November 30, 2021 – The tuckpointing around the chimney did stop some of the water coming into the house, but not all of it.  We had several more leaks which threatened to damage our newly-hung drywall. Our roofer, who we had on speed-dial, strongly recommended we install a new roof, rather than continue to patch it inch-by-inch.  And so we did. It took the team just one day and the transformation was amazing.  We’ve never really noticed roofs before, but ours looks so good! It does, however, make it more obvious that we will have to replace the siding, but that’s an expense for another time (probably next year).

After several returned gallons of paint, we decided on the exact shades of grey, sage and terracotta paints. We painted the shiplap in the kitchen first, then the grey in the living room. It is hard to tell, but we painted the dining room nook a shade darker than the rest of the grey. 

The next step was adding doors. We watched so many different videos to be sure we hung them correctly. It was amazing that a few of the doors installed very easily, but others took 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 tries, especially on the walls that we did not replace! One of the existing walls is neither plumb nor level – yikes. We kept repeating what our structural engineer told us: “It is an old house!”

As any homesteader knows, wood chips are a super valuable commodity. There are services where you can put your name on a list and if a tree service is near you, they will dump their wood chips on your property. We put our name on every list and called our electric company, too. We were told that the list was very long and they doubted we would get any chips this year. Well, a tree trimming truck happened to be near our property and we stopped to talk to them. We told them where we lived, that we had a huge pasture with super easy access and that they could dump as many loads of wood chips as they liked. We also told them they were welcome to pull in and eat their lunch on our property and enjoy our shade.  They took us up on it! They dumped 12 loads of wood chips! We are thrilled. We shared some of it with other homesteading friends. We plan to use it to build up our compost and spread it on our pasture to help enrich the soil.

We had Thanksgiving in the house! We started the day going to church. Nicholas joined us and served as the Deacon! The house is not finished yet, but we did not want to celebrate Thanksgiving in the apartment. We laid down area rugs, brought in our dining room table and built a make-shift countertop in the kitchen. We even brought in beds. John’s parents came over and they slept in the guest room while we slept in the master bedroom. Joshua came home from college with a friend and they slept in the apartment. Since we don’t have an oven yet, we smoked our turkey.  It was a great weekend, but it made us more anxious to get the house finished.

After Thanksgiving, we purchased a second-hand dresser to use as the vanity in the guest bathroom. Katie stripped it, primed and painted it. After John cut the legs down (it was too tall) Katie added decorative stencils to the top of the vanity. We will have to make some adjustments to the drawers to accommodate the vessel sink but are excited to install it in the bathroom.