

We are now offically left the demo work behind inside. The outside is a whole different story, but the inside now looks like a house being put back together rather than a house that someone is in the process of destroying.

I am still stripping paint. Now that school is back in my sitter is available less often and so am I with soccer season in full swing and homeschooling taking up my week days, however our non busy hours are sort of clashing, so I am in the process of finding a back up sitter that can watch the kids when she can't. If you live here locally, and know someone let me know.

Anyway back to paint stripping, the full 7 hours I was able to put in last week I spent stripping windows, (except for the last 1 1/2 in which I spent at taco bell with my hubby followed by a neck cranking visit to the Lowe's lighting department where we picked out clearance priced lighting fixtures).

So really for 5 1/2 hours I stripped 2 windows, and a bit of a third, so just three windows, four door ways and about a miles worth of floor trim to go. I must say though I really kind of like paint stripping, its strangly satifying to see the wood emerge under layers of paint, using only my arm powered paint striping tool.

I am trying to convince Jack to let me insulate next. It looks like something I could handle, but Jack looks a bit scared about trusting me with blade sharp enough to cut insulation. (Must be that darn pumpkin carving incident still engraved in his brain, thats holding him back, and for those of you who don't know the story don't ask!!!) So for now I am paint stripping.

Jack has continued to work on the wiring. I am so excited about being able to pick where all the plugs go. Right now our upstairs has one plug per room and it can get kind of annoying at times.

For Some reason this gives me that AHHH feeling

Oh the little things that give you joy when you are renovating. I was over at the house the other day with the kids and walked into what will be our living room and felt so satisfied to find that Jack had actually insulated it (this was before I asked if I could insulate) and framed out the new front window (if you scroll down this is the window that is missing on the main floor front, and it should be in soon!!!)

We managed to get the insulation on sale too!!! I thanked God for that one, I mean really who hears of insulation going on sale. Our deals we have been finding are incredible I got 88 dollars light fixtures for $22 and $189 ceiling fans for $88, my living room chanadlier was $32 and I think it was originally well over $100. God keeps providing; everything big we have purchased so far has been discounted in some way, even the wire for the electrical was on clearance!!!

More progress!!

we now have a new furnance in our basement that is not the size of a NASA space ship. The heating and cooling guys figure it should be fully installed by Saturday. I happened to be the only one there when they came to mark out the ducts so I got to actually pick where they would make most sence (in other words not right under the spot someone would put a large piece of furniture)

Marion's newest park!!!

The picture above and below are taken in Marion's new playground in Matter Park. Every time I go I pinch myself cause I am so surprised to find such a great park in Marion. My kids love it and it is soooooooooo huge, these pictures are of only one small piece of it.

We go at least once a week (just thinking tonight would work great!!!) if not twice. The kids love it. Yeah Marion!!! Keep it up!!!!

A stolen Afternoon

Here are my three monkeys enjoying what might be one of their last swims for the season in our friend's backyard pool.

Monday I woke up and by 10 am I had that "got to get out there and enjoy the day " feeling. My agenda of course had homeschooling and several chores listed on it, but one thing I have learned these last few years is you got to cease the moment when God creates it.

By lunch time I gave into it. I called up a friend and said, "hey lets meet and go for a swim". She was game and we went, and I don't regret it one bit. Not even when I was cleaning up the house at close to 9 pm when the rest of the household was sleeping. (remember for me thats late, I am a early bird rising at 5 a.m. most days, and sometimes as early as 4:30, don't worry though I sometimes sleep-in to a sinful 7 a.m!!!!!! (lol) )

Thats one thing I love about homeschooling, I have so much more time to enjoy the kids. Sure we have educational goals to meet, but we can meet them on our schedual not on someone elses, which means we can take full advantage of those last warm days of summer, as well as those perfect bike ride days of fall, and those perfect tobbogan days of winter, and lets not forget those awesome puddle jumping days of spring ( yep even at 33 I still take time to jump in puddles, with my children, I even have my own flowered printed rain boots!!!)

Oh how fast summer flies is it really Labor day weekend already!!!!!!

Speaking of Educational Goals

To all you parents out there with children ages kindergarten to grade 2 I just tried the best educational computer software to date. Its called "Jumpstart World" and it is great. I had to ask Aiden to get off the computer after a solid 2 hours of him playing it and he is itching to get on it again tommorow. And the problems they have to solve to go on in the game meet state standards for education.

A bit of Flipping News and a Bit of this and that!!

