Our Old House … The Remodel Part 2 ~ The put back together…
FINALLY … after all the demolition of the house, it was finally time to put it back together! WooHoo!
The built in for the tv where the fireplace used to be.Framing where the door used to be from the master to the kitchen.Sheetrock is up in the living room.Dinette put back together.Built in for the tv.
If you noticed the big hole that was once there is now patched in and the reason we couldn’t keep the awesome wood floors. We ended up choosing carpet for the living room.
Master bedroom closet under the stairs.Master bedroom – there used to be a door to go to the kitchen.Spare bedroom built in and the new closet.
With lots of mudding and filling in screw holes it was finally time to texture!! One step closer to being done with the remodel! I did chose an orange peel texture
The texture is up and its time to paint! My favorite part!!!
Now that the texture is up I had to pick paint colors! I remember being very overwhelmed having to pick paint and flooring!
Flooring and Trimsoo many colors to chose from
Since, Dalton and I both had full time jobs we would not have gotten the painting done in a reasonable time without the help of his parents!!!! His mom is an awesome painter!
Check out next week to see the final touches and finished product!
Our Old House … The Remodel
Part 1 ~ The teardown and gut!
You first saw the pictures of the house right after we bought it. At first we didn’t plan on gutting the whole house and starting over everything from walls to the electrical. We were just going to take off the wallpaper and paint and fix here and there so we could get out of the parents house and live in our new home! Well, one thing led to another and as my thought and my father in law’s you might as well just do it all at once and make sure its right! So in started the gutting and tearing down! We found some really interesting things while we tore down walls, fireplaces and chimneys, 2 of them to be exact! We did all the work ourselves with some help from friends and family. We also had a little help from the plumber {we replaced the pipes and added some for the washer and dryer downstairs} and an electrician.
And so it began…living room
We went to work during the day and would come home and work on the house. Very long days and lots of hard work, mostly by the husband and his father.
From the kitchen looking into the dining room.
We completely opened up the kitchen and dining room area. We got rid of the dinette area because it was useless space for us so we just decided to open it all up. We saved the awesome wood and glass door that used to open into the dinette area and decided to use it as the door for going upstairs.
The old dinette area completely gutted no more walls closing it off.
Remember this archway from the last post? You won’t believe what we found in it! We had to take it down because the hubby couldn’t walk underneath it without having to duck! hahaha We decided that this archway was put up later and not the same time as the house was built because…. the dates on these!
We found empty alcohol bottles in the archway walls! Haha they even still had a Kessler’s sticker from back in the day! I think the carpenters liked their Calvert Reserve! If only the walls could tell stories!
Here are just some remodeling pictures!
Look at that gorgeous fireplace 😦
Old dinette areadining roomlooking into the living room. Can you see where the old cabinets used to be.Looking from the living room into the hallway at the bathroom (or what used to be)spare bedroom gut… still rocking the blue and black shag carpetmaster bedroom closet under the stairs (used to be a chimney in the closet too from top floor to the basement taken out)the bathroom – there used to be a window as you can tell but that was already covered up by the shower and newer siding.master bedroomAs you can see my fireplace is now officially gone. It went through all the way to the basement and the guys took it out brick by brick.
After we got down all the lath and plaster we finally could remove the nasty dust filled carpet! Check out the gorgeous wood floor we found underneath!!!
Living room completely gutted and carpet removed. Finally on the upward swing!Soo awesome!
looking at the spare bedroomFrom the hallway looking through the master bedroom to the kitchen thought the old door.
Now that I finally have a computer I can finally share our house remodel!
Spring of 2012 we bought our 1st home! It was definitely a small house that needed some major work! Let’s just say it looked like it was from the 60s and 70s! We bought it from a couple who were older and wanting to move to Aberdeen. According to our neighbors back in the day, this house was ordered from a magazine and all the pieces to put it together were sent here and then they had to put together. Interesting!!!!
Here are some of the pictures of the house the day after closing on it!
Walking in from the front door into the living room.My favorite part of the house was the fireplace and mantle and unfortunately we didn’t keep it in the remodel.
Check out that lovely GOLD shag carpet we had! We actually to this day still have it in the front entry way since we didn’t end up remodeling that with everything else.
I don’t know if you can tell or not but from the wall to the ceilings its curved! There weren’t any straight lines in this house and this really bugged me I like straight lines and straight walls! I know this is a cool feature in older homes and if Nicole Curtis from Rehab Addict saw what we did with this remodel, she would not like me very much!
