Things are really cleaned out!

The house is really about ready to turn it over to the new owner.  I'm gonna miss this old farm house.  We really did a lot of work on it, while keeping its "farmhouse" charm.

Over the last 4 years, we pulled carpet up out of all three bedrooms (electric blue in one, olive green in the other two!) and put down new wood flooring in the the two guest rooms, and refinished the old oak floors in the master bedroom, and pulled up the carpet in half the living room and refinished the old oak floor in there (along with replacing some missing boards!).  We also pulled down the drop ceiling in the living room, and replaced it with tongue-in-groove boards.  The paneling in the living room got a white coat of paint on the upper half, and some beautiful red wainscoting on the lower half.

The kitchen also got some new paint, on just about every surface... Sage green on the paneling on the lower walls, and tan and red on the cabinets.  We also opened up the wall behind the wood stove we put in, to let the heat flow easily to the rest of the house.

This is the living room, as it looked when we moved in:

And how we are leaving it:

View from the opposite end of the room:

Kitchen before:

And now:

The bedrooms all got new coats of paint

And we also put wainscoting in the bathroom, along with tiling around the bathtub/shower, and painting the walls.  A lot of work and love went into this house.  I hope the new owner appreciates the work we did, while also being able to still see the old house his grandparents lived in and loved.

We're just about ready to hit the road, and search for our next permanent place!

Last Night On The Farm

Tonight will be our last night on the farm.  We are watching our friends' dog for a few days, and decided it will be easier if we watch her at her house (no more RV ramp for Missy!!).  And since our house is on wheels, we'll just wheel everything over to her.

There's still work to do here... The furnace is still being installed, after a few days' break, and we'll have clean-up to do when they are finished.  We want to get the carpet shampooed and the floors swept and mopped, and there's ONE LAST LOAD (really this time... I think!) to take to the thrift store.  We also have a few furniture items to move back into the house once they're through with the furnace work.

A week and a day, and we'll be on the road!!

Relaxing for tonight

Ready to go!

I wanted to post a video tour, but all my videos were too long, apparently, so I'll try to give you a picture tour.

This is what you see when you first come in the door.

To the left of the door are the recliner chairs

To the right of the door is the fireplace

Above the fireplace is the TV... It swivels around so it can be viewed from the chairs or the sofa.

To the right of the sofa is the "dining room".  We have a couple of extra chairs stored in the "basement" for when we have guests.

The kitchen is to the right of the door.  You can just barely see the top of the fireplace at the bottom right.

Stovetop, oven, microwave above, and the fridge/freezer on the far left.  The fridge is a little small, but much bigger than the one in our little truck camper.  We've figured out how to make everything work so far.  We just can't have 4 choices of salad dressings or barbecue/steak sauce.  There's also not room for a lot of leftovers, so we've figured out how to use things quickly!

The pantry.  The shelves pull out, and there's a lot of room to store all the canned and dry goods, along with cat and dog food.  Extra animal food is stored below, in the "basement".  This pantry is directly across from the fridge.

Right in the middle of the pantry on the left, and the fridge on the right, is the doorway to the bathroom and bedroom.  There's a sliding door right at the opening, if we want to close off the bath/bedroom area from the living room/kitchen area.

As soon as you step through that doorway, the sink and shower are to the left.

To the right of the doorway is the little "potty room".  It has a sliding door also.

Just to the left of the potty room, and directly across from the bathroom sink, is the laundry closet and Brad's closet.

The bed is a queen sized bed.

At the foot of the bed, and to the left of the laundry closet, are some shelves and drawers.  Some hold extra towels and laundry supplies, but most have some of my clothes.  There's also a vanity area.  We put the kitty litter box below, and the "desk top" area above lifts up for desk supplies.

Desk supplies

My closet is at the very front of the 5th wheel.  Lots of room for everything!

Our bed is just in front of my closet

Sink and shower area, next to the bed.  There is a sliding wall that we can close if we want to close off the bedroom area from the bathroom.

Standing at the edge of the bed, looking back towards the living room.

At the doorway to the bathroom/bedroom, looking toward the living room/kitchen.

So that's the whole "Bachelor Pad".  Our home for the next few years.  I'm kind of liking this "tiny living", where it only takes maybe 10-15 minutes to sweep, vacuum, and dust the whole place.

13 days to go!

