Vintage shopping, giving the house a little character

Been doing a little vintage shopping for the house.  This is an early 1900's mechanical doorbell.  It's probably one of the items I'm most excited about installing.  The turn key goes through the door with the bell mounted on the inside.  I'm going to be going out and ringing my own doorbell like a crazy person all the time.

These are glass telegraph insulators from around 1907.  Planning on turning them into light sconces for the hallway.

Framing continues with main floor walls

September 30th, 2013

The upstairs walls are in and the headers for all the windows and doors.  We can actually walk through the rooms of our house.  It is looking so awesome.  Windows are ordered.  Brian and I went "window shopping" last week.  We bought Gerkin windows which are made in Nebraska.  We'll let you know how we like them.  Probably better get some doors on order this week.  Lots to do.  And Brian's parents dropped off a pneumatic hammer that we are borrowing from Alice and Ken for installing the wood flooring.  Thanks guys!

Framing begins

September 26, 2013

Framing begins.  The basement walls are framed, floor trusses and subfloor is in.  And one awesome sunset to confirm we love living in the country again.  Stairwell is built and thanks to our contractor's patience stair treads are put in twice.  I wanted to replace the stair treads that he started putting in with pine treads so that we will have a better surface for painting the stairs.

Industrial Whisks

 

 Picked these babies up on Ebay.  They are old industrial whisks from commercial mixers from bakeries.  They are large, almost 20" and very heavy.  No, I didn't buy an industrial mixer.  Where's my x-mas list?    But they are going in my kitchen.  I'll show you what I do with them later.

Garage floor

September 19, 2013

Garage floors are poured, the only time your garage floor will ever be perfectly clean.  Too bad I don't have roller skates any more.  Thinking we might need some more dirt back filled and tamped or it's going to be an exciting parking job.

That machine cuts the joints in the floor so the cement doesn't crack when it expands and contracts as it gets hot or cold.

Basement floors are poured.

September 18, 2013

Drain tile is back in and...

We have basement floors and two wishing wells.  The wishing wells are the egress windows,  I forced Brian to have some light in his office/toy room.

Waterproofing or the grasshopper tar pits

September 12, 2013

The foundation walls are sprayed with waterproofing tar.  By the way, if you are building a house in the middle of a field, plan on many grasshoppers stuck to the tar, as you walk around they just jump to their sticky death.

It smells like an Ikea store in here.

September 11, 2013

D-day the Ikea delivery day.  It took me about about a month to design and gather the parts list from Ikea for my kitchen.  Just some hints, I've got 4 different colors and styles of kitchen doors in here and making some miniature barn door rollers.  This is not going to be your average kitchen install.
This is what 4,010 lbs of cabinets look like.  The largest order the delivery guy has made.

 It took us 7 hours to inventory it all, load in vehicles, (thanks for your help Bridget) and pack it all in this storage room.  I had to order them so early so I could get in on Ikea's kitchen sale, 20% off.  The only thing I like better than Ikea cabinets is Ikea cabinets on sale.

We are only missing two items from our order.  We got everything but the kitchen sink, no really we are missing the sink, so Ikea if you could send that out, I'd appreciate it.

We have outlets.  We have temporary outlets on a pole.  Nonetheless, it feels good to have electricity. 

September 10-  Foundation walls are unveiled.  And the rough ins for the basement bathroom are in.  We are not finishing this bathroom, but we wanted to put in rough ins in case we want to add one in the future.   Sump pit and the water supply line which we will go to the well.  Progress is being made, unfortunately we also take a step back.  The concrete guys were unfamiliar with the drain tile/forms used for the foundation and they took them out with the forms.  So the drain tiles will have to be reinstalled.   Oh, well.

September 7th-  Foundation walls are poured.  There are forms on the sides of the walls which will be removed later.

September 3rd-  Footings are poured.  You can see the drain tile which also functions as a form for the foundations.

August 30th-  The drain tile goes in.  So this is a drain tile that runs along the inside and outside of the foundation.  Water enters the drain tile through small slits and then drains into our sump pump.  This prevents water from entering the basement.

Digging a hole, digging a big ole hole.  This is the first round of digging the basement.

August 17th-  Power transformer installed

The alfalfa field and so it begins...

After weeks of looking for the perfect location for our new home, we bought 3.2 acres of an alfalfa field in the middle of Nebraska.  Looks like gardening potential to me.