Handyman's Special

Expanding

2009-10-06T20:58:00.004-04:00

Things have been pretty hectic here at our house. W is one month into his deployment so I'm running the show solo here. We're doing fine, but it means that I generally don't have much free time to keep the blog up. However I did want to pass along the news to any far flung family and friends that keep up with us this way, that we are expecting baby #2! I am due April 13th which is about 2 weeks after W is scheduled to be home. Baby J came 2 weeks early so I'm hoping that isn't a trend. I have faith that it'll work out but I'll have a contingency plan in place. And I'll be accepting applications for back up labor coach :)

In other news, I've been remiss in posting pictures of the last project that W completed before he left. He built a beautiful window seat in the dining room with big pull out drawer that we keep J's toys in. He loves playing up there as you can see!

And one final shot of one of J's latest antics.

Hope you're all doing well out there...

Baby J update

2009-09-04T20:47:00.002-04:00

I seem to have fallen out of the habit of posting to this blog, but tonight I had the itch to write one of my letters to J, so I'll share it with you, to give you an update on him as well.

Dear J,
Oh you are so sweet these days. Tonight, and most nights this summer, as normal, you insisted on your evening Ice Pop (by hanging on the freezer door). I gave it to you, and boy, you chomp down on that thing. But despite your obvious love of them, you always offer me a bite. And you really want me to have some. It is the sweetest thing.

We're in the process of weaning you off bottles to sippy cups. It's a rough process. And of course I worry all the time that you're not getting enough to eat. But I think you're getting the hang of it.

Another of your favorite things these days is identifying body parts. You know where your head, ears, tongue, belly, toes and now, nose are. But the funny part is that you like to find these parts on me. And when you find my belly, lifting up my shirt to actually see and touch it, you give me a big hug around my waist. It melts me.

You say several words now- light, bottle, belly, shoes, ball, bat, dog, Dada (still not Mama consistently). And you really understand those words. I can ask you to get your shoes, and you get them and lift your feet for me to put them on.

One of your newest tricks is climbing into your high chair, even if the tray is on. Obviously I am there to spot you and prevent you from doing this when necessary, but your climbing skills are pretty impressive.

As you can tell, I'm absolutely in love with you. I think you're the most charming, smart, adorable little boy in the world. And I think that's a pretty unbiased opinion

I love you,
Mama

New Front Door!

2009-07-06T21:57:00.007-04:00

Almost 2 years in, and we finally have a proper door. It has glass everywhere its supposed to (no more cardboard wrapped in "Have a Nice Day" Chinese take-out bags or plywood for missing glass). Like most projects on this house, we did it right, which means it took awhile and it went backwards for much longer than most could tolerate. I started to describe the full process, but we basically tore the whole thing apart and rebuilt it. Now its solid, sound, and pretty. It's nice to have a door that opens and closes smoothly, quietly, and firmly. I used to take such for granted!

First, a nod to the novice help. Safety and cookies are the priorities.

You can see a "before" photo in the sidewalks posting below. The door was flimsy, the glass thin, and it had about 18 coats of paint on it. Here's the after. I think the only exterior issue left out front is a proper mailbox. All the mail carriers reading this probably cringe to see the box sitting on the steps.

And here's a close-up on the door. The color is "hot peppers" from Behr.

Here's the door as it looked when we bought it off the shelf!

Walking and Talking

2009-06-30T21:40:00.002-04:00

Sweet Baby J,
You’re really walking now!! Of course it seems that you took your first independent steps when I went out of town for the one night, my first night away from you. But you’re really doing it now. You walk about 8 steps alone, although if you’re in a hurry you revert to crawling. You started off by just lunging or running between Dad and me. But now you take deliberate steps on your own. And you look so pleased with yourself. As I expected, you didn’t start walking until you were totally capable of it. You didn’t want to mess around with falling.

And the other milestone- you’re talking! Oddly enough, your first distinguishable word was “light”. It sounds more like “schmy” but you point to the light and say it over and over. It’s really funny. You also say “dog” while pointing to Scout and Ruby. I have to laugh that you’re saying these 2 words before Mommy and Daddy but that’s ok.

