James and Kristin Whitt’s Corner

Basement family room is finally finished

This is a bit late, but the basement family room area is finally finished. There is even a new couch and new tv down there. We sold the old TV. Now all that we have left down there is to finish the bathroom.

Also of interested, this January marks the second year that we’ve been using this blog to keep friends and family up to date with our lives.

Changing out a basement drain

We’re getting to the point where we are ready to lay down some sort of floor. The main room in the basement has a pvc pipe coming from the utility room that goes to the drain. There is no drain in the utility room. I haven’t looked at that drain before, so I did not know the condition of the drain. I noticed it was really rusty, so I started to clean it off with a wire brush. It ended up actually being rusted through in a few spots.

I’m in the process of digging out the drain and replacing it with a new one. Since I was already digging one hole to fix the drain, I decided to just go ahead and dig a second hole in the utility room and connect the two up. So I’m at the point where both holes are dug and I’m almost ready to put everything back together. Just waiting until I go can to Lowes tomorrow to pick up some 2″ pvc pipe.

Peter’s Dog and Basement Update

We found a new dog for the Peters. Actually my Mom was the one who found it. Her friends nephew needed to find a home for his red minpin, so my Mom let us know. We asked the Peters if they wanted it, so I picked it up and let it play with Moby for a while until they stopped by to pick it up. I took some pictures of the dog also. The Peters are trying to rename the dog’s name to Taffy, but we’ll see how that goes.

I also have been working a lot on the basement and have gotten almost all the walls finished being painted, only a little touchups left to do. I also have the drop down ceiling done also. We had an electrician stop out last weekend and he was able to connect all the lights and electric outlets up. I have taken some more pictures and put them in our photo gallery.

House Colors

We’re repainting and touching up parts of the house and I realized that we have no centralized place of keeping track of which colors each room is.

Not another tree

Kristin and I have finally removed all the branches that we had cut down last year from our yard.  This was a very large task still because at the end of the year, the side yard was still completely filled.  Slowly we got the branches wrapped up and put out to the curb.  We finished this last week.

So wouldn’t you know it, during the last storm half of a tree in our backyard came crashing down into our back yard.  I had to borrow the chain saw again and we spent about 5 hours out back cutting the tree up and putting it out on the curb.  The garbage man is really going to hate us.  Here are some pictures of what it looked like

Work on basement and ceiling fan

In case everybody hasn’t heard yet, we are currently trying to finish our basement. Things are coming along pretty good. The basement is almost completely framed (the walls have been put up). I’m currently running the electricity and other wires (ethernet, phone, cat5, speaker wire). We decided to wire it for surround sound while we are at it. I’ve added a photo gallery with some photos of the progress of the basement.

Also decided to install my ceiling fan last night. The first thing that I needed to do was install a new ceiling fan box. I took the old one out, but while doing it a big chunk of plaster fell out of the ceiling. Doh. So now that needs to be fixed too. Finally got the box in, but since the ceiling needs repaired, I’m going to wait to put it up until the ceiling has been patched and painted. I also think I’m going to add more support for the box also.

Fireplace

What’s better than a nice, cozy fire on a frigid winter day?? We finally got our chimney cleaned last weekend and we’ve had a fire going non-stop since. It doesn’t quite heat up the entire house, but it keeps the living room nice and toasty.

Siding has been installed

The siding has been installed. The only thing left is for the door to be installed. Everything looks great. Here’s what we have had done:

• Take off all the existing siding
• Wrapped the entire house in 3/8″ insulation / vapor barrier. This also provides and additional 1.5R insulation.
• Install tan siding on the exterior walls in the Wheat color.
• Install white trim on all corners.
• Cover all soffits and fasai boards with white vinyl.
• Add one gutter to the rear of the back porch. This is to catch all the run off water that occurs.

Here are some comparison pictures that we have taken:

 

 

 

 

Siding, Front Door, and Front bush

In case you haven’t heard, we’re going to be getting new siding on our house really soon.  With the siding deal, we are also getting a brand new steal front door and new gutters added to the back of teh wrap-around porch.  The also will be putting up insulation and a vapor barrier around the entire house.  It’s going to be really nice.

While we were working in the front yard yesterday, I started trimming the bush next to the porch.  Next thing that happens, I’m trimming it with a chainsaw.  Needless to say, there is no bush next to the porch anymore.  I’ll take a picture of the house tonight when I get home (if it’s not raining) for an updated front shot and a before / after picture for later.

House Update

Well, we’ve been really slacking on working on the inside of the house.  Nothing has really been done besides cleaning up and unpacking still.  We still have a bunch of places that need painted upstairs.  Touchups and two doors still need to be painted.  Kristin has been working on cleaning up the back porch though.

I’ve been working outside constantly still.  I’ve almost finished cutting down all the trees, cutting up the logs, and shredding the rest.  At one point about two weeks ago, I really thought I was done.  Then a storm came through and knocked down half of our tree in the front yard.  So I’ve been working on that.  Then another storm came through this past week and knocked down another big portion of the tree in the back.  Just can’t win.

I’ve also started planting the grass around the house.  I’ve cleared out the circle of weed / flower / who knows crap in the front and planted grass there instead.  It’s starting to come up pretty good.  Realized that it’s not the same grass as the reset of the yard, so I over seeded the rest of the yard.  Has enough holes that it should work out fine.  Also started planting grass in the back yard where we have already cleared out all the trees and vines.  That’s actually growing really quick and will look awesome.

That’s about all that we have done with the house though.  Mostly working outside clearing weeds and vines, and then planting the grass so that we don’t live in a big mud hole.