Thursday, December 6, 2012

Before. and it's raining.

Apparently the wishing for moisture thing worked. It was raining when I left the house this morning, reminding me of a cool spring morning. It wasn't a downpour, but in the winter even a little moisture is a big bonus to the yard. Hopefully the mountains are getting a lot, won't be able to tell until the clouds burn off around noon.
Perhaps this whole wishing thing works, but I'll just say it's the weather being unpredictable like always.

Here are two before pictures from last night in the kitchen.


The only things in the kitchen are pictured. Some dishes, protein powder, chicken TVP, etc. Yes, the empty booze bottle on the floor was puzzling to me as well.
We have to get the wallpaper backing down and just start to remove everything. The far upper left corner of the bottom picture has some water damage from this past spring, otherwise it's going to be fairly simple. The tile on the wall started popping off last night with no fuss, it's around 30 years old.

The original structure was a barn built around 1888. The first addition was added and extended the kitchen to the middle of the stove, as well as adding a bedroom downstairs. The second addition pushed the kitchen all the way out and made the downstairs bedroom twice as large with a bathroom and walk in closet. Whomever did the 2nd addition didn't dig the basement out, causing the house to droop a little in the back. The basement doesn't extend to the house edge in any spot, creating a droop in other spots. In the next 5 years or so we will need to spend about $50k to have the house jacked up and the basement redone (including dug deeper).

Everyone says old houses have character. I didn't realize character caused my ass to hurt. Perhaps it's the charm that's causing it.

Since I won't be cooking for a few weeks, have a picture of meatloaf.
I'll be cooking at the in-laws and our boss/friends house from time to time. But meatloaf with large onion chunks and (don't ask me why) bright red ketchup.

6 comments:

  1. Looks pretty awesome, Max. You know, booze bottles just show up, don't ya know! lol.
    The meatloaf looks pretty awesome also, what time is supper, I'll be right over. No rain here at all, just dry, dry and more dry. I quit wishing and doing the rain dance, the neighbors think I'm nuts, but what else is new.
    Have a great week.

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    1. It could be a wet winter and spring, here's to hope!

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  2. Yeah, that old house charm and character can be a real pain in the butt. We just finished building our dream home and I tell people it is finished. But is a house ever really finished? Not by a long shot. Even a brand new house always needs something to be done. It just depends on your tolerance level for putting things off whether or not it actually gets done.

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    1. I'm not sure I ever want a new house unless I'm involved in every step. I wouldn't use pressboard on the outside walls, I would use real boards. Little things like that. But at least it's yours, never done or not!

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  3. We decided to redo the floor in the kitchen once. That led to dining room floor, which led to. . . 51 items later our 90 year old house is still in need of some fixing. But as a friends wife said, "At Lest I know where my husband is if he's working on the house."

    Have fun and remember to watch "The Money Pit" when you finish.

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    1. I've seen that movie and luckily this isn't the case here, I'm just glad we decided to strip it down and not try to install over what was existing. The added cost of some drywall and insulation is nothing compared to having it half-assed.

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