I hope everyone is having a good year so far. Now that we have Christmas behind us, we are in full on Mardi Gras season with king cakes galore! With the longer Mardi Gras season this year, we have more time to indulge in king cakes before the Lenten season begins. I think I hit my limit a couple of weeks ago. I hope you all are enjoying the Mardi Gras festivities and parades.
Guess what? We finally have our new metal roof on the house and it looks great. We are settled into our little apartment where we can keep an eye on what is going on with the house renovation. In the last month, we have seen lots of progress. It is getting exciting to see our house transforming into our dream home.
Like I said, the new metal roof was installed over a couple of days. It is the same roof that we have on the garage and apartment. From that point on, a lot has been happening. The old cypress wood has been removed from the exterior of the house, except for the front porch, which we will keep. This crew has been working hard non-stop except for days with lots of rain. And a shout out to our electrician who popped in on the day the siding was removed and wired the outside walls of the house while they were open. With me working from home and being there on the site, they know they can come and ask me for input before they do something, like “where do you want your outlets in the kitchen?”. That’s important! Over those next few days, the outside crew insulated the outside walls and closed them with sheets of plywood. This house had no insulation at all up until now. Progress!
Now to make her pretty. The crew has been putting up the new hardy plank siding. This will ensure that we don’t have maintenance nightmares later on. It seems to be a tedious process trying to make an old house with good bones appear perfectly straight. I must say, the old girl (house) is looking great in her new covering. There are some small areas to finish up and trim to be added at the roof line to complete her look. We will begin work on cleaning up the front porch siding and porch ceilings to get it ready for a fresh coat of paint. We are also saving a lot of the cypress boards to use in areas inside of the house. It’s time to get creative!
So, you are probably wondering what is going on inside of the house. Several things have been going on thanks to our wonderful contractor, his brother, and others. The wood slat ceilings in the house are damaged and will take too much work to try to fix, so we are dropping the almost 12-foot ceilings down to around 11 feet. The crew is framing the new ceilings which will leave room for wiring and other mechanical elements. Some demo has been done and the faux closets are gone. This week they are wielding the saws and have cut open the space for my new office door and have opened up the kitchen walls to create an 8-foot opening between the dining room and kitchen and between the kitchen and living room.
Maggie is back home with us. Maggie is our son’s dog that we have been fostering while he is away on a work assignment. We had a new fence installed across the back of the property and put up a temporary piece of fence to close in the front yard for her. The temporary fence can be moved for construction workers and supplies to be brought in. But with everything going on, she hasn’t been out there much except to visit everyone. She is not a runner, so she stays close even with the fence open.
Oh, I almost forgot. The wood panels above the fireplaces are gone now. We have beautiful brick above the fireplaces. I am so excited about that! It is exactly what I was hoping for.
Check out the Gallery for more pictures of the progress being made.
Until next time, Happy Mardi Gras and Throw Me Something Mister!
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