The Never-Ending Project List

The first thing we did, other than cleaning up all the dead bugs that had accumulated over the 2-3 years the house was empty (ew!) was to replace the front door. Even though the door that was there was actually in decent shape, it was about 2" too small for the frame all the way around, and the big gap at the bottom is the main reason there were so many bugs. (We're really lucky, honestly, that we didn't get rodents or a snake. I guess since there was no food or water, there was nothing to really attract them.)

Front of the house, from across the street. The hill is a little steeper than it looks, hence the stairs.

You can see the light coming in through the gaps around the door. This was after we did some shimming.

I don't have a photo yet of the new door, though it is hung now. B's brother-in-law, H, did it for us; he built the home he and his wife (L's sister, K) are living in now, a beautiful log cabin. We're hoping he'll be able to help put in the floors, too; he does excellent work and even without the family discount would be well worth the price! All told, the door cost about $750 -- kind of expensive, admittedly, but we paid extra to have a half-window like in the original door -- it let in a lot of light to a room that is otherwise rather dark, despite a decent-sized window in the front.

Ah, floors -- the biggest issue, after water. Did I mention the water situation? Better start there. The house is outside of city limits, so has a well and a septic system. The HUD report was that the well "appears to be functional" -- but of course, since the house was winterized and the water completely turned off, I suspect all they did was flip the circuit breaker and hear that the pump started running. Anyway, the little dog-house out back is actually the well house, and since S is in the building materials business we've already got scraps of siding so we can fix up the well house to match the main house (they did the roofs at the same time).

The well house. Just needs a little TLC.

When we actually inspected the well, however, the news wasn't so good. The previous owners had insulated the well house, which is a good thing, especially considering the brutal (for Walnut Grove) winter they had last year. They didn't put a cover on the well itself, though, so large pieces of insulation had fallen into the well and who knows how many bugs, rats (ew) and other critters. So - no water. We can hook up to city water; it's $1000 for the city to bring a line to the meter, which is at the edge of the property (near the street), and then who knows how much to bring it from the street to the house. This is assuming all of the plumbing is still in good shape, of course; I'm hoping that since the additions (which include at least one bathroom) were done within the last 25 years or so, we'll be OK there. We're also waiting on a quote to find out what it would cost to get the well up and running -- we know we'd need a new submersible pump, it would have to be shocked, etc.; one wild guess was $1200 but that wasn't from anyone in the 'industry', so I really have no idea how accurate that is. I'm leaning toward city water regardless -- I know there are benefits to well water (no chemicals, no water bill, etc.) but I'm a bit leery of it, too. (Since we won't be using it regularly, will the water stagnate? Bacteria can be a problem, I've read, and wells should be shocked once a year, but would an infrequently used well need it more often? I'm also really having a hard time getting the thought of rats out of my head...do I really want to drink water from a well that had dead rats in it?) We'll see, once the well quote comes in, but who knows when that will be. (Everything runs on Down South time, which is a whole lot slower than Mid-Northern time!)

Back to the floors. I mentioned earlier that during the renovation (or, I'm beginning to suspect more and more, a fit of pique and an "FU" to the foreclosing bank!), the previous owners ripped up the carpet in all of the rooms except the master bedroom, but never got around to putting in new flooring. I really don't mind that so much -- it's a cement slab, so is probably keeping the house cooler anyway, and the master bedroom carpet is kind of gross so we're going to tear that out anyway. We'll put down a floating laminate floor for durability and ease of installation. We're debating pulling up what they did in the kitchen and hallway, so we can have the same flooring throughout. The existing floor is nice, except in the "weird transition area" where they forgot to leave room for expansion, so during the summer the floor rises up in that room. It's only another 350 square feet or so and then we wouldn't have to worry about the transition from kitchen to family room (it's wide open) or trying to match the kitchen floor color.

Kitchen and eating area. Transition to the family room is at the bottom.

Family room. The white 'gunk' in the bottom right corner is at the kitchen transition.

Family room from the other side. Honestly if it weren't for the glue, I might just paint the concrete!

Weird transition area, from the hall to the kitchen. The circuit breaker is in here, for some reason.

Hallway

Gross master bedroom carpet.

Master bath. What looks like grout between the tiles is actually the underlayment -- the used entirely the wrong product, and in person you can see the writing through the gaps in the tiles.

The lighting is off in the photos, but in reality the kitchen, transition area, and hallway are all the same flooring. It's not bad, but I'm thinking I'd like something a little darker in the other rooms. Of course I might be painting the whole interior, too -- S hates the color it is now, kind of a light chocolate milk color. I don't mind it, it's a good neutral so I can see why they used it, but they did a crappy job painting (not remotely detail oriented!) and it's a flat paint (I prefer eggshell), so I'm not opposed to painting. It's just a matter of when I'll be able to go back down there, and whether it should be done before or after the floors. (And what color, of course.) That's a whole other post, though, this one is long enough as it is!