That pretty much covers it. We got to be warm today, while working on the dining room and bath, on one of the coldest days on record in the past couple of years.
We couldn't see it, but it was the same as if we had completed something visible.
08 December 2006
06 December 2006
Scraping, Scraping, Scraping
The master bedroom is nearly denuded of its many layers of Vile Old Paper. Some of it, say, the gray-and-pearl stripe with its coordinating ceiling paper and edgings, was okay (not my taste, but tolerable), but others were emphatically NOT. Let's just say that I really don't think that Mrs. Songer (2nd owner of the home, from whose life most of the wallpapers date - the renters in the 40's may have papered too, but the Whites mostly painted, before the panelling went up) and I would have agreed on any decorating decisions. I am especially unfond of the mint-icecream colored floral stripe dating from the 1930's and its posy borders. Made me feel like I was in a perfume box, just looking at it, and I reminded myself that it was the choice of an older widowed lady.
I still like the ochre that the Wolfes painted the bedrooms originally, even if it also covers the ceiling, making it an oppressive color choice. I liked their paper in the dining room and hallway. We're not going with that color scheme, though. The bedroom will be gray, a soft, cloudlike, cool gray, with a coordinating sandtexture painted ceiling and a blue stripe at wallpaper-border level around the room.
We are returning to the Hell of Vile Paper Shreds momentarily, to continue our labors. Surely we must have painted over old wallpaper in some past life to have earned this suffering. O! See How I Lament! Perhaps if I do enough of this in this life, I will never have to do it again.
My happy place for this work is the vision of the soft grey room in which I will sleep, in our overpoweringly large bed with its new curtains. So calming. Our bed really isn't quite so large, but it's close enough to pretend that we have that bed.
Also, the heat isn't on yet. We wanted to get the soaking and scraping done with first, before we dry out the house too much. Hurrah for wrongheaded prioritizing!
I still like the ochre that the Wolfes painted the bedrooms originally, even if it also covers the ceiling, making it an oppressive color choice. I liked their paper in the dining room and hallway. We're not going with that color scheme, though. The bedroom will be gray, a soft, cloudlike, cool gray, with a coordinating sandtexture painted ceiling and a blue stripe at wallpaper-border level around the room.
We are returning to the Hell of Vile Paper Shreds momentarily, to continue our labors. Surely we must have painted over old wallpaper in some past life to have earned this suffering. O! See How I Lament! Perhaps if I do enough of this in this life, I will never have to do it again.
My happy place for this work is the vision of the soft grey room in which I will sleep, in our overpoweringly large bed with its new curtains. So calming. Our bed really isn't quite so large, but it's close enough to pretend that we have that bed.
Also, the heat isn't on yet. We wanted to get the soaking and scraping done with first, before we dry out the house too much. Hurrah for wrongheaded prioritizing!
05 December 2006
Amazing Progress, Due to Unbearable Pressure
As everyone knows, we are under a lot of pressure around here to get done and moved in as soon as possible. So, with that bearing down upon us, (and the help of our dear friends) we have made some progress.
Thanks to J, the furnace is on a real electrical line (meaning, of course, the electric pilot sparker and the thermostat line), and most of the heat vents have now been vacuumed. The rest will be cleaned out tomorrow, and then the intake filter will get cleaned and we can throw the switch, turn on the gas, light the pilots and work in a warm house. We also magically have lights in the kitchen, with a bonus lightswitch!
The dining room bay has been reframed (where necessary), insulated (Hurrah! now the heat won't be sent directly out of the house from the vents in the bay!), and sheetrocked. It looks astonishingly civilized, barring the untaped seams.
The last remains of the old, nonfunctional, passthrough closet in the master bedroom were demo'd out, and the floor given a temporary patchjob. Relaying the boards and refinishing can wait, honestly. We have a nice seagrass rug I intend to tack down over the ugliness. All that remains in there is to remove Far Too Much Wallpaper, patching where that pesky wall was torn out, painting, and replacing the mouldings. We are now, as of tonight, properly armed with a scoring tool and more blades for the scraper, and I expect to be doing battle with the Powers Of Evil (six layers of old paper with two layers of paint) by Thursday.
The bathroom isn't any closer than last reported, but we did buy the rest of the tile, and found out how to return the extra. How did we end up with nearly 10 extra linear feet of edging tile? You tell me. The math checks out, but I must have overbought. Oh, and we did buy more grout, just in case. We can return that too, if we have to.