You’re sleeping great these days, for the most part. 10 beautiful hours of consecutive sleep. Last night was an exception- you were ready to go at 5am.

You made the transition to whole milk without missing a beat. You slurp it down as fast as I serve it up. So you’re fully weaned now. After a full year of nursing you, it’s over. It was sad for me, but you were ready. I’m proud that we made it without ever needing formula, and nursing you was really wonderful, despite the hassle of pumping at work.

I haven't been able to capture your new feats on camera yet, but we'll post some as soon as possible.
Love, Momma

Damaged Goods

2009-06-28T22:08:00.003-04:00

I don't have a fancy car by any means. It's a cloth seated station wagon- no frills. But it's a good car, and I like to drive it. But it appears that I will only be able to drive it and park it with the windows down for the foreseeable future. This is because today my son projectile vomited in the back seat. As you might expect with a 13 month old, it was mostly milk. So despite my best cleaning efforts, (involving the hose all the way down to q-tips) my car smells like curdled milk. It is awful. sigh...

Sidewalks

2009-06-12T20:08:00.006-04:00

After months of deliberation, we hired a contractor to install brick pavers around the house. The sidewalks were in terrible shape, where we had them. W toyed with the idea of doing it himself for a long time, mostly because I think he enjoyed the idea of renting really big machines. But these guys did a great job! Check out the before and after shots. I tried to match up the pair of before and after shots... hopefully that's not confusing.

It is so nice to be able to walk around the house without jumping over cracked concrete. I can now push the stroller from the garage to the front of the house without going through mud puddles. And it's a joy to walk up the back steps, and not have a wood pallet as a door mat.

Things I learned today...

2009-05-27T09:37:00.004-04:00

1. Blood meal fertilizer is made from porcine (pork) blood.
2. Dogs love it.
3. Blood meal is non-toxic (thank goodness).
4. When it comes out the other end on my rugs, it's the most disgusting thing I've ever encountered.
5. Of the 5 different cleaners I used to clean the rugs for 3 hours, baking soda works the best at getting rid of the odor.
6. Waking up to the smell of dog poop is possibly the worst alarm clock ever.

Nursery Completed!

2009-05-27T09:27:00.004-04:00

I remember when I was pregnant, people would ask me, "Is the nursery ready?" and I would say nope! We did get the crib put together a few weeks before J arrived and the essentials were there, but it was a little rough. I'm happy to report to all those people that almost exactly one year after the baby's arrival, the nursery is (almost) complete! It looks awesome. The windows are trimmed out, the crown moulding is up, the gaps are caulked. It looks wonderful and inspires hope that some other rooms may eventually follow suit.

See where the stair tread hits the baseboard? W hand cut the trim to fit around the tread. Now that's good work!

My meager contribution was the curtains that I sewed.

Hooray!!

Happy Birthday Baby J!

2009-05-27T09:04:00.006-04:00

We've been having so much fun that I didn't have time to write about Baby J's first birthday! I have been on vacation, in between jobs, for the past 2 weeks, and it's been great. We had a really fun celebration for J's first birthday. He's such a funny kid these days. One of my favorite things is his "cheese" smile. As I'm going through my recent pictures it looks like I don't have one that really captures it, but this is close. What I call his "cheese" smile is more like his head thrown back, chin out, eyes squinted shut, teeth bared. It's a riot.

Here's the cake that I made for him. He really seems to share my love of dogs. In the morning when he wakes up, after he has seen me, he calls out for the dogs to come over. He likes to greet them first thing. He's even been caught french kissing Ruby- ew!

He wasn't too sure about the cake and candle deal though. This was the biggest reaction we got. And he thought we were all crazy when we sang to him at his party. I don't blame him.

He loves his stacking toys- knocking them over and stacking them back up. He also loves to push his toys (or household items) around the house. He's not quite walking yet, but cruises around everything. I think he'll probably start walking in the next month or two.

This past year has gone so quickly. It's been fun, exciting, and challenging and I think W & I are better people for it. And baby, we've come a long way.

