I am woman, hear me roar!

Wow, oh wow! What progress is being made in our home. I can't even begin to describe how excited I am to see all of the changes happening. I feel like we are finally getting somewhere!

First things first, "school's out for summer!" (sung to Alice Cooper's "School's Out") It feels wonderful to be out of school; however I am only out for a little over a week before I begin teaching summer school. Andy is also home during this time so we are taking full advantage of all this time we have together.

Andy and Greg have been working on the bathroom some more. I think it is safe to say that this has been the toughest job yet. The two of them have spent so much time and effort trying to level the floor joists. It is finally complete now they just need to lay the subfloor.

Here is an idea of what the bathroom will be shaped like! In the back left corner will be the jacuzzi bathtub (yay!), where the handle of a hammer is will be a walk-in shower (yes, I am aware that there are stairs right below...we are closing that off completely so there is no basement access into the house), and in the right corner-ish will be the toilet and vanity. I think it is going to look great once it is finished. Right now, it does look teenie tiny, but in person it is much larger!








While Andy and Greg have been working on the floor joist; we have had a good family friend, Jason, over to work on the wiring of the house. I will admit, it was difficult to decide where we wanted outlets and coax cables. Andy and I made some big decisions! We were not stingy when it came to outlets. I mean, if we are going to spend all this time and money on our home...we should get what we want. Right?

Look at this old wiring that Jason had to take out! He said this was probably here circa 1920s.

Here is some of the new wiring that is going in. Doesn't this look much safer than that nasty brown stuff?!














I'm sure you are wondering why in the world did Brittany entitle her blogpost "I am woman, hear me roar!" Well, while the boys were all working on their manly projects...I was upstairs texturing! Andy and I were originally going to hire someone to come in and do it for us but decided that we could save money and do it ourselves. We watched several...and by several I mean a lot of YouTube videos on how to texture walls. Andy got me started and low and behold...hot dog, I got it! (I ended up being better at it than Andy, hehe!) It is not very difficult to do, it is cheap, but it is time consuming. Which, right now...I have all the time in the world.

Here is a before of the texture that is on the walls as well as the ceiling. It is all over the house. I know you might be thinking that it isn't that bad and it truly isn't. However, there has been coat after coat after coat of paint slapped on these walls that they look old. So we thought that if we put some new drywall up, they will look brand spankin' new. Plus, there are spots that the texture looks really bad, and we need to cover it up,

This is the after. We are using a heavy texturing design so that we are able to mask some of the wall imperfections. (This is a different wall than shown before...it just had the best lighting at the time I took the photos!) I asked Andy what the name of the texture is and here is the answer I received, "Heck, I don't know...it is called the Andy and Brittany texture." We are definitely not professionals, but we like it! This is what I have spent most of my week doing besides getting prepared for summer school. We are still undecided about what to do on the ceilings. Currently, they are popcorn ceilings (yuck), and they must go! I will keep you updated.

Next up, Andy and Greg will be working on the sheetrock. This is when our house will truly begin looking like a home. I'm crossing my fingers that we will possibly move in by August...keep your fingers crossed with me! 

Until next time,

Brittany

Fence and the Ladies

Wow! It certainly has been a long time since I have posted, and I apologize for the delay. Andy and I have been incredibly busy with not only the farm but life in general.

As the school year is coming to a close, I have finally begun my Masters program, and it is safe to say that I am extremely overwhelmed. So far, I am handling everything quite well I believe. It is all about time management!

Not only is Andy working on our farm on his days off but as most of you know, he works on a rig in North Dakota. He is one of the hardest working men I know! Life as we know it is work, work, work. There is always something to be done.

Let me update you on the progress on the Jenkins farm! Andy and his dad, Greg, have taken a hiatus from working on the house to building the fence around the whole entire place to ensure that the cattle don't get out onto the highway or in our neighbor's pastures. I never realized but building fence is HARD! Oh my goodness. One day Andy drove 110 steel posts, and I thought by the time he got home, he was going to drop! Needless to say, he slept really good that night. We have also had Kaleb, a welder that Andy and Greg know, come and do some work for us. He has been extremely instrumental in getting the corner-posts built as well as the corral. All of the fence and corral has finally been finished and it looks awesome!

Here is a picture of the fence that is stretched across the first 40 acres of our land. After this was completed, Andy, Greg, and I spent a Saturday working cattle and getting them current on their vaccinations. Once that was completed, we moved 40-something over to our place where there is fresh pasture.

It took all of 30 seconds of being off of the trailer for the ladies to begin grazing. They seem to be enjoying their new home! One of the neighbor's bulls keeps crossing the fence (that wasn't replaced because it seemed to be in good condition). I think he likes this set of cows! But hands off Mr. Bull...they have a different man who will be coming to the farm shortly.

Now that the fence is completed, I will have a lot of painting to do. Yes, I am the lucky one who will get to acid wash the steel and then paint it. All in the name of beauty, right? We are going to paint it all white since we will be using white trim on the house. It is going to look great when we are finished...it is just the getting there part.

The Jenkins farm is coming together now if only I could say the same for the house! The last day of school is this Friday and Andy comes home that day as well. We will have a little over a week together at home before he goes back to work and I teaching start summer school...and you betcha we will cookin' and bookin' on the house!

Until next time,
Brittany