5 Days

We have 5 days until we have to move out of the house we have called home for almost 8 years! It is truly bittersweet. We raised our 3 daughters in this home. We made this house our home, by adding our personal flare to every room. This makes me sad, however I am really excited we have been blessed enough to start all over again! W have 5 days to make the new house livable. It will be, but a lot needs to occur in order for this to happen! My husbands family has been helping us with the house and with our kids, so that has been a blessing. Here are some updates before the Move- in reveal!

 

The girls got the wall decals for Christmas from their aunt and uncle and they were so excited to see them on the walls of their new rooms. the girls' wall colors are a pastel version of their favorite colors, pink, turquoise and orange!

 

 

 

Our only working bathroom!

View of the gigantic kitchen/dining with island!

 

Wood floors are being installed and the carpet comes tomorrow!

 

I will be revealing our move-in ready rooms this week and then I will be doing a before and after post and then a project by project reveal.

Home is where your heart is!

 

 

It's Go Time!

Well we have 24 days until we have to leave our current home and this one needs to be finished! We are working tirelessly and Jason has been plugging away at so many things! We have made a lot of progress and we are pushing forward!

Some of the things we have been dealing with, and have set us back drastically is the Plumbing. We replaced most of our plumbing. This required Jason to break up the concrete in many different rooms.

Master bath

 Master Bedroom

Laundry Room / M Bath

 



Family Room

 Lots of holes! But we did figure out how to fill them! Jason's brother helped us with that!
 

 

 
 

After the holes were filled, we continued to move forward! One new furnace was installed and most everything has been primed. The cabinets are being installed and we are waiting for the doors/jams and all of the trim. Then we will paint, and then floors! Counters have been templated and carpet has been measured! Woo Hoo! A huge Thank you to

Bradlor Builders

Hunters Painting

Hessco Plumbing

They have helped us tremendously!

Plus a huge thank you to my husband! Unfortunately I haven't been much help, because we have 3 girls and they still need to be cared for! This project was much more difficult than we had anticipated, but we are seeing the light and are very excited!

 

Before Kitchen

From Dining room looking in



During Remodel- The wood beams in the middle are where the old exterior wall was!

Open Dining/Kitchen Space!

Planning Desk!

 

 

 

New Kitchen Farm Sink!

 

 

 

 

 

 Master Sink- we will have 2

 

Master Double Vanity!

 

 

 

 

New Front Door!


And since it is still Arctic here in NE Ohio, we have had several contractors slide off our driveway and get stuck! This truck is pulling another one out of the snow! Old man winter needs to hibernate!

We are still DIY'ers even though we have had to hire work out! Unfortunately with the massive plumbing problems it put our timeline so far out we needed help! We are still looking at moving into a home that is not completely finished! But we will figure it out! We always do.
Adventurers!

 

 

 

Stress is a Horrible Thing!

I have been offline for quite some time due to many reasons. Most of which include STRESS! I am totally looking forward to February because to date January was a pretty stressful month for me. The new house is moving along, with several snags in our plans. We have had to push back so many things in order to make sure things are done correctly the first time! Currently we are waiting for our plumbing issues to work themselves out, because we failed our plumbing inspection! My poor husband is functioning on only a few hours of sleep per night.

Some other events that occurred in January- my car was hit by a fellow dance father at the dance studio and of course he is lying and saying that I hit him. When I try to contact him, he has threatened us with filing harassment against us. So I took an entire day to be angry and upset and now I am moving on! Karma will give him what he deserves! The sad part is that our daughters are in the same dance class!

 I have been busily boxing up, throwing out and cleaning every nook and cranny on our current home to get it ready for sale. Stressing over every inch of carpet, woodwork and walls. To my surprise we had our  house under contract in less than 7 hours after listing it! Yay for us! But it also gives us a definitive date to be out of this house and I just pray our new one will be ready!

I have always been a huge fan of HGTV- since it first graced our airwaves- I am currently a huge fan of Fixer Upper! But honestly those shows are a little deceiving- yes they occasionally give you timelines and budgets but at the end of the 30 or 60 minutes you see this pristine home as perfect as the ones that don the covers of every DIY magazine and that my friends is so not realistic!! That has been on my mind a lot lately! When we started this project- I too had high hopes of a model like home when we move in but my reality has taken some time to adjust to. When we move in, yes we will have bathrooms, a kitchen and flooring- maybe some paint on the walls, but it will not be Complete! I am ok with that- now! Now- but I haven't been ok with it up to this point!

