We’ve been all sleeping in the unfinished loft.
Well, we’ve owned the house for a little over a year and the progress has been much slower than we expected.
The yard had clearly not been cleaned up for several years. It was a bit like an archeological dig uncovering different layers as we raked and leaf blew. Ten truck loads of yard debris later, the property looks so much better.
We ended up selling the pontoon boat, which off-set the cost of paying to have the power boat removed. The row boat is in good shape and will be great for the kids to tool around. The sailboat has a crack that we’re hoping can be repaired.
Once everything was cleared out and John started gutting, we realized that the house wasn’t on the foundation. The cracks we thought were minor surface cracks, were actually major structural cracks. The property had water running through the property, right through our foundation.
We’ve spent a lot of time and money mitigating that issue with drainage, regrading the back yard with a rock wall. John is straightening the foundation walls and then will seal them into place.
While we’ve had a working toilet for a while and sink (cold water only), there are no walls. So we yell “bathroom” whenever we have to use the facilities. Basically, we’re living in a big wooden tent.
We painted the floor in the loft and there’s plenty of room for sleeping up there. We stayed a handful of nights last summer and hope that we’ll have lots more this summer.
John’s done a lot of preliminary work so we think things will go pretty quickly now. First priority is to finish the bathroom. We bought cabinets at the Restore and a stove. Dad gave us a new fridge from the apartments. So the kitchen is next on the list. Optimistically, we’ll have both completed by July.