La casa vieja!

... translated~ The old house!

As home owners of 4 different houses in the past 13 years, my husband (Kirk) and I have always had "new construction" homes with the exception of our last house we just moved from. The house we just moved from was 3 years old when we bought it; a new house, none the less.

Kirk is in the US Navy (a pilot/flight instructor) getting ready to leave the military in September 2011. When he departs the Navy, his plans are to fly for a commercial airline. When this happens, typically the first year of flying commercial, the military pilot takes a pay cut from what they had been earning. We want to remain debt free (with the exception of our home loan) and prepare ourselves for this transition time from military life to civilian life. Also over the past year, we've had a yearning to renovate an old "fixer upper".

With Kirk getting out of the Navy in just over 18 months, as well as the desire to do a major renovation on a house as DIY'ers, we felt God's lead to sell our large house in a beautiful city subdivision, and buy a smaller, more modest home in the country amidst farm land. We prayed about it, acted on God's lead and have been blessed every step of the way.

Several weeks ago we purchased our 5th house, closer to our kids' school and our church. We are so in God's will as He has supernaturally put everything in place for us to sell and buy as only He can. Kirk and I are so excited to be out in the country on 2 acres and living in our new "old house". To many, we look crazy for moving as we did. But to our God, we are obedient to his voice and this pleases him. Our goal is to fix up the existing floor plan of our new home and eventually add onto the the floor plan to create a bit more space after our major renovations are completed, or build a new home next to it, using the fixer upper as a guest house or rental property. For now, we take one step at a time.

This past weekend we have officially begun the first stages of our renovation with getting the kids' bedrooms ready for rehabilitating~ ... old carpet ripped out, down with 1970's wood wall paneling, cracked drywall getting ripped down, walls getting patched, some need re-framed, insulated, and repaired... so much work... SO MUCH FUN!

La casa vieja!

Kirk accessing the kids' bedroom projects...

Many places the walls cracked from the foundation
repair we had done prior to moving in.

I will have victory!!!

We expected to find "SURPRISES" behind the old wood paneling and dry wall...

...the insulation behind this drywall was even worse!

As we lifted paneling, little "presents" fell from the ceiling!

YUCK! Is it roach or mouse droppings? YUCK, YUCK!
Do I even want to know?
Thankfully we had this place fumigated!
yes~ we're wearing masks, goggles and gloves!
YUCK!

before (above)... after (below)

...what do we have here?


Looks like we'll be completely replacing some framing!

How do we get rid of drywall & trash?

ONE BAG AT A TIME!