It's not easy being green (or cheap)

In an effort to make this project house have the best re-sale value possible, we have had no choice but to try and make various aspects enviro-friendly. Honestly, it's not the first thing I think of - but it's what all the "kids are doing these days". One of the big things we decided to invest in was a tankless hot water heater. They came on the market a few years ago and received less-than-perfect reviews. However, they have come a long way since then and (thankfully) so has the price. While they are still slightly more expensive than the standard hot water heater - it's reasonable. An added bonus is that they are now about the size of a shoe box (we have a 250 sq ft basement....space matters). The unit mounts to the wall (which is kinda' cool) and requires more electrical juice than anything in the house (not clear on how this makes it a green item, but I don't make the rules). According to Trent (Mr. Researcher) this name brand of tankless heaters receive the best reviews and are the cheapest.

My husband....MacGyver

We have been planning on having the yard completely torn up, leveled, re-seeded, and looking beautiful. We knew we would have to hire a portion of it out. We had a dollar figure in mind (which seemed reasonable to us). The work was started this past week. The actual dollar figure started to grow. About 25% of the way into this project we decided we would take care of the rest of it ourselves (even though we had no idea how). I spent the weekend pushing dirt around, cutting old roots, and picking up debris. Yesterday, Trent and I stood looking at the yard (aka: dirt hole) trying to come up with any ideas to get the yard smooth enough to plant grass seed. Leave it to my husband. He pulled out one of our 4-wheelers and attached some chains to the back of it. Then he took what was the back porch, flipped it over, and fastened it to the chains. Viola! Initially, the idea looked ingenious. However, once Trent started cruising around the yard (in circles) with an old porch attached to the back of our 4-wheeler.....well, I wasn't certain whether I wanted to claim my husband or not. Either way, the job is done and grass seed is being planted today.

On track

We are on track for the house progress (at this point). The exterior work is done! The lawn is being completely scraped and re-planted today, so we should have nice, pretty grass within the next few weeks.
As for the interior, I will post more photos this weekend (as we plan on spending most of our holiday weekend working at the house). The framing is all done, the plumbing is started and should be finished by this weekend , and the heating and cooling should be done by next weekend. Woohoo! We are moving along.

Not a mason....but I tried.

This past week we have just about wrapped up the exterior of the project house (whew - it's about time). I spent my time working on repairing/replacing several large holes in the brick foundation. While I don't have the skills of a mason (those guys do some seriously impressive work), I'm a whole lot cheaper. Since, I also painted the foundation (more photos to come on that), the brick work needed to be functional...form didn't matter too much.
I will spend some time this week working on landscaping and getting the outside whipped into shape. Trent is officially starting on the interior work. Of course we'll get the central air hooked up just in time for the weather to change.

Just about done...with the siding

Thanks to my hardworking husband and a couple of friends (Adam Callender and Daryl McMullen...BIG thanks!) the entire siding project is just about finished! In fact, as of tomorrow evening it should be entirely completed. We could not be more pleased about the way it turned out. Sure, it would have been nice if it would have moved a little faster, not been 95 degrees most days, not have had to buy a rather expensive roofing nail gun to get the nails through the existing siding, and if we (okay, it was me) would not have ruined a few pieces of siding by cutting them too short. But honestly, it was all worth it for the end product.
If you are wondering what the ugly, old, crazy tall antenna is still doing next to the house in the last photo....well, I thought we were taking it down. We were taking it down. Then my (engineer) husband says, "I may want to tinker around with a windmill and that would be a perfect spot for one." Great.

Up next: heating and cooling. Or landscaping. Or electrical and plumbing. I'll let you know what we decide.

Safe 'n Secure

The house on Oak Street is now fully locked up. We have both a front and back door (they look identical) with a standard lock and deadbolt on each. We decided to go with the Camber Plank style doors and these will be the same doors that we'll use on the interior. Personally, I'm just thrilled that we have exited the padlock phase. It didn't seem like a great way to secure a property....especially since I could squeeze through a few 2x4's and still get into the house without a key.

To any robbers who might be reading this blog: there is nothing in the house. Nothing, zero, zilch. We take all the fancy tools with us when we're done (which is time consuming but probably worth it to make sure you don't steal them). The only reason we have locked things up is because it's our property and we don't want people in there who haven't been invited.

Visible Progress

It is with sheer excitement that I write this blog post! Today, if you happened to drive past our project house on Oak Street you would actually notice some improvement. Up to this point the house has basically continued to look worse. However, after a long, hot holiday weekend of Trent and I installing vinyl siding, things are looking better. As with most things, it took a little time to get the hang of it (which is the reason we started with the garage and not the house). Once we got a system down, we were flying. We are planning on doing the house next weekend (the longer chunk of time seems to serve us well on this task). For anyone looking to upgrade your own home - shop, shop, shop. I found that vinyl prices were all over the place. The small, private building supply store was about half the cost of Lowe's or Home Depot (plus, we ended up receiving a much higher grade vinyl).
**Oh....and the color we selected is called, "Montana Suede."

Steppin' up

We are officially done climbing a ladder into the second floor! We have stairs. Beautiful, sturdy, not quite up to new code stairs. While the photo shows me working on the stairs, relax: Trent was supervising the entire project. He pre-built the sides ahead of time, we leveled them out in their new home, and added each step. I was responsible for the steps and even got to use a few power tools. The photo is of me using some hand-saw-cutter-thing-a-ma-jig (I said I used the power tools....I didn't learn to identify them).

New, new, new

I'm so excited that we have finally entered the "new" phase of this project. With the exception of just a couple items (that can't be done just yet), everything from this point on is new. This week we have successfully installed all of our new windows (minus 2 that need to be installed later for logistical reasons). They are beautiful! I'm particularly thankful that we were able to get them in without breaking any of them. Watching Trent climb the super-duper tall ladder with a 61" window was slightly unnerving. However, he was blessed with a much greater sense of balance than most (me) and he looked like a pro.

On a financial note, we price shopped the windows like crazy. We ended up purchasing them from a place in Elkhart and they were a solid 60% cheaper than any other price (for custom windows)! Richards Building Supply (on CR 6...just east of the airport) is the place to go.

Raisin' the Roof (actually, just the ceiling)

This past week we have worked hard to raise the ceiling on the second floor. Prior to this week, the ceiling throughout all of the second floor was about 7'4"...not very tall. Trent researched all about ways to raise the ceiling without "compromising the integrity" of the roof (his words, not mine). So, he managed to find a way to keep everything supported and still gain us an extra 2 feet! The upstairs bedroom will have a pseudo-cathedral ceiling at 9'6" and the bathroom will be just a little over 8'. I've included photos of the upstairs to show the difference.
Just a little tid-bit we learned this week: don't work on the highest point of a house (2nd story ceiling) when it's 90+ degrees outside.