House and Belly

Our new front door. Looks good, no?

The new inside of the house with screen door. All of this wood replaced rotted wood.
New inside. I suppose we will paint the new boards at some point.
Look at that belly--lovely. At this point Heidi has been pregnant 2 more weeks than she has ever been pregnant. Could she go all the way?

Yellow Light

A yellow light is a guideline it says--it might be good to slow down. But the light itself does not stop you. It is just a suggestion.

I have found that there are very similar parallels to this axiom in our house.

• Most builders do not use 2x4s as rafters.
• Most do not use 2x4s as joists to hold up the entire second floor of a house.
• It is uncommon to fill large holes in the roof with socks. Even if the socks are navy blue and blend in quite well.
• Usually the piers holding up the house are made of stone or concrete--not blocks of wood.
• Many builders frame doors with 2x4s or 2x6s not 1x4s.

The latest exciting omission to following suggested guidelines was the realization that our front door was framed with 1x4s. This led to the whole house shaking every time the door closed. So in the never ending list of fix up projects I fixed the door this weekend.



Before. There are 2x4s on the right but the 1x4s can barely be seen on the left.
Lookin' good. See how these beams don't even touch the sill? Could that lead to the door shaking the wall?
I just like the mess that is pictured here. What was happening in their minds?
I overdid it a bit but I didn't want to go back in later.

The door is finished. Now I need to work on the look of the front.

House

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Here is our house. For sale at the lowest price yet and the best it has ever looked. It still needs some work but we have done a ton. Here are the things we are the most proud of.

1. New Kitchen. When we moved in there were 2 cabinets and 7 feet of counter space. Now there are 7 cabinets, 10 feet of shelves above the counter and 25 feet of counter space. We also tilted up the ceiling so that there was more headroom.
   
2. New roof. The old roof was covered in moss the new one has Grace Ice and Water Shield on the entire surface and 25 year architectural shingles.
3. New furnace.
4. New water heater.
5. Insulated garage--great for doing work in any season. When the nearby stove gets hot you can open the door, heat the garage and get work done.
6. Insulation in the kitchen and baby bedroom. The loose fill had fallen and we replaced it with fiberglass.
7. New bathroom. Thanks to our friend Brian Daniels we have a new bathroom. We went from 5' x 4' to 5' x 9'.

Tom's House Project

Click here to see Tom's project for the weekend!

Amelia and I took off for the day to leave Tom and Yoda alone to work on this project we've needed to do for an embarassingly long period of time... We'll post final pictures when it's all done - hopefully soon!

There could be hope...

If
this
family
can put their house
on the market,
then so can we...

(do you like my poem?)

Why we love rural life...

5 Random Finds...

Today Tom and I spent the day throwing out junk. Here is our problem: We are both pack rats - and when two pack rats get married... well, you get the idea. I think that when two pack rats get married they should be required to go on that show on TLC where they help you clean out all your junk. Anyway, I digress. I think Tom would agree that he is a worse pack rat than me and today while I was going through boxes of random slips of paper and knick knacks, my point was made. We only got in one minor argument when I was accused of going through "his stuff" that he had already sorted and I was "messing with." Here is a transcript of what seemed to transpire throughout the day:

T: "Wait, I've already sorted that box, what are you doing?"
H: "Okay, so what is this for?" (hold up some random item/piece of paper/bottle cap/dinosaur bone)
T: "Oh, you can throw that out."
H: (Say nothing - roll eyes. Toss said item purposefully into trash bag.)

While sorting through Tom's pre-sorted boxes, I decided to choose my five favorite finds and share them with you, dear reader, to prove my point that Tom is a bigger pack rat than me:

5. An invitation to a retirement party at Concord High from 1999. Apparently, Tom wants to remember partying like it was 1999. With retirees.
4. A cigar tube that contained about 50 pennies.
3. The garter from our friend Chris & Emily's wedding 6 years ago (or more? I"m not sure...)
2. A list of the specials from Damon's, the ribs place where Tom worked almost TEN years ago.
1. An MCI bill. How long ago did MCI go under? You get my point...

To be fair, Tom just called (he is still at home cleaning, while I"m at Grammie's w/Amelia - yes, I know he is a saint...) to report that he has found at least 7 tubes of neosporin, many unopened. All purchased by me. He said he thinks that if we ever have a house full of burn victims, they will be well cared for...