This week in flipping I managed to de-staple and strip three window frames only to have more staples put in them due to thunderstorms and heavy rains causing us to need to cover all the open windows with plastic till our new windows arrive. Oh well at least they are paint free. Of course I have 4 windows and all the moldings around the floor to go, but hey progress is progress.

Jack has been working on the wiring of the home. Just the kitchen and bathrooms and 1/2 of the last bedroom and I think he is done (nope now I remember him mumbling something about the dining room and formal living room still to go too) But we are getting closer.

The family room has insulation and wiring. And this weekend it will get its plastic bearer put in and then we are ready for drywall (well okay just in that room really, but at least one room is getting close to the drywall stage) So we are feeling pretty good right now.

Here is Courtney modeling the dresses that I made for her this summer. I finally got my sewing machine out again, after years of it sitting on the shelf. Each of these dresses took one evening to cut out and two to sew. I am working on a four teired one right now, but with soccer season in full swing as well as homeschooling (for you Canadians, American's start school early to mid August) and oh don't let me forget our reno home, I think it will be a while till it gets done.

Boy does she love them though I finished the first one mid week but she hung it in the closet till Sunday. At first this kind of bothered me as I wanted to see her enjoy it right away, but Sunday she bounced out of bed and into her dress and when we got to church she stoped everyone she could and said "MY MAMA MADE ME THIS" with the biggest grin on her face you ever did see. So I guess I am a winner in her eyes when it comes to sewing.

Here are some pictures of my little helpers. We had an early game one afternoon and afterwards all five of us headed over to the reno home for a family working bee. I once again had nail pulling duty (but it was for the last time!!! Yeah all the nails are gone!!!) So Aiden and Courtney joined in and helped!!

Don't ya love Aiden's rainboots and I think it was in the low 80's that day so you know his feet had to be hot but he insisted on wearing them.

Courtney is my little dress and skirt wearer, evening doing reno work she insists on wearing a skirt. In winter though she changes to jeans (she is like her mom, she does not like tights much so would rather just wear pants when its too cold to be bare legged).

I know some of you are probably wondering where Thomas is. Well he was out in the back shed watching a movie. He is not really enjoying this reno thing as much as his brother and sister. He prefers instead to help me out around the house (which I don't mind I could use it) . I am thinking a one on one day with dad at the reno house might help. So we are waiting for a day Jack could use an extra pre-teen hand and they can drink pop and grab a fast food lunch and crank the radio for the day and that hopefully should change Thomas' mind (well maybe)

The last 14 days of Flipping!!

Well another two weeks have flown by, and a lot has happened. Jack and I were just over there tonight with the kids and I think we put the last of the stuff in the dumpster and we now finally have moved on completely to building the place back up.

Well actually I did not throw things in the dumpster, I got the mind numbing job of pulling a million and one staples from the trim work around the master bedroom window (okay maybe not a million, but believe me there was at least 100+)

While the boys enjoyed their day camp at the local state park last week, I found Courtney a few playmates to stay and play at while I put in some hours at the house (and I was by myself too I might add, I finally kicked that fear of intruding rodents). I knocked all the plaster off the last bedroom walls and then stripped the outer bathroom wall of all its lathe and then nails so it can be insulated.

I am now moving on to trim work. I am going to pull out all staples (and there are a lot of staples, I am thinking the previous owners loved using plastic on the windows in winter) Then go at it with a paint scrapper and then an orbital sander, making them all smooth and ready for antique white paint.

Jack has been working on redoing the wiring, and he also took out all the existing outdated light fixtures and the junk fom the attic and dumped them in hopefully what will be our last dumpster for a while.

I was sort of thinking I would fill this last dumpster mostly by myself while Jack moved on to electrical, but between the hot hot heat and the dumpster arriving a day later than planned and then me putting my neck and shoulder out for 3 days (kind of embarassing but I was taking off a rubbermaid lid and pulled a muscle, very wierd and painful) my kid free time was gone, and the dumpster would be gone before my next babysitter time slot. So he did it once the weather finally cooled off a bit.

Hopefully by the next time I write, we will have our ordered windows in and our heating and central air installed as well as a new electrical pannel and working lights!!!

Oh and by the way, for those of you that are like me and are not that computer savy!! you can click your mouse on any of the pictures below and it will get big!!! ( I discovered this on accident, so I thought I'd pass it on, cause it exticted me)

Our Nieghbors!!!

In case our picture of our reno home made you wonder why it was just $10,000 here is what one of our nieghbors homes looks like, and really this picture does it too much justice!!!

