Re-Do / Re-Use

It's been a few days since we've updated about the house project and while there's not really much to show at the moment, there have been little things happening over the last several days. Most of the happenings have been things that are setting us up for upcoming projects. We've spent a fair amount of time looking for specific items and that eats up a lot of the actual work time. One thing we've definitely noticed is that it's not an easy time to get our hands on stuff - any stuff. Even going to the paint store to get some color for our first-to-be-painted room, they were out of nearly everything. Having a choice of the level of paint doesn't seem like it'll be something we'll be able to choose, but rather we'll likely need to take what we can get, if there's anything at all. Fortunately, I was able to get what we needed for the first room, but there is definitely concern about upcoming rooms. I'd rather not buy all the paint for all th...

Renovating a house is always an adventure. We're just never sure what we'll find (or not find), so it's part of the process to figure out what we can use, re-use or what needs to be replaced. Today's discovery: There is wood under all that paint on the floors! Okay, so we already knew that the wood was buried beneath the surface of chipping paint, but we were not aware of just how far down the paint goes. Sam had mused early on that he would prefer to keep the floors painted because the wood is so dark. Initially, I had agreed because the wood just seemed so incredibly dark, unnaturally so. After some pondering though, I really wanted to get a closer look because I couldn't imagine what sort of wood would've been used on the floors that would be naturally that dark. So, today I took a small amount of sandpaper, wet down the area so as to not stir up the dust (I have no idea if any of it is lead-based paint or not, but I suspect that it is purely based on the fa...

We both woke early this morning from our temporary spot for living, anxious to get moving again on the new house. Yesterday seemed to go so well and show so much promise that we wanted to get going again. We packed up our stuff (it was our last night being able to stay in the same spot), cleaned everything and were out before 7:30a.  Taking the dog on a short walk, we chatted with a newcomer to the area. He was asking about where he could take his dog off-leash and we spoke briefly about the area, Colorado (he is visiting long-term from Denver, trying to figure out if this is a good permanent stopping point for him here locally), and all the smoke that has covered the skies recently.  Once again, we didn't have a plan for the day, but Sam knew we would require a few things so we stopped at Home Depot to pick up what we needed (half of which was out of stock, unfortunately -- they were even out of buckets!), and then headed back to the house to get to work.  Surveying the ...

As was shared yesterday, we finally have a house here in Oregon! It feels as though it's taken an eternity, particularly as we've been living a transient life in our small camper, moving from site to site every 7-14 days, but it did happen. While we technically aren't quite living in the house, today was officially day one of our hopeful transformation.  Trying to decide what to do first can be challenging, but in this case it was pretty simple for us: the carpet throughout the house had to go. There are quite a few not-so-pleasant smells lingering (despite the extreme kindness of our agent who had the house professionally cleaned and scrubbed for us just prior to closing), so we know that getting rid of the fabrics in the house often helps to start dissipating the unwanted odors. So, our goal was to dispose of as many of the fabric things in the house today as was humanly possible. Because of our current form of housing arrangements (the camper), we are living with limited...

Although it seems it's taken an eternity to secure a home, we have, after a somewhat short amount of time, secured a home for us in our new stomping grounds. It has been a shaky process and at one point we actually walked away from the home as we were unable to come to an agreement with the former owner, but we can now officially say that we have our new project. Wow. A new project. Wasn't ever sure I wanted another one, but here we are. The beauty of this new-to-us house is that it's a mid-1930s farmhouse, so we're fairly certain there should be some interesting finds as we get started. It is in very rough shape, so there will be much work to do, but we're kind of excited to save something that was destined for demolition (literally, as the seller intended to sell to developers who will be working on the plot of land next door, and most certainly they would've bulldozed the home to make way for new ones).  Personally, I am a bit overwhelmed (I'm completely ...