Wanna See the House?

So I just realized that there are a lot of interior pictures, but I haven't shown you any of the outside, at least none that I saw. These were taken just after we bought it, and although a lot has changed on the inside, the outside has stayed the same. There are just more weeds in the yard now :)

Here is the front. The front door is going to be moved to the left, about where that window is now. The big window is also going to be moved left a bit and will end up in the dining room. There are a lot of overgrown shrubs, most of which will be removed before it's all said and done.

Here is the back. The big door will be replaced by a french door and will open up into the living room. The window on the corner is going away and will be replaced by 2 windows along that wall. The window to the left of what will be a french door is the kitchen window. I want to put in a garden window eventually. The odd looking addition sticking out on the far left (called the birdhouse) will end up as the master bedroom and we're going to add a big window so we can see the lake.

Ollie Strikes Again!

Sunday was my birthday and we spent it digging a trench! Ok, so we didn't spend the whole day digging. Travis made me a delicious breakfast, we went to church and then we dug a ditch. Travis pointed out it's the 1st thing we've done to start building the house back up, rather than just tearing it down. That is a nice feeling. The trench will hold the new plumbing we have to lay from the well to the house, as well as new power lines to well.

Ollie started us off, by ripping out the largest of the juniper bushes, or in this case I'm pretty sure it qualified as a juniper tree. It wasn't rooted very deeply and gave up without much of a fight.

After Travis got done chit chatting with a neighbor, it was on to digging. It started out ok, but there is a very compact layer not too far down. I was only able to get the shovel in a few inches at a time and was getting nowhere fast. Amelia wanted a break anyway so we played in the yard while Travis ran to get a pick. It went much faster after that. The entire trench is just short of 20 feet and needs to be 3 feet deep when we're done to prevent freezing. We made it to about 18 inches. Not too bad for a few hours worth of work.

Easter!

This year the Easter Bunny figured Amelia could attempt to pick up some eggs. The picking up part she has down great, next year we'll work on getting them into the basket, lol, especially any purple ones. She didn't want to give that one up for anything. It was rainy and cold out so the big bunny was nice to us and left them in the living room.

A few weeks before Easter I decided I wanted to make Amelia a dress, of course I didn't buy the fabric or get started until the week before. Who am I kidding?! I made the dress Saturday morning, and finished up Saturday evening. It's amazing how fast it went together now that I finally have a nice sewing maching (Thanks Travis!) I think it turned out adorable, but I may be a bit biased.

Meanwhile, Back at the Lakehouse...

Work is finally picking up for me so I got a little behind with updates. I'm sure you'll all forgive me.


Weekend of March 27-28


You expect me to remember what we did 2 weeks ago?!?! Lucky for you we have photo evidence! We got all the sheet rock and nails removed from the living room,"office", and bathroom, plus any insulation that needed to go. Travis and Pat got the sub-floor up from Amelia's room and sprayed the joists with some bleach water. Mostly while Amelia napped peacefully, lol. For such a light sleeper at home, she seems to sleep through anything at the Lakehouse. Just one more reason for us to move :)

Weekend of April 3-4

We took Easter weekend off and I'm sure you didn't skip the post above so I think you're caught up.

Weekend of April 10-11


We finally made it back to the Lakehouse on Sunday. Amelia was sick all last week and still not feeling 100% on Saturday so we took a free day. Sunday I met Travis out there about noon just in time for lunch. I have perfect timing. He had already gotten most of the sheet rock out of the kitchen so I finished pulling the insulation and nails.





Meanwhile, he fired up Ollie, the bulldozer, and got to work removing dead plants outside. He took out a few smaller trees and shrubs before moving on to a bigger target, a happily rooted juniper bush. It took some time and some hacking (ok, Travis probably wouldn't like me to say he was hacking at it, but expertly chopping) at it with an ax, but it finally gave up and was pulled quietly to the brush pile. We'll have to remove a few more trees and shrubs to be able to get in to dig a trench to re-start the plumbing from the well house to the Lakehouse. All in all, not bad for 1 days work. Plus these pics make the yard look amazing, lol.






Oooooh - I almost forgot!! We also got our kitchen layout done so we can order cabinets. We're getting shaker style cabinets in a cinnamon maple color. It should be gorgeous when it's done!