Mud (drywall mud, that is!)

They have started drywalling and mudding our walls. Then we'll paint. The first picture is of my craft room where I can bead, sew, scrapbook...I can't wait! The second picture is the view of the deck door when standing in the middle of the kitchen. There will be cupboards in that little corner with all of the outlets. The third picture is looking into the hallway and the bathroom while standing in my bedroom. The other doorway you see is the other doorway to the bathroom (it's a California style bath) and at the end of the hallway is the living room. The last picture is in the living room looking at the front door and the bay window. Our walls will be a white-type of color throughout the house for now. We can always change it later! :)

New doors on exterior

Here are a couple of quick shots of the front and back of the house with the new exterior doors that arrived in March & the first part of April.

More exterior changes...

The shingles are now on the roof! We have new insulation! Energy efficient windows are now in! Yeah! We chose "9 Prairie Lite" style for some of the top windows. The rest are plain. We're still working on getting the grillwork for the deck door. All of the grillwork is between the glass, as are the blinds on that south-facing door.

Those are some other views of the outside now that the windows are here. Just think how nice it will look with steel siding back on the house, too!

Rooms with a new view

The kitchen ceiling was lowered to an 8 ft ceiling to help accomodate more headroom at the top of the stairs. The original plan was to build something atop the roof, but this seemed more practical. Then the floor was taken out of my crafting room (the old "attic") so that the floor in that room is now several inches lower. Now the top of the steps are lower so we can change the angle/steepness of the steps to make it safer for all and allow for more headroom for our tall famiy.

This is the kitchen looking out into the old TV room. They took out the wall between the two rooms, and since it's load bearing, they buried a beam in the ceiling for support. Eventually those three windows will come out and make a great entrance to a deck!

The old storage room wall will be torn out. While we were having dirt work done, we decided to fix the drainage problem near the foundation plus put in an egress window. Part of this downstairs area will be turned into an additional guest room. I know I will feel better if I know the people downstairs have that second exit in case of a fire.

Boy, how the outside has changed!

We had some dirt work done after removing the older cedar tree windbreak earlier in the year. There is now a driveway towards the top of the hill which will branch into two driveways; one to the bins and the other to our added garage. Hopefully this helps with drainage and keeping water away from the house.

M & S "bricked in" the opening to the old well.

The "cave" has been filled in and the cellar doorway has been "bricked in".

Then they tackled the back porch. Footings were dug. Here's what it looks like inside now. The porch area is level and that door doesn't fit properly anymore!

How firm a foundation!

These are the first pictures I have taken of the progress. Bushes have been removed from this side of the house in order to frame the porch for cement. The cement block you see right next to the house is the foundation for the addition. It will consist of a hallway, a place for laundering machines, a walk-in closet and J & B's bedroom. Under the black tarp on the far side is the foundation for the attached double garage. Cement has yet to be poured as of these pictures.

It's really happening!

The much anticipated remodeling on the home place has officially begun as of November 16, 2009! M & S Builders arrived that morning and started work. This blog is our attempt to track our progress and let others see what is going on out there. Keep in mind that the main blogger only sees the progress on the weekends due to lack of daylight, so she will try to post pictures as they are able to be taken. :-)