Letting go of the Nightmare.

Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that our house, much to our dismay, was foreclosed on.   Not only that, but when it went to Sheriff's Sale, the church that we attended next door, bought it.  While my husband had spoken with the 'owner' of the church several times before and after the acquisition, it was not our intention to just let the house go.  My husband thought after the conversations he had with the owner that the owner understood that we still wanted the house and if he could get it for us, we would pay him back.  When the time came he bought the house with church funds to be used as their parsonage and therefore, we could not buy it back, unless they sold it in future and then it would have to be at fair market value.  Needless to say, we  were saddened by this.  But, we were able to purchase an old gutted home in town and fix it up and actually just paid off the final payment to the fella we were buying it from last month!  So now we have no house payment; no bank involved.  The taxes are low and we will be paying them soon.  So things are looking up.  But while all of the foreclosure/sheriff's sale was going on we received a form from the Independent Foreclosure Review to see if we qualified for being foreclosed on 'improperly'.   After all of this time we finally got a payment from them.  It was a very small percentage of what the house was worth and there is no appeal process, but it makes me feel better that I can show you this snippet from the form, to say that they know that we were wrongfully foreclosed.     If you want to read my prior laments you can go to the label "Troubling Times".  You can also go to "New Home" and see the work that we did on this new house.

God has provided for us graciously.

The sun is shining today and it should be beautiful and 76°.  So as I finish the post I am saying good bye to this nightmare we have been living through and hello to a bright future! 

Until next time.

www.occ.gov

www.federalreserve.gov

We Have Running Water!

Pantility Update update.

Everything looks slanty in this photo, but it isn't.  Shelves will go below in between the cabinets and a little 8 inch shelf on the left of the wall cabinets.  Starting to come together.

Pantiility Update

The pantility is coming along quite nicely.  Looky here.

These cabinets were here when we got the house.  So was the red stain...so in keeping with our theme of "Keep it Cheap"  (inexpensive) we used them both.  We are also leaving the grey wooden wall as is.  The new wall that Chris made will be painted a shade of grey. The fella we are buying the house from had painted the outside of the house and there was a lot of left over paint...in the basement that color.  So.....grey it is.

Kitchen Update

The kitchen is coming along.

Flooring - Upstairs

Here is what the flooring looks like.  We like it alot.

Floating Floor

We got a good deal at Lowe's on this floating floor. Floating floor does not adhere to the existing floor, it adheres to itself. Very neat. We like it. This flooring is upstairs.
Armstrong Exquisite Rustic Gunstock.

Chris cutting the LAST piece of drywall.

All drywall that was stacked on the floor...is now on the walls and ceilings. Ahhhh.

Kitchen Counter Top, Etc.

Shelves are level.

Kitchen

The ceiling. The ceiling had already been lowered and lights set in when we acquired it. We are just finishing what was started.

Instead of wall cabinets we are using shelves.

The Pantility-day 2

The pantility needed a wall to separate it from the garage. Here is the backside....not quite finished but you get the idea.

Doorway and some drywall on the pantility side.

Disregard the mess....it's gonna be one for a while.

We are quite blessed that my husband does this kind of thing for a living....FREE labor!

The Pantility!

The kitchen will be a tad on the smallish side. Well, it wouldn't be if we didn't put in the fridge, stove, dishwasher and sink! Ha! But.....we decided we would. So as we plan things out it gets smaller. Off of the kitchen is the little garage. Chris decided to make a pantry / utility room out of a section of the garage. Thus, the title of this post. So yesterday we did the floor. Ceiling and the new wall are forthcoming. I want to keep the gray walls and ratty windows. When I was young we lived next to my grandma and her house old and COOL. Her front porch was wooden planks that were painted -in my memory- this color of gray. So I let Chris know that if he wasn't set on covering it up I would love to keep it like that. It will be cheaper to keep it like that and we are all about 'cheap'...well we are about keeping costs down. We didn't go cheap when we bought the toilet and I can't wait to show it to you-soon.

