naked

So there you have it...all of the siding is off and here she stands, the original bones of the 1865 Zeeland home! And might I say, the poor thing looks a bit N.A.K.E.D!

This is probably one of the roughest stages of the process--visually. All I want to do is get the house painted and in better shape. (every girl feels so much better with a new outfit on!) But we will have to have patience because it is not painting time yet...and I guess it's a good thing because we haven't picked a color.

But it IS time to decide if we're keeping the original awning over the front door. We're thinking "no." We tend to like a completely flat front. Kind of saltbox style. But we're going to try to use the wood support posts that hold up the awning somewhere inside the home where they can be exposed. We're all about repurposing old materials. (especially when they have historic significance!)

Next you see the framing of the new dining room. This is the view from the front. There will be 4 windows along the side. (2 single windows on each end and on double window in the middle.) and then I think just one window in the back--or maybe it's a double. (I don't know, Taylor is better at tracking the details than I am. I am just the blogger!) :)

And here is an inside look at the new dining room. Can't you just imagine coming to a dinner party here...sitting at a long farmhouse table and enjoying a nice home cooked meal?! (I guess I better find a way to step up my cooking skills before this can actually happen!)

Good News for the deRoo's

Taylor and I stopped by the new house at lunch on Friday and found that Jerry had been hard at work tearing off the horrendous vinyl siding. It has always been the great unknown what we would find underneath the siding. Taylor and I kept hoping that the original wood would be salvageable so that we could restore the exterior of the home to be as historically accurate as possible. But...we were warned that the original wood from a 144 year old house could very well be rotted or even have planks missing. So...when we showed up at the job site on Friday and found the entire East side of the house exposed and in good condition we were THRILLED! Of course there will still be heavy maintenance that needs to be done to get the house ready to be painted, but the pure fact that the wood was in better condition than expected was music to our ears! Now comes the dreaded challenge of picking out a color for our new/old home!

here I am making my first blog appearance. Behind me you see the framing for the new doorway between the living room and the foyer. I am currently standing in the living room.

And here she is, the room that Taylor and I are most excited about--the loft attic! Jerry has started framing in the storage closet which will run the entire length of the side of the room. This additional storage will come in handy since when this house was built in 1865 they had no idea how much junk people would accumulate in 2009!!

demolition

Today the 3 season porch came down! Take a look!

Meet Jerry, our builder.

this is the future site of the garage. (that's the neighbor's garage to the right. they just had a new baby!!! which has nothing to do with a garage, but it's very exciting!)

this is the view from the guest room of where the porch used to be.


My, what a big crane you have!

Goodbye porch....hello dining room! (ok, so i am getting ahead of myself...but soon you will see a dining room there!)

We went SHOPPING!

Since Taylor and I can't really be hands on in this phase of the house construction...we put our time to good use and went SHOPPING! We were very productive this weekend. Here is a glimpse of some of the fixtures we found. (couldn't get pictures of all of them...)

this is called a rise and fall pendant light. this isn't the exact one we bought but you get the idea. it will go in the office.

this is the plan for the vanity in our master bathroom

we have 2 of these lights for the laundry room

email updates

this is a test to see if the new email update tool is working....

test

just at blogger test...

weekend progress

this is an old farm sink that we scored from an old couple out in Beaver Dam. Taylor found it on WHTC Talk of the Town and we went to pick it up this weekend. It weighs a ton!! We're going to use it in the laundry room. still figuring out if we'll mount it on a piece of furniture or if we will have legs built for it.





















this is taylor modeling one of our new (antique) wood shutters, per my request! Roxanne found us 20 of these babies! just 16 more to go and we will have enough for the whole house!

this is the original trim that is around all of the doors and windows!!

and this is our bonus room! it's a loft attic off of the second floor. this room probably ranks pretty high on the list of things we're most excited about because it has never been used for anything---we're excited for all of the potential!

all in all, we had a pretty productive weekend. we also found five new light fixtures and a screen door. oh, and a vintage tin breadbox for the kitchen. i'm telling ya, it's the little things that get us excited!!

pre construction photos

Greetings! well, we F.I.N.A.L.L.Y did it! we bought a house in Zeeland! ahh, Central Avenue---my dream come true! But the story doesn't end there, there is months of construction ahead before we can move into our new little nest! Check out some of our "BEFORE" pictures!! (but first let me warn you that nothing you see is from our project: colors, fixtures, ugly vinyl siding...etc. all of these things will be changed throughout the project.

a glimpse at the living room looking towards the front of the house

we plan to paint the kitchen cabinets a rich

chocolate brown and add a butcher block counter top. (getting rid of the green walls too.)

this is a 3 season porch...currently acting as our "dumpster." soon it will be torn off and rebuilt as a formal dining room off of the kitchen.

this is a look at the flat roof off of one of the upstairs bedrooms. we will put a deck floor on it and replace the rod iron railing with a white wooden railing. a nice spot to catch the summer breeze!

side view.

Ok...well i know these aren't the most glamours photos and the angles don't even really show that much but there will be more to come soon!!

Here are a few stats:

home--built in 1865, it is said to the be oldest standing house in Zeeland.

when finished this will be our layout:

first floor---

when you walk in the front door you will enter into a parlor or sitting room area. there will be an office to your left. if you continue through the parlor you will enter into the living room. off of the living room in a full bathroom and the staircase to go upstairs. if you continue to the back of the house you find the kitchen (basement off the kitchen), the dining room and then all the way in the back of the house is the laundry room/mud room--and the back door.

upstairs there are 2 guest bedrooms (one has a deck) and a full bathroom on the second floor for guests. in the front of the 2nd floor--facing the street is the master bedroom with walk in closet and full master bathroom. (small)

there is also a bonus room on the second floor--an old loft attic that hasn't been used in ages! it's very cool and we plan to build in some storage and use it for additional guest space, play room, etc.

the basement is dry but dirty. we hope to clean it up and paint it but it will never be fully functional. we are hoping it can be the area for the dogs.

there is currently no garage so we will be building a two stall un-attached garage in the backyard.

we're just really excited about all of the details we will get to plan along the way! more to come soon!!!