Bless our Nest

Ryan and I finally tied the knot on July 31, 2009. We had a beautiful small wedding in my Mom's backyard. lucky for us most of our friends and family from Oregon were able to join us. It was a wonderful day and we even got a few drops of rain after the ceremony. Very poetic for all of the Oregonians. We kind of honeymooned on our way back home to Oregon with our first night together at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake. We spent the next day playing at Raging Waters water park in Salt Lake and then we drove to Boise Idaho were we spent the next night. We stopped in La Grande and visited Ryan's Aunt and Grandma DeClerck. Then on to our new Home in Forest Grove.


Ryan and his dad have been working like crazy to make our little white farm house livable again. This house has been in Ryan's family for a very long time. His mom grew up here with her sisters. The house was built in 1907 as a one bed farm home. The washer and dryer were outside on the porch until about 15 years ago. We (i say that like I have been doing all the work as well) have been making great progress on the fix up.



It all started when we found out the kitchen and main dinning room didn't have a foundation. The house had to be excavated and a 36'' tall wall of cement had to be poured as a foundation.

This brick post is one of the many that were holding our house up. After the digging, the house was put on bottle jacks and these pour posts were knocked out. then the cement wall was placed.

The house resting ever so carefully on jacks.

The cement wall and frame work. starting to look like a foundation!

The boys after the day of digging.

Ross, Grant, Ry and his dad

Sadly after all this work curiosity got to the men and they crawled under the "newer" part of the house added on in the early 60's. the beams for the floor to our bedroom were completly rotted out. Dry rott has taken over. It only took a few days and the beams were all replaced with brand new ones! i can once again walk on the floor in my bedroom without feeling like the floor will give way any second.


So, the next step was the paint on the outside of the house. There were huge sections of paint that after nearly 60 years has started to bubble and peal off. the scrapping began. all the bubbles had to be popped and scrapped clean and then sanded smooth. after that step all the windows doors, trim and new cement had to be covered in plastic and taped off. you never realize how big your house is until you start doing things like this. after about a week of hard work and learning how to climb the ladder and not fall off the roof we got things figured out and the house is ready for painting.
 

 
 Thankfully we are having this part done professionally. We owe a huge THANK YOU to our friends and especially my Father in Law for all the hard work and man hours at our house. the outside is just about finished. Painting was done yesterday and is all finished. Lucky for us the rain waited until afternoon.
 
 

Ta DA! the house with its brand new shinny coat of paint!  its so pretty. I know, i know, plain old boring white house. But you have no idea how proud we are of this cute little white house. 

 
Soon the inside gets a face lift!