He put on a few layers to get to the right height and keep the moisture off the actual floor. The actual floor is DIRT COLORED. I have wanted a dirt colored floor for a long time. You know...so the dirt won't show as much. Molly's chocolate lab hair will blend right in!!! We bought some of the 'less' expensive stick on tiles. I was loving it til toward the end I realized that drywall dust tracked over the floor leaves foot prints! So hopefully once the drywall dust has been ERADICATED! **never will happen**...it will look nice..like dirt should look. :)

This block board (I think that is was it is called) went down first.

Then another layer.

He was going to put Luan down, but this was a bit cheaper so he tried it.

Drywall - Bedroom w/Closet

It seemed like it took forever to dry wall this room. Glad it's done. Just one more wall and ceiling to go-dry wall-wise.

Will the dust ever go away? **cough cough**

Doing Drywall

This wall obviously had some leaking problems. Chris fixed it inside and out. Then he put up the heavy looking plywood, a piece of luan and then the drywall.

Counterweights

While insulating around a window I ran across these weights attached to cables threaded through the window frame.
Old timey for sure.
We assume they are counterweights.
As much as we didn't want to cut them out we had to.
I need to get the insulation in.
There were four of them on this window. Two above and two below.
Quite heavy.

Insulation - Friend or Foe?

The first day we put in insulation I didn't wear a mask. Um....the second day, which was today and Margaret helped me, I wore a mask. Just the little blue kind you would use for light duty dust. It made a huge difference. Insulation is no easy task, although it seems easy enough. A lot of bending, climbing on ladders, cutting and UGH! the staples. When the staple gun worked, it was great! But like our computers....when they don't work.....things get ugly. :) We made it through and she and I will hopefully complete the task on Monday.

Flooring- Closet and Bath

What the previous owner was going to make a large bathroom, we divided into a walk-in closet and smaller bathroom. The floors needed some TLC.

He cut out the bad spots and patched them then in the closet laid a big thick piece of plywood with a vapor barrier on the back (it has a name but I don't recall it). He went to a nearby town to purchase the plywood at half the price of regular. :)

He laid a different type of flooring down in the bathroom. It was thinner...again has a name...I don't know what it is...luan or something.

You can see the separation with the 2 x 4 of the bath and closet.
We pulled some boxes of *stick on* tile from The Pile and proceeded to have fun.

A view from the kitchen looking through the 'wall' at the flooring after set the tub in to get a visual. The tub has two additional pieces that create a surround effect. My sister and her husband had this tub stored in their barn and when they realized they couldn't use it they graciously gave it to us.

Venting

The microwave hood in the kitchen and the vent in the bathroom needed to be vented outside. Chris went to the store to get the venting. When I walked in to the house I saw pvc sewage pipes. I asked if he would be working on the 'sewage' that day and he said...no, these are half the price of the 'shiny' venting. In reality the air needs a tube to travel through and it doesn't care what kind it is..it just wants to go outside. (sometimes you gotta think like air-LOL)
He DID purchase the proper joins and so forth, but decided to go with the pvc for in between.

before

after

Bathroom-Ceiling light-vent

The previous owner of the house had purchased several items to be used in remodeling it. When the house changed hands, basically, those items came with the house. It is up to us if we want to use them or not.
Since we are on a mission to be house payment/mortgage free by next summer we are using as much of that as possible. There wasn't a bathroom light/vent in the *pile* so we picked this one up at Lowe's. What I like about it is that there is no visible 'vent grating' (I not sure what they are called but it is where all the unsightly dust ends up)

Here is a little insight on how we pick things out.
There may have been 12-15 light/vent units to choose from ranging from inexpensive to expensive. But then you have the 'sound' rating to consider and how fast the little blades in the fan turns, and so on. (lol) I am not into that so much as: is it cute? Chris on the other hand can figure all of that out in the amount of time that it takes me to decide if something is cute. And in all honesty, I don't really care, just as long as it functions properly. Because it can be cute all day and not work right and then things get ugly. Somehow, this little unit worked for both of us. :) yay.