Look how far we’ve come...

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  South Front Then

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  South Front Now

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  North Front Then

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  The North Front Now

My husband loves to tell this story. When our youngest daughter Grace was 4 years old, her great grandfather passed away. Since we lived a few blocks from the funeral home, she and her father decided to walk home. They got about halfway home and sat on a bench to rest. As they glanced back at the funeral home, my husband proudly said, "Look how far we've come!" And our little 4-year-old turned and looked the other direction and with a forlorn look stated, "But look how far we haven't come!"

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  Dining Room at Purchase

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  Dining Room Cleaned Out

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  Floors Being Removed

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  Now with Subfloor and Walls Scraped

Looking back

Looking back, our first project was cleaning the brush off of the wooden house while draining the basement. Then there was the clean out of the house. Next we had to stabilize the North front columns. Then demo the floors in half the house. Next we repaired the South front entrance joists and subfloor. And then moved on to the dining room joists and subfloor. Followed by repairing the North front kitchen side of the 2 story part, and we have now moved on to re-siding this area.

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  Side Wall Then

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  Side Wall Demo

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  Side Wall Repair

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  Side Wall Ready for Siding

Grace and I are working on several projects.  We are priming exterior boards as needed and  scraping the dining room walls, trim, and ceiling to remove cracked paint. While we are continuing work on stripping the moldings and cleaning/sorting the salvaged glassware and dishes--a lengthy process!!

Moving on

Currently Dwight has moved on to the small hallway leading into the kitchen. He started by adding a temporary beam between the bathroom and the outside doorway so he could jack up the walls and support the roof while he removed the damaged parts to begin repair. Next he has removed all the soft or rotten boards and has begun replacing joists, flooring, and exterior siding in this area. Luckily, the plaster walls and ceilings are in fairly good shape with a telephone alcove still in place! And the original ceiling light is still hanging although it will need a little TLC.

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  Hall Leading to Kitchen

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  Arched Ceilings in Hall

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  Down to the Dirt Again

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  Preparing for New Subfloor

All things considered, we've accomplished a lot in 7 months working just nights and weekends. Sometimes we look back at all we've accomplished feeling pretty proud of our progress, and then way back inside our heads we hear that little 4-year-old voice say, "But look how far we haven't come!"

And we press on!