Labor of Love

 

Full Disclosure-This post has lots of words and lots of pictures. This blog is how I document family happenings, and this was quite the process!

Shortly after Papa died, the kids felt we needed to consider moving to Papa and Grandmother's house. (They mentioned something about all the stairs and us getting older......What??) After being in our house for 34 years, I was not originally sold on the idea.  After some serious persuading, we began the process of renovating the house with plans to move.  The house had excellent bones, but was seriously outdated.  Reed began the process of making the house ours, and did most of the work on his own.  We did receive some excellent help along the way.  Lindsey and Josh painted almost the entire house, and helped install much of the new floors among many other things. Willie, Caleb, Skip, our precious grandbabies and others helped along the way. Sadly, Willie passed away during the renovation, and is greatly missed.

 Our goal was to take our time, complete projects as we could, and not be rushed.  This plan worked great until we sold our house earlier than planned.  We moved in with no kitchen and several little projects still uncompleted. I moved all of the little stuff in two laundry baskets, and set things up as I went.  We had a big moving day for the big stuff.  After the move, we continued working, and before we knew it, most things were finished!  I am going to list just a few of the things that were done.

1. The work began outside and included painting, new shutters, repairing boards that were eaten by squirrels, extensive roof work, wrapping the columns, replacing facial boards, new outdoor ceiling fans, yardwork, and eventually the pool.

2.  We moved indoors and replaced the front door, painted the entire house, painted the tile in two bathrooms, updated the bathrooms and more.

3.  One of our favorite projects was the new ceilings in the den, dining room, kitchen, our bedroom, and the bathrooms.  Reed's work on the ceilings and beams is just beautiful.

4.  Took a wall out of the kitchen, added a support beam and gutted the kitchen. This opened up the kitchen and dining room, and it's now my favorite part of the house.

5.  Added over 2300 square feet of flooring. We have plans to complete one or two of the back bedroom's flooring in the future.

6. Installed a beautiful new kitchen after waiting on cabinets for 19 weeks.  The work in the kitchen included new cabinets, ceiling, floors, island, backsplash, crown moulding, countertops, farm house sink and more.

7. Installed multiple new ceiling fans and light fixtures.

8, Completed a ton of electrical and plumbing issues.

9.  Installed new commodes and two new vanities.

10. Whitewashed 2 fireplaces.  Installed a new fireplace door, and converted it back to a woodworking fireplace.

11.  We literally lost count of the loads of stuff we threw away, gave away and took to the thrift store.

12. Installed a pool.

13. Installed 2 new AC units.

14.  Yardwork will continue forever! 

Before and during in no particular order-

Moving Day

She had one job-don't let Jesus get broken!! :)

After- Again in no particular order or season

Landscaping and sod coming this Spring.

Even though I was reluctant to move in the beginning, I can truly say that this is now home.  And as I looked at the "after" pictures, there has already been lots of little changes to rooms. The grandkids love having their own rooms and the yard.  Speaking of the yard, it's either going to kill me or keep me young!  

Come see us!