Taking A Break

I just wanted to let all of our readers know that I am taking a break for a bit.  We had a great time with the kids this past week but it went to fast.

I will post as we do more projects or I try out a new recipe.



Mike and the kids on the boat:)

Lake House "Inside" Before and Afters

Yay it's time for the story everyone waits for.  Now for the before and afters of the inside of the house.  This season here in Florida is coming to a close so we are just about finished for the year.  Next year will be another story.


Now for the fun:



Standing at the "old" front door:

Now…without the brick wall:

Inside the kitchen looking to the "old" front door which is hidden:

Opened up:

The old kitchen:

And now:

Not even a refrigerator:

Now with lights and an island:

Old big kitchen:

After:

Looking into the old dining room:

We painted, added some solar shades so we can still see the views but gave the room some privacy and added an area rug, lighting, a picture and furniture:

The old den and the very ugly blinds:

New blinds are in and we are set up for some fun:

The old den, which was the "original" garage:

Now it will work nicely as a game room.  We still need to move the solar panels but that is for next year.

The master bedroom before:

And after:

The guest room before:

And after:

We still have the bathrooms to do but since they were in good shape we left them for another time.

The old step down hallway from the dining room the the sliding door and cut through to the living room:

New hallway with level floor:

Ooh…here it is, our favorite part of the living room, not, lol.  

Before:

After:

Looking at the old step down and door:

New door:

The old living room:

Our new living room:

We are finished for the season on the inside of the house.  Yay…next year we can do some more.  We have the kids coming this week and then we will jump back outside for the curbing and hopefully soem planting.  That's all for now.  I will post again next week.

Lisa

Our New Water Filtration System

Welcome to March everyone.  Mike and I got quite a few different things done last week but the big job was coming up with a water filtration system for our house.  We have a well here but it is very hard water, doesn't taste good and is wreaking havoc on my skin and hair.  Mike finally came up with a plan.


He wants to use a water softener on the house in addition to a water filter and a charcoal filter.


Coming up with the mounting brackets is the aggravating part.  For years Mike has complained about water filters not coming with good brackets…so now he made his own.



Getting ready to install the filters on the house:

Mike made nice brackets to attach the filters.  Now the well water will go through the the sediment filter, then the charcoal filter and then the water softener.

Now time for all the plumbing pipes and lots of connections:

Cutting pvc pipe down to size:

It's looking good so far:

Cutting out the original pipe that went from the pump directly to the house:

Some of the old is out:

Mike hooking up new pipe from the well pump and into our filters:

Running pipe up to the filters:

Ooh it looks nice and complicated, lol.  Now we cross our fingers to test it.  Hopefully there are no leaks and it all works:

Ugh…well we have a couple of issues.  We have one leak which isn't too bad to fix.  The the other problem is that now our pressure switch on our pump is too far from the bladder tank and the pump surged and would not stay steady.  Mike spent the night trying to come up with an easy way to fix this. 

The next day Mike cut the old pipe from the pressure switch:

Fixing the leak:

Mike cuts the line and hooks the pressure switch closer to the bladder tank.  This solved our problem:

Our new system.  It now works great and surprisingly we have hardly any sediment in our filter.

That was one of the last big jobs to finish up.

After that Mike and I pressure washed the house and windows.  It's nice not to have spots all over the windows.

That's all for now.  Just another update.  We plan on finishing the gardens, getting some curbing, and adding a gate….oh and we almost have the pool table set up for the kids next week:)

See you all next Monday.

Wrapping Things Up…A Little Of This and That

Mike and I are coming to the end for this year's work on the house here.  We have a few odd jobs and then I will do the before and afters for this year.


For now just a quick update on some oddball things.



Now that we are just about finished with our inside jobs for this year we can clean up the garage.  First we have to take everything out and it's a lot of stuff.  We decided to use the trailer to make our lives easier.

And more stuff.

The garage is cleared out and Mike starts to pressure wash:

And I take over…what a wet mess this was:

We have to wait until it all dries out before we can bring all the things back in and organize.

Once it is dry Mike stars putting the shelf units back together:

After moving all of this stuff back and forth Mike and I have been talking about how simple our lives were when we lived and traveled in our motorhome.  It was really freeing when we lived that life.

Mike finally working on the trim for around the front doors:

Oh yay…I get to paint.  I don't mind painting rooms and walls but  hate painting trim.  BTW, Nicole just rave reviews on the green Frog tape for painting.  Next time I will have to try it.  I am so sick and tired of the blue painter's tape tearing and leaking through when I paint.

Time to do something about the "original" garage door coverings.  There are two sliding glass doors in that room which we call the den.  At this time we think we are just going to clean up the room and put the pool table in there.  But first we have to take out the ugly blinds:

One section is down and Mike hangs the brackets for some vertical blinds:

One door is complete.  we thought about different options but verticals really do work best on sliding doors:

And from the inside.  They are much better than what was there:

As you can see Niki has been sunning while we work, lol.

That's all for this week's update.  We are coming down to the end.  Next week I will post about our new water filtration system for the house and then after that I will post the before and afters.

Once March rolls around Mike and I will be taking a break.  The kids are coming down to visit:):) and then we will be getting ready to head north.

Have a great week and I will post again next Monday.

Lisa