PASSED!

Well, there has been a good bit of progress, posted below, but the most important thing happened at about 4 PM today. We passed electrical inspection. That means we should soon be able to get electricity on both sides of the house. It means we don't have to do anything more with electrical stuff - though we'll probably do a bit more. It means we can soon have a working fridge, etc!

Finished beam in the kitchen.

Frame around the closets.

Nicely grouted kitchen.

Bill working upstairs in the heat - on the side without electricity.

Floors nearly all laid in our bedroom!

No, the kitchen's not in - but we're playing with spacing!!

Yep, it's coming

Well, I've talked with different ones of you about things that are happening, but I've not had time to post lately. One reason is that I was actually busy doing things myself. Another was that I was helping supervise volunteers, and another was that my dad's been in the hospital in Baton Rouge. HOWEVER, reasons are not excuses, so I'll try to make it up by posting a bit now. With the help of some volunteers and of our carpenter friend and our other friend from church - who mainly does floors but is ready to do anything we want him to do - we are coming along on lots of pieces of this project.

Hard working volunteers ready to leave.

Sydnie must really love us!! She's neat and hates dirt but was content to be in her room - and the house - covered with dirt!

Today an overhead beam got nicely encased.

Tile was laid in the small bathroom.

Our kitchen has tile! Tomorrow grouting!

Not a current project but soon, we'll clean up the fireplace in the rental bedroom. As we discussed this with Courtney who will fix it, he found some of the original hooks for holding cooking pots.

More help

After the frantic push, though we've worked long hours, it has seemed a bit more managable. And we've seen progress. Now, given that, you need to understand that Mike has worked 8 hour days at work for the last week, then comes home, puts on work clothes, and finishes his other 6 hour a day job - 4-10. He's been under the house (plumbing and a little electrical) on ladders (lights and fans) and walking around putting in AC vent covers and light switch covers.

Light in the rental kitchen

Same light from outside

Our kitchen fan and dining area light.

Bill has the board in for us to tile.

We have had 2 different groups of volunteers come to help this week, and we appreciated all they did. In fact, one group returns tomorrow, and they were great!! They cleaned, sanded and painted windows. They scraped putty off windows and cleaned bricks. They put up my new house numbers. Awesome help!

Volunteers doing clean-up

Awesome young man!

Cleaning bricks! Who would EVER do such a thing for you??

H. sings while she works.

Shutters

Today Bill, our friend and carpenter, got all of the shutters for the 6 French doors up and we love them. The hinges were hand made by a man in Tickfaw, and they, like the windows and these shutters, have been sitting in the house waiting for us since some time in 2005 or before. The smaller window shutters still have to be painted, but step by step it's coming. We also have some of the electrical work finished, including a couple of fan-lights. As Mike says, these days we are seeing progress each day!

So what do you think? Shutters open?? or

Shutters closed? Which do you like?

See the great texture on the walls.

Ignore the choppy wood but enjoy the fan light!

Busy Weekend - Final

Your choice: read as you see these, or jump down 4 posts to Busy Weekend - Beginnings and read bottom-up in chronological order. Sunday, while the Florida crew were supposed to be on the 10 hour trip back home they were, instead, painting the outside AND the inside. By the time I left for church, they had a first coat of exterior paint on. By the time I came back, amid more steady rain, the outside was finished and most of the walls and ceilings were finished. By 4 PM these miracle workers had most of their equipment packed, were chatting with passers-by, and getting ready for a few hours seeing the French Quarter and crashing on the floor. Incredible guys! Incredible weekend!

Busy Weekend - Rain

Well, I thought these guys - including our two local ones, Bill and Matt - were really fantastic by Saturday morning, but then the test really began. RAIN! Off and on all day. Though we were all a little discouraged, the guys quickly just shifted to the inside of the house. Once started there, they worked like machines to finish texturing (which I'd never seen - throwing mud on the wall!) and priming the entire downstairs of the house before quitting - at 10 PM. Their reward? McDonalds supper at 11 PM. Pitiful, huh?

Busy Weekend - Friday

Thursday was spent on prep work but Friday, while prep was still going on fast and furiously inside and out, Joe began the paint with the tinted primer. A bit bright, but it surely drew the attention of the neighbors!

Mike sanding the ceilings. Ow!

Matt preps the exterior.

Joe gets primer on.

Buck sprays trim with Matt's help.

End of day Friday

Busy Weekend - Beginnings!

In the wee hours of Thursday morning Fred and Joe joined Buck, our son-in-law, coming to paint the house. Thursday morning was nice, though hot, and they began all fresh and clean. We had been unable to get all the prep work done, so these guys dived in with more taping and floating of sheet rock and sanding and puttying outside on the house.

Fred and Joe

Buck and Mike eat breakfast. Don't you love the taped windows?

Rental kitchen - before

Little bedroom - before

More progress

Today we had more help, both of the paid and non-paid kind. Our pastor and two friends from church came - one stayed all day. Then, in addition to Bill and his new helper, Matt, we had our backdoor neighbor, Tim, spend most of the day helping us tape windows. Everyone is always surprised at how long that takes. And we have - I'm pretty sure - 332 window panes to cover. Most of them are covered now and we have a dark house. They are black plastic on the outside and newspaper on the inside, and it should make painting easier to have them taped already. Mike finished all the sanding, did some power washing and did some work on the front corner of the house. We kept on mudding, and Rick from the church was really good at putting up bits and pieces of sheet rock. Bill and Matt kept putting up walls upstairs. It's all moving really fast and we're getting tired, but it's encouraging to have all the help, and it's getting exciting.

A blur! Updated

The last few days have been a blur but I have a few pictures. We have given ourselves a deadline of next Thursday to have the house ready for paint. YAY! Oh noooo! Yay because we're moving on. On no because I'm still not convinced we will be ready. But Bill, the carpenter, has a helper now. And our friend Trish came today and then, through her one contact, we had a group of about 15 teens for 3 hours! They mainly taped windows to be ready for paint. One helped me a bit with "mudding" the sheetrock, and some did other things. Bill and his helper Matt worked on the ceiling upstairs, and Mike sanded. Have a look.

A nice surprise

As Mike was doing cleanup yesterday, he noticed something that looked like brick under the dirt on the rental side where we plan to have a driveway. He began to scrape away the top layer of dirt and called me over to look. We're still not sure of how far it goes across, but he has cleaned off most of the dirt and we can pretty clearly see a brick driveway/patio/walkway in a herringbone pattern - possibly from the original house.

Electrical work

The last 4 days have been spent on getting electrical work finished - or all the pieces that can be done before the sheetrock is completed. There were frustrating moments when most was finished and we found that in order to separate the power to two halves (ours and the rental side), we'd have to have an inspection - and that it would be on different rules than the old ones to which we were returning the wiring. So, with Mike G. agreeing to stay on for a couple of extra days, they began again. Saturday they worked in bad heat, humidity, and 2 bad thunderstorms - outside, soaked to the skin. But they finished today and Mike G. will have a short night and head home early Monday. We had dinner at a
Cajun restaurant with food so good, he licked the plate!