Guess What?

Guess WHAT??

Our Granville house is finished!  Actually, Dan finished it in July...

 

 

 

 

I made Dan pose with the for sale sign...

 

 

It was listed in July, we had an offer in 5 days, we accepted it, and just found out that the buyers were approved for their loan.  So it's almost officially sold.  The sale is pending. 

We're very excited.  It was a long hard road for Dan because it seemed like each time he started a "small" project, it ended up being much more extensive than we'd originally thought it would be. 

 

This is the upstairs bathroom.

 

The smallest bedroom.

 

The bedroom that used to have stickers all over the walls...

 

The biggest bedroom...originally brown walls.

 

And the bedroom that used to have Orange, Pink and purple stripes painted on the walls.

 

Upstairs hallway

 

This is the addition entertainment/family room with the bar.

 

Mudroom/new laundry room Dan made

 

Downstairs bathroom sans lovetub.  With an ACTUAL shower/tub instead.  :)

 

The kitchen

 

Formal dining room.

 

Front living room.

 

Garage and patio area

 

 

If you care to see the before pictures, check here, here, and here.

 

Of course, there are more posts than that, but those are the first few. 

We're very happy to be finished with this house.  It's now a beautifully restored Victorian home, and I'm so proud of my husband for seeing it through and doing it the right way. 

I can say again, it's a "Fixer upper no more!"

 

Stay tuned for more life updates!

 

 

Family Visit and House Updates!

I mentioned in my last post that my father-in-law came to visit for a few weeks.  It was so nice to have him here.  Gwendolyn quickly learned how to say "paw paw" and he liked to make her laugh, so it was a nice time. 

Our first few days together were pretty chill. 

 

 

We took a day and showed dad the capitol in all it's glory. 

 

This time, the NY state museum was open, so I enjoyed going there!  My favorite exhibit was the antique carousel on the 4th floor.  All of the horses are original and hand carved and hand painted.  It is free to ride on and the rides begin every fifteen minutes.  Because I love carousels so much, we took two turns on it. 

 

Turns out Gwendolyn is a real fan of them as well.  :D

 

 

 

After that one day chilling in Albany, we put dad right to work on the house.  I felt bad that he worked so much on his visit here, but you can't stop a Shedd from working! 

 

Dan and his dad put new drywall up in the whole upstairs, and patched holes, mudded everything, sanded everything...

 

 

 

Dan is so close to finishing!  We can see the end is near and it's very exciting.  Here in May, we have fun things coming!  A baby will (hopefully) be born, we'll plant the garden, Gwendolyn will have her first birthday, we just celebrated our anniversary, and it's officially Spring, which really makes me feel alive.  I love the winter too, but when Spring does finally come, I'm very ready for it. 

 

 

While dad Shedd was visiting us, we also had a pretty intense Missions Conference.  I mentioned that in my last post.  We had four different missionary families in and really enjoyed getting to know them all.  While the one family was here staying in our prophets chamber, Dan was happy to have an extra hand then, re-doing the church name on the front of the building.  These wooden letters have been rotting off since we arrived two years ago, and recently, the bottom of the I in "Baptist" fell off, so it was really time to do some updating.  We purchased new lettering that won't rot.    

 

 

It's very nice to have that project completed.  Today, I finished planting all of the watermelon, cantaloupe, bell peppers, tomatoes, some kale, and a few pots of squash and zucchini and cucumbers indoor.  I'm slightly late doing it...so hopefully everything grows fine.  The hope is that we'll be able to plant outdoor the last week in May.  Dan already got a truckload of chicken manure and spread it and tilled it into the garden. 

That's what we've been up to!  I have a midwife appointment today, so who knows...maybe I'll be posting an update on baby Shedd #2 someday very soon!

(at least I hope so!)

😃😃😃

What a Fixer-upper!

 I've mentioned before on my blog that we are fixing up a house we bought.  We were able to buy this house for VERY cheap.  Although it has good bones for the most part, most of the exterior has to be completely replaced if we want the house to last.  Of course, anything can be jimmy-rigged and made to "last" a few more years, but that's putting off the inevitable. 

 

We decided we'd try to fix this house up the right way.  That's good, but it can mean getting discouraged (especially for Dan) because there is a TON of fixing that needs to be done.  Almost all of it is fixing rot or preventing future rot.  Every now and then, we'll take a break from the real needs and do something easy that makes us feel encouraged like we're really getting something done.  This was one of those projects. 

The side porch was rotten and also made it really difficult to plow the driveway in the winter time.  So we decided to simply do away with it.  You can see how old this photo was...I was still pregnant in the picture.   

 

It came apart easily because of the rot.  I don't have an "after" photo, but the empty space makes it sooo much easier to drive to the back of the house. 

 

 

This is the work that Dan has been doing.  There were cedar shakes on the addition before, and rotten wooden siding on the left portion of the photo.  Dan replaced it all with new wooden siding. 

I've included these next two photos to give you a visual of what it looked like first, when we bought it, and the second, after we pulled the weeds, but still hadn't done any work on it yet.    

 

And this is NOW!

 

 

 

 

After he replaced this side, Dan sprayed it all with paint which we got on sale from a Memorial Day sale on paint Lowes had.  Of course, it's just the first coat, but wow...what an improvement! 

 

 

 

This is the back of the addition after Dan put up the new wooden siding.

 

 

And the back of the garage after the siding was patched and replaced where it was needed, and then painted, just the first coat.

 

 

 

 

 I didn't include any pictures of what I've been doing, because what I'm doing doesn't make the house look BETTER.  haha.  I've been scraping paint.  I've finished both sides and the front of the house as far as I could reach.  Now I'll be starting to do the same, with a ladder.  Last time I went (it's been rainy weather the last two days), I was caulking, which is always fun. 

 

That's where we're at with the fixer upper!  I'll keep on updating as we continue fixing.  This coming month of July, we have a lot planned by way of the church.  The 8th is our anniversary Sunday, the 15th begins Vacation Bible School, and the  29th, we're beginning a project of re-graveling our church parking lot.  We're excited about all of this.  Just as a brief update, Gwendolyn is doing terrific!  She was weighed last week and has gained over 2 pounds!  She's such a good baby...We're extremely blessed to have her in our lives. 

Until next time! Thanks for reading!