Windows in the living room
Looking into the dining room.
If you go left it leads into the 2 bedrooms and bathrooms and to the right is the entryway! If you see this house had so many doors into small rooms. You can’t see in this picture but there’s a door to the kitchen on the left and to the right there’s also another door! Don’t worry I saved all the doors! (Even used some of them in our wedding decorations)
Built in China cabinets.
These were built into the archway on each side! We ended up taking these out and they are still being used in the in-law’s house.
The kitchen!Looking into the dinette are next to the kitchen.
Notice the lovely yellow flower wallpaper… on the ceiling. Now we didn’t really do too much remodeling in the kitchen at this time, to my dismay but it’s still holding up now. We will see if I ever get to do anything to it or not.
Old Stove that still works. {still available}
Fun Fact: he owner’s bought a newer stove and they said it didn’t work as good as this one so they went back to using the old one!
Windows in the dinette area.Old school fan and light in the dinette area too! {We still have this if anyone happens to want it 😉 }
Now to go to the other side of the house. If you take the hallway from the living you can go upstairs or the master on the right, bathroom and spare bedroom on the left! I don’t have full pictures of each of the rooms but have some of the details in them!
The bathroom!
More lovely flower wallpaper this time PINK! This was also on the ceiling. With lovely pink tile surrounding the bathroom!
Master bedroom.
You can’t see it in the picture but there is actually a door there on the right that leads into the kitchen! We closed that door up and have only 1 entrance into the bedroom.
Spare bedroom.
Now this was a lovely room! Blue and black shag carpet and more wallpaper! In this spare bedroom closet the other side of the fireplace was taking up most of the room. I was for sure there was gonna be some kind of dead body behind it once we took the fireplace out! 😉
Bookshelf in the spare bedroom.
I think this came straight from The Brady Bunch house!
Upstairs.
The upstairs in the house we didn’t redo either but, here’s what it looks like minus the very very heavy sofa sleeper that the guys had to haul down. The chimney is no longer there either.
That’s all I have! Here are some other pictures I had taken of cool things/things that the old owners left for us to take care of.
The cool old fridge and freezer that was down in the basements.
Can’t wait to show you the remodel!!!! Coming up next week, so check back!
So turns out it has been pretty crazy around my house lately! There has been a lot going on that I will be sharing with you in the next couple months! The husband I just got back from our mini honeymoon, yes a mini moon! We decided to get away to the cities, Minneapolis, MN, that is. We left on a Friday morning and came home on Monday. We had a great time and it was nice to just get away since in the next month, possibly two it’s going to get even crazier with planting. I can’t believe it’s almost here! Don’t get me wrong I hate winter and can’t wait for it to be done but, at the same time that means a lot of alone time! Which can also mean lots of home projects I can come up with! I usually have to do those when he is gone otherwise it tends to be a lot of no, you can’t do that, now its like too bad so sad, can’t change it now!
So what did we do on our honeymoon you ask! Well we spent quite a bit of time at the Mall of America, where we ate most of our meals there since it was within walking distance from our hotel. We stayed at the Fairfield Inn & Suites – Bloomington, and let me tell you for how reasonably priced it was compared to all the other hotels right next to the mall it was pretty awesome! It was just kitty corner from the mall and you could walk there otherwise they had a free shuttle to take you there at every hour and will even pick you up. The room was very modern in colors and I loved it! The breakfasts were pretty decent for free continental breakfast! So, if you are looking for a great place to stay close to the mall and don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars definitely check this hotel out!
While we were there we took in our FIRST ever NHL hockey game! It was sooooo much fun! We watched the Minnesota Wild take on the Colorado Avalanche. Wild won 1-0, and we had 4th row seats and could see everything! We can’t wait to go back especially to the Bud Light Fan Zone before the game! That place is awesome too! It opens at 5:00 and then closes 30 minutes before puck drops! Tap beers were only $4 bucks, cheapest drink we found but, that is to be expected we weren’t in Cresbard anymore! You can also order food like cheese curds {amazing}, nachos, burgers and more! We had been to other hockey games like the Aberdeen Wings and Rapid City Rush but the Wild game topped all!
Here are a few pics from the hockey game!
We were waiting outside for the doors to open to get into the Fan Zone.
