It's Been Awhile

I haven't posted anything since September. Reason being I was totally involved in restoring the church's rental house. The church purchased the house and adjoining land several years ago thinking we could use it for expansion in the future since it adjoined the church building property. We decided to rent it out for awhile since a church member wanted to live in it. It came available in September so we decided since it needed a lot of work done on the house we would do it. My wife and I decided we would just rent it since we had sold our house. We set in to remodeling it meanwhile we moved in with my wife's mother. (Thanks Granny!) The remodel consumed my every spare moment until we finally moved in the Sat. before Christmas. Not only was I consumed with work but several church members worked tirelessly to get it done. We rented a dumpster and started filling it up over and over again as we demoed and threw away years of accumulation. We concentrated on the inside, the outside will come later when the weather warms up again. Some of the things we did were: repaired and repainted all the ceilings and walls in the entire house, tore out all the carpet and refinished the hardwood floors and installed new laminate flooring in other rooms with all new quarter round throughout, completely tore out upstairs bath and re did it from the studs (all new fixtures), tore out the ductwork upstairs and had new ductwork put in the attic, replaced window panes in windows, sheetrocked up a door in the kitchen, deomed the kitchen and completely replaced all appliances, countertops, sink and refinished the cabinets, installed two new cabinets in the kitchen. In the downstairs bathroom we tore it out except for the bathtub which we had refinished (it looks new) and all new fixtures (I just got fininshed tearing out the old ductwork in the bathroom closet and putting in a new ceiling and floor and made shelves. We had all new plumbing run in the house, replaced countless plugs and switches, door locks and handles. The most difficult project was in the back part of the house. There was a laundry room with access to the basement and a closet, and beyond that there was a carport that had been made into a room. One of our men completely gutted these two rooms down to the studs tearing down the walls between the rooms. He filled in the basement access level with the floor, raised the floor in the carport room to be level with the laundry room floor. Thus the floor in this big area was level. We decided to make one big room so he put in five new windows, re sheet rocked the walls, closed up the door from the outer room, moved the electrical and drains, and installed new drop ceiling and lighting. We painted the walls and carpeted the floor. This room definitely had the greatest change you wouldn't know it from the old. We also installed new lighting and ceiling fans throughout most of the house. Beautiful new floorcovering was installed in the kitchen and bathrooms. Many other things were done (basement cleaning and repair, storm windows repaired, etc.) I am glad it has settled down now. There are still things to do but we will get to them. Don't ask me if I would do it again! Seriously it was the best thing for the church that it be done and restored to marketable value. I want to extend my sincerest thanks to those who have helped on this project. I won't try to name everyone but you know who you are and may God bless you for your service.