I think we're both feeling the pressure of leaving in less than 2 weeks!  Brad had a sleepless night 2 nights ago... My turn was last night.  So not much got done today.  Brad did work on the tractor he needs to deliver downstate before we leave.  I did a little more decorating.  I think we're done with the decorating aspect of the RV now.  I thought we were before, but I ran across this old license plate the other day:

And I thought it ought to go in the RV someplace.  It's the license plate I got when I moved back to Kansas in 2008, for my cute little Cruiser convertible.  And it's got my name on it... Get it?  Janine... Ja-nine... J-9???  But if I put that up in the RV, Brad wanted something personal in the RV, too.  So we put up a University of Michigan "M" for him:

I think it really finished off this wall:

And after giving away probably a hundred photo frames, we decided we should've kept 3 to hang up our "kids'" milestone pictures... Jordan and Abby's engagement photo, Sean's nursing graduation photo, and Seth's high school graduation photo.  So I picked up 3 new ones today, and we got them hung up today:

We'll switch these out as their statuses change, but I'm glad we found a place to display them!  We have such good-looking kids!

2 Weeks!!

Things are starting to look pretty bare!!

One of the spare bedrooms... We're leaving the bed for the new buyer.

 The other spare bedroom

Living room... The furniture goes back to friends who loaned it to us while ours was being reupholstered.

Even the kitchen is just about empty!

And the utility room is pretty close!

The guys are here today to install the central heat/furnace.  Yes, we are adding central heat two weeks before we move.  The house had a wall furnace in the living room when we moved in.  It was loud and used A LOT of propane to heat the house, and we really just used the wood stove, so Brad took the old one out a couple of years ago, with plans to install the furnace "soon".  Well, you know how that goes... We only needed the wood stove, so the furnace kept getting put on the back burner, but the new buyer is going to want the option of being able to heat the house when he's not around, so in goes the furnace!

The chairs are done!!!

Yay!!  Everything is just about ready to go!!

This is what they used to look like: 

And now!

17 days to lift off!

Today was back to work in the house.  We now have the attic, basement, living room, and 2 bedrooms completely cleaned out.  One bedroom is very close.  There are stacks in the kitchen and garage for things to throw out, things to burn, and hopefully ONE LAST PILE to donate.  We did some work clearing out the utility room, and Brad has checked off several things from our "to do" list.  Of course, we keep adding more!  The kitchen table and sofa bed in the RV need to be anchored down, the license plate needs to be put on the RV, we just got our new tiny gas grill from our favorite UPS guy, and he needs to do some work so we can hook it up to the RV propane tank...

Brad also made phone calls to the electric company, phone company, and home insurance company to cancel things at the end of the month.  We also cancelled the car insurance, because the young lady that made a down payment on it on Friday came back to pay the rest today and pick up the car.  That'll make the next 2-1/2 weeks interesting, as we each try to get to things on the same day!!  She seemed very excited to get our car, though, and I know she'll love it!

We also double-checked with our lawyer that he had all the necessary paperwork for closing on the house on the 30th.  Everything seems to be a "go" for that.  I'm really excited about the sale of our house... The grandson of the previous owners contacted us late last spring, saying he had heard we were selling, and he would very much like to buy it.  We both benefit from doing "for sale by owner", and I love that he is getting the house and farm back in his family.

Last week I got a message from the lady that owns a local craft shop, and she had sold my last sunflower painting, so I picked up my money on Saturday, and used part of it to get a Hubbard Lake souvenir to take on the road with us.  I'm sure I'll get good use out of it!

My "Hubbard Lake Happy" cup

 Our new little grill... It'll be perfect for the two of us!

Under 3 weeks... Eek!!

Brad spent most of the morning today taking care of some little projects we've been putting off, but are really kind of important.  He mounted the bicycle rack on the back of the RV, fixed the closet door latches on my closet so they don't fly open while we're driving (the old ones broke), got my necklace holder cut down and hung up on the wall (it needed to be shorter to fit where I wanted it), did some wiring for the cable and DVD player, mounted a key holder by the front door, and replaced the shower nozzle so it works better.

We took another load of things in to the thrift store (we really need to go in there and see how much of our house is in there!) and picked up a couple of things at Home Depot this afternoon, and this morning I listed our car for sale... We thought, with only 3 weeks left, we should start trying to sell it.  Well, it sold this evening!  Ack!  We'll be a one-vehicle family now!

I'll miss our cute little car... Not like I missed my Cruiser convertible... I still miss that one!  But I will miss this one.  It's the first car we bought together!

 I think this will just become a plaything for Bo!

 Brad wanted to be sure I showed his shower handywork!  While replacing the shower head, he also raised it up some, so he can fit under it!

The key holder... I had to fight for this one, instead of the boring one that was shaped like a key.