Yet to do, and urgently needed, is the ripping out and replacement of the hopelessly fractured dining room ceiling plaster. In addition to the quarter of it that has already fallen away, leaving a breathtaking view of the attic through the exposed lath, there is a large section - say 1/3 - that is partially keyed, but hanging onto lath that has almost entirely separated from the beams down the center of the room. This problem was made worse (as was to be expected) by our re-squaring of the dining room when we added the support posts a couple of months ago. The plaster's not salvageable in the time we have, so it must go. We have already purchased the drywall, and we have a plan of action that includes saving as much as possible of the original plaster, even giving our pressing schedule.
I still need to scrape, patch and paint the West wall of the kitchen, and re-engineer the sink cabinet drawers and doors, but mostly, the kitchen is at a "usable" stage, once the gas is on. There's stuff to do, but it's little stuff, by comparison.
I think we might just get moved in before Chris goes. This is my driving force, to have our home be our home, even for a little while, before he is gone for so long.
No pictures today, and probably not for a few days. The work is more important than the talking about it, but I promise to keep y'all posted on progress, even if it's short.
Thanks to J, the furnace is on a real electrical line (meaning, of course, the electric pilot sparker and the thermostat line), and most of the heat vents have now been vacuumed. The rest will be cleaned out tomorrow, and then the intake filter will get cleaned and we can throw the switch, turn on the gas, light the pilots and work in a warm house. We also magically have lights in the kitchen, with a bonus lightswitch!
The dining room bay has been reframed (where necessary), insulated (Hurrah! now the heat won't be sent directly out of the house from the vents in the bay!), and sheetrocked. It looks astonishingly civilized, barring the untaped seams.
The last remains of the old, nonfunctional, passthrough closet in the master bedroom were demo'd out, and the floor given a temporary patchjob. Relaying the boards and refinishing can wait, honestly. We have a nice seagrass rug I intend to tack down over the ugliness. All that remains in there is to remove Far Too Much Wallpaper, patching where that pesky wall was torn out, painting, and replacing the mouldings. We are now, as of tonight, properly armed with a scoring tool and more blades for the scraper, and I expect to be doing battle with the Powers Of Evil (six layers of old paper with two layers of paint) by Thursday.
The bathroom isn't any closer than last reported, but we did buy the rest of the tile, and found out how to return the extra. How did we end up with nearly 10 extra linear feet of edging tile? You tell me. The math checks out, but I must have overbought. Oh, and we did buy more grout, just in case. We can return that too, if we have to.
Yet to do, and urgently needed, is the ripping out and replacement of the hopelessly fractured dining room ceiling plaster. In addition to the quarter of it that has already fallen away, leaving a breathtaking view of the attic through the exposed lath, there is a large section - say 1/3 - that is partially keyed, but hanging onto lath that has almost entirely separated from the beams down the center of the room. This problem was made worse (as was to be expected) by our re-squaring of the dining room when we added the support posts a couple of months ago. The plaster's not salvageable in the time we have, so it must go. We have already purchased the drywall, and we have a plan of action that includes saving as much as possible of the original plaster, even giving our pressing schedule.
I still need to scrape, patch and paint the West wall of the kitchen, and re-engineer the sink cabinet drawers and doors, but mostly, the kitchen is at a "usable" stage, once the gas is on. There's stuff to do, but it's little stuff, by comparison.
I think we might just get moved in before Chris goes. This is my driving force, to have our home be our home, even for a little while, before he is gone for so long.
No pictures today, and probably not for a few days. The work is more important than the talking about it, but I promise to keep y'all posted on progress, even if it's short.
18 November 2006
Thank You
I'd like to thank the folks at Houseblogs.net and Bearfort Lodge for their support.
However, as Bearfort Lodge says, please don't just think of us. There must be more families like us, trying to build or rebuild homes and lives while loved ones are deployed (or keeping going after they've lost someone). Blue Star Mothers and Fisher House are good places to start, or just go directly to military families in your community and offer to help out, if you can. More resources are here.
And, also, don't forget people who have lost homes and family members to disasters or accidents. These people are also in our communities. Need is everywhere. Every little bit helps, and being good neighbors is the very best place to start. Please visit Habitat for Humanity and Modest Needs, or ask your church or local community groups where you can be of service.
