The House In The Woods/Weekend #5 and 6

Hi, Darling Friends, 

How are you? I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. My prayer is that you are staying well and encouraged. 

I thought I'd pop in to share an update on our little house in East Texas. We just finished weekend #6 but I realized that we need to revisit weekend #5 as well. 

I want to let you know how much I appreciate your stopping in to see how we are doing. 

Weekend #5

The property had some enormous junk piles. Bill happened to meet at guy at the dump that is a handy man and a junk hauler. He came out the house on Saturday morning the 20th and started loading up junk. 

There were 7 deer blinds on the property. Bill is not an hunter so five of the dilapidated blinds and some deer feeders were hauled away. These were DIY deer blinds. 

I think the owner's son had intended to come get the one that they had moved next to the guest house. I expected it to be gone the week after we closed but it was still on the property. Bill wanted to dismantle it and get it hauled away but I think it can become a little potting shed with some work. That will be a fun project for late winter/early spring. It's the red and green structure in the image below. 

This is Texas so we can have some wonderful weather on winter weekends. 

The junk man couldn't finish in one weekend so he came back this past Saturday and got the rest. 

It feels so good to have the junk piles hauled away. 

We ordered our flooring on the 13th of November. It arrived and was delivered to the house on the 18th to acclimate. 

It meant that Bill needed to remove the baseboards so that they could be begin installing the floors on Monday the 23rd. The baseboards did not come off easily. Bill spent most of weekend #5 doing that task. 

I wanted to have the interior of the whole house painted by the time we got the floors. Our flooring here in town took about 3.5 weeks to come in. It was another few weeks before we could get on the installer's schedule. Based on that recent experience, I thought I'd have time to finish all the painting. Nope.

I needed to finish the little room at at the front of the house and the hall. The doors and door jambs were also on my list. 
The rest would have to wait. 

A paintbrush was in my hand almost the entire weekend. 

If you have been following, I painted the interior side of the French doors black. They weren't doing it for me. At night they were so dark and the grids seemed to obstruct more of the view. How was I supposed to see if Big Foot was out there?  I was going to wait to see how I liked them with the floors but instead I decided they needed to be repainted. It was a drippy endeavor so it was best done without new floors.  

We were able to get our camper hauled out and parked on the property. 

It's strategically placed to screen the neighbor's place. 

Bill also installed the new dryer outlet so we can wash and dry! If you remember, the utility room had a range outlet instead of a dryer outlet. 

We spent the night on Sunday. I handed the keys to the flooring installers on Monday morning and I headed back to town. Bill left early in the morning. 

Weekend #6. 

The floors were done. We got updates throughout the week about their progress but we were thrilled to see them in person when we arrived on Friday night. These are luxury vinyl planks. I was pleased to see that there is enough variety in the "wood" grain. They look really good and the house feel so much better. There was something unnerving about the concrete floors. 

While Bill unloaded the truck, I put the furniture back into place and made the bed. 

Bill's goal for the weekend was to install the baseboards. 

We also wanted to get to a furniture store in a nearby town. 

Furniture shopping has been frustrating because of the virus. Retailers are having a very hard time receiving stock. This leads me to believe that people in the country of origin are more ill than what is being reported. Numbers are going up again in the DFW area, so we don't want to be out and about in it while we are here during the week.

I'm so over this. 

The furniture store was a win. We found an amazing deal on a recliner for Bill. 

This picture is totally staged but the recliner was $250.00. It's leather. It has a couple of little scuffs but its main flaw is a broken zipper which I can fix. It is good for napping which was the goal. 

We don't have a lot of room in here but the little loveseat which I thrifted and recovered was too small. 

I can take a quick cat nap on the loveseat at home but this one was a little cramped. 

We found a larger scaled loveseat at the shop. They are having a hard time getting furniture but if a sofa sells, they will discount the loveseat. This one was discounted. The sales person said that it is taking 3 -6 months to get furniture in the store. Yikes. 

 

In January, I hope to have full room reveals but for now, you can see the loveseat. 

Furniture is so oversized right now and this room is almost two smaller rooms. Most sofas were too long. I liked the white better but this will be fine. This is where I will snooze after dinner on Saturday nights. It is super comfortable.  

The other loveseat is in the front room. 

We think that this might be a craft room for me at least until we need more beds. 

 I didn't pick up a paint brush the whole weekend and it was heavenly. 

Instead, I decorated the house for Christmas. 

A lot of my farmhouse Christmas decor ended up out here. 

It was a lot of fun and it looks so darling.  

In spite of two trips to town, Bill was able to get almost all of the floor molding installed. 

The bathroom transformation was the most impactful.  I'll talk more about it in a reveal post but this bathroom was a little scary.  

We also got the boat hauled out and parked next to the trailer. 

No more storage fees for the "toys". Yippee. 

You can see that my brick path is almost finished. I brought some bricks from my woodland realm but I still need a few more. It will sink and level into place over time since the soil is so sandy. 

 

Our goals for a long weekend coming up.  Bill is taking another two days off of work. He is going to finish the baseboard molding. He will also repair the lower walls of the screened in porch. I'm going to paint three closets. The vanity in my bathroom may be on that list too. I've collected stuff for my little craft room, so I'll finish decorating that. My crafts won't be out there yet though. 

That is about it for now. 

Some Christmas posts will be coming in addition to more country house updates. 

Thanks for following along. The new house is really coming along. 

Katie