Awesome Deal

I really love a bargain. No. Really. I don't buy much of anything unless it is on sale or I have a coupon. That makes renovating the house a difficult task. Building supplies are not often on sale. And the cheap things are often cheap for a reason.

About a month ago I was at a local big box home improvement store looking for paint on the mark-down shelves. I didn't find the paint that I wanted but I did this:



This is going to replace this light in the hall.


Isn't it ugly? Can't wait to get it replaced.

The best part of this new light?


Yup. $2. Was $12.58. I was very excited. I normally prefer brushed nickle for a finish but for $2, this is fine. And it is way better than that is there now.

Chickens and Flowers

Well, life has been busy for us the past month or so. You can read about some of it over at Logger's Wife.

We have done some work on the yard. We have adopted chickens, which has involved building a chicken coop. Which turned out to be too small. So now we are having to build another one.

Here is the current one. Matt is still working on the new one.




While Matt and my dad worked on the chickens, Mom and I worked on building a flower bed by the house. Here is what it looked like when we moved in.



Here is what it looked like when we fixed around the house.



And here is what it looks like now. Most my flowers aren't up more than little seedlings yet so I'll be sure to post a pic when they are full-grown.



We are doing a little still on the 2nd bedroom but it is at a snail's pace.

Small Steps

Well, the snow has finally melted. But now it is raining. Maybe eventually we will get to rake the yard and start on all that yard work.

So between the snow and rain and the fact we seem to be busy every weekend, we haven't gotten much done. The one thing we have done is replace the floor heating grate in the kitchen.

Someone put a wall grate in the floor. And since the size used is not one that they make in floor grates, we had to get creative.

Here is the old grate and why we needed to replace it. And yes, someone stepped on it. That is why it looks like that.




Here is the new one.



Because it is smaller, we had to put a piece on wood behind it so it would fit. I may eventually paint it. I may not. For now, I'm just glad there is a working, safe to walk on and near, floor grate.

It's Raining.....In My Bathroom

Well, there always seems to be something going wrong or at least not going right. We picked up the new pipe and pieces we need for the vent pipe. However, whoever put the boot on the pipe on the roof bought the wrong kind. We have a metal roof and they bought one for an asphalt shingle roof. Early winter/late fall we had some leaking issues because of that.

So Matt went up on the roof and into the crawl space to seal it. It worked great.



Until today.


It is 50 degrees and raining and foggy today. Great for melting the snow. Not great for the patch job. Looks like as soon as we can, the boot on the roof will need to be replaced as well. But it is much better to replace the whole thing than to keep patching patches. Thankfully it is a fairly slow leak so we (meaning Matt) only have to go up into the crawl space once a day to empty out the drip bucket.

Waiting for the Light to Turn Green Again

Well, my computer is dead. I might be able to revive it but don't have that kind of money. So I have all my pictures on this computer (my husband's) so I can finally update.

We haven't done a lot. We are kind of at a standstill too. We need to replace the vent pipe as someone used it as a stud when handing the paneling in the bathroom. And we need to re-frame the closet. We took out the stairs so now we need to make it truly two closets and make an access hatch for the crawl space. Then we can finish drywalling so we can paint and replace the floor. Once we get those two things done, we should be able to fly through the drywalling and flooring since we already have it.

Here is how the 2nd bedroom looks right now.



That greenish yellow is the back of the tub/shower. And that is the pipe we need to replace. The cat loves to sneak into this room and crawl under the tub.



Can't wait to have a back wall on my closet again. :) And to bring all my clothes back up. I only keep Matt's shirts and my clothes for the week upstairs.




Half the carpet has been torn up. The rest will go when the drywall is on the wall and not stacked on the floor. Scraping that carpet padding up will be a challenge. We are doing a laminate wood floor though so we need to get the sub floor as smooth as we can.


So that is where we are right now. I'm hoping to replace the vent pipe this weekend so we can finish drywalling that wall. We are planning on moving temporarily into that room once it is finished so that we can do our room next.

A Crash and a News Break

Just a quick word to let you know that I had a big post planned on looking back over 2010 and which projects were my favorite. But then a tragedy occurred. My hard drive crashed. I did back up all my info a few weeks ago. But I do not want to clutter up my husband's computer.

So, as soon as I am able, there will be a new post with our latest project.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programing. :)

Christmas Time Is Here

Today, the house is finally done being decorated for Christmas. I love to decorate for Christmas. I just love Christmas in general. But since this is a blog about the house, I will not bore you with how much I love the music, the movies, the atmosphere. I will just show you the pictures of our indoor decorations. We have some outdoors too but have been sick all day and do not want to go out in the snow.

Here is the railing without the lights on.


Tree:

Tree with the (room) lights off: