evidence

Seven months into the project, there is finally external evidence of the changes to Hobbs house! So many Pineville people have been starting to ask us what is going on at Hobbs, so it's nice to have some proof that we are indeed making progress.

We spent one weekend tearing off the old sun room since it was rotten in several places and the Historical Society asked us to replace it with a front porch more in line with the original construction.

Hobbs continues to haunt Thomas with ridiculous numbers of nails. Thomas hoped to use the tractor to pull the structure off, but with all of the fastening it would have done damage to the rest of the structure. So they sawed and pulled pieces off, then used the tractor to haul giant sections to the dumpster.

Micah of course loved the tractor. It was a baby boy's dream to ride along with his "Unkie" Walker.

The following weekend was dedicated to rebuilding in this constant cycle of destruction and renovation.

Thomas and Walker worked on a new floor structure, which was difficult to figure out since it had to be connected to a much less-than-perfect existing structure. Thomas is growing weary of working around old and crumbling construction. Everything takes so much more thought. I went over to check on things after several hours of work, and found just about nothing done. Good thing these White boys are resourceful!

This weekend called for lots of rain, so Thomas spent most evenings during the week trying to get some kind of roof on the porch. Since it takes so long to get tools out and takes more time when working alone, he just made a little progress each day...half the rafters, tearing off old flashing, the other half of the rafters, plywood, etc.

And somehow he chose the wrong boards and created a super long overhang. It provided some comic relief for a few days before he sawed them off.

One of my struggles all along has been finding jobs I can do while taking care of the babe. Our neighbor Paul just decided to do one of my jobs for me :) He stripped an old door that we found in the attic that we want to use as the front door. It matches ours.

When I finally did get a job, it was wiping down all of the walls with a wet rag in preparation for painting. I could do two rooms a day before Micah was over it.

Oh, and I got to pick out the paint color :)

Then Thomas finally got a chance to try out his new paint sprayer. He blew through all of the primer he bought in less than half of the house. So after buying new primer and a different nozzle, he finished the priming last night.

And the front porch passed one inspection today, so it's on to laying the decking on the porch and painting the ceilings and walls. My, change and restoration is a lot of work, and takes a long time.

all things new

Easter is always such a beautiful time to think about hope and new life. We had a sweet time celebrating with Thomas' family.

Hobbs house continues to be a reminder that nothing is as it should be. We live in a world that was not meant to see decay and destruction. But we have opportunities every day to participate in restoring order, whether in physical jobs or in relationships with people. I need to remember this on hard days of work. 

Recently we faced a rather daunting situation when the guy who was going to finish our sheet rock needed to back out. After four weeks he had only been able to partly finish two rooms, and a few family situations prevented him from focusing on it further. I was disappointed. And then terrified when Thomas told me that he was going to try to do it. It's a ton of messy work, which takes longer without much experience, (and might not look quite as nice).

Thankfully, he remembered that in some cases it's better to at least get a bid from a professional. Thomas called our neighbor, Juan, who "has a guy for everything". He gave Thomas two phone numbers. The second guy, Luis, came that night to give a bid (half that of the original) and then started right then. He was finished in 4 nights.

So. We have walls! Real, ready to be painted, walls! 

Luis did a great job of handling even the really difficult areas, like the big gaps in the sagging ceilings.

And with all of the time not spent finishing the walls, Thomas was able to start the cabinet building. We have spent the past several weekends at the wood shop at his parents' farm building the boxes. They are starting to look like cabinets, but there is still lots of finishing work, like sanding and building the doors. Oh, and the drawers.

The next big challenge will be figuring out what to do with this back room. Originally we planned to build out a new mudroom/entry and add a bathroom. Since it would cost several thousand dollars, we wanted to make sure we could make a reasonable profit off of the addition. It was hard to know where to look since there really is no precedent in our mill village. Thomas decided to get an appraisal for our house, Hobbs house finished as is, and finished with a new bathroom. 

Surprisingly, our house appraised higher, even though everything at Hobbs will be new. We are learning a lot about how houses are valued and have a hard time accepting that so much of what determines the price is surrounding houses. We have to restrain ourselves from outbuilding the neighborhood.

The Hobbs appraisals revealed that the addition would add less than $10,000 and is not even close to worth it. So now the back room just needs to be repaired. The foundation looks terrible. I'm not ready to think about this yet. Which is generally ok because Thomas mulls everything over for a looooong time :)