Day 108

Today is going to be an adventure...

We are going to spend the night at the new house. It will kind of be like camping out as we don't have our beds or most of our things there yet. But we are trying to save on the gas a little. We will do a little work tonight and then see what we can do tomorrow morning before we leave for Kristen's birthday.

Well, I guess I need to get a few things packed up so we will be ready for our first night in the new house.

Day 107

We stayed here and baked chocolate peanut butter chip cookies... Yummy!

Day 106

We put on the second coat of polyurethane today. And YAY the first of our craigslist items is sold. We only have one more coat of polyurethane left. Then we can move on to something else.

Day 105

With two house payments, and all the trouble we are having with our cars, we are quickly running low on money. So today, we won't be going over to the new house. It is time to put some of the things that were left in the house on craigslist and see if we can make a little money. I am hoping for a quick sale on all of the items we are listing. *HOPE*

Day 104

We went over to the house this evening to put the first coat of polyurethane on the bathroom floor. Too bad that it needs to dry for 3 to 4 hours between coats. It makes it a little hard to get much done in an evening. It seems like most of this week will be finishing the bathroom floor.


Here is the nice shiny floor after the first coat of polyurethane.


I also took some pictures of Jonathan's shop down in the basement. We started hauling over some of his tools. But we have quite a few more things to bring over and most of them are very heavy. :( Not looking forward to moving the shopsmith for one. Though when we get it all over here this will be a pretty nice shop. Much better than the back half of the garage like we were used to.

Day 103

Happy Birthday Ella...

After Ella had opened her presents and we got a few things done here at home we headed over to the new house.

It has been a little while since we have been there. First on the list was to see how many bees had died in Jonathan's last assault.


Here is the picture of the bathroom floor with many dead bees on it.

Then it was time to clean up the bathroom floor. After all of the bees were cleaned up. We started to sand the floor where we had done the patching. This was not a fun job. After the sanding it was time to clean again. We swept everything up so that we could get ready to paint.


Here is the bathroom floor with the grey paint on.

We had to let the grey paint dry before we could put the white on. So Jonathan and I went down to the basement to hang his shop cabinets. This turned out to be a much easier job then I was thinking it could have been. I guess this was due to Jonathan's great planning. We got the cabinets hung on the wall and the other ones on the floor against the wall. It is starting to look pretty nice down there.

And then it was time for the white paint. :)



Here is what the bathroom floor looked like when we left for the day.

It was time to go and pick up Zeb from his camp.

Day 102

We were having a crazy weekend and didn't get over to the new house today.

Day 101

The last 36 hours have been quite a day....

We were not able to work on the house today due to numerous reasons.... See Lisa's Place Blog for more details.

Hopefully the next 36 hours will be much better.

Day 100

Wow, somewhere along the way I think I must have miss counted. I can't believe that we have owned the house for 100 days already. Too bad we were just a little slow about getting in. It would have been cool to have moved in on the 100th day. But instead we are staying in Hickman, packing for the cub scout campout that Jonathan and Zeb are going to this weekend. Tomorrow it is going to be 96 degrees and I will have to do some baking. Ella wants to take cookies to the girl scout party. And I also need to bake her birthday cake. I am sure we will have to turn the a/c back on. It has been nice and cool here the first part of the week.

Well HAPPY 100th DAY NEW HOUSE! We can't wait until we can move into you. :D

Day 99

This evening we worked on the floor in the bathroom. We are filling the cracks and the seams so that we will be able to paint the floor. This is the first time we used something like this. Now that we have the seams filled we will have to sand it down just a bit. But we are getting closer to a finished bathroom everyday. :D



It was also time for Jonathan's second major assault on the bees. He has been spraying them everyday that we are over there. And there are usually up to twenty bees dead on the bathroom floor the next day. We have no idea how many of them die and lay outside or still in the walls. But tonight, it was nice and cool and Jonathan decided it was time to try and take off a board or two and see if we could get a bunch of them.

Here is Jonathan with a crowbar in one hand and bee spray in the other.

We always have the kids waiting safely in the car when we do something like this. Jonathan is wearing two layers of clothes and leather gloves to keep himself safe. I stand on the ground. It feels really wrong for me to be taking pictures when I am worried about what to do if the bees do start to attack Jonathan. But it has been working out good so far.

