2 Months Later

It's hard to keep up with blog posts in the middle of working.. but now, it is Christmas break so I have the time. We have been very busy this season with flea markets and lots of traveling. We were out of town almost every weekend in October. 

So we have done a few projects at the house in between the busyness... the first project was continuing the siding on the front side of the house. While I was gone at camp in mid-October, Shae worked very hard one night to put up our cedar shake siding. 

 

 

 

Then we replaced the front steps to our house. Shae and I had both taken the Friday off before our last Flea market of the season. And the morning that we were planning to load all the furniture and projects out of the house and onto the trailer, our concrete stairs had crumbled. 

 

More recently, we have had our sweet puppy get sick with Parvo. He is doing much better after a long stay at the Emergency Vet. 

 

 

After Thanksgiving, Shae began to take down the wall and built in shelves in the living room.

 

He also repaired the floor from where the fireplace used to sit before the previous home owners took it out. We are in the process now of shifting that wall over and creating a hallway from the living to the back of the house. Eventually, we will have a middle room in the house that will be another bedroom.

 

This past weekend, while I was away from the house one evening, Shae fixed up our laundry room space--I now have shelves and a hanging rack for clothes so our sweet puppy doesn't eat anymore of my shirts. Also, he added a door in the doorway so that I don't have to go the long way to get to the laundry room. 

 

 

Hopefully over break we can get some more little projects knocked off our list. The next big project is to lay subfloor in the kitchen. That will definitely be a project day with (hopefully) the help of many friends! 

And this morning was a new kind of adventure... in my attempts to take a shower this morning, I noticed the shower wasn't draining.

 

So I watched a short video on YouTube and found out how to thaw out a frozen drain pipe. 

 

So I had to crawl under the back corner of the house to access the frozen pipe. Then use a hairdryer to thaw it out. 

 

 

It worked! I was able to get the whole thing done all by myself when it was 17 degrees outside!!! 

There are always adventures at the Kipp's house!!

Demolishing Friends

Saturday September 24th was one of my favorite Saturdays so far. We had a great group of friends show up and they worked hard for us. We, of course, paid them with great food and fellowship.

We had 4 friends come over--Brent, Matt, Dustin and Alex--and the original plan was to paint the house but Shae and I had taken care of that task during the week. So instead we said goodbye to the horribly Pinterest-fail scrapbook wall and the boys got to take down lots of junk. 

I was amazed by the work that was done in such a short amount of time. In between major demolition moments, Alex and I would do our best to clean up the area. 

Pictures say and show it best...

Here are some before pictures of the ugly scrapbook wall and turquoise room.

 

 

 

And here are the after pictures... we have a living room! A legit "sit down and watch TV living room"... we haven't had that in months. Sunday night we actually sat together on our couch and ate ice cream and watched some TV. It was so wonderful to enjoy immediately the fruits of our (and our friends') labor!! 

 

Lanae came towards the end of workday and helped us get the living room put together. 

 

And as much as I love the end product. I most enjoyed watching it all come down. So here are some of my favorites of the day. 

These pictures display the beginning of the wall tear down. 

 

 

 

And then all the wallpapers we discovered...

 

 

From the looks of things, we used to have a fireplace. And this was the wall it was on. Because of the holes and rot, this shiplap had to come down. But we got some great salvage pieces from it.

 

 

 

And then we discovered that under the Sheetrock on the ceiling was beadboard that is original to the house. And once cleaned up, the floors are going to look phenomenal!

 

 

Overall, it was a great day with the help of great friends! I love how God has blessed us with such great people to do life with that they would spend a Saturday throwing around sledgehammers and working hard for their friends. I LOVE our village!!

Saturday's Siding Shindig

Over-engineering. Doing it the right way, even if it's more frustrating and takes longer. We have decided to over-engineer our house projects just to make sure we are covered when the what-ifs happen. It makes things sturdier and last longer. Plus I really don't want to have to do the same section over again.

Today's project was to take down the siding of the front side of the house. We are going to use those pieces we took down today to patch the other exterior siding in need of repair. We will be replacing the front siding with cedar shakes. I think it will look really good once we are done. 

We went to our Lowes in Greenville (I love that place!) and tried to figure out how to make all this stuff work. When we tell people what we are doing, they always look confused. 

So... When you have awesome shiplap walls, it changes how you handle things with your house. Our walls are not insulated at all. But we figured out how to work with what we have in the best way possible. 

For those of you who were like me and don't know things about houses, exterior walls should have a vapor barrier, insulation, sheathing, moisture barrier and then your siding. It's like the filling on an Oreo--except for we are missing all the filling. 

I took lots of pictures today because I think it's really neat that we are able to do these things and learn together as we go. Tomorrow, the nicest people in town (our neighbor) said he was going to come help us. They offered today, but we had to leave so we could get together with our Bible Class group tonight. 

I love where we are in life right now. I am so thankful to God for placing us in this season right now. Enjoy the pictures from today. More to come soon!