Thanks from us and ours, again. The world may be smaller, but that just means our neighborhood gets bigger every day. I have some of the best neighbors in the world, and I mean that. That goes to my local community, too - if I could pick a place to be alone while my husband is overseas, this is a great place to do it.
However, as Bearfort Lodge says, please don't just think of us. There must be more families like us, trying to build or rebuild homes and lives while loved ones are deployed (or keeping going after they've lost someone). Blue Star Mothers and Fisher House are good places to start, or just go directly to military families in your community and offer to help out, if you can. More resources are here.
And, also, don't forget people who have lost homes and family members to disasters or accidents. These people are also in our communities. Need is everywhere. Every little bit helps, and being good neighbors is the very best place to start. Please visit Habitat for Humanity and Modest Needs, or ask your church or local community groups where you can be of service.
Thanks from us and ours, again. The world may be smaller, but that just means our neighborhood gets bigger every day. I have some of the best neighbors in the world, and I mean that. That goes to my local community, too - if I could pick a place to be alone while my husband is overseas, this is a great place to do it.
17 November 2006
Making Myself a Blue Star Flag
Big changes lie ahead. Delays, maybe, and certainly scary times. I am consumed by hopes and fears, and distracted from concern about our house.
My husband (former USMC) has been asked to return to Active Duty. He is going to go. We've discussed it, and I understand his reasons. If I couldn't cope with this possibility, I would have run screaming when he asked me out. It's my job to stand by him, keep the family together, and make sure he's got a home to come home to. It's my job to be strong so he can be strong.
It's going to put a cramp in our working on the house, but right now, that's the least of our problems, and at the same time the biggest. We're living with my mom right now, and working on our house just down the road, so we have a place to live, but our house isn't yet livable. I want to be *in* the house before he is gone, I want ... more time.
There's so much I want to say that's just not appropriate for this venue. Much of it is layers of emotion that's got no place in trying to prepare for this. All the personal stuff just keeps bubbling to the surface, as I write, and interrupting me. And there are things that keep coming into my head that I don't want to write because of what they might mean.
I wrote a post over at houseblogs.net asking if there were any other people trying to fix up a house with a deployed spouse, and I've had an amazing outpouring of support. It honestly floored me. I also have just realized that I have an online acquaintance who is going through exactly this, though she doesn't have the added wrinkle of kids. Her husband has been deployed 3 times (or is it 4?). She asked if I knew of anyplace to get a nice Blue Star Flag - I didn't. I'd been trying to figure out how to ask her.
I think, now, that I'm going to make her one, when I make mine.
My husband (former USMC) has been asked to return to Active Duty. He is going to go. We've discussed it, and I understand his reasons. If I couldn't cope with this possibility, I would have run screaming when he asked me out. It's my job to stand by him, keep the family together, and make sure he's got a home to come home to. It's my job to be strong so he can be strong.
It's going to put a cramp in our working on the house, but right now, that's the least of our problems, and at the same time the biggest. We're living with my mom right now, and working on our house just down the road, so we have a place to live, but our house isn't yet livable. I want to be *in* the house before he is gone, I want ... more time.
There's so much I want to say that's just not appropriate for this venue. Much of it is layers of emotion that's got no place in trying to prepare for this. All the personal stuff just keeps bubbling to the surface, as I write, and interrupting me. And there are things that keep coming into my head that I don't want to write because of what they might mean.
I wrote a post over at houseblogs.net asking if there were any other people trying to fix up a house with a deployed spouse, and I've had an amazing outpouring of support. It honestly floored me. I also have just realized that I have an online acquaintance who is going through exactly this, though she doesn't have the added wrinkle of kids. Her husband has been deployed 3 times (or is it 4?). She asked if I knew of anyplace to get a nice Blue Star Flag - I didn't. I'd been trying to figure out how to ask her.
I think, now, that I'm going to make her one, when I make mine.
09 November 2006
Inching Towards a Usable Bathroom
Today, I got the last of the whole tiles up on the bathroom walls, discovering along the way that I had somehow purchased 1 box less of the white/blue tile than I thought. Fortunately, it is identical, save for the color of the accent tiles, to the floor tiles, so I spent an extra hour yanking tiny, sharp-edged, square, black tiles off of sheets of tile to finish the wall, and hunting up every single blue tile that had not yet been split, to fill in the gaps.