Bad Dog

2009-05-12T21:00:00.002-04:00

Which of the following items has Ruby ingested over the past 6 days?
a. a block of Colby cheese
b. half a cooked pork tenderloin
c. 2 raw chicken breasts
d. all of the above

If you said d., you're correct! It looks like we've introduced a counter cruiser into the house, and she's fast. It's been a while since I've had a dog with this inclination. Anyone have any tips? I think I'll try to string coin filled cans together and leave them along the edge of the counter. Do you think that'll work? We'll find out.

Landscaping at last

2009-04-18T22:18:00.004-04:00

At long last, we planted some shrubs around the house. They're small but I think they make the house look nicer, and maybe in a few years they'll fill in. The dogs already tore out one of my photinia but we put up a little barrier to keep them out. Hopefully they'll learn quickly to leave them alone! The second picture really shows the sad state of the sidewalks. They're high on the list of things to fix.

New Additions

2009-04-14T21:46:00.005-04:00

We've reached a major milestone here at the house! We have all the doors hung! I think I need some retraining on the use of doors. It's been a long time since we've had that option. I look forward to a steam filled bathroom. The door knobs and other hardware are back ordered but that's ok.

Baby J had a great first Easter and thoroughly enjoyed his snack filled eggs.

And perhaps most exciting of all - we adopted another pup! She is a 9 month old lab mix. I take her to the vet tomorrow, but I think she weighs about 50 pounds, and she fits nicely under Scout! They get along famously and played for about 3 hours straight. She is great with baby J too- the only risk is that she is very adament in her kissing at times. She had a rough start at life and spent the first few months in a crate on a porch. Then she was at the pound for a month. So she was elated to find her way around our (albeit small) yard and house.

Happy Baby

2009-04-02T09:56:00.003-04:00

First lego set!

I'm so lucky to have such a good natured, and happy little guy.

Baby Proof Stairs!

2009-03-26T21:21:00.004-04:00

Well would ya look at that? We've got handrails on the stairs!! I actually made myself somewhat useful, and I helped W assemble the rails. We still need to get some baseboard trim up that will cover the sides of the stairs, but I wasn't patient enough to wait for the weekend when they'll probably go up.

I'm not sure if it was because of all the activity around the stairs this weekend, but Baby J is now very interested in the stairs. Yesterday he went up 2 steps, and back down. Tonight, with me spotting him, he climbed all the way to the top. Luckily, I bought a gate for the top of the stairs last weekend. J thinks that the gates around the house are there for the sole purpose of his enjoyment. He grabs them and dances.

Also tonight he finally figured out how to drink from a sippy cup. Until now, he only wants to drink from my cup, and I envisoned very messy days ahead if he only wanted to drink from a big boy cup. But it looks like he'll give the spill free sippy cup a try!

Porches and Stairs

2009-03-09T21:39:00.004-04:00

W has been working hard on the stair case. It's been quite a project. He's not finished yet, but I think he will finish just about the same time J will start walking (he's getting really close!). So here's the progression:

The stairs when we moved in! very colorful.

And then after about a year, we scraped the risers (white part) and repainted that. And W repaired and refinished the newel posts (they're leaning against the wall here).

Just tonight, he tacked on the baseboard trim. This might not look like much, but he had to create a high tech template, since each stair is slightly different than the next. And it covers up the big hole in the dry wall! (Remember when the birds flew in on J's birthday? That was their entry way.)

The contractors also wrapped up the porches! Here's the finished look. We finally have hand rails on front and back porches, although I haven't taken an updated picture from the back.

So after 5" of snow on Monday, it was 75 degrees over the weekend. Crazy weather. So I took him to the playground nearby to play on the swings. He wasn't too sure at first, but warmed up to it quickly.

So things seem to be progressing pretty quickly here at our house! W is getting a lot done with our "renovation assistant" who comes most weekends. And J is learning so much every day. He'll be 10 months old this weekend! He's learning to wave and making more consonant sounds daily. He loves "b" sounds- his first word might be baby! He's a riot!

