"Out with the Old!"
You have undoubtedly been wondering where I have been with my
popular prose lately…the reason for my absence is perhaps the biggest
thing to happen to me since childbirth…a new house! If you have ever
attended one of the Carpenter Bashes you can’t have helped but notice
that we live in a very old house, one which has many flaws but still
managed to provide shelter to many families for over a hundred years.
Like anything else, time has taken its toll on this farmhouse and the
cost of fixing and replacing all the long suffering parts would have
been way too much to spend, only to end up with an old house with one
bathroom. Dick and I had been tossing around the idea of building a new
house for a couple of years now, but I believe the deciding moment came
about this March when we were having abnormally cold conditions. The
wind was blowing incessantly (as usual) with snow drifting and single
digit temps. I was gone to work and Dick was out doing chores when he
came in for lunch only to find the south porch door had blown open which
caused the inner door to the house to open. We had snow drifting into
the house and the poor furnace was running non-stop, trying in vain to
heat all of Clark County. After scooping snow out of the now freezing
house, Dick proceeded into the kitchen where he had to unfasten rubber
bands to open cupboard doors which no longer shut correctly due to the
crumbling foundation that caused the entire house to begin leaning.
(That’s also why the doors weren’t able to shut against the wind). That
did it…when I got home from hauling mail, he said we were getting a new
house! This would be great news to anyone, but to me it was a dream
come true! If there is one thing I love, it’s looking at house plans,
picking paint colors, dreaming of the floor finishes and window
treatments. I was ecstatic! After perusing some local home builders,
we decided to have a house built by Custom Touch Homes in Madison
(Ryan’s former college home). This business has a huge building where
all the homes are built inside, out of the elements so there are no
delays due to weather and such. We went in at the end of March and
signed away our lives…our house would begin in the middle of April and
was to take only 6 or 7 weeks to completion. This meant a lot of
scrambling to line up someone to dig a basement, finalizing plans and,
oh yeah, trying to get financing. It seems they wanted money to build
this house for us if you can believe that.
We had a house plan that we took in and had one day set aside to make
all the minute decisions before building could begin. Things such as
window style, how many windows, siding, shingles, flooring, cupboards,
bathroom fixtures…you name it, we had to decide every little detail
before anything could go ahead. This is hard when you have to try to
imagine the interior by looking at a little piece of paper with an
overhead view. One task was to go to the neighboring furniture store
and choose the flooring. Custom Touch got a discount from this place
since they did so much business here. Now the fun was starting! What
woman doesn’t like to pick out carpet, tile, wood and everything in
between? I had no idea what things cost, so just picked out what I
liked and went home. A few days later Dick got a phone call from the
salesman who said that out of all the houses they had ever sold, nobody
had gone over the budget more than little old me! $7500 over to be
exact…so it was back to the furniture store where I tamed down my
choices and got it back to a more realistic figure. This was a
precursor of what was to come. It didn’t matter what I was picking out,
from toilet paper holders to door knobs, if I liked it, it was their
highest priced product. I had to make a few concessions, but one I
wasn’t going to give in on was my kitchen. I had watched enough HGTV
and “Divine Design” (refer to archives for more on this!) to know what
kind of cabinets and appliances that I wanted and wasn’t about to be
talked into something less. In my mind was a very contemporary kitchen
with dark cherry cabinets and long, stainless steel pulls, stainless
steel appliances, under cabinet lighting. If you watch any decorating
shows, you can surely picture this. Well, the cabinet maker they deal
with had never heard of such a thing. They couldn’t imagine why I’d
want dark wood like that and they insisted it couldn’t be done. So I
ended up going out on my own and ordering cabinets from a store in Huron
and got exactly what I wanted. Anyway, to make a long story short, we
got the house ordered and at the end of June it was ready. We had our
basement dug, the foundation poured, walls built and were ready for the
house. The day that the house was delivered was so exciting. When I
saw the pilot car coming down the road I raced outside to watch. It
took quite awhile before the peak of the house crested the hill south of
us, but I nearly got tears in my eyes as I watched it approach its new
home. At the same time, I felt kind of sorry for the old house. It
really was showing its age when the new one was set down right beside
it. I had an image in my mind of moving in within a day or two of the
arrival, but there were a few things to be done first, such as
electricity, water, and air conditioning. That was on July 5th
and today is August 13th and we are just getting to the point
of moving some belongings over there. Dick took it upon himself to do
the plumbing and just got things running the other day. I have been
agonizing over paint colors for weeks. I went to Sherwin-Williams and
pored over the color chips, asked anyone who would listen for an
opinion, and got several quarts of sample paints to try out. A man
would walk in and be out of the store in 5 minutes, not really that
concerned over paint colors, but to me this was a big decision. I had
decided on green for the living/dining room which is wide open to the
kitchen so they all had to blend nicely. Why green? Because I had seen
Candice Olsen do a room in green on her show and I loved it and had to
try to duplicate it. But have you ever seen how many shades of green
there really are? I wanted a kind of funky, retro, avocadoish green,
but was a bit hesitant to really put it on three large walls. I did two
side by side tests, one the vibrant green of my choice and the other a
bit tamer, more of a sage green. Everyone liked the tamer of the two
except for me and Jordan. I threw caution to the wind and went for the
wild one. It has grown on me and I like it, Dick and Alex are
completely neutral, they won’t say one way or another, so I guess that
settles it! Today my new stainless steel appliances are being installed
while I write, and then it’s time to move in!!!!! I will attach a few
pics to give you an idea of the beginning, middle and end…though the end
isn’t near as we still have to build a garage, decks, steps etc…
This house will be the last place I ever live unless my kids stick me in
a nursing home someday, and I am so excited to begin our “empty nesting”
there. I will be working for a LONG time to make the payments…holidays
will be a bit less spendy than before, just to warn you kids, and I’ll
yell at anyone who comes tramping in with cow crap on their boots, but
it will all be worth it. The house was officially “broken in” a few
weeks ago. You know how it is when you get a new car or sofa and you
hate to see that first scratch or stain? Once it happens, you can relax
a bit, the damage has been done. Well, that is what happened to my
floor. Little Emerson Hayes Krogman decided to “help” Grandma and Mommy
clean the floor and upended a 5 gallon bucket of water which seeped
under the wood floor. I tried to mop it up, but a few days later the
edges of a few boards began to curl up a bit. Not too noticeable, but
she officially christened our new home. We’ve gotten that first bit of
damage out of the way and can begin to enjoy ourselves! With that I
will extend an invitation to everyone who is in our neck of the woods to
stop in and visit our new abode, admire the green paint and try out
Dick’s plumbing… just be sure to scrape the shit off your shoes before
coming in!
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