Cheatham County, Baby

Free Stove
Free Fridge
(Coveralls Included)

Window Trim

Jeremy asked me to pick out a picture on the web of some window trim that I liked and I chose the one on the top. He then created the same look for our windows (bottom) and they look awesome!

Spring Break '09!

So, my week off ended up being a very productive time at the house. Jeremy still had to work his usual hours, but he made a lot of things happen over the last 10 days. Probably the most exciting thing was that we finally have electricity and were able to unplug from our wonderful neighbor's house! They have been allowing us to use their electricity to run our power tools for the last year, but now we have severed the umbilical cord. :) JB got most of the switches and outlets wired up and so we also have working lights! The HVAC guys came by and finished their job, so we could have temperature control. No more freezing (or sweating) while working inside. We primed all of the rooms and painted everything but the kitchen. We went with pretty neutral colors, but we love them. We got hooked up with cable and phone...so there are many more channels to watch now besides 2, 4, 5, and 8. Don let us use his bobcat to finish grading the rest of the yard, so the big dirt piles are now smoothed out and ready for grass seed and straw (Thanks, Chuck!). We also got rid of the old culvert concrete pieces and got a new culvert installed and covered up. Other than all of that, we pretty much just did a major clean up in and around the house, plus Jeremy is starting a garden in the back yard with his spare time. :) It's all starting to come together and we will hopefully be in there within a few more weeks!

More Shower Tile

Kitchen Cabinets

Jeremy built all of the frames for the lower kitchen cabinets (some are missing in this pic). I was pretty impressed with his corner cabinet he built. He's going to put two Lazy Susan's in there, although he calls them Lazy Sarah's. :)

I look miniature!

Well, we finally caved and decided to actually hire someone to do some work for us. Jeremy drywalled all of the closets and then called this dude to finish the main rooms. Rather than it being done in a month or more, now it will be finished in one week! We will probably be painting next weekend - I can't believe it. In this picture, I'm standing in the doorway of the living room and kitchen. On the other side of the exposed brick, will be a wood burning stove for the kitchen. The wooden beam is the original oak wood from the part of the house that we demoed. There will be a big bookcase on that wall to my left, split between the two rooms.

Still No Grass :(

Fixing Our Broken Window

Highs and Lows

A week ago we were working out at the house in single digit weather. Thanks to Chuck for the propane heater. This weekend was in the upper 60's!

Hangin' Out in the Attic. Doesn't everyone?

Tiling the Shower

JB on the Roof

Sealing the Tile Floor and Tub

Sarah's Tile Backsplash :)

Preparing a Concrete Pad for the HVAC

Time for Insulation

Working on the Gutters

Jeremy Grading the Yard

The Living Room

The Kitchen

Kithchen Pantry...

... and the old fridge that came with the house. :)

Finally Something is Starting to Look Pretty :)

Master Bath Tile

Check it Out

I Won the Sink War

Charcoal Colored Custom Concrete Countertop :)

Electrical

We're Getting Closer!

Bye Bye West Wing

This is after we ripped off the west side of the house and put all the scraps in the dumpster. Chuck and Jeremy accomplished all of this in about 4 hours, I think. Once, we get the inside finished, we'll come back to this and rebuild these three rooms: second bath, laundry room/office, and small second bedroom/cat room. :)

Installing the New Tub

...and relaxing after all that hard work.

Phase 2

I don't know if it can technically be called "phase 2" if you're working on it during phase 1, but we had to take advantage of having the back hoe. So, Chuck and I (mostly Chuck), removed the tin roof from the right side of the house. Then Chuck took the back hoe and pretty much ripped this side off the main house.

After Grading

Here is a good shot of the house after we graded around it with the back hoe. We still have to redo that back room of the house and work on some other small details, but we're getting closer!

Fireplace

This is the base of the fireplace. We dug a big hole, poured concrete, laid rebar and blocks. We were working with a unique situation here. That one piece of wood sticking out from the blocks was actually holding up the chimney. Why there was a chimney, but no lower part, we don't know. So, we started at the bottom and worked our way up to join the rest of it. You can see this in some other pictures.