I miss our backyard. Though these days it is nothing but grass weeds. lol This was in 2012. I worked on it for the oldest son’s graduation party. Fun. Definitely no stepping stones anymore. i put them out front. Grass has grown over now. Grass has overgrown it. The bottles were a sugar drink that the son drank. Can’t even see the white rocks anymore. The middle son’s tree from school. The only one we planted. lol It’s grown into a bush like tree.Most is all grass now or rather weed grass. lolNo longer have the swing. Winds blew it many times so we threw it away. Miss swinging. The canopy is here in JC in the garage. Maybe someday put it up.
The driving on the road hubby did after army retirement kept us not coming back, and then the pandemic didn’t help any, and finally the last year and half my stroke really changed stuff. I like to take charge with stuff on my own and can’t now. I still have little use of one arm and slow energy. I hate it. But not giving up just less I can do. Changes things a lot. Won’t look like that anymore but glad I took pictures.
Stay in shape people because you may regret it. I do.
There was some weather back home where we still have our house and grandparents. Knocked out windows and did car damage. Pretty good hail no tornado but did damage. Sometimes the wind does worse in that area, northwest Kansas.
Our house. Sad. The only one thank goodness.
Grandparents house. So sad but it needs work done anyway just wasn’t ready for this. Old windows, many storms, board it up until we fix the house with new windows. So glad we have family there to help us take care of it. With gas prices it is a little hard to go fix, a 4 hour drive from here. We are going to fix it good just need to do the roof this fall first. Many things to fix but it will get done because we want to. It is for the grandparents even though they are gone to heaven. The family house, my home for most of my life. A small town but lots of good memories.
Our house is going to be broken down and use at grandparents. Lots of good wood, remaining windows, kitchen counters, etc. It is the right thing to do for the family I hope they will see that. Would be nice to win the lottery but that won’t happen. lol
This wall will sometime in the future be my rows of shelves for my books. I have not brought all my books from the Puzzle House yet. I am waiting until this is done so we don’t have to work around them. I have well over 1000 books. A few years ago I cataloged all but the paperback Harlequin novels on a phone app. I lost the app when I changed phones.
Bummer. I will catalog again one day. 🙂
I don’t think I will bring the Harlequin novels here, thinking I will keep them at the Puzzle House. After all, need books there too!
(Puzzle House, Oberlin)
This is my library at the Puzzle House. I miss those shelves. Hubby did a great job making them. Once all the books are off I need to sand and put a clear coat on so I can actually dust them. It is rather difficult dusting right now because the cloth sticks to the shelve. I didn’t sand only painted. I’m thinking of doing some wire doors in areas of the shelves. I think that will be neat looking.
Currently this room was our master bedroom. We are now going to make it our living, library, storage closet (to the left there which was my walk-in closet) and TV room. 🙂
My favorite collection is my V.C. Andrews novels. I am behind on buying them and way behind on reading the new ones. 🙂 I first read My Sweet Audrina in Jr. High. I was hooked. I have only read this one and the Flowers in the Attic series. Yes, I am way behind on reading all the other series. I kept buying them because I knew I would read them someday. I think that day is coming.
Our weekend was spent demolishing our kitchen, again. I do believe this is the third time we have removed the cabinets. This should be the last time for several decades, I hope. 🙂
When I moved into this house it had a very small kitchen. I love the size of the kitchen now. It is more than doubled the old size.
After twelve years of living in a construction zone, we moved across the state for hubby’s military career. Now, we only have to live in it during a weekend and then we get to ESCAPE!
YAY!
I can handle that. I think we all were tired of the dirt and boxes of stuff packed everywhere.
It does look a heck of a lot better and hubby does a wonderful job. Plus, it keeps him busy, mind and body. 🙂 It is paid for can not complain there. It would be nice to win the lottery to finish it all in a timely manner than little by little.
We always joke we should have tore it down and began from scratch and then we remember we were living in it, that would not have worked. 🙂
It all began with a very poor roof!
Then along came a water pipe break. That began the kitchen and bathroom remodel after the bathroom had already been remodeled once.
Yes, we have had to demolish several rooms a couple times. It’s a learning journey. I like to call it Murphy’s Law. One problem is discovered and it creates another one. Ugh.
I could actually call this the Money Pit house.
Loved that movie and I love this old house. It has character. It is one of a kind. 😉
I am going to hunt down some more pictures and will show as much of the remodel as I can. We have done better lately of taking pictures than we did in the beginning.