This is a picture of a days hard work for me a room full of knocked down plaster. YOu should have seen me I looked like a coal miner, I used that shower head up the nose trick that day and still it felt dusty. (and yes for those saftey consious folks I did wear a ventalation mask)
This is our lovely claw foot tub sitting in the master bedroom right now. It needs a paint job!!
This is a close up of the flowers that someone lovingly painted on and really thick too, can't do just a primer and a paint job on this thing. But I really want to save it I am thinking sanding. Going to research it a bit.

Yes!!! I do, do more than just Reno's for Fun!!!

Here is a picture of my friend Letha getting the royal treatment at one of the mexican restuarants in town. Thats whip cream they are scooping in her face, its a birthday tradition around here. Letha is the first of my friends to hit the big 40!!!

We had such a fun time celebrating it. Our friend planned a whole treasure hunt for her, and we each waited at a certain location around town with gift certificates and presents in our hands as well as a clue to the next spot.

We had a blast!!!! Happy 40th Letha, I love ya!!!!

The last two weeks of flipping!!!

Well, it is now August and we are entering month three of our flip. We are still tearing down, but we can now see light at the end of the tunnel right as I type my hubby is putting down the new sub floor in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen.

I am staying home today as it was a surprise early day for Jack and it is too hot to put the kids outside even in the shade and too late to get a sitter. But I am itiching to be there, I love helping it makes me feel like I am accomplishing something towards our goals. I know that what I do here at home is important too, but I think all you women would agree that it gets frustrating at times when you find out you have to do most of it all over again the next day!!

This week the last dumpster (that would be number 4) is coming and I am actually going to spend my first full day by myself at the house.(aren't you proud of me I am facing my fear of rodents for the sake of our time linefilling the dumpster up so that we can spend our Wednesday together building the house up. It feels so good to be almost done with tear down.

No live rats have been found, but we did get infested with fleas again. Don't know where they are coming from there is not anything left of the house!!! No curtains or carpet, just bare walls and floors.

The huge furnace is out of the basement and I do mean huge it was bigger than some of the space shuttles that I have seen go to the moon. You should have seen Jack after he knocked it out he was wet from head to toe with sweat.

The basement actually looks really good without the furnace and junk. We are thinking of redoing the concrete floor down there and painting the walls,( and thanks to vandals it is also getting new windows) , doing so would make it look all fresh and perhaps give the next person the idea that they could add to their living space by renovating it further.

I have been busy with nail pulling duty and plaster knock down and lathe pull down. I like the plaster and lathe stuff better than nail pulling, that is so boring!!!!! Although plaster knock down sure is a dusty job, even with a mask dust still manages to somehow get in your nose (here is a tip though if you should find yourself with a dusty inner nose, take your removable shower head and shoot it up your nose it really works!!!!) But it is almost done just one more bedroom to complete and we can then move on to putting up insulation (the house had none their heat bill must have been through the roof) and then finally drywall and paint.

Well I got to go, soccer season started this week and I need to get dinner going before practice. The boys schedual is hectic this time, I think I have 5 free weekday evenings from now to mid october, and that is only if Thomas's coach does not book any more practices. I love being a soccer mom though, it is such a great sport to watch, and it requires hardly any equipment so its inexpensive, and hardly any violence either. Rainy games are the best, nothing like watching mud fly!!!! I guess I am still a kid at heart really.

Just a few pic's!!!

Our little workers

Its a hard life, watching TV outside in the shade while Mom and Dad work and lots of time Aiden too (he loves to help).

Still no toilet so they are all getting to be experts at peeing in the corner of the yard. Courtney at first kept on getting her shorts wet, now she takes them off and then leaves them far away from the pee corner and then returns to put them on again. Soon however we will have a spot for them to sit inside and a working toilet.

Don't worry though they are not stuck outside for hours at a time. We hire a sitter for Jack's day off and one evening a week. So really the children are only with us here and there when Jack get a surprise short day of work, or he gets told he can come in later than normal.

And during this heat wave we are experiencing, well I am just staying home with them when jack gets surprise time off, its too hot even to be sitting in the shade watching movies even for a short few hours.

Aiden our best helper he just loves to get in on the action. You should see him in a face mask and work gloves, he looks so gosh darn adorable, and when he has a hammer in hand and starts pounding with all his might at the walls, well I just glow with mother pride.
Here it is our $10,000 dollar wonder. The front door is off to the side, and down on the bottom the previous owners walled out the front window but we plan to bring it back and add black shutters and a red door. You will notice that thanks to vandals we now have to replace the upstairs window too!! The other week they broke in through the basement ones, but still nothing taken or even moved. Don't know what they are after but obviously we don't have it.