When Jonathan came down, I could see that there were many, many bees flying around in the bathroom. But I only saw about 20-40. Jonathan said that there were 100's swarming around the light. Hopefully they all got sprayed good enough to be dead when we go back.

Day 98

Today was the day for work to be done on the van... Jonathan replaced the spark plugs and the air filter. And tomorrow I will get the oil changed. Hopefully it will run better tomorrow.

Day 97

Ella had a birthday party this evening. So we didn't go over to the house.

Day 96

Today we went into Lincoln with Mom and Dad. Mom wanted to do a little birthday shopping. We had breakfast at Village Inn. That was yummy, then off to Target and Toys-r-us. Then Mom and Dad headed back to Worms. And we went to get some paint remover and other things we were going to need this week. We also took the afternoon off and went to see Harry Potter. :D

Day 95

Good morning Mars room... The Mars room now has a clean white look about it. Mom and Dad finished painting it last night after we took the kids home and put them to bed. :) It is looking pretty good.

Philip, Andrea and the kids came over to help again this morning. :) Our kids are excited to get to play with their cousins. And Jonathan and I really appreciate all of the help.

And now on to the Green Room.



As you can see it is not very "green" any more. Andrea, Mom and I worked on making the Green Room clean and white.

Here is Jonathan working on the floor in the bathroom.

Jonathan, Philip and Dad were working on the bathroom again. They got the rest of the rotten floor out, worked on the plumbing and replaced the subfloor. They also did a bit more on the sheetrock and got it taped. They did have to remove the only usable toilet in the house for several hours while they worked on the floor. Guess how many times one or more of the 6 children needed to go to the bathroom while there wasn't one working in the house. . . They people over at the gas station started to wonder about us. ;) We were all happy when the toilet was once again able to be used.


Sorry about the dark picture... But here is Dad pretending to sleep in the bathroom.

Day 94

Mom and Dad came back up today.

We are painting the Mars room. Mom will probably have it finished by the time we get back there tomorrow. We were working on getting the plumbing laid out in the bathroom. Dad is also planning on getting the sheetrock taped up.

Day 93

We went into Lincoln to do some shopping. We still need the light fixtures for over the sink. We also needed to get some plumbing supplies. Hopefully we will have most of what we need to get the sink and tub hooked up to the drain.

We spent some time looking at the wainscot. We are trying to decide what we are going to be putting back in that bathroom. We did find some really cool wallpaper for the bathroom. And the great thing is that it was on sale. :) YAY!

Day 92

After swimming lessons, the kids and I dropped off some more boxes at the house.

This evening Jonathan and I worked a little in the bathroom. We needed to take measurements and figure out what was happening with the plumbing and everything in there.

Day 91

Today was a day of rest. :) We stayed at home and relaxed.

Day 90

This evening Jonathan and I went in to take a look at the 2nd floor bathroom. We took a few measurements to see how the mirror and lights would fit with the placement of the sink and tub. (we don't have the lights we want yet for over the sink) We also needed to see if the radiators that he was looking at would fit. When we had finished with the measurements we moved on to taking off some of the bad floor boards. The boards that had been under the tub were in bad shape and need to be replaced before we do anything else. We got all of those boards off and carried down to the dumpster. And as usual, before we headed back home, Jonathan sprayed the bees.


This is a picture of the floor that we have removed. We found three bricks hiding between the floor. I wonder what they were doing in there.


Inside the floor you can see the old pipes and the new pex that we are putting in. You can also see a lot of dirt and plaster that fell down into the floor.

On our way out the door, I stopped to take a picture of our new neighbors. It looks like a small group of fairies have moved into our garden.

Day 89

Because there are two "floors" in the 2nd floor bathroom our heating plans will not work there. The addition on 2nd floor was build one step lower then the rest of our house (the kitchen and bathroom on both 1st and 2nd floor was an addition to the house) and the ceiling is lower in this part of the house. We are thinking this is because this was where the servants might have lived. At some time, the 2nd floor bathroom had a second floor put in so that it would match the floor level of the rest of the 2nd floor. The heating that we have decided on was running pex tubing under the floor and using hot water to heat our house. But now with two floors under the bathroom it just isn't going to work there. So we decided to head into Lincoln and find a different answer.

My family is going to come back up next weekend to finish the bathroom. So we need to get a few things figured out before they get here and we finish the bathroom. First is the heating... second we need to find some lighting for over the sink... third we need a mirror for over the sink.

