phase I complete Phase II in process

Well Phase I is successfully completed and we now have a completely rewired house!! No more knob and Tube wiring!! yeah! I have been so busy with design concepts and Shopping that I have barely had any time to sit down and Jot this all down So I'll be playing a major Catchup Post with this one. Bathroom is now completely gutted and we can see straight through to the rafters! no kidding, Lorne and I with a little help from our friends Jeff and Lisa and Lorne's Mom and Dad have managed to gut the bathroom with only one Accident. Yes we had an emergency room visit for Lorne's Dad who came home with 4 stitches to his forearm. Needless to say they can't work together unsupervised anymore!! I have in way of shopping gotten a Cast Iron Claw foot tub for a Very Reasonable dare I say cheap price! now the fun begins of cleaning it up and getting it ready for use. we have also purchased the bathroom Vanity and I will be going to get the toilet in the next few days , then all we lack are fixtures and we're good to go!
We have picked out our Living room ceiling fan and our lights for the foyer, but we still need to determine Kitchen and Living room lighting and a ceiling fan for our room. we have paint picked out for the Bathroom but none of the other rooms LOL that's next on the list! we also found my kitchen Stove and facet for the sink as well as an over the range microwave/vent. I never thought I would say it but I'll be glad when the shopping is over!! there are way to many things to choose from and it's so hard to meld mine and Lorne's taste for things!
We managed to bring back the hardwood for the downstairs all back into use and will have it refinished at the final phase of things. That was a bit of a chore but it was well worth it! we still have to refinish the stairs Which I am going to do myself, and then we pick out a runner with rails for the stairs to protect them and make the stairwell truly pretty. I'll be posting pictures in a slideshow as soon as I get them all together and such so be watching soon!!! New ceilings will be going up this week and the dry wall in the bathroom done as well. I'll be glad when things are all done but we're getting there. only 5 more weeks and hopefully we'll be out of this rental and into our own house!! we are all looking so forward to it!

Let the Work Begin!

Well now that we have all the papers signed and the keys in our possesion it's time to get to work! We got into the house last Friday and started in the upstairs to get some stuff done. Sandy started in Catherine's room by removing the drop ceiling, now we know why they put it up to begin with. to cover up ceiling damage from a roof leak. the roof is now new, but they didn't bother to fix the damage to the ceiling they just opted to cover it up.

While Sandy was working on the ceiling in Catherine's room I began in the office. I started by pulling up the old carpet, and the worked on breaking up the old lanolium that was laid down on top of newspapers, which were covering up the hardwood floors. it all came up relatively smooth, and the newspapers are great historical pieces!! I can't wait to get more time to actually look at them closer. They were dated November 28, and 29, 1940, How cool is that, it's like this house was supposed to be ours!!

When I got done with the office and done I then headed into the hallway /landing and started removing the carpet from there. by this time Lorne's made it back from the christmas shopping and is there to help with that and we get it up in no time flat and even started down the stairs becuase we were curious to see what shape the stairs were in. The landing removal wasn't as clean as we hoped and will take some work to get all the padding from the carpet removed. but the stairs were in awesome condition and won't take much to refinish!! All in all we have some work to do but it's not going to be nearly as bad as we had hoped!!

The stairs are really solid and other than the wear marks will clean up nicely! all of us are so excited to see the end result!!!

will keep you posted as more happens!

Patty

We have our house!

Latest Update: Lorne and I signed the paper's on our house and received our keys on last Wednesday the 17th. Wow Hard to believe we own a home! The process went really smoothly and we're really excited to have a place all our own!! It's going to take some work but we're in the process now of beginning it. We are so blessed to have had this place come up for us and doubly blessed that His folks have been so helpful in helping us to get it. we have an estimate of when the house was built, and that would be anywhere between 1915 and 1922 WOW and oldy but a goody! The potential of this house is only limited to our imagination and budget but I know that it will truly be a place we can finally call home!!

Signing the Mortgage

Welp we did it, Last Wednesday Lorne and I went in to the Banking institution and signed the mortgage papers. It was pretty straight forward and Lorne got an excellent loan so that even if, God forbid, he were to lose his Job at the Radio station we could still afford to pay for it. We Are so fortunate and blessed to have found this house when we did, and I'm looking forward to starting the process of making it our own! Come Wednesday the 17th we will have the Keys in our hands and be the proud owners of our very own House!! For my Birthday Lorne Put money down on the Turn of the Century Ar moire that I want to use as a Hall closet in our entry way!, It's so beautiful and I'm going to try and go get some pictures of it so that I can post them . I also got two sizes of Sledge hammers so we can start tearing down things when we get the house. Will be pretty busy with the Camera for the next little bit to say the least!! I'm already learning what it's going to be like to work with contractors so this is going to be fun. Met with my first one this past Monday and should have a written Quote on it by this Friday. More to come later on with more pictures to share!!!!

Also when Lorne took me to the shop whereI got the Armoire the gentleman who owns the shop clued us in that the house where we bought it the neighoborhood was developed around 1917 or so which means our house is pushing 100! How people ccouldn't take care of such a lovely old turn of the century homw is beyond me. I'm also looking in to if it wsa a kit home, which were all the rage back in those days as so many of the houses reflect the style of the kit homes of the early 1900's. This research process has been a bit fun :) Now comes the fun part of mixing old with new to make it truely ours while preserving as much of the original integrity of the home.



Patty

Welcome Home

Well We finally did it! Lorne and I put in a bid on the house just behind us in the alleyway, one street over from us and the Bank accepted our bid. This house is a bit lower in price than the first house we looked at and it's a fixer upper, but, for the money it's a great house with loads of possibilities! We found out on Friday the 21st that the bank had accepted out bid and as long as things go smoothly will close on it December 17th. WOW I'm still in shock that we're actually purchasing a home! I'm taking a cue from my brother and his wonderful wife and have decided to make a blog spot to chronicle our journey into home ownership with blogs and pictures of that journey to share with our family and friends. The home itself is a three bedroom 1 bath up and 1 desperately unusable bath in the basement all of which will have to be gutted and redone. nice structure with downstairs(main floor) living room dining and kitchen. it has a 1.5 car garage and a decent size back yard that will keep me busy for a while! All in all though this is going to be a home for sure once we get the work done that needs doing before we move in. I knew that we would get the house even before anyone else knew.. just felt it in my gut. I'm excited but it's going to grow once we have the keys to it in our hands. Keep us in your prayers as this is something that's been while in coming but so happy it's here, and while I'm sure that you all are a little disappointed that we won't be moving back to Texas in the foreseeable future, this is where I believe we are meant to be. And with the price being so reasonable it will allow me to stay at home a bit longer and be all that I can be for Catherine. Lots of love and more posts and pictures to come!!!!


Patty