First Swim

2009-02-10T20:59:00.002-05:00

Tonight was J's first time in the pool! (Not counting the time that I dipped his toes in the pool over the summer.) We had a great time. He clung to me at first but quickly loosened his grip and enjoyed the warm water. He floated on his back a little and splashed around. It's a group of 4 and he's the 2nd youngest. There's a 3 month old girl, and the other kids are much older. He did well when I dunked him under the water and liked it best when he "fell" in from the side of the pool. We're going to a swim center that's focused on kids, so the water is extra warm and chlorine free. I think he'll really like it!

Sorry, no pictures. I had both hands on J the whole time.

Pictures

2009-02-07T13:35:00.005-05:00

Hi! I haven't posted pictures in a little while so here goes!

An update on J's health: he had 2 ear infections and eye infections. Today is the last day of the eye drops (thank goodness! It's not easy giving a squiriming 9 month old eye drops) and he's feeling much better.

W and his helper are working on more moulding this weekend!

Scout has developed a new appreciation for J. He's a hidden source of food. And J likes that when Scout is snorting around, he pushes him in his high chair- free ride!

See what I mean about pulling up?

And standing!

I think this is so funny! He reminds me of those African tribes with plates in their lips.

And our bathroom with crown moulding!

Progress Report

2009-02-02T21:00:00.003-05:00

I'll start with the good news. We're making progress on the house. W's working on installing the crown moulding upstairs. It looks really nice. And once that's done, he's going to start working on the stair banister, which is becoming increasingly important as Baby J gets closer to walking. We even hired a "renovation assistant" to come over occasionally to give W a hand with some stuff. Times must be pretty tough for people in the construction industry. We got over 40 responses in a day.

As I alluded to, J is really getting close to walking! He pulls up on everything and cruises around the coffee table. He doesn't know how to get down safely, so I often get the distress call from his crib when he's standing & holding onto the side of the crib and doesn't know what to do next.

Onto my sob story: J is sick- again. The poor kid hasn't been healthy since the beginning of January. Just one cold after another. And today I picked him up from day care and I think he's got pink eye. There is nothing sadder than a baby with goopy eyes. So someone needs to stay home with him tomorrow but I have precious few vacation hours left. He mostly wants me to hold him- no one else will do. But off I'll go to work, and not so happily. I feel like I'm doing 2 jobs poorly (mother & distracted office worker). Is this what the working mom gig is all about? ugh.

A Full Day

2009-01-19T21:19:00.002-05:00

I had a fun filled day today! The moons must have been aligned against me.

1. As I was adding wood to the wood burning stove, I scalded my knuckle on the inside of the fire filled stove. I have a nice blister on my hand to show for it.
2. While fetching wood for the stove, I slipped on the icy stairs outside. (We don't have any hand rails yet.) I caught myself so it wasn't too bad.
3. I saw Scout playing with something outside* and went outside to check it out and locked myself out in the cold.
4. When Baby J was sitting my lap playing this afternoon, he inadvertently head butted me, giving me a bloody nose.

*Scout has found a new way of entertaining himself in this freezing weather! I saw him outside tossing something to himself but couldn't figure out what it was. He was having a great time, gaily jumping around. Upon further inspection, he was playing with his frozen poop! Poopsicles! gross... I think he needs a dog companion.

I think I'll call it a night.

Happy 8th Month Birthday!

2009-01-15T11:28:00.002-05:00

Yep, sweet baby J is 8th months old today. I can't quite believe it. He guaranteed a party for himself by catching a virus and staying home with me. Despite burning through my few remaining vacation hours, it's been really nice spending so much time with him. Although I can tell he hasn't been feeling well, he's still been in good spirits most of the time. I've spent a lot of time in the rocking chair over the past 2 days, with him asleep on my chest, just like when he was a newborn. And I think I've been formally inducted into mom-hood now. In one day, I was thrown up on, pooped on, and just for good measure, Scout got sick too, so I got to clean that up as well. (Don't want the pup to feel neglected.)