So our first three stops are the home improvement stores. Where we find nothing we really like for any of our three problems. Then we head off to some of the antique shops. We find several things we like here. But not just the right thing for the lighting problem. We have a couple of lights that we picked up from craigslist several months ago. We had thought that they might work. But needed to know how much room the mirror was going to take. After our day of shopping we are thinking that they might work for us. We did find a mirror that we really like. The ladies at the antique shop both thought it was a beautiful mirror as well. So tomorrow we will have to put the new mirror next to our lights and see what we think. We still have the problem of heat for the bathroom. Since we have gotten home Jonathan has been doing some research and we think that we might have that worked out as well. It looks like we can use the same water set-up that we are planning on, but in the bathroom we will use a radiator to bring the heat into the room. This will take a bit more research, but it is looking good.

We are even starting to think of colors for the room. :D Finally we are starting on the fun part. I can't wait to see what the room will look like when we are finished.




Here is the mirror that we bought for the bathroom.


This is the top part of the mirror.

Day 88

Mom and Dad left a bit before the rest of us. Before we got there, Dad had gotten all of the lathe off of the wall behind the toilet and he had sprayed the bees - really well. After they felt safe to go back in the room they could no longer hear the bees. We are sure that not all of them were killed, but we are getting closer. They then started cleaning the walls in the kitchen and the back hallway. Mom brought up some paint that she had left over from painting her kitchen. She was planning on getting some of the rooms cleaned and painted while the guys worked on the bathroom.


Here is Mom up on the ladder painting the wall.


Clean, blue walls. :)

While Mom was painting, Andrea and I were cleaning the shelves and drawers and putting shelf liner on them.


Here is Andrea working on one of the shelves.


Here Dad is taking up the floor boards in the bathroom. We are going to have to put down a new floor in the bathroom as too much of if was damaged by water. (from the pipes and the radiators and leaks from the roof) We are going to use these good boards to replace the rotten boards over by the stairs. So Dad is carefully taking up the boards and removing the nails.


Philip and Jonathan are working out were the lights, outlets and switches are going to be in the bathroom.




Time to put up the sheetrock. :) No more outhouse for me.


The future site of the pedestal sink.


And now there is an outlet in the bathroom. It still isn't hooked up to the power but it will be soon. We decided to go with the brown outlets.


Here you can see the new wiring and the box for the light switch. We are almost ready to go.

As usual our day went by way to fast and it was time to stop. Mom got the kitchen painted and started down the stairs before she ran out of paint. Andrea and I got most of the cabinets cleaned and lined, but not quite finished. Jonathan got the wire in the bathroom and down through the first floor and into the basement and is ready to hook up the power to the bathroom. And Dad and Philip got about half of the sheetrock up in the bathroom. Then it was time to clean up and bit and call it a weekend.

Day 87

We found out today that Mom, Dad, Philip and Andrea decided to come over and help us at the house tonight and tomorrow. Jonathan's car got fixed and is ready to pick up. So we will run over there and get the car after he gets off of work. Then we will head over to Beatrice to meet my family and work on the house.

It was quite hot over at the house this evening. We got a bunch of the windows open and started our fans. We are a bit concerned about what we are going to do with the bees. Jonathan has been spraying them most every day when we are there. Now that we have most of the plaster and lathe off of the wall in the bathroom, we can just hear them buzzing and making all sorts of noise in the wall. It is quite creepy to use the bathroom. I was glad that we at didn't find them behind the lathe. But we really do need to find some way to get rid of them.

Jonathan and I got all of the rubble hauled down to the dumpster before anyone got there. Mom and Dad brought down Grandma's stove. We are going to be using her stove. Dad and Philip got that brought into the house. It was a busy night. We didn't get back to Hickman until around 10 pm. Then off to bed. We are going to have a busy day tomorrow.

Day 86

We were going to go over to the house and finish up the wall. The dumpster should have been delivered sometime today. But there was a problem. Jonathan's car died while he was at the library over lunch. So instead we will be going into Lincoln to pick Jonathan up and see what we can do with his car.

Day 85

Today at the house we worked at getting the wall taken out of the hallway. We wanted to get this room all opened up and ready for us to move in.



Here you can see most of the wall ripped out and laying on the floor. We sent our last dumpster back and haven't ordered a new one yet. So all of our trash is going to have to just set here for a bit.


