This Old House

OK - granted I have lived in homes older than this one; however, never have I run into so many messed up, just completely WRONG ways of building a home!  That rant out of my system I am very thankful for our home.  We are blessed to be able to enjoy country life on our little 3 acres.  As we have slowly worked on the house my detest of a ranch style home has lessened as we have made the inside of the home take on a more country shabby chic style.  When you fill a home with the people and things you love it becomes the best home ever.

Recently this home reminds me of a book I remember loving as a child. (Maybe a state of chaos has always been dear to me?)  Anyway, "The Ernie and Bert Book" seems to describe the state of our home quite well.

Little story even shorter - Ernie gives Bert a pot for a hat but when Bert asks why all Ernie does is bring him objects full of items that don't belong.  So, Ernie broke the piggy bank so the money is in the cookie jar and the cookies are in another container, etc - and it just gets sillier.

Until the end is lots of chaos and lots of mess.  But Bert learns why he is wearing a pot for a hat.

So, back to my home -- where's the stuff from the office in the basement family room - where's the stuff from the family room, in my craft room - where's the craft room stuff (buried in the craft room) and some in the garage and some upstairs.  Where are the boys' crafts and toys - scattered throughout the upper portion of the house.

WHY?  The flood back in August.  We decided to tear out a the wall/closet between the office and the family room and make it one large, long room.  It will be used as library, family room, toy/child craft room and office.  It will be wonderful when done.  I even put together a scale blueprint for it.  The paint is sitting here just waiting to go on the walls.  So all that was left was actually cleaning everything out and tearing out the wall.  Here is what that looked like:

Clark is ready to START!  Pounding hammer in hand.

Grant is going to join in the fun!

No fears - after these shots were taken the boys were sent back upstairs so as not to inhale any dust or mold.

A call was made to grandpa to figure out how I should deal with the light switch that was put in.  Hopefully it is an easy fix - but as my dad and I have found out while fixing other wiring problems in this house it is rarely simple.  Yes, I am a woman who enjoys electrical wiring - but I usually need my dad's input before starting a project.

This is why the wall had to come out.  Even though we only had between a 1/2" to an 1" of water on the floor it soaked up into the wall and the mold was quite horrible!

YUCK!

Alan tearing out the studs.

I am all for re-utilizing materials but really these studs that were either from the old house that was originally here OR a barn were horrible.  Some were not complete (they were missing large chunks), some were disturbingly dirty (still caked soil on them), and some were of course put in crooked.  We have found many crooked studs in the course of tearing apart walls in this house.  I suggested they didn't own a level but Alan is right they didn't need a level to tell them these were crooked - eyeballing it should have worked!

No more wall!

Also, it will soon be good-bye old color scheme!  This was back in my happy post-it note phase.  Hey, it was a cheery place to work.  However, we will be going with cheery colors in a more grown-up color pallet that will work well for kids and adults.  All based off this piece of scrapbooking paper I found.

The colors aren't as nice in the photo as they are when you see it.  Basically blue, green and cream with red, and yellow accents.

Hopefully we will get this finished so that I can move to the organizing stage. Time is ticking since I want to do crafting/sewing for Christmas gifts this year - this means the basement needs to be finished and organized very SOON!