Gorgeous Snow 2014

If you happen to live somewhere else other than central Indiana, you may not know that we received about 12" of snow yesterday. What made this snow so pretty is that it was so wet that it stuck at piled up on every branch and power line in the city...  i.e. Gorgeous snow! (But dangerous) I took this opportunity to go out and take some pictures.

The cellar door looks like the secret door to narnia

Believe it or not, this is a Magnolia bud!! No really, it was a green fuzzy bud on the Magnolia tree in the yard

101st Street view

You can barley see the house through the trees!

You can see a normally very busy Westfield Blvd on the far left...not a car in site!

Oops! I left my ladder on the persimmon tree...but its so pretty!

Fortunatly, we did not loose any major trees or tree limbs...yet!

Clean Slate

Some recent pictures of the inside of the house...

So Meghan, my sister-in-law, stopped by about 2 weeks ago and was shocked by what the inside of the house looked like. Yes, we have done some major demolition on the inside of the house. So, I thought I'd post some recent pictures of the interior before we start putting everything back together.

This wall in the kitchen is actually going to be demolished and replace by a framed wall.

Looking from kitchen into dining room...which will be the entire kitchen

Future Master bath

Future Master Closet

View from master closet into Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Dining Room (Future eat-in kitchen area)

Same room I'm standing in front of the built-in in previous picture

Looking from dining room into existing kitchen. That wall with windows is coming out!

Main level bath/laundry room

Living Room (we took the arched doorways out)

Stairs...

Family Room. I love seeing the stairs from the front room!!

Family room looking into the living room and stairwell

View looking up from the landing of the stairwell

Upstairs full bath. We are keeping the tub.

Upstairs full bath looking out door

Uptairs bedroom #1

Bedroom #1

Upstairs Bedroom #2

Upstairs Attic space. This is a totally new space we created by taking out a closet that was built inside the attic. Yay!

Attic space looking into Bedroom #2

Well, there you go.You are caught up on the progress on the inside. Right now my Fabulous father -in-law is wiring the electric and then the HVAC guys will be in to install the furnace and air conditioner. I will do my best at keeping up with the inside.  See you next year!

The Back Porch....Gone, but Not Forgotten!

The Back Porch

Well, the construction is coming along. With the roof being torn off it made no sense to keep the back "porch". It was very leaky and closed off the back entrance to the yard.  So...we decided to remove it. I like it more because it lets in more light to the kitchen. Removing the bushes helped a lot too.

Before the porch was removed

After, from about the same view.

Here you can see the entire space (no bushes)

It will be so nice in the summer to come out here and watch the kids play

Another view from in between the houses

We are hoping to eventually have a fire pit out in the back yard area. Since it is right out the kitchen door, I think we will be using it a lot.

Chimney...No More

No More Chimney!

I guess the chimney had to go. It served no purpose and it actually made the roof hang over and extra 2 feet. I have added some pictures so you can see what a difference it has made. Without the chimney we can put some bigger windows in the kitchen. At first we thought we would do it later, but when the roof started getting fixed, it made no sense to keep it. 

Before.....

After...We will remove the rest when we replace the windows in the kitchen

Back side of the house.

In the last picture you can see The chimney is down and the new roof is on. It has taken a few days to remove the old roof because there were 3 layers on it. The first layer was wood shakes. We also have been working on removing a lot of the overgrown landscaping.

Now the fun starts..The inside work will really be picking up.  S

The Porch

The Original Porch is back on....kinda.

We have been seeing a lot of progress lately with the house. We are trying desperately to get it buttoned up tight before the snow starts falling. Then we can start working on the inside. I went ahead and added the old picture circa 1910? so you can get an idea of what the original porch looked like. We are not quite done with it yet, but it is getting there. The new porch is a little wider and they haven't finished the gable end yet, but it is starting to look like the original porch.

Photo taken in 1910?

Beginning of the Porch

The posts are up...

You can see that we stained the floor a dark color to protect it from the elements. I will probably end up painting it one day. You can tell we also primed the new siding. 

I searched a few salvage places for old posts but I couldn't find 4 that were the same and in good enough shape. I would really have liked to have reused old posts...but what are ya gonna do? 

View from Westfield Blvd.


Oh! And if anyone knows where I can get any of the gingerbread trim...I am open to suggestions!

Next Week.... we will have a new roof. I can't wait to share those photos.