Crump Family Blog: Week 3

We met with our contractor, Will, yesterday to talk about the next steps for our little millhouse. The upstairs is framed and is a defined space. It's been exciting for our whole family to see it take shape. Ainsley and Asher are thrilled about their new bedrooms. I think each room has fun things to offer them and will be their unique space.

So, the next steps...
- Currently some vertical beams are supporting a major steel beam that carries some 2nd story weight. This week the beams will come down and we'll see if the chimney (oh, our poor chimney) will be able to hold the weight. If not, we may need to consider completely giving up hope on having a working fireplace in our house and closing off the chimney to allow for more support. We may decide to do this anyway. As pretty as our brick statue is in the middle of our living space, its usability is slight.
- Downstairs walls. We originally thought we'd remove the drywall to expose the beadboard. And, down the road we might do that. But for now we're going to patch the drywall and use it. This is going to make it easier to get insulation in the walls (much desired) and cut out a lot of work for us. Painting the beadboard looked like a beast to tackle. Anyway, some great colors on the wall will be enough to make the space unique and we'll be nice and toasty in the winter with insulated walls.
- The kitchen. Our original idea when we bought the house is to leave the downstairs as is. And then we decided to knock down some walls and change one of the bedrooms into a dining room. Plus, our architect came up with an awesome layout for a new kitchen. However, we've reigned ourselves in and decided to do very little with the kitchen. We'll move our stove from one side of the kitchen window to the other and add a dishwasher. But we won't add anymore cabinets and will keep the sink where it is. Because we have an awesome retro pushbutton stove, I love the idea of leaning toward the freestanding kitchen. And with our new plan for the kitchen we'll definitely have that feel.
- And finally, we'll add our beautiful new to us heart pine floors to the upstairs. We bought the floors last weekend for 50 cents/sqft. with the nails still in them from their last home. And Peyton has been working on getting the nails out this week. He's about 1/3 done having put 2 solid evenings and a Saturday into it.

HVAC and electrical folks will be coming in this week (I think). And some folks will be coming in to take out the linoleum in the bathroom (heart pine floors underneath!) and take out the old tile ceilings. Another exciting week to come! But before that, pictures from this past week.

The view from our dining room into the living room/kitchen.

Our staircase.

The tub. Peyton and I helped the folks from Hillsborough Plumbing carry it from our shed to the 2nd floor bathroom. It's cast iron and HEAVY. We got to know our plumbers quite well over that bonding experience.