What's left?

With the strong possibility of our moving to Texas in the summer to pursue another PhD, this time in Theology and at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, some have wondered how much we still lack to do on our house. The answer is quite a lot!

The house we bought was a foreclosed home which had been empty for over a year before we bought it. The siding and several windows were rotting. The front porch had some rotting issues also. The roof, sump pump, and the air conditioner needed replacing. The fascia boards were rotten. Inside, the carpet was filthy and damaged. The kitchen floor turned out to be rotten down to the sub floor. The bathrooms were nasty. Most light fixtures had been taken /stolen by the previous owners. Most appliances had been removed. All in all ... it was a big mess.

Since then, the roof, the sump pump, and the AC unit have all been replaced (these are the only things we actually contracted out). About 60% of the siding has been replaced. Most (but not quite all) of the rotting issues with windows and fascia boards have been dealt with. As for the inside, one of the two full bathrooms and the half bath have been re-floored and are done, with the exception of some trim work. The master bath is still completely gutted - you can still see some studs. The kitchen floor has been tiled, the living room floor has been replaced with hardwood floors. Most of the upstairs hall and part of one of the three bedrooms have also been floored with hardwood floors. Most of the walls have been repaired and painted. The kitchen cabinets are in the process of being refinished. All the molding was very abused, so Cindy is repairing all of it and painting it white since we removed it to install the floors. The fireplace has been re-done.

What is still missing? The master bathroom needs to be put back together: floor, bathtub, sink, toilet, etc. The bedrooms need to be floored and their molding needs to be repaired, painted, and installed. The dining room (my tool shop) needs to be floored and have some sheet rock work done. We have a french door to install in the kitchen and the cabinets need to be finished. The counter top also needs to be finished. We have to floor the steps and finish its surrounding molding. 40% of the siding needs to be installed and the whole outside needs to be painted. We still have to build the porch for the kitchen french doors to open out to, and the deck needs to be repaired. The front porch still needs attention, as the posts are bad. We added the structure for a pergola on the deck outside the dining room french doors to provide structural support for an overhang over that door; now we have to finish it. Plus, many other little details need to be figured out and taken care of.

There. Now you know how you can pray for us or help us, if you are handy and want to do some construction.

Update on the hall floor

It seems that life is still very busy, and I have not had time to write much, but I did want to take a minute to post a couple of pictures of our upstairs hall floor (still in progress). When we bought the wood flooring for the house, they had some abused boxes of thinner, lighter Brazilian cherry wood for really cheap; we thought we could use it for some decorative borders with our normal Brazilian cherry floors. Here is our first attempt, and probably the more complex attempt for this house.

As usual, I started by laying out a plan. It first started with some hand sketches:

Then I did a more detailed layout on AutoCAD (often this step is just a detailed hand drawing):

And finally, you get to do it all. You judge the results. BTW, the wider pieces will darken with time, increasing the contrast with the lighter border.