Working On Our House

Our house with trees on it!

Our house was built in 1850 and the man who built it did an excellent job. When we had a tornado hit us in 2000 six trees fell on our roof. My husband and I were in the kitchen and did not even know that at the time. We were watching our poor horses out there in the paddock with huge trees falling around them like matchsticks. It wasn't until it was over that we went outside and found the trees on the house. Didn't even hurt the roof except for the ridge cap. When I think of that man digging out that cellar and then he built up the area around it into a hill so the water runs off. We have never had water in our root cellar yet.

Last year and this we have replaced two parts of our old tin roof. It was in bad shape and needed to be done. The parts we haven't done yet are mostly due to the fact are changing some other areas of the house and the roof will be affected. Don't want to put new roofing up there just to tear it down later. My husband has made so much progress this year on improving our house. I am quite happy!

Soon our battery room will be finished. It is going to be connected to the cellar and have our 24 locomotive batteries in it on shelves. Right now they are sitting on my living room floor. Will I be happy to have them off our floor and downstairs! This room will also be home for water pump, water tank and our generator. My smart husband is building a platform for our generator which will raise up out of the cellar so he can run the generator outside. When he is done with it he can lower it back inside. That will keep it safe from thief or storms. He will also be able to work on from its platform and not have to get down on the ground to do that. Very brilliant idea if you ask me!

The battery room is separated from the root cellar with a cinder block wall and a door. We do not want to change the environment of our root cellar. We will be putting new energy efficient cellar windows in the root cellar so we can open them easily. I need to be able to vent the cellar during the night to bring cool air inside for the hot days of summer. Then during the day for the time being I can open the door to the pantry letting cool air in there to keep it cool. Eventually we will have a built in vent in the floor of the pantry that can be opened and closed as needed.

The ceiling of the battery room for this year will just be our new porch since my husband took our whole porch off thr front of the house. We are using our sliding glass door at the side of the kitchen to go in and out for now. Our cats and dog, Nikita are really having issues with that change! The cats still after all this time, keep going to the regular door. We are keeping it locked for our own safety as both of us have gone to that door without thinking when we are in a hurry.

Next year, the porch will become part of the kitchen. That will increase the size of our kitchen so much. Then we can finally add our Sundanzer refrigerator and freezer units. They will make our life really nice and so much easier. Of course, we have to buy at the very least one more solar panel but hopefully we will be able to get two more. In doing this the front of our house will be different. The front door will be on the side and you will come into a mud room first. There you can hang your coat and take off your boots. It will also help us keep our warm air in the house in the winter and a buffer zone for the flys and bugs trying to get in during the summer.....a constant battle around here!

So here we are living in the middle of this huge remodeling project. After ten years of living here everything else just falls into place. Routines. Living without grid electric is no big deal and I never even think about it unless someone else mentions it to me. I like not having to pay someone for using my own stuff!

Have a great homesteading day! Looks great here at Peaceful Forest Homestead!

katlupe