 

 

 

 

That the back of our shiplap from the office/living room. Crazy huh?

 

This is what we used for our vapor barrier. It is felt that is typically used for flooring or exterior of walls, but the Lowes man said it would totally work. Plus it was way less expensive of an option than what we were looking at first. 

 

Within 30 minutes, we had gotten this whole part done. That made me unusually happy! Things never seem to go so smoothly and quickly. Blessings... because next was insulation. and that stuff is awful!!

 

Ugh!! I hate it! 

 

And then sheathing. Which to me, sounds less like a wood word and more like something else. I always thought sheathing was Tyvek, but that is something else entirely. I am learning so much that I never knew before. 

And this is where we basically stopped for today because of our shindig tonight. We will hopefully finish the sheathing and Tyvek stuff on this section tomorrow after church.

As much fun as it was just the two of us, I look forward to having some friends help us with projects in the coming weeks. The more the merrier and the quicker we work together. 

Until next time...

Cookies and Clean Kitchens

Monday's are hard sometimes. But I had two awesome surprises today. When I got to school today, two sweet girls in my homeroom class made me cookies from scratch. Hannah and Tara were asking questions about favorite things to all of the teachers in our team. But I didn't really think they would spend part of their weekend baking is cookies. Boy was I wrong!

 

 

And this Monday I had Premier training, which was a wonderful and uplifting time. When I came home, my sweet husband had grilled up some meat that we bought this weekend and he also cleaned up the kitchen. I am so blessed! He loves me just perfectly!

 

This is our island that Shae found a long time ago! I love it and how it fits just great in our space. And our lazy Suzan from Canton. And Shae's sweet tea! 

 

This is the pot holder we bought in Ingram, TX over Labor Day weekend. This was made from repurposed inside hardware of closet doors. It's really cool and I'm so glad we snagged it! 

Short but sweet blog post! Little "Happys" as my SIL Rachel calls them should be post-worthy on Mondays. 

Love yall! 

School Days and Better Days

The House Project

Pictures are the greatest because they capture moments and memories! We have made progress on the house even in the middle of transitioning to "School Days and School Nights." Each day I find something--some joy or some happy--about this house and this move. I hope those moments never go away. I'm sure they will, but my word for this year is JOY. And I am CHOOSING JOY.

 

This picture was last week before work. We have a front porch. And the night before I took this picture, we laid outside on our porch and listened to the crickets and the roads. No highway noise, no crazy music, no sirens every 10 minutes. It was peaceful and I loved it! The front porch had disappeared for a few weeks because of unloading things from storage and deep discounts on insulation for the attic. But it's back and I love it! Last night we sat on our front porch with our neighbors and just hung out. Peaceful friendships and life are happening on our front porch!

 

This picture is the very beginnings of our kitchen! We have a rug and a mostly functional kitchen. We are getting there. It's a process. 

 

This is the beginnings of our living room/soon-to-be office. I know it doesn't look like much but y'all, I can sit on our couch. Small victories!

Rain, Rainbows and Creatures

It rains a whole lot more here in Celeste than it did in Richardson. Like way more! Typically rain is good because it brings cooler temps (but more humidity). It also shows you where there might be ground drainage (flooding) problems. So with lots of rain comes the biggest rainbows I have seen in a long time!

 

 

And with rain and rainbows, also creatures. 

 

This guy was in my front yard once the rain waters receded. For you city folks like me, that's a giant craw daddy. There were (and still are) several holes in and around my front yard from these creatures. This one was out and about, so I caught him and gave him to the neighbor kid. 

School Days

School is great and my 5th graders are sweet. What I'm having to adjust to the most are ALL THE QUESTIONS. They ask questions about anything and everything, ALL THE TIME. I'm sure you parent-folks know what I'm about. I have been informed that I was THAT KID---sorry Mom and Dad and teachers. But it is exhausting! And I wasn't prepared for this because I'm not a mom yet so I think that's the biggest adjustment. 

Other than that, my students and I are having a blast learning together. These students of mine LOVE to learn! It is so refreshing to be able to teach and students to be actively involved. And 5th grade is a fun age because they are beginning to grow up a little bit but are still kind and sweet and helpful. I'm enjoying these days, even with all the questions. 

Plus, my school staff and principal are phenomenal and helpful and encouraging. It's been such a joy so far! My hope is to blog more about schools later this weekend when I get a few moments to do so. I'm loving it!

Here are some classroom pictures and beginning of school year stuff. If you want to see more of my classroom adventures, you can follow Mrs. Kipp on Twitter @Herndon_Kipp. I have to tweet at least one thing a day so you can join the classroom adventure with us!

 

Huge shout out to my mom for her help with the pictures below. 

 

 

 

Also, another huge shoutout to my sweet husband for helping hang things and organize my room before school started. These are the things Shae helped with...

 

 

 

Also, I had a kid give me an apple because teachers and apples always go together! Precious!!

 

Thanks y'all for the support and encouragement with our journey!