Thursday, January 20, 2022

East Texas Update

Hi, Friends,
How are you? I hope you are doing well. I've missed you. 
We are doing well. 
Some of you suggested that I take time to enjoy our East Texas house. I have taken your advice. I'm relaxing more during our weekends out in E.T. 


That doesn't mean that Bill has done a lot of relaxing. He sits at a desk all week so he keep busy on the weekend. 
He has diligently worked on closing up the shop which was formerly called the quonset hut.  
Although, I bought him a T.V. and DVD player for Christmas so he has spent his evenings watching movies. 


You can read about the "quonset house/guest house" in this post. 


Bill gutted the quonset last spring. It took me a while to get to accept that it needed to be gutted. 
The roof leaks. When we bought the property there was an essential oil smell to the cabin and quonset. It took forever for the smell to dissipate.The cabin and quonset are attached and together made a space that rented for $500.00 a month. As we started to tear it apart, Bill found the leak and he found mold. 
The diffuser was used to cover up the smell of mold. I don't think they used essential oils to sell the property. I think it was an attempt by the renter to make the place habitable. I cannot image the health problems they may have encountered because they were living in a structure with so much mold. 


Once the quonset was gutted, we began to discuss our plans for it. We need a place to store the mower and our ATVs. This makes a perfect garage for these toys.


The north wall was completely removed because it was not built with outdoor materials. 


Closing up the north wall became project number one in November. We needed to be able to close up the structure. Having it open for nine months certainly helped with the essential oil smell. 

This past weekend, Bill finally got the wall and doors built and operational. 


He did an amazing job. 



Our neighbor to the North is the only one that can see that this building has the double doors. 
He keeps an eye on the place for us when we aren't there. 
Bill has been unable to fix the leaky roof. He has called in a professional roofer but he is wondering if all the metal needs to be stripped off and redone. I'll let you know if that happens. In the months that he's been working on this, he has come to realization that this will make a good workshop. Once the leak is fixed, he can begin to outfit this with his tools. 
Then, we can work on the cabin. 

I started painting the insides of the cabinets. The scorpion infestation led me to the conclusion that cabinets with a stained interior make it difficult to detect scorpions. I will not head into another summer with brown interior cabinets. 
It will take a while but three upper cabinets are already completed. It looks so much brighter already. 
 

We worked on the faux brick backsplash. Bill put up the first piece to get it out of his way. At first, I wasn't sure that I'd like it but I adore it. 





We need to pull out the fridge to put a piece behind it. 


I was excited to see that Bill picked up the window for the laundry room. 


It will go where the cubbie is. It will brighten up this space. I hope it brightens the kitchen too. 


I need to get some more landscaping done. 
The daffodils around the big tree need company. Once they are done it looks like a barren wasteland. 



Getting grass all along the front is priority this spring. 

The little area outside the back door isn't seeing it's full potential.


I'm not sure what we will do yet but I'm mulling it over. 
In the meantime we continue to work on our trail through the woods. 
I've started pulling briar out of the trees. Bill has been pulling out fallen logs. Hopefully, this weekend we can get some burning done. 
There are more things to be done but that is all for now. 
Stay well! 
Katie  

3 comments :

  1. Hi Katie! Oh, I know it's work but your little East Texas house is looking great! Your kitchen looks awesome! Love the white cabinets - inside and out. The backsplash look great too. Now you go rest and finish up your puzzle! :)
    Be a sweetie,
    Shelia ;)

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  2. Smart move on the white cabinets and scorpions. Makes a WHOLE lotta sense! It's looking terrific and you two have worked hard but I'm glad you're finding a little time to relax when you visit!

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