Putting Projects in Order

My little house at Moody Girl Farm needs a lot of repairs and upgrades to turn it into a comfortable home.  Since I plan to move up there by the end of this year, I need to get busy. 

Before my last visit in June, my friend M asked me what would it take to make the house livable?  Or, more specifically, what is the bare minimum that needs to be done for me to be able to live there.
The answer:  the bathroom needs to be updated so that the commode, tub/shower, and sink work.  However, even if I replace those items, it'll all be for naught if I can't get more water flowing through the pipes. 
 
When I purchased the property, my friend M helped me get water to the bathroom.  After we found where the water line actually entered my property, we replaced all of the broken pipes and ran the line to the commode and bathtub.  That was April of last year. 

For my visit this past June, I set up an appointment with a licensed plumber to get a quote for replacing the water line from the meter at the street up to the house, about 375 feet.  I also asked for a separate quote to install the on-demand hot water heater, new faucet/shower head, and a larger sink in the bathroom.  He quoted me a range of $2,200 to $2,500 for both jobs, with the higher end in case there are lots of rock to dig out when he does the trenching.  I'm still putting a few dollars aside each week toward that, so it'll be the end of September before I can begin on this project.

Once I have a functioning bathroom, I could move in permanently.  The next projects, of course, would make living here much nicer.

The next project would be to install insulation in the attic. I basically have two attic spaces: the space between the metal roof and the original ten-foot ceiling, and the space between the ten-foot ceiling and the 8-foot drop ceiling.  I have only managed to get this one photo of the space above the living room drop ceiling (left photo), and it looks a lot like the area above the bedroom ceiling. 


Attic space between the 8 and 10 foot
ceilings over the living room

Attic space above the ten-foot
ceiling in the bedroom

And because I can't see all of the ten-foot ceiling, I can't tell if there is access to the 'upper' attic.  I found a small opening in the ten-foot ceiling that I was able to stick my hand through (holding my phone/camera) and I was able to get a few photos, including this one of the chimney (right photo) over the bedroom.

There's no insulation, and I can see the corrugated metal roof panels through the joists - they didn't put down any sheathing for the metal roof panels to attach to (a future project?). Since I haven't seen as of yet any access to the 'upper' attic, I believe the obvious choice would be to put the insulation between the 10 and 8 foot ceilings.

The next project is also insulation: I need to add insulation to the interior walls and I'll build stud-wall framing on the inside for that.  After that I'll need to reinforce/build up the floor where I want to install the wood stove.  I would like it to be in place before winter.  In the meantime, I've been pricing chimney pipe and wow it's not cheap; however, this is one place where I can't scrimp. 

Later projects will include flooring, windows, and maybe a kitchen bump-out to give me a little more elbow room there.  Knowing what my next steps are will help keep me focused.  In the meantime, never give up, never surrender, and may all your dreams come true.