It has been almost 5 months since I posted so it is long overdue to give an update. Darrel works full time so our “house projects” are nights and weekends for him, but I do as much as I can throughout the week. We are still in Kentucky and the daffodils are blooming. When we arrived late in September we jumped right into fixing up a house that we had bought to live in while we are here in the winters. The project grew in scope as we dove into it, as they often do. We ended up having to remove all the flooring. We replaced the main floor support beam and put in all new joists. Darrel repaced all the plumbing, water lines, some electrical and put in a tankless hot water heater. We put in a sump pump, encapsulated the crawl space and then closed up the floor. Then it was on to putting in a bathroom. We tiled the shower surround. Then we did painting and flooring through the whole house. In the kitchen we removed a wall and added an island and we relocated the washer and dryer and reframed a closet in a bedroom. We were able to “move in” the second week of December. That means we had beds to sleep…but no other furniture in the house except for 2 camp chairs.
Work in progress…
The finished product…
We headed up to Canada for a wonderful week together with all of Darrel’s family. Ben was able to fly up from Utah and Johnathan and Brianna drove up from Montana. We celebrated Darrel’s parents 50th Anniversary with many of their friends and family at the local hall. Then we celebrated an early Christmas together with his family.
Then we headed back to Kentucky and Ben joined us for the holidays. We got furniture on the 23rd of December…it is sure nice to have a couch to sit on and a table to eat at! 🙂 There are things you just don’t take for granted when you don’t have them for a while.
When we got back we started work on a second house that we are flipping with friends. It is fun to work on this project with others. We had cleaned this house out in the fall (5 dumpsters worth between the house, garage and roof!). We added another bedroom, ran new plumbing, upgraded some of the electrical. Then we our friends kept working on the house while we headed to Florida for another development sprint. Darrel continues to volunteer a couple of times a year to write software for Youth With a Missions University of the Nations. I cooked for the team and helped with logistics.
We enjoyed driving along a bit of the Gulf Coast and got as far as Mobile, Alabama before heading back to Kentucky. Then it was back to house projects. We are putting in a new kitchen. We have done most of the painting. Next up is finishing the trim, tiling, flooring and the exterior. The goal is to get this all done before we head back to Montana early in April. We will be based out of Helena for the summer. We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our first grandchild in June, so we will also be spending time in Plains.
This has certainly been a winter of working hard and learning lots of new skills. We are sure thankful for the health and ability to do this!