Finally!!!!!!

I'm sure this is what you have all been waiting for........

I know that it has taken me a long time to get pictures of our house up but I have been debating what to do.  I thought about starting a new blog with just house pictures and all the things we are or have done to it but at the same time it is a part of what our family has done or is doing so here they are.........

The before pictures:

(Back side of house)

We are really not sure why it was missing siding but we thought within a few years we would reside the whole house.

 Front side of house

 Garage

This is what sold Scott!

It's a dream garage Right???

Off to the right side is a 3 season porch.  Why on the garage? Not really sure.  I thought about turning it into a photo studio but after looking at it and with much discussion with Scott it would take to much time and money to convert it.  It wasn't built to be insulated I don't think.

Or it could have been this long driveway (that he could use his tractor to plow in the winter) with beautiful trees and a circle drive.

Plus the 4.4 acres helped too.

We are a good distance off the road.

See that pile of brush..... Yep that is where we kept the burn pit. Did I tell you that we have had many fires already?  That is the best part about having your own home and a fire pit.

I'll show more inside photos at a later date.  But let me start by telling you a little about what we found in the interior.  Not sure if I told you but we planned on redoing the sheetrock because previous owners were smokers and it smelled terrible and then new flooring and cabinets and we had talked about possible reinsulating the walls and knew the ceiling/attic would have to be.

Well when we removed the sheetrock from the ceiling, the insulation of course came down too and I told Scott that a couple spots looked wet.  After the insulation was cleaned up (which was a job and a half but thanks to the help of Scott's brother we got it cleaned up in about 4 hours I believe), Scott decided to get up on the roof and check it out to see if he could find any leaks.  When he almost fell through the roof, we knew that we had to replace it before we could put any money into the inside.

Here is Scott working on the roof and shortly after this picture the chimney also came down because it was not being used and it was all cracked up.

 The chimney was so bad that Scott only had to give it a few good pushes and it came crashing down.

This is how it landed.

It broke off about 5 feet from the ground so I got to take my frustration out on the rest of the chimney with a mallet.  It helped a little!

 New roof is on!

Back side view

 Front side view

 Shingles going on!

As you can see some of the siding is missing and was missing when we bought the house. As we researched the issues that we found inside the house to outside, we realized that behind the insulation there was only a 3/4" foam insulation panel with that ugly composite (or whatever it was) siding.  Are you getting any ideas as to what we found on the inside behind the sheetrock yet? Let me show you a picture of what some of the stud cavities looked like:

Do you see the missing insulation from that cavity?

There were some even worse then this one.

That's what mice will do!  Let me tell you that it is DISGUSTING and smells REALLY bad!

Yep! Mice were getting behind the siding and chewing their way through the foam panel and had the run of the house.  Let me just tell you that I cried and wanted to burn the place to the ground!  I may have even said a few choice (maybe bad) words.

So it was onto replacing all the exterior with OSB but only after a good powerwashing and bleaching of all the studs.  In the process, we changed a few things too!  We added a patio door on the side and a window in the back where the door currently is in this picture.

 Both ends were completed in just less than 2 days.

 Then we did the back one weekend and the front the next weekend.

 The next weekend, it was on to the house wrap.

It was a windowless house for a week or more.  As I remember back, I believe that it was longer than a week because they had to do the soffit and fascia before they moved inside.

 New windows upstairs.  Almost all windows have been replaced except the two basement windows in the front.  We painted them to make them look better.  We hope to replace them next year or at least before we put siding on.

We also put on a new front door in because the old one was rusted.

 Since this picture, we replaced the two basement windows in back because when Scott's mom went to paint the windows, these two crumbled under the paint brush.

We also took all the rock from around the house out because they were not at the right grade and let the water run down the side of the house and into the basement.  No problems since then with water.

 We planted grass!

We also put the old deck back up with a few replaced boards and then painted it.

This is what it looks like now!

We also put in our bird feeder and have lots of birds!

Hope you enjoyed the view into our house project this past summer!

Next up is the inside but that will have to wait for awhile.  I still need to take some pictures of the upstairs and what the downstairs looks like now.