Pie

One of the nice things about this last week was the discovery that our tree in front of our house is a cherry tree. The cherries are a bit too tart for me (Emily) to enjoy. But, it is abosolutely beautiful and it makes oh-so-good pie. The cherry tree is only one of many fruit trees we have on our small property. We also have a peach tree, 2 apple trees, and a grape vine (although we got rid of most of the vine because it was pulling the gutters off the house . . . and we knocked down most of what was holding it up.) Come to our house and we will make you a pie. (And by "we" I mean Jon. I'll tell him later.)

More work...

Here is the back of the house after we took everything off. Bill fixed all the gutters and the ladies took care of the inside, including all of the wall paper. Everyone was great.














Here is a picture of roses in the back yard. Both Harold and Bill help clean out the yard by weeding and cutting out bushes.














This picture was taken a week later when we painted one of the rooms.














Just this past week we had a new tank-less water heater put in. It is a little bigger than we had hoped but a lot smaller than what we had and in a better place.



















This is the main bathroom. It had a lot of mold and needed to be repaired. We went to town and here is the state it is currently in. Soon there might be Sheetrock, backerboard tile and maybe a toilet.



















The tub works and we plan on keeping it. The rest of the plumbing needed to go though and we hope to have working hot and cold water (running through safe pipes that are up to code). We've spent a lot of time working on demolition and rewiring circuits in the house. Emily is a patient person when I have to rewire a circuit 3 times and I get very frustrated. She has been a busy bee and such a hard worker.

More work.

A video of how the back came off...let's just say that this was a process and the old nails were a bit stubborn.

Wiebe's, Suter's and Benner's

What a great family we have! Over Memorial Day Weekend my parents, Jen and Dave and Emily's parents came to Prairie Village and helped us get things going with the house. They were extremly motivated and we accomplished a ton. Thank you so much!

Slim pickim's with the pictures from that weekend. We were just too busy working.

Here is mom helping get the new appliances goin.














Jen cleaning away the layers. There were (are) many.














Dad at work with supper.














The is the back side of the house before we worked on it.














Dave, hard at work on the back side of the house. Good thing you can carry 8 chairs at once!














More to come.

Not All Work

Although there has been a ton of work done on weekends, evenings and - now that summer is here - weekdays, I have had moments of wonderful relaxation at Ugly House. Thank you Jon for the lovely hammock.

Finished

After many, many hours of hard work, here is the one picture I have of the stained and finished floors. (I don't think this picture quite does it justice.) Jon pretended to compromise on the floor color - he wanted dark, I wanted not so dark. We chose something in the middle (which I think is what he actually wanted). I was sold right away on the color once we did the first closet. I really like it.