I guess I need to update more!

Well, Since the last update A LOT has happened, so I guess I'll just have to throw all the updates out there!

Last time we checked in, the house was down to the studs... and while it still is, there has been a lot of progress on some major issues. Unfortunately, despite thinking we were incredibly lucky and didn't have any structural problems, as it goes with old houses, it just took a little more time to uncover something rotting :/

The good news is that while the issue is annoying and time consuming, it wasn't an expensive problem, since Farmer Joe already knew how to jack up a house and replace the rotten floor beams, he and Jake slammed it out in just a couple of weekends!

We also had the unpleasant surprise of finding that while we aren't living on our property yet, a tree outside our back door has become home to a serious bee hive! EEEK! I am terrified of it, but I also don't like the idea of hurting the bees since they are so important. Jake's mom has a client that supposedly is a bee whisperer or something and can convince them to move to a hive that can then be moved away from our property. I hope it works, but for now they are busy busy busy!

Other progress includes the footer completion, which makes the house seem like it's really progressing!

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

It looks great, but the progress would be even faster if only the permit process wasn't such a mess! The ladies in the Greene county permit office have seen Jonah and I more than most of our closest friends, and the process of appeasing the government has plagued us. Did you know you have to have a building permit, an electrical permit, a footer waiver and permit, a beam certification, a plumbing permit, and HVAC permit, and probably more we haven't even heard about now. So far finding someone to certify the oak beams was the hardest to deal with. At one point the permit people said it would be better to cut the existing structure, place smaller pine beams in, and then cover those with the solid oak beams faux style... this is obviously NOT as structurally sound as using the solid beams we had while keeping the existing frame that has held strong for over a hundred years. Thankfully Jake had a friend in the "Timber Frame" historic building guild who could certify that the beam would hold, and everything worked out quite nicely! Here of some pictures of the whole beam process, from pulling them out of the old barn, all the way to getting them installed to support the 2nd floor!

Well, other than that we have been doing smaller jobs around the house as well, including our latest destruction of the old chopped off chimneys that were in each room. Losing those really opened up each room and made a huge difference! A SERIOUSLY big thanks goes out to the always clutch Caleb and Emily who helped tremendiously! :) We also had an adventure buying wire in which the Lowes guys were seriously dumb and unrolled the wire backwards, resulting in both of them huffing and puffing the whole time... it was interesting, and pretty funny, then Jake lugged the huge roll out to the truck. It was incredibly heavy!

That's the latest on the house... hopefully we can be in by next summer!