Just got to our awesome seats!!!!
So the other question that is usually asked by our friends when we go somewhere is, where did you eat?! Me I love food and to try new things! The main places we ate included, Bubba Gump Shrimp, Kokomo’s Island Cafe {they have really good Pina coladas 😉 } and our final meal was at Famous Daves! If you like seafood definitely check out Bubba Gump Shrimp, you can even get souvenir glasses to take home!
Our Lunch at Kokomo’s {these are really the only photos I have other than the hockey photos}
On Sunday we were both pretty tired of the MOA, so we decided to go to the Albertville Outlet Malls about 45 miles away and we hit the jackpot there! They have Nike and Under Amour Outlet stores and on top of the low prices already they had an additional 20-40% off trying to get rid of their winter stuff. Another good deal they had at Columbia where if you bought 2 items you got the 3rd FREE! How cool is that! If you need new winter coats for next year for the family that’s a perfect deal!
The last place cool we went was IKEA! Well, I loved it he didn’t so much! I wanted to go there to get some good ideas for the new daycare area upstairs that I plan to start on once spring comes around {if you remember what i said earlier 😉 } I also came home with some new plates, bowls, cups and silverware for the kids! Each came in a 6 pk and were $1.99 each! I was all about saving money this trip! haha that usually isn’t the case I like to spend my fair share and probably his too!
So that was our honeymoon. Hopefully next year we will get to go somewhere warm during the winter!
Well waking up this morning and hearing my husband tell me It is -30 degrees outside (with the windchill) I decided today was gonna be a day to bake! First up is my recipe for the easiest, I swear, blueberry muffins. No it is not one of the packets that you just add water or milk! This recipe has 5 ingredients! I favor the recipes that have the fewest ingredients! You will need 1 Lg bowl, 1 Small Bowl & a greased muffin tin. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Ingredients:
2 cups Bisquick
3/4 cup sugar + 2 Tbsp (to sprinkle on top)
2 eggs
1 cup yogurt (I use Vanilla) OR 1 cup Sour Cream
1 cup blueberries (can use frozen or fresh) ** I had fresh blueberries from my Bountiful Basket again.
In the Lg bowl combine the bisquick mix and the 3/4 cup of sugar.
In the small bowl combine the yogurt and eggs. Stir this into the lg bowl containing the dry ingredients.
Once mixed together it will appear lumpy, that is fine.
Next, fold in the blueberries. You want to fold them in so you don’t break them open and your batter turns purple. Once they are all folded in. I took my largest cookie scoop and scooped one scoop into my muffin tin. Once at the end if you have extra, you can just add it to the ones that look low.
Pop them into the oven at 375 and bake for 20-25 min.
They come out smelling amazing and taste wonderful! They just melt in your mouth!
I like my muffins, especially blueberry, right out of the oven. Open them up, put a little butter and let it melt and then usually they are gone in about 2 bites!
If the weather is anything like our here in SD, nothing is better than a nice warm comfort meal. It has been sooo COLD here, and we just got quite of a bit of snow with the nasty cold and wind! No fun! Luckily for me, I don’t have to leave my house during the days, unless it’s to go grab the mail from the mailbox! Love this new adventure of being able to be a stay at home wife! When it’s cold like this I love to use my crockpot and since we haven’t been to town and we both love our Chinese takeout! This recipe has taken both our loves and combined them!!! I found this recipe on Pinterest from The Recipe Critic.
Since we live 40 miles from town and thought I had all the ingredients, I really didn’t, I did have to substitute some but, I still think it turned out awesome!
Ingredients :
1 lb. boneless, beef chuck roast, sliced into thin strips
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce { I used regular & 1/4 cup – it’s all I had left }
1/3 cup dark brown sugar {used just regular light brown sugar }
1 tbsp. sesame oil { regular olive oil }
3 garlic cloves minced
2 tbsp cornstarch
Frozen Broccoli Florets (I used one bag) { ** I used fresh broccoli I got in my Bountiful Basket this week }
White or brown rice, cooked
1. In a mixing bowl or right in the crockpot whisk together the beef broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, and garlic.