We paid off our mortgage last week! It is officially all ours. What a great feeling. 🙂
It is a very old house with many issues but they are slowly being dealt with. We were living there full time until last year when hubby went active duty for the Army to finish out his time for retirement. He will have a total of 35 years in by Feb. with 20 years active time. We are planning on sticking around the area for awhile mostly because of job opportunities and so we can finish the remodel process on the house without having to live in it. We had been living in it for the entire last twelve years of remodeling and what a challenge that was.
Of course, when one problem happens another one is discovered when owning an old home. One year we had a water leak in the kitchen area which resulted in tearing up all the plumbing which then resulted in remodeling the kitchen, which still isn’t completely done. We actually lived for six months with our kitchen drain pouring into a large bucket we had to dump. 🙂 Life was interesting.
It does make for some fun and interesting stories. I have begun looking for those pictures and will post in another post later with all the progress. We do change our mind a lot on what we want a room to look like. 🙂 Luckily, we do a bit here and there before too much of it is finished. It is all with extra cash so no other loans out. I’m lucky hubby likes to do the work so money is saved there. Or is it? Just kidding. It is a learning experience.
One of the first projects was a total redo of the roof. It had not been replaced in a long time. When I moved in I rented the house from a sweet old man that lived across the alley behind it. After a few years, his health went downhill and he ended up passing on. The family lived elsewhere and didn’t want to deal with it. In fact, for a year I didn’t have to pay rent. They didn’t want any. In that year, the roof was majorly leaking, so I got a lawyer with the help of my current boss at the time, and we drafted a letter that listed all the needed repairs on the house and offered 5,000.00 for the house. They accepted the offer. It was mine. 🙂 Of course, I was young and had to have a loan, which the loan company put other debt into the loan and thus I had a mortgage debt. Not a major one, but enough for a single mom of two.
A year later, in waltzed my wonderful husband into my life, who just happened to like working on a challenge. 🙂 Me, him, several friends, and my dad fixed the roof from a generous gift given to me from my daughter’s grandparents. We tore off two layers of asphalt shingles which was attached to just the wood rafters. Underneath we saw the rafters were made out of anything and every size of wood imaginable. And talk about long nails used! We pulled so many nails out. The rafters are blue painted, pink painted and regular wood. I guess they used whatever they could way back when. (So far I have traced the house back to 1910)
Yes, we left the rafters as is and put the proper sheets of wood across the rafters to which the new tin roof was screwed down to. The tin was so much easier than all those asphalt shingles. That was in the year of 2000.
Over the last thirteen years we have had to deal with a small leak over the kitchen when the wind would blow just right it would get up under the roof line. We tried flashing and everything we could think of. Glad it was just an occasional leak. Now, this Fall my hubby decided enough was enough and set to fix the problem for good. A whole new roof line with a better roof pitch! And this is what we got. 🙂
Fall 2013
It is another bedroom and finally a second bathroom. I don’t know how we raised a teenage daughter with one bathroom plus me and four males. I guess now when hubby completely retires down the road and we move back to live full time he can have his bathroom and I can have mine! LOL 🙂
I have officially named our house the Puzzle Castle. I always wanted to do that. Like you read in novels with estate homes. 🙂 I can’t afford a fancy castle so why not. It is a gigantic puzzle! It is our family home that we live in part time for now. So many wonderful memories. We hope to pass it down to the kids, but of course, completely finished. 🙂
This is the beginning of what will be our new bathroom at our house in my hometown. The last of the dirty slat wood! Yes, it is a very OLD house. Actually, it was two buildings that were put together way back when and made into a house. It looks to have been a second hand store at one time.
This is what we found when we took the siding off to put new on. We have asked around but no one remembers it. It might just be that long ago. Interesting.
Back to the bathroom, the history of the bathroom has had many occupants before now.
First moved in:
Oldest son’s room (he was a toddler and didn’t sleep in it much) 🙂
An office
The daughter had it as her bedroom for years.
The two youngest boys shared it for awhile.
My dad’s room for about six months.
Lastly, a computer and art room.
It’s final purpose will be our wonderful big bathroom. I bet it takes a good year to get done. I am just glad we don’t have to live in it while we are working on it like all the other remodels. A short weekend will be just enough time and then high tail it out of there back to where we currently live. It has definitely been an interesting challenge. Hubby and I call it “An Adventure”! 🙂
![Summer%202012%20094[1]](https://i0.wp.com/2bcreativeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/summer202012200941.jpg?ssl=1)
