House Construction Update

*Pictures eventually. They have to be loaded and sent from another computer. Can't wait to have a camera again!)

We have been living in our house about 20 months now. It's pretty easy to remember since Isaac was born a month after we moved in. (It's also easy to remember how long we have lived in Knoxville, since Caleb was 6 weeks old when we moved.)

Since I'm doing a blogging spurt and don't know how long until I will do another one, I thought I would give a quick update as to where we are at with the house construction.

We have gotten a few things done since the new year, mostly in the last couple weeks.
* At the beginning of the year I hung the shelving units in our laundry room to help put away tubs and find room Christmas presents. (Only a small pile left in our room of things that don't have a spot yet - can't wait until it's gone!)
* I got tired of tripping over a transition strip that was never really fastened between the bathroom and hallway. I ripped it off and glued it down with liquid nails about 2-3 weeks ago. It took a good week to dry, with weights on to hold it down, because of the high humidity in the house.
* We still hadn't gotten the air conditioner in, and due to the high humidity and heat this spring, it was becoming quite musty smelling in our house - clothes and all. My dad came down last week and he and Ethan spent a day installing the air conditioner. Just in time for more heat and humidity with all of our storms!
* Ethan wired the electric for the air conditioner so we could turn it on. Very important!
* While my dad was here he rehung a kitchen cabinet that had detached from the wall a few weeks prior. He is a woodwork and even made his own cabinets for his house. He had a lot to say about how even "good quality" purchased cabinets are made. :) By the way - you can check out some of his work and items for sale on his Tom Kies Woodworks site.
* While the guys were working on the air conditioner, I finished up the edging on the deck while my dad cut the boards to size.
* I hung guest towel hangers in the bathroom and rehung with bigger wall anchors the hand towel hanger that had been pulled out of the wall by the kids. (I also moved it so it was easier to reach!)

Those were all projects that I am so thankful to have done. They were all either big annoyances or bigger discomforts.

We still have quite a bit to do yet, although some of them are not really that big of an annoyance, they will be nice to just have done.

Inside the house construction:
* We need to put trim around the air conditioner and custom make an outlet cover.
* Our dryer needs to be vented outside. It is nice to have the extra heat and humidity in the winter, but not in the summer.
* The fire alarms need to be wired in and wired together. We have an alarm in the attic by the stove pipe that will sound an alarm in the house. We do have battery alarms right now though.
* The mud room sink needs to be hooked up to plumbing. This will be nice to keep dirt out of the bathroom and off the bathroom towels. It will also be a lot easier to wash eggs - I won't have to use the kitchen sink. (Fall 2010)
* The mud room ceiling light fixture needs to be hung.
* There is a mud room outlet that needs to be installed and hooked up to the breaker box.
* The mud room window trim needs to be painted.
* The telephone jacks need to be wired in and hooked up. (Since we don't have a land line, this is one of those things that gets overlooked easily!)
* Touch up painting needs to be done. We had great help on painting day before we moved in, but it went later into the evening when light was scare so there are quite a few missed spots.
* There are some switches that were switched when wired that need to be switched back to reduce walks across the room.
* I need to redo a few tiles on the wall around the base of the tub. ** Actually, now I found out I need to redo the flooring, trim around the tub area, some plumbing, and even more tiles. A piece was left off or out of the package that prevents water from getting behind the tile and we now have a mess!
* We need to construct a movable heat barrier to put between the desk and the wood stove for the winter. (We have a make shift one now that balances on a wire basket and tips frequently when bumped.)
* Blinds need to be hung and/or curtains need to be made or bought. (I will admit that we have some bath towels and blankets that serve as curtains.)
* Springing doorstops need to be attached to walls.
* Door handles need to be put on closet doors.
* The nail holes in the trim need to be filled.
* The rust on our wood stove needs to be sanded off and it needs to be repainted. (Too much humidity.)
* And not really construction, but I would like to do a bit more decorating and hanging up of family photos.

Outside the house construction:
* To go along with the dryer vent, I need a clothesline outside. I don't dry much in the dryer, but hang drying it inside still adds the humidity even if you don't get the heat. I've tried drying on racks outside, but they either get blown over or the clothes get filled with bugs that will then be brought in the house.
* The pallet in front of our mud room door needs to be removed and replaces with a real step or entrance.
* The outdoor house lights work but the fixtures need some bolt cutter action to make them hang right.
* The outdoor house outlets need to be wired in.
* The door bells need to be installed and hooked up both inside and out.
* River rock needs to be brought in to make the walkway from our drive to our house - now we just have mud and feed sacks if you don't walk on the lawn. (PLEASE feel free to walk on our lawn if you visit!!!)
* The porch overhang needs to have a roof underneath to finish it off and keep birds from nesting under it.
* We need to trench around 2/3 of the house yet to install the foam frost barrier.
* We need to spray foam under the house between the cement and 2x6 boards, as well as spray foam around the air conditioner we just installed.
* We need to put a rock border around the house to keep the chickens from scratching to and eating the frost barrier foam.
* Gutters need to be installed.

House shed construction:
* It needs to be cleaned out of construction materials and reorganized so it is more functional than storage.
* Lots and lots of shelves and hooks need to be put up once cleaned out. :)
* It needs to be wired
* We want to make a freezer room on the far end of it since we will have a hard time moving forward in sales with our current freezer. (It only holds 2 hogs or 1 beef. I am having to turn over my home freezer - it had been inspected too - to hold more, and we still have serious space issues!)

I'm sure I forgot some things, but that is what comes to mind right now. Don't even get me started on the list of things to do outside/farm wise yet - it is much, much longer and more time consuming! I so want to be set up and settled in all around, but you can only chip away at things so fast. As overwhelming as all of the work seems yet, I do have to remember that this property was just sod and prairie grass with some old overgrown fence line to rip out when we bought it in 2008. Also, I'm sure you all have fix it and to do lists just as long. :)

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