Apparently J wanted to celebrate his birthday starting at midnight last night. He's been sleeping through the night on a pretty regular basis but I knew we were in for a long night when he'd woken up twice by midnight. He was outright sobbing at midnight (can 8 month olds have bad dreams?), so much so that he wouldn't calm down enough even to nurse. Finally, he caught sight of Scout and settled down to pat him. Then he wanted to play for a while - it was about 1am by this point and I was very bleary eyed. Finally at 1:45 am, he was ready to sleep for a bit. We'll see what else he has planned for today!

Firsts

2009-01-07T21:43:00.003-05:00

Sorry for my writing hiatus. Although Baby J seems to change daily, it's hard to document the slight changes I notice in him. However, now we have some big ones. 2 in fact! He's got 2 little teeth on the bottom now.

He's also pretty mobile now. He crawls around Army style. He hasn't gotten his butt up. He's really trying to walk and enjoys walking around with our help. His new trick is kissing. He'll give you a wet one if you ask for a kiss. But you have to watch that you don't get more than you bargained for- sometimes he comes at you with his mouth open and tongue out.

He had a great Christmas. He was spoiled silly with tons and tons of presents. He thoroughly enjoyed every part of it from the wrapping paper to its contents.

We're learning that he really loves dogs, much to my delight. Seeing Scout always makes him smile (instant cry stopper) and it cracks him up if you bark at him. very funny! I'm looking forward to warmer weather when I can bring him to the dog park with Scout.

We're also making progress on the house in the same manner as Baby J is changing. W is working on all the trim. Most of the baseboard is installed, but it's hard to take a picture to capture the progress. It looks great though.

House Happenings

2008-12-08T21:40:00.006-05:00

Sorry for my hiatus from posting. Things have been busy! W worked hard on his 2 weeks off and got a lot done around the house. Here's a shot of his set up while painting all of our doors with his fancy new paint gun. Bit by bit, we're getting some trim up around doors and windows. It really dresses up the place.

We had a great visit to Texas for Thanksgiving, where we got to meet our newest family member! Baby J had a great time playing with everyone!

He continues to enjoy all the new flavors of food that I whip up. Thanks to Ollie for the bib and Zoey for the food mill! He's currently sick with a nasty cold but still in good spirits. He's trying really hard to get the hang of crawling.

Just this weekend M&L came to visit and we got our Christmas tree set up. It really makes the holiday season complete.

Fall Pleasures

2008-11-11T21:19:00.003-05:00

When we moved in, there was an old charming wood burning stove that was installed in the fireplace. Last winter, when we didn't have heat (remember that?!), we looked into getting it repaired. After a year of deliberations, we finally got everything fixed and up to code. It's so nice to have a warm fire, and so hard to leave the warm living room. W has big plans for building a mantle down the road.

Scout loves the fall. He thought the wood delivery was a wonderful gift. And he really enjoys when we rake the leaves into a pile!

And Baby J enjoyed his first taste of "real food"- something other than milk. Unsurprisingly, he loved it! He was chasing the spoon around. He really prefers to eat from a bowl and spoon, and shunned the cereal mixed into a bottle.

W finished up his training course and is enjoying a couple weeks at home. He's working on patching the doors so we can get them hung. Top priority is the front door, which currently consists of a plastic bag taped over one glass square- classy. Next up is the attic door, which is in Baby J's room. We have a several layers up to block the cold draft, but his room is still noticeably colder.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Halloween excitement

2008-11-03T21:21:00.004-05:00

Happy belated Halloween! Can you guess which pumpkin I carved, and which ones W carved? Yeah, the lame middle one is mine. Baby J donned his dinosaur outfit a couple times on Friday- once at daycare and for a few minutes of trick or treating. Scout was NOT pleased with this costume and barked ferociously at Baby J, understandably so- Baby J was looking very intimidating.

W is in his final week of training and will take some time "off" to work on the house. I'm crossing my fingers for a banister on the stairs by Thanksgiving- hopefully right before Baby J starts testing out his mobility skills. Right now, he can spin around on his belly, but hasn't figured out the crawling bit.

