A tour:

After some downtime preparing materials for last week's presentation we're back in full swing at the house. We've continued cleaning up and sorting out the house's contents - much of which is salvageable. Now that we're able to see the floors, we can start to speculate on how we're to going to develop them over the next six months and beyond.

"Kitchen"

The existing kitchen poses the more severe structural and water damage problems in the house. We cannot possibly hope to make this space habitable any time soon, so our immediate actions will be in other parts of the house. This space will slowly be developed over the next several months. Because of its condition though, it has a lot of possibility. The floor is almost entirely rotted out, and can easily be stepped through down to the basement if not careful. Needing to remove this anyway, a tall 2 1/2 story space will be created. And it's on the south facade facing our large backyard to boot. We have high hopes here, but are forced to be patient.

"Dining Room"

The dining room is mostly watertight and intact, but its adjacency to the water damaged kitchen has led to several inches of sloping on that side of the room. Its openness and relative solidity make it a prime candidate for our wood burning stove. An existing chimney is also embedded in the far wall, and we may be able to tap into it (pending heavy modifications to bring it up to code - more on this later).

"Living Room"

The northern-facing living is in similar shape but without the sloping. The windows have some small pellet holes and cracks in them but are largely intact. With some minor cleaning, sanding, and finishing, this space will be set.

"Study"

If one can get up the steep, narrow stair without falling, there is a finished part of the attic. Peeling paint implies some minor water damage but nothing too bad. Aside from the missing window the space is in pretty good shape, though an average height person has trouble standing in most of the space - so it's not entirely ideal for an area of high traffic.

"Attic"

Our current sleeping quarters, fitted with two beds (one a box spring mattress, the other a folded up piece of carpet padding), sleeping bags, blankets, and a quadruple layered solar pool cover to keep us warm. A small brick mantle on the left houses the mini double barrel stove we've been experimenting with while we work at the larger scale. The sleeping space may or may not move soon, depending on our exact handling of the new stove in the coming weeks.