Home Remodeling

This last week marked one year for us in our first house. Mostly I hate our house because it steals any and all free time I get, but I can see a time in the very near future were we won't live in the basement and I will really enjoy what we have. On to some pictures of what we've been doing. You can go here to see some older pics of the remodel.

This was the least fun window to replace. And I did this one by myself. Up and down the ladder all afternoon! Our upstairs has 9 windows and because I have very generous friends, I only had to do three of them by myself, which was a huge blessing.
Jordan (my brother-in-law) came out and gave me a ton of help in January. We hung drywall in the bedrooms and refinished the bedroom and hallway floors. The picture below is after one pass over the floor on the right and nothing done on the left. After three or four passes we had a nice looking floor. Somehow I managed to not get any pics of the finished product and now it's all covered up with plastic and cardboard to protect it. So you'll just have to wait. But it really looks amazing.

This is the hole in the floor that my wife fell through in January. Her brother was helping me refinish floors and hang dry wall and we had taken out the floor grate and were just working around it. Shiloh chose to try to levitate over it instead, and through it she went into the water heater room. Luckily all she received was a scraped up hip. Here brother said she was there and then when he tuned around she had just vanished! That hole is now recovered with the grate as well as filled with plywood supported by a few 2x4's.

A few guys came over and helped me replace our ginormous 9 foot long window and finish hanging the drywall. To make the new header fit into the wall we had to use two car jacks to raise the ceiling up just a tad. Let me tell you, there is almost nothing worse than hearing the entire roof of your house creaking all around knowing you have to make it go just a little more. Big thanks on this day to Al, Richard, Jerry, and Josiah.

My dad helping pour and finish the concrete pad for the new shed

Our new shed all finished. I also built shelves and a workbench inside. My friend Daniel helped me for an entire Sunday afternoon and evening to get this thing up. I think it took about 25 man hours in the end

This last weekend I pulled the siding off of the house so it can be resided this week and next. The guys that are doing the siding are also building us a new front porch for a sweet price. Along with all this I got to jackhammer the front two steps off the old concrete porch. One piece of advice: DON'T EVER USE A JACKHAMMER. IT'S NOT FUN OR COOL. IT JUST BEATS YOU UP HOUR AFTER ENDLESS HOUR! Obviously, I enjoyed the jackhammering.

There are millions of little things that get done but that never get a picture taken. We replaced the screen door, I installed cable boxes, Shiloh has painted for hours, we planted grass and a tree and the list goes on and on. Finished pictures to come this summer!