Did I say permits? Who knew we would need a permit to change out a roof. Well we do! And another permit to close in a porch, although we are not adding to the footprint of the house. It's been a process and I mean a learning process and a permitting process. After gathering all of the information needed for these permits, three trips to the parish permit office and paying permit fees, we finally got permission to change the roof and close in a porch. Okay, progress finally! We also got the electricity finally transferred to our name and water turned on (for a fee of course). By water turned on, I mean it's turned on at the meter. There were too many broken water pipes to get it to the house. So, basically we are still without water for now.
So a small crew (most days a one man crew) has been working on the porches and they are looking great. The new pretty gray porch floor planks are in place now. I went to the house yesterday just to sit on the front porch. There was a surprisingly blustery breeze coming off of the river. It was nice. The old cypress posts are back in place although they will need some repairs at the bottoms. There are no steps yet to get on the front porch so the only access is from inside the house unless you are a pole jumper or an American Ninja Warrior. I have plans for a nice brick step entry onto the porch. That will happen much later.
I have been working on my designs for the renovation of the inside of the house. Part of that is to create a new master bathroom in the side porch that is not visible to anyone except the side neighbor. While the carpenters were building the porches, they also floored and closed in that little porch. No more to be done there for a while either. We have also been finding very old items on the property. It's been fun trying to figure out what they were used for.
So what's next you say? More permits of course! Our construction plans for the new garage are finally complete. Once we get them approved and stamped by an engineer, it's back to the permit office to get permission (and pay $$$ fees) to begin construction. This is a big step since the garage will also have a tiny apartment for us to live in while we renovate the house. We are praying that this gets done quickly since we sold our house last week. While waiting for the new permits, we hope to get the roof changed on the house to make sure that there will be no more leaks when it rains. Although we haven't noticed that happening, it can.
Yes, our current house is under contract, sale pending. I won't go into that whole process. That is a whole other stressful procedure. We will be homeless come August 3. We have a place to stay but will be living out of suitcases until that garage is finished. I need to start packing and putting everything is storage. Pray for us!
See the Week 7-9 Gallery for more pictures.
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