This weekend, Tyler installed the shelving in the two small closets and in the linen closet. He also installed the shower ring and all the bars and racks in the main bathroom! It looks awesome!

Today, we got the water heater and water softener going. The house has not had hot water since March! It's a blessing for sure! We also tried out the dishwasher and we will see how well it did tomorrow when we return. 

We are really excited to move in tomorrow and our buddies Brett and Candace are going to help. :)

In the last couple of day we have had six of the windows that were out being restored returned to their natural place! When we bought the house (see the first set of photos in the photos section) a lot of the stained glass had been painted over with white paint. It is exciting to see the beautiful colors, that were hiding under that paint, exposed and casting amazing rainbows on the walls and stretching across the floor! This house is the most colorful and vibrant during the day. Even with only six windows back in place, a huge part of the house's character has been returned. We can't wait to see them all brand new and shiny!

The windows were stripped, restored and primed by Cody Wright, and what a fabulous job he did! Thanks, Cody!

Although the windows looks great, there is still much work to be done to make them complete. We have to cut new jamb extensions and sills, strip and repaint the trim, and paint the brick moulds outside. Then-- it will look finished!

The Buffnstuffs came over this weekend and helped us bring in the appliances.

The range did not work for a bit, but the service guy came on Monday and now it does! :) We felt the square appliances would go well with the shaker style cabinets. And we chose a dish drawer unit to so we coukd run half loads instead of waiting for the two of us to fill an entire dishwasher.

Now we just need to add some under cabinet lighting and the plumbers need to come hook up everything that requires water!

We had some friends over this weekend and painted a whole bunch! We primed the upstairs and even got to start putting some of the final colors on the walls. We completed two coats on all the walls on the main level, but still have to do all the edges around the ceiling.

Over the week, we also had a MAJOR change. We removed the giant yellow eye soar from the front of the house, exposing a beautiful and shapely brick building!

Here's a movie of some of the work that was completed by Saturday.

Getting very close to removing the addition on the side of the house and starting the carriage house.  Stay tuned.

“What is that,” you ask? We have completed all the rough framing (completed by friends and us), rough electrical (by Jordan, Taylor Electric), rough mechanical (Lane’s guys, Perfection Air), and rough plumbing (Dwight Gailey Plumbing). Today, a nice lady from Ogden City completed an inspection on all the rough stuff! AND- - we passed!

The next step from here is to photograph where everything is located within the walls so that we can have that knowledge if we need it. This came in handy on our last house when we needed to add a doggy door and had to know where to put it without interfering with any electrical or plumbing in the walls.

Then, we are going to have the exterior walls, which we furred out with metal studs, insulated with spray in foam. This will make it difficult to add things in the walls in the future, so let’s hope we got everything! We used metal studs to avoid having to use pressure treated wood next to the brick and because the steel studs allowed us to stay closer to the original room size since they are shallower. After that has been completed, we will have another inspection on the insulation. They want to do an inspection at that point to see that we are actually bringing our Res Check (calculations to show that home’s efficiency) down, as this is not a common happening for homes, not even remodels, of that era. These few inches of spray in foam will bring the house from an R3 to R21, a considerable difference. I can’t wait because his means we can have air conditioning soon!

This is how he recalls his “summer vacation” in an email to a friend:

“I was there for 16 days. 5 days to finish the drawings and get an over the counter addendum permit from the City and 10 days of construction. We started by saw cutting out the basement floor slab and pouring two 18" x 18" x 10" reinforced concrete footings to support the two tall 4x4 posts that support part of the basement stair landings, the floor framing for part of the first floor entry, and part of the first floor stair landings. (Finished this at 4:00 am after Tyler talked one of his competitors at a Wal-Mart job out of three more sacks of concrete so we could finish.) The "bridge" for the top two landings is supported by a bearing wall over a double floor joist on one end and a new double joist that is thru bolted to the existing masonry. The brick is three wyes wide (12-1/2") and are pressed bricks. We did not believe an epoxy anchor would hold, so that is why we went with thru bolts. Currently we used 5/8" ready bolts, but the finished bolts will be 3/4" x 18" carriage bolts. (Had to special order them.) They should look better on the exterior. The second landing in front of the little window is also thru bolted to the exterior. The "lean-to" addition will be removed and the wrap around covered porch will be restored. Therefore the little diamond plate washers will be exposed on the porch.

Vital statics:

· Basement floor to entry ceiling: 29'-6"

· 13 risers from basement to first floor in three runs.

· 19 risers from first floor to second floor in four runs.

· 32 risers total

· The intermediate landings for the basement stairs are not code compliant in one direction. (City allowed it due constraints of existing structure.)

· Metal studs used to furr exterior walls. Walls to receive urethane foam spray insulation.

· Stairs to be finished with stained poplar treads, risers, tread brackets, skirtboards, newel posts, balusters, and railings.

· Foundation walls are mortared stone and are up to 7" wider than the first and second floor masonry. Existing frame wall on first floor had to be moved 4" in order to have enough room for in the wall support framing (and metal studs and insulation) and make the stairs code compliant. Therefore, none of the walls for the two sets of stairs are aligned with each other.

· One 4x4 post is just under 12' long and the other is just under 16' long. A third 4x4 post that just supports part of a lower landing is just under 7' long and was simply set on an anchor plate on the existing floor slab.

And how was your summer vacation?

Ward Hollon”

We appreciate all the time, consideration and back breaking labor that Dad put into the design and construction of the stairs.

The other part they were unsure about was the material.  They did not like the striations in the particular finish that we found.  So, we went online and found almost the same product but without the striations.  I really hope it gets approved when we call for our technical committee.

Come on... You have to admit, that's pretty awesome that I was able to remove the yellow addition, continue the porch, and put a building in a blank lot.  Well, I'm proud anyway. AND-- it has SHADOWS AND GLASS!

Even though we do not have new anything yet, including electrical, plumbing, or even drywall, I think it is well to our advantage to know that Memorial Day Weekend is the BIGGEST paint sale of the year!  Of course it's one of those sales that comes with little asterisks (*) that say "by mail-in-rebate."  We are buying one five gallon bucket of primer and 20 individual gallons of colors ranging from white, to crimson!

I have had a couple of endless nights recently thinking of the different designs and colors I would need to pull this off, and even still, I have one room unaccounted for!

• This SALE will return $120!