When we sold our business a few years ago the one thing that I wanted to do was … nothing! Our lives had been so busy for the past… 10… 20… more like 35 years! So we told ourselves that we would wake up one day, stay home, and do absolutely nothing… except the necessary life sustaining activities like eating, watching TV, taking naps, and other non productive, yet satisfying, enterprises…

It never happened! We did take a relaxing, all inclusive, vacation to Jamaica, but that required getting dressed and going out to the restaurants, pools, and beaches… doesn’t quite qualify as staying home and doing nothing. Since then we have purchased another business, moved across the country, taken a few not so relaxing vacations, and we bought the farm! I am still hopeful that someday I will be able to do nothing… but it didn’t happen in 2019!

So, here is a recap of some of the things that we did in 2019…

We did some work on the outside of the house… It pretty much looked like a haunted house!
This year we hope to finish what we started…

While we’re outside… we did a couple of other things! Including 2 1/2 miles of trails:

Much of the property was impassible… but it looked pretty good once we got through it! Still about a mile to go…
we cleared a pasture full of 4′ weeds and small trees and…
built a fire-pit… it is now one of our favorite spots on the property!
we cut down a lot of trees, including this 60′ ash tree that was leaning toward the house…
We uncovered a walkway, that was buried under the grass…

And the Front Porch got an overhaul!

As exciting as it was to see the progress outside, the transformation inside was even more dramatic!

The Front Foyer went from Drab to Fab!

And then, one of Jeanies’ favorite projects…

  • we bought the farm laundry room before remodel
The Laundry room got a total makeover complete with bathroom reno and closet turned Butlers Pantry
We made some updates to the Kitchen as well… Jeanie wasn’t fond of the slinky effect on the stove hood…

We even moved into the master bedroom! Unfortunately, I can’t say as much about the master bathroom… that will have to happen in 2020.

First, we moved the entrance… so we didn’t have to walk upstairs, just to walk downstairs on the other side of the door… WHAT WERE THEY THINKING WHEN THEY DID THAT???

This year, hopefully, we will get a door installed!

Then, we moved out all of the tools and fixed the room up a bit… we are not done, but, it is comfortable for now and it has been very convenient to have the extra room with all of the visitors we have had!

Back to the master bath… it looks like this

elegant!

But we did manage to frame and finish the inside of Jeanies’ closet so that we could move our clothes downstairs before everyone arrived for Christmas… a few hours before!

Framing done, drywall inside closet done, floors installed and finished, electrical rewired and installed, shelving… only got 3/4 done before people started arriving… outside of closet not even started… my closet, only a dream… maybe in 2020!

Our bathroom may not be looking too good, however, we did manage to turn a closet in one of the guest rooms into a pretty nice bathroom… there were three closets in the bedroom!?!?!?!?

If you have to bathe in a closet… it might as well be a closet like this one!

Since I’m doing a recap on the whole year I can’t include a lot of details here, however, there are more pictures and stories about this project as well as the others on our new instagram page @crazyfixerupper as well as in other posts on this blog…

Somewhere along the way Jeanie managed to create some “Barn Art” out of old wood… Of course she expected me to figure out how to put it up… you’ll have to see the post for that!

If you watch TV then you must be aware of the fact that miracles happen around Christmas! We are not immune to the miracle bug and this year, the miracle of miracles happened… my wife decided that we could work on one of MY rooms!!!!! Actually it might have been less of a miracle and more desperation… I think she wanted me to get my stuff off her kitchen counters, so we worked on my office!

  • notice the cat door!
still no floors, but, life would be so boring if there was nothing left to do…

With just two two weeks till kids started arriving and only 59 projects to finish before they arrived, Jeanie decided we needed to build a Virtual Reality Room! So we tore down some walls in the basement and… well, you get the picture!

It was a real hit! Many hours were spent in the basement over the holidays!

Now, you didn’t hear it here, but, there may be some rather embarrassing videos of my wife on her first VR experience… you may be able to access it through this link https://www.instagram.com/p/B53rYn5n_9x/ but if you tell anybody you heard it from me… I’ll deny it!

With 15 people staying here for Christmas the extra room was a major plus! In spite of the fact that we were not done with all the spaces in the house, we all fit relatively comfortably…

All of our kids and grand-kids made it for Christmas as well as Jeanie’s parents

Wow! Just thinking about all that we did is making me tired! Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we will get that “Do Nothing” day this year either… if all goes as planned, the changes will be even more dramatic in 2020! Stay tuned…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!