Projects

Jen might be mad at me for letting the cat out of the bag here first, before she announces it on the family blog. But, she will be the one that gets to do all of the fun updating with photos and
such.

We have a major list of projects going on around our house. It all revolves around me really wanting to have a woodstove again. In case you didn't know, the first house that I owned, I heated it entirely with wood. Didn't even use the furnace. It is a lot of cutting, splitting and stacking, but well worth it IMO. Some tend to argue, but the type of heat from a woodstove is just different. Plus, there is the atmosphere of it as well. I also did all my splitting with a 6 pound mall through the winter.This will give me something much better to do than stay inside or lift weights at the gym. I would much rather have my work accomplishing something.

I originally wrote it off for our house. Saying that our next house HAS to have a woodstove. But, we decided to just do it. We are going to be here awhile. Besides, there is free wood everywhere, and it will be nice to not be at the mercy of natural gas prices.

Here is the woodstove that we are putting in.

I am sure there will be photos later, but another neat thing about our installation area, is that it is right next to the wall that contains the main heating duct carrying ALL the furnace air to the upstairs. So, I will more than likely tap into it with a manual or automatically controlled damper and fan to pump the hot woodstove air all through the ducting system upstairs.

Being in the city poses a couple of challenges, mainly with wood storage. So, project number one involves a wood storage spot behing our garage. The plan is to have 4 feet wide, by 18 feet long, by 6 feet high wood storage area. That should be enough wood to get us through the winter. We are working on that right now. Our neighbor works at a place where they have massive piles of split firewood. So, once this spot is done, we will start haulin wood.....

But, this is just the beginning. Since the woodstove requires a thru the wall installation, I do not want anything to change the stove height in the future that could screw up the hook-up. We have always wanted to have hardwood floor in the downstairs, so now it will be going down before the stove goes in. But, that meets up to the small entry pad, and kitchen which are currently linoleum. So, those are both going to be replaced with porcelain tile. New flooring throughout means that all the trim needs to be ripped up. The kids have done a good job of banging up the walls and such, so that means painting the walls. You see where I am going with this????

But, it still gets better. When we first moved in, I threw together the cheap entertainment center and shelves on a $50 budget. I never really liked it, so that whole thing is going to go, and we will regain floor space there. That means no TV downstairs. That area will be used for large print display.

So, here are the projects....semi in order:

- Wood Storage area
- Porcelain tile in kitchen and entry way
- Paint
- Wood Floor
- Trim
- Woodstove

Of course, Jen will be busy too with getting all the plants and stuff going outside. We want to have a lot more vegetables this year.

The other cool thing about the wood flooring that we are putting in, is that I am doing it the old fashioned way. No Pergo type stuff, and no pre-finished stuff. Bare wood boards. But, I am also buying it direct from the mill. Besides being much cheaper, the boards are usually between 8 and 12 foot long. That is not something that you typically see in wood flooring these days.

The final good thing about this project is the cost. I have recently unloaded a lot of stuff that I now consider pretty useless. Some of the stuff I got more than I originally paid for it brand new! So far, that money will be able to fund just about everything. You can't beat that.

So, keep checking out the family blog to see pictures and updates of the projects.