Man, I am getting so bad about posting. It's not like there is nothing exciting going on.. but how many times can I say "put in a new window, hung drywall" :)

OK.. house update...

Put in new window... hung drywall :)

We are down to just 3 more windows.. (after replacing something like 22, this is huge). I also have all the siding put up on the North and just a another small section on the East. That leaves one wall left (where the fireplace is going and home to 3 new windows) and the whole house will be done.

Blows me away how much we are saving by doing this work ourselves. In the last year, we've spent something like $80,000 in remodeling... but that is just the cost of materials. If we had to pay someone to do all the work, I bet this would be hitting close to $200,000. Even the windows and siding. Our estimates came close to $50,000 for both to have professionals do it. We spent about $3,000 on siding and about the same on windows.

The double ovens were installed on Friday.. man they are nice. I am working on finishing up the bar and then the kitchen is really done! Our big push right now is to finish our master bathroom so we can tear apart the upstairs bath and laundary room. We are falling a bit behind schedule. I was hoping to be tearing things apart at this point.. butthe bathroom is painted and lights/outlets are installed as well as plumbing. Tonight, we'll put down the tile floor (which has to dry for a couple of days) and then we can install the toilet and sink and we are good to go.

Holly has been an amazing trooper. She is finishing the mud in the living room and got the bathroom done last week. I bought the drywall to finish our bedroom, but we haven't hung the ceiling yet.

I did manage to slice open my finger last night on a new razor blade while doing wiring... I told Holly she needed to get me some man bandaids instead of the small kid sized... she suggested I just use a paper towel and duct tape... not a bad idea!!

Work is crazy busy... web site is going live tomorrow but my part is pretty much done. Now everything falls on William as he is working like mad to get the builds going. I wish I could help out... but no doubt that I would just get in his way. I was watching him program last night.. damn he is fast. I could keep up with what he was doing more or less, which is good. :)

The farm is becoming a huge pond... we've gotten so much rain. We are also on an expedition to kill rodents. They are taking over the shed... I put out 7 things of poison and they were all empty (eaten) the next morning. Saw a stray cat this morning by the lab (garage).. took off as soon as we went outside... we could use some barn cats!!

2 1/2 weeks left before x-mas... crunch is on for the house... I doubt that we will be able to "finish" everything... but I hope to at least have all the drywall hung so no studs.. That would be a huge improvement. I got another garbage dumpster, which will help. Getting rid of debris can be really slow if you have to bag it all up.

I haven't had much time to work on my website in the last few weeks.. did get some more functionality added (logins and such) over the weekend. http://midwestopenhouse.com. Looking at some of the sites that William and Scott have put together... man.. I need some better design elements!