The house, such as it is

It's been a while since the last update, and we've gotten a bit done.

Over the past three weekends (we tooks the 15th off for our anniversary) we've accomplished the following:

• Taken out the remaining cabinets and the buffet in the kitchen, and all the sheetrock is off the walls.


• The upstairs bathroom is completely bare: all floors and sheetrock are out.


• The entire laundry room has been stripped, including the ceiling. All the cabinets, sheetrock and 95% of the floors have been removed. I'm still trying to get up the bottom layer of linoleum off the the concrete.


• Removed some 2x4's from the downstair's closets to make the closet doors larger.


• Taken all the soft furniture out of the garage and thrown it in the dumpster, due to the fact that cleaning the cloth and cushions of the mold, mildew, and allergens would not have been possible.


• Still working on trying to get up the linoleum in the hallway and office.

So, we think we'll almost done with the gutting part, but aren't sure. I'd like to pull off the rest of the sheetrock. I'd also like to rewire the house due to the old wiring, but also due to the crazy circuit layout (for instance, I'd like to take the dish washer and garbage disposal off the furnace circuit. Yes, that's the way it was wired. Yes, that's a code violation). We'll also have to replace the piping because when the house froze up, the pipes either burst, or the solder joints popped. We'll probably have to pull off all the downstairs ceilings (or at least most of them) since we have no idea where the pipes go for the outside faucets. And even though we've removed the ceililng in the laundry room (under the kitchen) we still have no idea where the pipes for the kitchen are.

The other issue is financing. We went to talk to a lender the other day, and well, they can't lend us money for the project because they want to appraise the house before they lend. Which we can't do since the house is pulled apart. Well, they said, just "seal it up," (meaning put up sheet rock, paint that and the floors), and we can get it appraised. There are two problems with that: 1) we need money to "seal it up," and 2) we'd have to tear it out again because there are things we want to do in the walls, like new electrical wire. There is also some insulation we'd like to replace due to water damage, in addition to probably replacing all of the interior vapor barrier.

So, right now we're really depending on God for the finances. Yes, we were before, but after the meeting with the lenders, it really drives home the point that it's Him that's going to finish out this project.

So, keep praying. We'll keeping working, and praying, and we'll get this thing done.