2. Lay the beef strips in the crockpot and pour the sauce over, tossing the strips to coat.
3. Turn the crockpot on low and cook for about 6 hours. Mine was ready at 5. You don’t want to cook the beef too long or it will start to shred. { Mine did turn out somewhat shredded so next time I will try around 4 hours }
4. When it is just about done, take 4 Tbsp of the sauce and whisk it in a small bowl with the cornstarch. If you like it a little thicker you can add another Tbsp. Slowly stir this into the crockpot. Add the broccoli after you mix in the corn starch mixture. You will want to let it cook about an additional 30 minutes so that the sauce can thicken and frozen broccoli can cook. My fresh broccoli turned out about perfect after the additional 30 minutes.
Ours did turn out a little bit on the sweet side, it wasn’t sweet all day while it was cooking so I’m wondering if the fresh broccoli caused it. I’m not quite sure but, I will have to try again with frozen broccoli just to see!
TA Da!!!
I know the pictures aren’t the greatest but, I’m working on that with my camera. Promise I’m trying to get the hang of this all!
** Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets? If not you should really check them out! I love it especially in the winter when I don’t have my garden to go pick the veggies from. For $15 + $5 handling fee you get a basket 50% Vegetables 50% fruits. You can also buy add ons like bread & more quantities of fruits. It’s really a good deal. To find out if it’s in your area or town just check out the website!
Happy New Year everyone!! Hope you all had a safe and an awesome Christmas and New Years! The Holiday’s are officially over at the Kretschmar household. I took down the tree and put away all the Christmas decorations. {They are sitting in 4 large totes in the dining room waiting for my husband to take them downstairs, we will see how long it takes before they get moved 😉}
I loved my Christmas tree this year, it was sad to take it down, but figured if I didn’t do it soon it might end up being up all year.
I’m sure you have heard of this recipe before but I never had and it’s absolutely delicious!!! I got this recipe from my coworkers at the bank, their families love it!
It’s soo simple! 3 packets of seasonings and your meat & vegetables.
The Recipe
1 pkt zesty Italian seasoning
1 ranch packet
1 pkt brown gravy mix AND/OR 1 pkt Aus Jus Gravy {If you want a thicker gravy to go with everything use the brown gravy mix & use 2 pkts of the gravy }
2 Cups Water
Roast – this time it was a chuck roast
*Carrots – I use baby carrots
*Potatoes
*Onion – I put in half an onion
*Celery
* You can use these as you please. I like a lot more carrots then potatoes so of course I put more in of those. Make it your own!
I put the roast in the crockpot and put the vegetables around the sides with onion slices on top. I mix the 3 packets in the water and pour that on the top of everything. Put the lid on and cook on low for 7-8 hours or in our case it ended up being around 9.
When I came home from work and walked through the door my mouth started watering instantly! It smelled sooo amazing, I almost could wait until Dalton got home from work.
It didn’t look as pretty, in the crockpot as it smelled but by the 2 plates scarfed down, I could tell he loved it!
I shared my favorite pot roast recipe, what is yours? What’s a no fail recipe you always go back to?
Hey!!!!
Welcome to Small Town Mrs!!! I’m so excited to share what’s all to come with you all!!!
My name is Ashley and I am now from a small town in the middle of nowhere South Dakota!!! For the last couple years I have been reading a few blogs and really liked the idea of starting one myself, but kept putting it off until NOW! Small Town Mrs is my blog about my new adventures in becoming a newlywed and let alone a wife. I have officially been married for 1 month!! WooHoo! I month down, years to come!!
I met my husband Dalton in college, 6 years ago. I was in the Marketing, Management and Sales program while he was in Energy Technology. We’ve been together ever since. After school Dalton took a traveling job working on wind towers. So I patiently waited at home until we could finally settle down together in the same zip code. After 2 years of back and forth, we finally bought a house we could call home, in his home town of Cresbard. After 5 months of gutting, tearing out walls and finally putting it all back together our remodeling was complete and we finally got to move in! Can’t wait to share the remodeling process with you, we did it all ourselves with the help of our parents! In September 2013, Dalton proposed and I said YES! We set the date and started planning. On October 4, 2014 in front of all our friends and family we said our I Do’s and celebrated the night away! One of the best days of my life this far!
Here I am now a month into being married and loving life. Can’t wait to share all these new adventures, recipes, workouts and my DIY projects including our remodel! BIG and exciting changes and I hope you enjoy them with me and share with all your friends! I might even throw some wedding posts out there with ideas I did or things I wish I would have done differently! Stay tuned!!!
Small Town Mrs. 