SO, now we need to go buy about 10 square feet of tile to finish (that's 20 bucks for this stuff, thank goodness). I cannibalized the floor to rough out the wall, and we still need more itty-bitty blue tiles to finish the wall tiling to a groutable stage. Oh, and probably another 2 bags of grout.
But it's almost a bathroom.
SO, now we need to go buy about 10 square feet of tile to finish (that's 20 bucks for this stuff, thank goodness). I cannibalized the floor to rough out the wall, and we still need more itty-bitty blue tiles to finish the wall tiling to a groutable stage. Oh, and probably another 2 bags of grout.
But it's almost a bathroom.
31 October 2006
This is Halloween, here at Vintage House
BabyJ wasn't anything. He's only 4 months old, can't have candy, and really doesn't care yet. I'm too covered with paint and babygurp to care either. FX, on the other hand, decided he was going to be ...
Bob The Builder! Complete with itty bitty toolbelt (not ittybitty enough, actually - it fell off three or four times today), hardhat, and toolbox. Oh, and phone. That sticky foam is some nifty stuff (what, you thought I'd not DIY my son's costume? I can't even leave my house alone. Come on.)
Mom declared a First Toolbelt to be a Very Important Milestone. Pictures were duly taken.
I decided it was time he had his own toolbox, mostly full of pretend tools, but also including a REAL level and measuring tape. ValdeMart has some great play tools, so we got him a couple of sets. You know, for variety.
And also probably because Chris and I like to buy tools...
What? Everybody needs four hammers.
Bob The Builder! Complete with itty bitty toolbelt (not ittybitty enough, actually - it fell off three or four times today), hardhat, and toolbox. Oh, and phone. That sticky foam is some nifty stuff (what, you thought I'd not DIY my son's costume? I can't even leave my house alone. Come on.)
Mom declared a First Toolbelt to be a Very Important Milestone. Pictures were duly taken.
I decided it was time he had his own toolbox, mostly full of pretend tools, but also including a REAL level and measuring tape. ValdeMart has some great play tools, so we got him a couple of sets. You know, for variety.
And also probably because Chris and I like to buy tools...
What? Everybody needs four hammers.
23 October 2006
More silliness and a resource referral
Now the house has low self esteem. [falls on floor laughing] I suppose I can see why, but she's really getting much prettier, even with the incompleted remodelling. I am reminded of the old Rejuvenation ads that had a little label inside a heating register that said "Oh, Thank goodness you are here! The last owners had TERRIBLE taste!" or something to that effect.
Okay, to get back on subject, I am begging, really begging you to buy something from these people. I ask because I've been bugging them with questions about their books and they've been lovely about answering, but it's just not in my budget to get the book(s) I want these days.
I'm just hoping they are still doing this one when I have the money, oh, and this and this and this...
Okay, to get back on subject, I am begging, really begging you to buy something from these people. I ask because I've been bugging them with questions about their books and they've been lovely about answering, but it's just not in my budget to get the book(s) I want these days.
I'm just hoping they are still doing this one when I have the money, oh, and this and this and this...
Silly Google!
This week, my house apparently has an eating disorder. All the ads are for eating disorder help information, or live-in clinics.
I know she's ugly, but we love her anyway. And she gets better every day.
This would be less funny if some of the links weren't misspelled: "Balemia?" What's that? Fear of eating baleen? And "bilimia" just sounds .. ew. Bile. Yuck.
I know she's ugly, but we love her anyway. And she gets better every day.
This would be less funny if some of the links weren't misspelled: "Balemia?" What's that? Fear of eating baleen? And "bilimia" just sounds .. ew. Bile. Yuck.
16 October 2006
Dreams
"PrognostiKote: the Paint that Knows the Future!" comes from a commercial I saw in one of my house dreams the other night. I also had a dream about the wallpaper layers. Hundreds of them, that came off in unstained, wall-size sheets. I'm no sure if that was a nightmare or not. No more spicy foods before bed for me.
I swear my house is trying to get me to come back and work on it - I wish I could! I have too much else to do right now, so the Halloween deadline has gone right out the window. It's Thanksgiving, now.
I just want to live in my house. Is that too much to ask?
I swear my house is trying to get me to come back and work on it - I wish I could! I have too much else to do right now, so the Halloween deadline has gone right out the window. It's Thanksgiving, now.
I just want to live in my house. Is that too much to ask?
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