I mentioned in the first blog that we have some big changes coming up and that’s all due to us moving into my grandparents house. It’s a great opportunity for us to live in the country which is something both of us want. Natalie seems to be fully onboard with the idea, but Morgan is more hesitant because she realizes she will be moving away from her friends and school. She has a definite pattern of liking it when we are up there and working, but once we get back to Macomb, she says she wants to stay there. I get it completely. And I am hoping once we are up there and she meets some friends, which she is a total extrovert so she won’t have any issues with that, she will be just fine with the move.
The house does need some work. My grandparents really didn’t do much in the area of updating. The flooring has been the same since I was born and I’m 42. My first goal was to get the main living area painted so we could pull up the carpet. It only took a few hours of being in the house before I was affected by the dust. Then it took me a couple of days to recover once I was out and away from all the dust.
We’ve already done quite a bit and I’ll continue to document that all here, but here is list of things we have done and need to do (and this is an incomplete list.)
- Empty the house (it was FULL)
- Fix cracks in plaster (upstairs and down)
- Fill in all the nail holes (my grandma loved to hang pictures)
- Paint the entire interior
- Pull up carpet
- Remodel bath (reconfigure)
- Remodel kitchen (mostly cosmetic)
- Rework the entry way
- Get electrical checked
- Buy new couch
- Landscape
- Refinish all the floors
- Clear out the wasps (they seem to like all the windows)
- Refurbish the windows
- Outside play area for girls
Like I said above, there’s way more that we will have and want to do, but this is what we are focused on right now. There’s other “fun” stuff like adding some beehives and making the extremely large front lawn into a prairie, but those will wait until some of the other things are done. Structurally the house is great, so it just needs some attention to make it more efficient for us. Brandon and I are planning to do a lot of the work ourselves since it’s things we can do, but other things like the electrical and bath remodel will probably require an expert.
Obviously, there is much more to come with house updates!
