TheLiFeInPines

This was so early on in the renovation and we’ve come to realize that we just never know what to expect next and we just rarely have an easy answer!

With our rough in electrical inspection behind us, we have moved right into insulating the house and getting the vents ran to the bathrooms, bedroom and kitchen! Despite both of us being under the weather, we were still able to get it done with a smile on our face. This was probably the first project that took us LESS time than we expected! Praise God for little wins like that! #diy #renovation #hvac #insulation

We know it's been a long time but we've had a busy Christmas and New Year with family, and, well, family came first. But we're BACK and so excited to be working on the house again! Passing our rough in electrical inspection was a HUGE accomplishment and an even bigger weight lifted now that its behind us!

We’ve reached a point of being overwhelmed with how much work is still left to do in the house. When we look back at all we’ve done, there is a big sense of accomplishment, but since we’ve been working mostly outside and just recently started working on the interior again, it feels like we’ve hardly gained any ground. We try to remember that every day is progress and we’ll eventually get there! We’re always thankful for your support!

Whether it's mental health, prostate or testicular cancer, mens health is important! Early detection and prevention is key. So here's your friendly reminder to get checked! This isn't our usual content, but Ted has been participating in Movember for as long as I can remember to help bring awareness to mens health! We hope you can get a a laugh out of this beard debacle. I know we did while we were making it.... a low budget film for sure, but we HAD SO MUCH FUN! We could NOT stop laughing!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This week we worked on electrical- spotting boxes, started framing up built-in storage for the laundry area, and finished framing up the doors. Of course we sill made plenty of time for family as we celebrated CJ's first deer! He waited so patiently and snagged it with only one day left of the hunting season. We are so thankful for another years worth of meat in the freezer. He hunted by himself this year so this was a huge accomplishment for him and we are SO PROUD! We did enjoy our thanksgiving with both sides of our family. We are so blessed to live so close to all of our family.

This video has been in the works for a few months now and we are excited to bring you along on our honey harvest and how we keep our bees through the frigid Minnesota winter. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!

NOVEMBER, or "Movember" is a month where men grow a mustache to raise awareness for Mens Health. Ted has been doing this for years, but with November coming to an end, we're leaving it up to YOU to VOTE on whether or not he should SHAVE it off at the end of November, or SAVE it until this project house is DONE! Leave your vote in the comments section and we'll tally them up at the end of November! ALSO, a HUGE shoutout to one of our favorite channels @Can't Contain Us. If you haven't checked out their channel, go now! They are an adorable young couple who are building an off-grid shipping container home completely on their own! We have learned a lot from them and will put that knowledge to use when we start our own off-grid treehouse!

We are so thankful for the incredible weather we've had this fall. It's definitely been uncharacteristic of northern Minnesota, but we'll take it! Any free moment we find, we are at the rental house trying to finish up our last outdoor projects, and we have come to realize that NOW this is the busiest we've ever been. We are just taking one day at a time, remembering to give thanks to our Lord, the giver of all good things. Thank you for following along!

Are you ever so torn between two decisions that you end up just doing both? Because, that's what we did this past weekend! When you live in Northern MN the weather is always unpredictable, but when the immediate forecast calls for "warm and nice" you have to take advantage! While it made for a crazy exhausting weekend. We were able to finish big projects AND escape from reality for a couple days!

If you remember our score at the dump from a couple months back... we are FINALLY getting to utilize it, and we could not be happier with how it's turning out! We are so grateful when the Lord blesses us with finds like this! For FREE! Ah! We love when things like this turn out! We're still plugging along to get the house all finished before the weather won't allow for outdoor projects!

It seems like we blinked an all of a sudden, fall was here! Which also means winter is right around the corner. We've already had nights below freezing, so tackling his chimney project moved higher on our priority list so we can get HEAT back in the house!

The end of summer has been so insanely busy. With both kids in sports, beginning our first year of homeschooling, harvesting everything from the garden, birthdays, meetings, working at the rental house as much as possible, and Teds job, it really feels like we're burning the candle at both ends some days! We like to be busy, but we're ready for things on our social calendar to slow down a bit so we can recharge and focus on preparing both of our homes for winter!

When the weather is unpredictable, you've got to just roll with the punches and do what you can when you can. We definitely don't like starting one project before the other is finished, but sometimes we just don't have a choice! We worked on finishing up the roof as much as we could in-between the rain, but in the meantime, we were thankful to get some more windows installed.

Whew! The last few weeks have been a total whirlwind! We are SO happy to be back at the house and getting some more big projects tackled! This roof was in dire need of being replaced. The shingles were curling, it was leaking around the chimney and it was a complete eyesore.

Finally getting to our front door project that we've wanted to do for years now!! We're feeling much better about the house now that we've framed in where it was missing all the 2x4's. We're waiting waiting waiting on the windows to come in, but we were able to get one in! The progress feels GOOD!

While we continue to right ALLL the wrongs in this house, what we recently found was almost the last straw for us. We're still not sure how this house hasn't fallen down yet. It wasn't how we wanted to come back to the house after our wonderful vacation, but the show must go on.

If you're semi-new to the channel, this episode is for you! A viewer had mentioned doing an introduction to get newcomers up to speed, so that's exactly what we did! If you think you may enjoy our content, please consider subscribing! We are always open to more suggestions to better our channel! God Bless!

The dining room is excessively big for this house, so we decided to take some of that space and turn it into a bedroom and hall closet. We had to add a blind header as we would be removing a load bearing stud. The kids were with us so while it was challenging at times to add two more sassy personalities to our well oiled working duo, it was fun and I know they learned a lot!

Working with an 1800's home has been a big challenge from the beginning. From crazy additions, removing a second story, pieced in stud walls, knob/tube and fuses for electrical, exterior walls in the interior of the house and NOTHING IS LEVEL! We're doing our best to make sure the foundation is repaired and strong for the next 100 years.

We're currently on a little bit of a struggle bus, but we are SOOO incredibly thankful we have a cabin in Voyageurs National Park to retreat to when we are feeling overwhelmed. We have been praying diligently for the Lord to guide us through this rocky patch, and we are confident in His provisions.

So happy to announce that demo is FINALLY FINISHED! The last couple of demo days were hot, sticky, full of asbestos and insulation that stuck to any exposed skin. Our faces couldn't handle one more minute of wearing the respirators either, so we are so happy to be done with this phase of the house reno. Now, let's put this beauty back together!