In terms of other new tricks Baby J has learned, he has found his feet and likes to chew on them as much as possible. He's also growing blond hair. He still doesn't sleep more than about 2-3 hours at a stretch, but I'm hoping that will change when we start introducing real food this week. Although I find it hard to believe he's starving. This 100% breastfed baby weighs in at whopping 18 pounds at less than 6 months! I've developed tendinitis in my left hand from picking him up! He insists on sitting up for bath time these days and splashes all over the kitchen. And he provides me with constant joy and laughter.

House Progress!

2008-10-19T21:10:00.001-04:00

Guess what?! We have one room almost completely finished! It's still missing a door but otherwise the half bath downstairs is pretty much completed.

5 Months Old!

2008-10-15T20:31:00.003-04:00

I can't believe five months have gone by. Growing is hard work, requiring a lot of naps, preferably in someone's arms.

And I'm already working on my PSU brainwashing. But you'll notice the Texas Longhorns playing in the background. He's much closer to roaring like a lion than making the longhorn sign. I'm sure my Texas family will work on correcting that soon.

Time for Change

2008-10-05T18:59:00.004-04:00

Baby J is changing so much these days. Just this week he learned how to blow raspberries. It is so funny to watch him imitate me and my silly antics. Here's how I manage to entertain both babies, and therefore how I spend many of my evenings.

Bath time continues to be one of his favorite times of the day.

And the exersaucer is a big hit. He loves to "stand" on his own. He's learning to sit by himself but falls over without extra support.

Still not much hair, but he's working on it. Baby J decided that he really likes to be upside down these days, so he's often throwing his head and arms back. He's really turning into a squirmy guy!

He's still not sleeping more than 3 hours stretches (ugh) but he's sure cute during the day light hours!

Landmarks

2008-09-15T21:12:00.003-04:00

We have officially crossed the one year mark. And my, what a difference a year makes.

To sum up the past year, we have:

1. 2 new roofs (we think, anyway)
2. New plumbing and electric
3. 1 new floor
4. 1100 square feet of refinished floor
5. Plus one kitchen, minus 2 old ones if we count the one in the basement
6. 3 new bathrooms (4 if we count the one that got torn out twice)
7. About 50 gallons of paint
8. 1 working garage door
9. About a million trips to Home Depot and Lowes
10. One beloved dog gone, a new one here
11. One baby

I don't think we'll ever have another year as eventful as this one.

Baby J had a very busy weekend, traveling up to PA to meet his other set of great grandparents. His new trick of the week is rolling over. He can get onto his belly, but then can't roll back, causing much distress.

Fun times

2008-09-07T20:22:00.003-04:00

Tummy time is getting to be a lot more fun now that he can actually hold his head up and grab toys. Baby J's big accomplishment this week was the growth of eyebrows.

Bath time is the best time of the day. Well outside of naptime, and diaper changing time, and play time.

Don't forget about Scout!

call a spade a spade

2008-09-02T10:29:00.004-04:00

Well I'm throwing in the towel on the home renovation blog for now, and this will temporarily be a baby blog! W is in an intensive course and doesn't have a free minute to work on the house (or even come to the house!) but that's no excuse to stop blogging. There are still other exciting developments in our little house.

Baby J is doing great. He started day care last week, and promptly got his first cold/cough which he's still fighting off. Sadly it has totally ruined his beautiful 6 hour stretch of sleep. Last night he felt like reverting to newborn ways, and woke up about every other hour. WHY??

I'm back at work, and that's going pretty well too, although I'm familiarizing myself with that very common working mother's guilt.

Scout is doing great- such a great dog. He likes to move his bed throughout the house. He thinks it's the biggest, best toy ever. Such a sweet, floppy dog.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-08-11T15:24:00.003-04:00

Here's J doing his Happy Birthday Momma dance! Thank you Erin for the sweater and quilt shown here.

Not much house progress to report.

Garage Door

2008-07-22T16:35:00.003-04:00

At long last, we have a working garage door! The new one arrived and was installed today. It looks so much better and opens with the touch of a button- a big improvement! Here's the before and after:

We expanded the door to the original opening so it'll hold 2 cars. W sweated in the garage for 2 full weekends working on the framing and wiring in the garage. We still need to put up some trim to clean up the edges, and we have hinges (straps) that we can put up when we figure out where they'd go.

