When our bluegrass buddy, Curtis, called and said he was demolishing his old house to build a new one and would we like to come and go shopping for anything that might be able to work in our home, you can bet we were ready to say yes!

He had a home that belonged to his family, and that when he was living there about 6 years ago, it developed a failure in the septic system.  They ultimately had to move out of the house and then the city got involved and well, it has been in litigation for 6 years now.  He won his case and got the property back, however the little old house had been vacant for that time span, the septic system was not repairable and the house had been vandalized and stripped of many parts.

However… the vandals were caught in the act and had not gotten to the furnace or central air unit!   Curtis said we could have both if we can find a way to disconnect and move before they start to tear down the house in a few weeks.   They are waiting for the snow to thaw and the ground to firm up a bit so they can bring in a back hoe and those big trash containers.

Such a huge blessing and we are so thankful to him!   It’s a 80,000 BTU furnace, and was only about 2 years old when they moved out.  It seems to be in perfect shape, doesn’t look like anyone has messed with it.  We’ll have to convert it to propane, but that is not a huge issue.  Our furnace in our home is underpowered, only 40,000 BTU and doesn’t completely heat our house.  It’s brand new, but through a bit of confusion and misshipped unit, it is what it is and we’re fine with how it all worked out in the end…  thankful for the friend that installed it and how we got the wood furnace as a settlement for the mistake.   (And that wood furnace has been a GODSEND….  with this dreadful winter and propane sales so out of whack, it has saved our bacon and given us an alternative heating source for the house.  Wood was much much cheaper than propane this year, so we were able to stay out of debt.  Friends were paying close to a thousand dollars to get a 70% fill on their tanks!  Oh my gosh!)

All said and done, however, to have a proper sized furnace in the house will be a good thing…  if propane is more reasonable, we can have both going…  and it will save us from having to tend the wood furnace at night and the two can work to provide a nice overall comfort in the old farmhouse.

We are also getting three large newer double pane, vinyl windows that we can hopefully replace a few bad windows in the house…  as a few smaller ones as well.  So exciting!

As you can see, one of our front windows is still an old window… leaky and single paned… it’s a huge heat loss for us, even after we cover it in plastic and all.  And the new windows match the big window down to the left…  so our house will be a little more symmetrical!  Pretty darn cool!  I think we might replace the windows in my office and the dining room to let in a lot more light into the middle of our home.  It’s just so neat!   May take us a while to be able to have someone put them, but still, we’re way ahead of the game.

The house is pretty much empty at this point, the kitchen and cabinets are gone and helping out another friend.   However, we were given a bunch of door and window trim, which just is so exciting!   The previous owners had pulled all the trim off the doors and windows in our house, to super insulate the openings with foam and such.  As we understand it, the trim was all in a big pile out in the garage and when the house went for foreclosure, it was carted off as trash!!!    Trim is so expensive!  We’ve managed to trim two doors and that is all.  Now, we can use all this nice trim out of the old house and mix and match it up to take care of our lacking windows and doors!!!  And what’s so nice, is that it was only just lightly stained in Curtis’s house… so we only need to pop out all the nails…  fill them in and then a light sand and we can paint the trim… no one will ever know!  It’s all the same too…. we might have to splice a few here and there, but that’s just fine…   Can’t wait to get it all ready!

And we got 14 new ceiling tiles for our main office!  We were going to replace a bunch because they are stained or damaged…  but a pack of tiles is kind of expensive and just not high on the priority list!   Now we have enough to change out almost all of them!!!  So nice!  Windhaven is one happy old house at the moment…  a few super nice upgrades from a super great guy!!!  Thanks Curtis!!!!!!!!