Good-Fast-Cheap

If you want it done good and fast...it won't be cheap.

If you want it done fast and cheap...it won't be good.

If you want it done cheap and good...it won't be fast.

(Can you guess which way we're going?)

demo-licious

Yes, we have done some work during this hot month of July. It feels a bit underwhelming after doing big, flashy jobs like framing and roofing...but I sell ourselves short sometimes. We are still trucking along and making progress.

We now have a door...and a knob (I'm embarrassed to say how excited I was to pick out the knob).

And we replaced 4 of the 6 original windows in our house. No more drafty winters!

And we (and by we, I mean not me, but Will, Tim, Guff, B-Carl and Carrie) tore down our front porch roof.

The front of our house is the last of the demolition we have to do. THANK GOD. It's probably also going to be the hardest. Hopefully by the end of August I will have a new front facade to share.

Oh. And we're going on vacation. That's right. VACATION. Beaches and reclining chairs and cable TV and microbreweries and sweet rail to trails. We're taking a much-needed break from our house remodel and celebrating the completion of my Masters in Social Work. It's been 3 years of full-time work and part-time school, with a lot of life peppered along the way. Folks have been asking what I'm going to do now that I'm done...my best guess at this point is watching So You Think You Can Dance on wednesday nights with the gals.

See you when I return...

this isn't food hyperbole, it's "the refreshing beverage i've been waiting for my entire life"

Sorry y'all. No construction pics. It's been a busy month on Sunset Hill. Things are still moving forward, just with the kind of slowness that sets in when temps start reaching 90+. We have a work day this Saturday though, so please stop by if you'd like to lend a hand!

In other fun, have I mentioned yet that we've been enjoying two new beverages on a regular basis? We started our cow share a few months ago and are really enjoying it. The milk is great, and the cream is even better. We've been making yogurt out of it too (see earlier post on how to make crockpot yogurt).

I've also been making kombucha, which is thrillingly disgusting and exciting all at once. See?

Since it's too expensive to buy at the store, homemade kombucha was the logical alternative (ps--my mom is soooo cool that she was making this stuff at home back in the 90s way before it was all the rage). If anyone out there would like to start making it too, just let me know and I will give you a mushroom to start!  Be warned: you will have to touch the thing in the picture.

Here's how to make it (with things I bet you already have), in case you're considering:

DIY Kombucha
What you need:
1.  A glass jar big enough to hold at least 1 gallon of liquid. (*CANNOT have any other materials on it! I started with a glass jar with a spigot and it funked out my kombucha).
2. A stainless steel pot for brewing tea.
3. A stainless steel ladle.
4. A kitchen rag.
5. 1 cup white sugar. You can't use any hippie sugar, sorry.
6. Some caffeinated tea. (*Doesn't have to be unflavored. I use 3 Lipton's family-size tea bags).
7. 1 gallon of water. (Some purists say it has to filtered. I just get mine from my unfiltered tap.)
8. A mushroom from me!!!
9. 1-2 cups reserved kombucha (I can give you this too).

What to do:

• Brew 1 gallon of tea in your stainless steel pot according to directions. Add 1 cup of sugar while it's still hot so that it dissolves.
• Let it cool to room temperature.
• Place the mushroom in your glass container w/ 1-2 cups reserved kombucha. Add room temperature tea.
• Cover with a kitchen rag and rubber band. 
• Leave it alone for 7-10 days. Pour or ladle kombucha into glass jars and let cool in fridge. Strain if you're grossed out by the seaweed-looking stuff.
• Drink and enjoy!

I just let my mushroom sit in the glass container w/ 1-2 cups of kombucha while I brew my next batch of tea. After two batches of kombucha (or sometimes one--the mushroom seems to grow quicker in the hot summer months), I usually get rid of the old mushroom since a new one will grow. Pass along your old mushroom to a new kombucha-making friend!

birfday workday

In celebration of Will's 29th birthday, Will requested for all of his friends to do the most logical thing one would think to do on a birthday: work. We did do some real celebrating later (more on that below), but all in all I'd say the birthday workday was hands-down the most productive workday Sunset Hill has had yet.

Starting off the day with donuts and some hard work.

ZOMG we have windows.

boyztown.

back that thang up.

Rare photo.

Upset.

Workday budz.

Addition windows I

Addition windows II.

Addition windows III.

Worksite love birdz.

East wall and roof.

West side before.

West side after.

Interior window view.

With everyone's help we were able to finish the roof, install the addition windows, and insulate and cover the entire east wall of the house. DANG. To celebrate, we ended the work day with a Sunset Hill bar tour which included stops at the AmVet, Steve's Place, and Uncle E's. I'll refrain from trying to describe our experiences at any of these places because words just won't do them justice.

THANK YOU Sunset hillbillies (Carrie, Tim, Josh, B-Carl, Josiah, Guff), Cdubs (Rob, Chris, David), Nate, Joel, Jackie, Ashley, and last but not least, Tom.

Next up: replacement windows, siding, and the back door!

Raise da roof

Since our last post we were able to accomplish three big things: fill up our big dirt hole around the house, enclose our east wall with insulation and OSB, and seal the roof!!

Warmer winters for the yellow house for the first time in 80+years.

Guff and Josiah insulating and covering.

Making some progress.

All done!

Skylight!

oh hi.

The roof wasn't the only thing gettin' raised.

B-Carl roofin' for the Lord.

Starting to shingle the roof. No more dumb tarp!

This will be the second bedroom upstairs.

and one day we may get to this. Next up, though, are windows, doors, and siding...

oh hi, June

So apparently May came and went, and we somehow managed to survive the Rapture and a tornado (mutually exclusive events), frame the addition, build a staircase, and start tearing down our siding. Who knew that the end-of-times could inspire so much hard work?

Last I left off, we had just finished the subfloor. Now, we've got this:

 and these...

closet.

And it only took a little bit of this...

and a little bit of that...

and from time to time, a splash of this...

Ok, not really. I will spare you all the gory details...except for the one about us thinking that Will had been pre-raptured the day before and that we would have to carry on without him.

Will and Charlie put the floor down on the second story, so now we have a really sweet "deck" to hang out on before we frame upstairs:

Charlie also managed to build this thing all on his own. I don't know for sure what it is, but Will seems to think it's important:

Will and I also decided to go ahead and start taking down the first layer of siding from the east wall of our house on Memorial Day because we are totally NUTS:

Then, just to round out the month of May, the 3 dinguses (Will, Guff, moi) made a run for it and stayed up until after sundown ripping off the nasty lead paint siding. This is the pic from the day after:

Will, aka husband of the year, has had a rough go of it this last month. Aside from the scare of the pre-rapture and starting a major construction project during what was likely one of the rainiest Springs on record for Indiana, he was tragically clobbered on the head last night by a rogue hammer:

Job (as in the Bible): 20. Will: 3.

Although our project was originally just a mudroom, two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, it has grown to include new siding, insulation, and windows for the entire house. My sister calls this "scope creep";  it's more of an avalanche at this point.

I think we'll be more than happy with it in the long run.

Oh, and God rescheduled the rapture for October 21. Back to work...

p.s. thanks for the reminder Jenny, the original home remodeling queen.

Progress

Subfloor.

If it would stop raining I could probably sunbathe on this thing...

Will=good idea.

Oops. Spooked ya.

exposed.

Tom, as always, jumping right in.

Frank you very much.

A job well done. Well, not really done. Maybe one day.