Ok, I know it's been awhile since I got to my blog, life has been hectic! Summer is here, and we have had family visiting close by, Jeff's work had been crazy busy, and I am trying to catch up on our homeschool that got behind with our move by doing summer school. So I have gotten behind. I definitely don't want you to miss our adventure of moving into our abandoned house in the middle of a Virginia ice storm. Call us crazy! So here is how we got to that moment...
What do brown paper rolls of contractor paper, duct tape, plastic rolls, and extension cords have in common? They all gave us the ability to move into our fixer upper after only a couple months of owning it.
We really tossed back and forth whether we should take the plunge and move into our house, that was in no shape to house people only a few weeks before. I mean there is nothing in the kitchen the bathroom is not complete, there are holes in the walls, and windows where there are inch gaps because they need repair. We would be crazy to move in -wouldn't we?
We had to move somewhere, as our lease was up on the house we were renting. Our goal to be debt free - to have a house payed off in a couple of years -to have extra cash in the bank, and peace of mind as Jeff continues to build his business and heads toward retirement is stronger than our desire to be conventional. We asked ourselves a lot of questions. Should we buy a camper and live in that somewhere? Should we rent another house for a year? Should we stay with family for a few months? We decided to take the plunge, and put all of our time, and resources into our renovation. WE made a big push in just a couple weeks time to make portions of the house habitable. I worked hard to clean two bedrooms and the kitchen that we would use as our living and sleeping spaces.
I cleaned, primed the window frames, and put down brown contractor paper "floors" for our rugs to go on , since the original wood floor finish is gone, and not easy to clean. I had no idea that cutting rolls of paper, and duct taping the joints would be such difficult work for my back! I'm not as young as I used to be! I taped, placed, and sealed up windows gaps, in the kitchen and all the windows. It is winter here, and it can be quite cold, as we soon found out!
Meanwhile Jeff was working hard to get us a functioning bathroom, some electrical outlets with a new panel put in, and a kitchen sink. Those are pretty basic necessities!
We set up the kitchen like an old fashioned "unfitted" space. Jeff made a temporary sink and we set up our propane camp stove to cook on. We moved in the hoosier cabinet, and some extra shelving, and folding tables for counters.
All our household furniture and boxes got moved in two weeks before the final moving day. We are storing all of our "stuff" in the dining room and living room, and extra rooms as needed. The weekend we planned to make our final move out of our old house happened to be a horrible ice storm in our area. We lost power in both houses, and just decided to make the plunge literally into our drafty old house. The heating units hadn't been installed yet, so Jeff hooked up his propane heaters, and we plugged in some portable units, to keep us from freezing. As long as we stayed in the closed rooms, we did ok. It was really more like camping, as I cooked with three layers and a hat on to keep warm. It's not glamorous or fancy, but it is our house and we are excited to be able to put all our efforts into making it our home.
You are brave....Each time I read your blogs, I am reminded of reading stories like Little House on the Prairie! Can't wait for the next episode!