Day 129

We were going to work on the house this evening. But Grandpa and Grandma were coming up to celebrate Zebbie's birthday. His birthday isn't until Monday, but weekends work better for Grandpa and Grandma. So we went out to eat for his birthday. Zeb wanted to eat ribs at Famous Daves. :) It was really good. Happy early birthday. After eating we did go to Menards to look at some things we might be needing for the house very soon. We were looking at the pipe for the wood burning stove. We need to get that figured out and working soon.

Day 128

Today we stayed home to do some calculating and trying to make some decisions.

Day 127

We started the day by bringing in the marble that we are going to use for the hearth. Then we went downstairs to get the tile that we had found in the house. We were thinking that this tile must have come from around one of the fireplaces. We were thinking that we could use this tile with the marble some way. And we wanted to see how they went together.

The two small tiles are things that we found in the basement. Now all we need to do is figure out what we want to do with them. :)

Jonathan attached the sink to the wall. Then it started raining. We haven't been there when it was raining for quite awhile. We knew that it leaked a little bit next to the chimney. But when the water started running down the wall I got a bit worried. We look around for a way to try and catch some of that water. Then I headed up to third floor to see how things were doing up there. By this time it was really pouring outside. Around the tower roof it was leaking in (a ton of water was coming in). So I looked around in the dark (we have the power shut of to the third floor right now) for some buckets or any containers to catch the water.

It was still raining quite hard when we decided to go back home. There was water everywhere, running to the van, I was stepping in water up to my ankles. We learned one thing from this storm... lots of water CAN still get inside our house.

Day 126

We worked a bit at the house today. But due to issues of not having certain tools at the house or being able to buy the pipe we need we didn't get as much done as we had hoped. Jonathan got the tub hooked up to the drain. Now all we need is to get the supply lines hooked up to the tub. :)

We also figured out which wood stove we were going to buy. We bought the materials to put down for the hearth.


This is the stove we are planning on buying, the Jotul Firelight. We are going to run the stove pipe up through the existing chimney in the second floor tower room.

Day 125

Because we discovered yesterday that our heating plans would not work well for us, Jonathan went to the fireplace store to check out some wood stoves and bring home some information for us to look over.

After supper we went over to the house to see just what it looked like behind the wall in the tower room.



After taking out the floor we had decided that there had been a fireplace here. But until Jonathan knocked a hole in the wall we didn't have any idea of what it would look like or if we were even right. But sure enough there behind the sheetrock and plaster we found bricks and a fireplace. Jonathan looked up and saw daylight through the chimney. This was a happy sight as we are now thinking of using this as our source of heat. We are looking into getting a wood stove and hooking it in through the chimney.


This is going to change our plans of sleeping arrangements as the girls had been going to be using this room as their bedroom. We will not have them sleeping in here with a wood stove. So now we are either going to be sleeping in this room. Or we will use this as our living/dining area. And either the girls or we would have to sleep in the main room. Still a lot to think about. For the new couple of days we will be learning all we can about these wood stoves so that we can make the right choice and start getting thing ready to heat the house during the winter months.

Day 124

We took a lot of measurements today. We need to do some calculations as to what we are going to have to do for a heater this winter. So we measured all of the rooms, windows and doors. Jonathan put all of this up in Google sketch up. It is neat to be able to move around in our house on the computer and see where all of the doors and windows are. But the bad news is that heating is not looking very good. We knew that it was going to be bad as there is no insulation and the windows and doors leak. But wow, we need to do a lot of thinking or we could get pretty cold this winter. It is hard planning for what we have and trying to keep in mind what we will be having in the future. If you have any extra blankets, we might need them. ;)

Day 123

Time for the big birthday party. But more about that on our other blog. After the party we gave a couple of tours of the house. It was a fun and tiring day. But best of all, our party was right in the middle of the storms that came through. :D


The pool was full of big splashes today.