We’re thankful to the Lord to be able to continue on the house! Thanks again to those who are helping make this possible, and thanks to Robert for his help!

The plan always was to seal in the bedroom so we could run separate heat in there, with the idea of using fewer resources for when we are sleeping, rather than trying to keep the whole house warm just so the bedroom is. And so, we added the doors:

To the library:

To the closet:

And to the bathroom:

And then we put in the bedroom internal windows:

Then, it was more great room/kitchen siding, which are now finished!

Electricity Through the Wall

Up until recently, we’ve had an extension cord running from our camper going through two slightly opened windows wrapped around the wall frame between the two windows, and we’ve had towels tucked in the openings to keep out the weather. Well, we recently discovered cold air was coming in between the sliding and permanent glass in the middle of the two windows. We put some towels there also to try to get by, but only until I could figure a way to pass the electricity through the wall.

In looking online, the only similar male to female things I could find were for RVs and were very expensive. So, I set out to see if I could figure out something a lot less costly…

Here is the metal, external wall plate with holes drilled through using the smallest bit I have:

And then L brackets attached, which will hold the male receptacle ends:

Here are the male receptacles and some foam seals:

And in place on the metal wall plate:

I attached the wire, which was just a 3-wire extension cord I cut a piece from, to the back of the male receptacle:

And put the male receptacle back together:

And here is the male end of the passthrough:

I then cut a hole in the internal siding and cut out a square to fit the electrical bracket box that the female receptacle attaches to:

And here is the hole on the external OSB wall:

And the square cut out:

And then the male end and wires through the hole:

And then the whole male receptacle installed and calked:

And here are the wires coming through on the inside:

And through the bracket box:

I originally attached the two wire sets to the top and bottom of the female receptacle, but thankfully discovered that without having the current coming directly in the top one but only the bottom one, the top female outlet was still active! Well, that would have been something if I had plugged in another active cord into the top one while the bottom one was plugged in. Thanks to God for letting me find that beforehand. And so, apparently I only needed to wire in the one set of wires to one of the female receptacles to make both outlets active, and then I just taped up the not used wire, keeping it there in case it was ever needed:

And here is the female receptacle in place:

And the cover plate:

Then, I plugged in the extension cord to the outside:

Et voila! Power on the inside!

And now, we can close both those windows completely to help keep the place warmer.

Homemade Amish Hat Rack

With the great room siding done, I really wanted a place for the men to be able to hang their hats when visiting, and so I set out to make something quick but useful for the larger sized Amish hats we wear.

And here’s what I came up with. Had to angle the backings to be able to fit on the wall as I hadn’t measured the wall width beforehand, but it worked not too badly:

Again, we are grateful to the Lord for allowing the continued work on the house!

— David

After some of the great room siding had been done, we’ve been able to continue on the house, with the assistance of Robert.

Closet/Pantry/Bathroom Ceiling

Next job was the closet/pantry room/bathroom ceiling. Here are the cross blocks:

And Robert working up there:

And the ceiling done. We can hopefully even store some things up there now as well:

Enclosing the Bedroom

We decided to go ahead and try to make the bedroom its own sealed-in room so we could have separate heat in there at some point, and so we needed the siding around the bedroom windows to go up, in preparation for installing the windows:

More Foundation Beam Work

After adding spacers to the south beam to level it some, I didn’t like how the end of the beam was torquing still a little, with the pier being very slightly tipped that way, and so I thought I might try replacing the pier bracket with a wider one so I could set the beam a little bit back on the pier and add a side spacer to help keep the beam a little more vertical. And here is that process…

Here the beam is raised:

And here, loosening and removing the bracket:

This is the bracket removed:

And the new one in place:

Again, I used the floor jack to push back the bottom of the beam. I also temporarily removed the hurricane clips from the beam and floor joists to allow it to maybe pivot back a little easier:

And here the beam is set back down with the 2×4 side spacer in place. Hopefully that will help!

Birdhouse

And finally, one other nice touch for this update: young Elijah, one of the Stonger boys, built us a birdhouse, which we put up on the south side of the house! Thanks Elijah, and nice job!

As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for providing for continued progress on the house!

— David