Here is a view of the room from the other side.

We really like how having this wall out has opened up the room and made everything more light. Now we just need to clean up our mess.

Day 84

Second day of swimming lessons. After they were finished we stopped at the house to unload all of the things I had packed yesterday. The kids and I stayed and had lunch at the house. I did just a little bit of cleaning. I am thinking about unpacking some of the boxes...at least the ones with the kids' games and things in them. This would give them some more things to do when we are working. But I didn't get a very big start on that, maybe I will try again tomorrow.

Day 83

It was the first day of swimming lessons. I had thought about working at the house after their lessons. But we ended up just going home. I did however pack the van full of stuff to take over to the house tomorrow.

We didn't go over to the house this evening. We stayed home and had a family night. We are starting to learn calligraphy with the kids.

Day 82

Today we went into Lincoln to look at some things for the house. We ended up getting a light/exhaust fan for the bathroom and some wire. We are still thinking about a few other things. We need to get a bunch of stuff decided so that we can finish that bathroom.

Day 81

Happy 4th of July!

Mom and Dad woke up in the morning and hadn't been bother by any ghosts. :) After we had left last night it had started to rain. There were a couple of places where the house was leaking. They went around and found them all. As expected it was leaking on the third floor around the tower roof. Dad really wants us to just pick some sort of shingle and do the part of the tower roof that we can get to by standing on the flat roof. It was also leaking around the chimney. We still need to get the flashing back on around the chimney.

This morning it was once again back to work on the bathroom. When we got to the house, Mom and Dad had already gotten the lathe off of the ceiling and most of the insulation bagged and carried downstairs. We continued hauling the plaster, lathe and insulation out to the dumpster. YAY it is full.

Here is the bathroom. :) If you look closely in the picture you can see that there is still yucky tile under the toilet and there is plaster and lathe behind the toilet. Beside the toilet you can see the bricks of one of the chimneys. As this is currently the only working toilet in the house, we don't want to take it out (to remove the plaster and the tile) until we are ready to put everything back in.

This is the part of the bathroom where the tub will go. You can see that we have all of the plaster and lathe off of this side of the wall. We are not ready to work on the hallway or the kitchen that is on the other side of the bathroom wall. So we carefully took off the plaster so that we didn't damage the other wall. did you notice the light fixture just hanging off of a nail on the left side of the picture. Last night while we were working Dad knocked the light off of the wall when he was removing the lathe.

This picture is of the same part of the bathroom I just wanted to get the ceiling...or lack of ceiling. All of the plaster, lathe and insulation has been removed.

Then we started taking down the wall at the top of the stairs. It was put in when they made the 2nd floor into two apartments. We got most of the drywall off of the wall. Even with the studs still there it has really opened up the room and made it brighter - both in the 'hallway' and in the room.


Here is the wall that we are taking down. When we figured out that this wall wasn't an original wall we decided to take it out. We want to try and make the house more like it was originally. And it will be nice to add the extra 3 feet to the usable living space. We are going to be using this room as our living/dining room when we first move in.

Well our work is done for the day. Time to head back home and buy some fireworks, take a shower and just sit for a little bit. :)

Day 80

Mom and Dad came up today. Dad went up to the roof to finish that little strip that was left. He was almost finished with this by the time Jonathan, the kids and I got to Beatrice. Then we all started working on the bathroom. Jonathan and Dad were knocking the plaster and lathe down. Mom and I carried the rubble down to the dumpster.

The bathroom is looking more and more like an outhouse. ;) My Dad thinks I am crazy and we should go with the nice clean and new look of drywall and paint. Of course this is the whole point of taking down the old yucky plaster.

Dad wanted to spend the night at the house so that he could start working right away in the morning. So we took over the air mattress and bedding. Melinda has been wanting to sleep in the new house for months now. So she wished that she could stay there with Grandpa and Grandma.

Day 79

Jonathan took the day off of work today. We went over to Beatrice and took care of some "business hour" things. We went over to the courthouse and paid the taxes on the house. We also got our new drivers' license. We didn't do any work on the house. today. But got a lot of other important things taken care of.

Day 78

This evening we did some more work on the bathroom on 2nd floor. We continued to take down the wainscoting and we knocked down some more of the plaster. It is looking more and more like an outhouse...