A Project House

Our house in Soldotna was a project house in that during the 20+ years we lived there, we were always in the middle of a project. We added a garage/shop, a super greenhouse/arctic entry ( both of which had heated slab floors ) and a second bathroom. Totally rebuilt the kitchen and of course, painted everything. Most of the windows got replaced and the deck got rebuilt. Nothing escaped untouched.

We basically took on one room at a time. Emil and Sara are trying a different approach. They too will most likely change every room in the house, but in larger chunks. Like, completely remodel one half at a time. After they get through with all four halves, then they can move again.

It is a nice ranch style with an attached two car garage.

Here’s the full length covered patio in the back.

Step one, remove all the dry wall from the walls you don’t really like and plan to remove.

That’s the door to the garage and the interim kitchen.

Same door viewed from the family room. The sliding glass door on the left goes out to the patio.

This is the view back across the old kitchen into the family room.

All the bare stud walls are doomed, as they will come out after installation of two glue lam beams and the addition of more ceiling joists. Of course, this necessitated removing all the ceiling dry wall and blown in insulation above.

If you’ve never removed ceiling dry wall with blown in insulation above let me give one piece of advice. DON’T.  Just move. It will be more fun and I think you all know how much fun moving is.

Emil and Sara did both. The move is complete and now the fun really begins.

While they were tearing down walls and ceilings and moving, I took a nice drive looking for a place to live. Had to resist stopping to photograph every other Juniper Pine I saw.

This one was my favorite of the day. The main trunk was long dead, probably hit by lightning, but it was still fighting the good fight. You could see through many spots of the main trunk.

Preparations for the Alcan are almost complete. The trailer’s ready; just need to pack the car, fix up the bunk in the back and say goodby to the guys. Then hit the road on Wednesday.

Weather should be perfect!