In keeping this light, we are still moving forward- our siding has been added, sofetts and all of our electric is currently being installed, Jason has been working at the house til 1:00 in the morning to pull wire, add exhaust fans, dig out concrete- you name it! what a trooper! Looking to have our electric inspected on Monday and then we will be dry-walling the house! Yay! Here are some of the tings we have been doing! Happy Heart month !

Drywall Delivery

That's A lot of Drywall!

Foam Insulation

Electrical Nightmare!

Kitchen & Dining Room!
 

New Siding On Addition

Jason cutting holes in roofs!

Fan vent complete!

Abby's Room Has Drywall! 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I love January 1st! It's like you get a "do-over" each year. Everyone gets to look back on things you were great at and things you need to work on! Every year, we put money in our windows and make sure we eat pork and sauerkraut! The kids don't really eat that, but we do and we love it! We are winding down our Christmas break and really looking forward to this new year of change for us. It is this time of year that really makes you think of all of the wonderful people that have graciously stayed in our lives and the new ones that have entered. We are truly Thankful.

The house is really moving along quite nicely these days thanks to our amazing contractor and his crew! We couldn't be happier with our choice to pick Allen Pawl as our contractor! From the moment we met him, he saw our vision and made it happen for us. Feeling blessed! We would highly recommend him for all of your construction needs. This was a difficult choice for us, because we are or were DIY'ers we did all of the work in our previous homes while living in them and to turn over the reigns to someone else- that was hard- but our best decision.
Here is their contact info if you need any work:

 

BradlorBuilders & Design Concepts

440-781-8685

bradlorbuilders.com

The addition is under roof and the windows were installed!

I have to say- these guys and a girl-( yes Allen's wife jumped right in to help out and tell the guys what needed to be done)Are awesome- they worked in frigid temperatures and a horrible muddy mess! Mother nature was kind to us in Northeastern Ohio this November and December! There were only a handful of unbearable temp days and the rest were pretty mild.

Then today it was pouring on January 3rd and this is what we saw!

The area where the front porch is suppose to go, is completely filled with water! Kinda wishing it was snow and cold in January and not rain! We are under roof-the SNOW can come now!

Where the front porch is going to be. The Foyer is framed out and we have a new family room window!

Love the new roof too! Such a difference!

Standing in the kitchen looking into den where the new wall is ready for drywall!

Looking into Den- the new wall is up there too!

New windows!
C/O
Universal Windows Direct
universalwindowsdirect.com

Our concrete foundation and downspout tie-ins were done by
DeCesare & Sons Inc.
decesareandsonsinc.com

Our Septic was done by
Burnett's Septic Services
burnettssepticservice.com

We owe them all a huge Thank You!
This week we are finishing up some things in the house, electric and some plumbing!

 

 

 

 

 



Gut Instinct

Well we have had our share of ups and downs. We have torn out more things than we have put together. But this demo makes me happy. See this beautiful bench in the front entry, this was the one thing we were going to keep! I was just going to paint it, and add some pillows! Great right -WRONG!

See that bottom piece of wood next to the tile- well it looked like it had been wet at one time and it kept bothering me. the bench was solid, but I just had this weird feeling. I decided we needed to remove the bench because I just couldn't get rid of that feeling! Look what we found

That is the bottom of the bench- MOLD so we kept going......

That is the exterior wall- completely covered in mold and rotted out- the wall studs are completely rotted off from the floor to about a foot up- the brick exterior around the front door had been leaking for years! We could see daylight through the walls and brick!

Then we looked up and found this gem of a beehive- it was the size of a beach ball- luckily its tenants had vacated the premises and this was all that was left. See we are the only ones who see the beauty in this house! We also found some live carpenter ants- so our entire front entry needs to be rebuilt! Bonus right!

This is above the front door- after removing the ceiling!

 

Jason removing the exterior brick so we can rebuild the foyer! When we got to the bottom the machine went right through the board and it was filled with holes.





Me- giving him a break! Hard work!

Having a little fun in the midst of the hard  work!

We decided to remove most of the plaster- the ceiling had a leak and there was mold- this is Abby's room- all ready for windows and duct work!

Here's our room!
 My husband rocks! He does it all! Keeps me from going insane and does all of the tough work!
He basically did all of the demo in most of the house- luckily we had 2 of his friends that were able to help with the dining/kitchen and den. I am great at pulling out old nails! about  1000 of them! This week the HVAC ducts are being installed and all of the windows. They are also tying all of our gutters and draining to the front pond! Things are moving along quite nicely now. I only had a minor break down this week. But really can you blame me! Before we know it, we will be putting it back together!

Merry Christmas!