And here's a picture of our baby! At nine weeks, he's all smiles and coos these days. Except at this precise moment... so signing off for now!

Another Addition to the Family

2008-07-12T20:15:00.005-04:00

Today is a very exciting day for us. After 6 months without a dog, we adopted a puppy! He's from a rescue so we don't have all the details of his past, but he seems to be a Shepherd mix, about 14 weeks old, and 100% sweet. He's very affectionate. Since I'm already up at all hours of the night, I'm hoping we can get him house trained quickly. No accidents today! I'm sure people will think it's crazy to have a newborn and a puppy, but my family isn't complete without a dog and I'd rather do it now while I'm home with Baby J.

And here's an new picture of Baby J, learning to relax on the sofa!

Updated Blog Page

2008-07-05T15:42:00.003-04:00

Hey! Check out updated title and images above! My clever sister-in-law created that for me! Isn't it great! She's 11 days away from having a baby. The family is rapidly expanding. Watch out world.

New Fence!

2008-06-18T21:23:00.003-04:00

The new fence is almost completed! As always, my husband takes things to the next level. Not only do we have a beautiful fence, but we also have a lovely trellis on the side of the house. My dad also came down and helped. The yard feels so much bigger with the new layout. My baby bjorn carrier has proven a very helpful device. I've been able to strap J on and still help out with a little bit of the work, and J loves to be snugged up against me. We still need to put wire behind the fence and we're also awaiting the post caps. When they arrive we can cut down the posts to the correct size, and then stain the wood.

Here are some pictures from the process...

Posts are in:
Building the trellis:
Gate 1 of 3:
Front of house:
Gate 2

Fencing

2008-06-10T18:27:00.004-04:00

W's next project is fencing. We had an ugly old chain link fence that we took out last weekend. Even that was an improvement. W spent hours outside in the blazing heat (it was about 100 degrees) with a rented jack hammer, tearing out the cement footers from the old fence. Now he's moving on to the planning phase of the new fence. It's going to look really nice- and it'll enable us to get a dog sometime in the future!

Here's a picture of the planned fence, although we'll paint it white.

And here are some pictures of the painted downstairs!

W's sister is visiting us this week. She's also handy, so I have no doubt there will be progress to report soon.

New Arrivals

2008-05-26T14:00:00.003-04:00

Quite a bit has changed since my last posting! We had our baby on May 15th! He arrived a couple weeks early, as I expected he would. It was a smooth delivery, and I survived a natural delivery. We're all very excited to welcome him into our lives. My in-laws even made the trip all the way from central Texas to see him!

We had a couple other "deliveries" on my delivery day. First, after a lot of confusion dealing with Macy's our new sofa was delivered on the 15th as well. It's really nice to have a sofa again. And during the delivery process, while we were away, it seems the door was left ajar. A family of 3 birds made their way into the house- and into the walls via a gap in the dry wall where some trim will be installed. Although I wish I could say that they were storks delivering our baby, it seems they were sparrows or something. W was eating breakfast the next day and heard chirping that sounded VERY close. At first he thought it was birds outside, but quickly determined that the sound was coming from inside a nearby wall. One bird found its way back out, but 2 other younger birds were stuck inside. W eventually found them and cut out a small hole in the dry wall and released them.

In other house progress, things are really coming together. We brought in some key furniture, including the dining room table, and the guest bed. And all walls but the laundry room are painted! It looks great.

W is currently ensconcing himself in the basement, setting up shelves for his shop.

Floors!

2008-05-08T20:03:00.004-04:00

Another milestone was accomplished last weekend! W slaved away for over a week to refinish the remaining floors on the first level. They look great. It took a lot longer that we were expecting, but it was worth it. Plus it meant that I had a week's vacation at my aunt and uncle's house nearby.

It's looking like I'm going to have this baby sooner than my due date (but of course that could be wrong), so we're in a mad scramble to pull the rest of the house together. There's still a lot to be done, but it's really getting there. The main issues are painting and bringing the furniture back in.

Here's a couple recent pictures:

Kitchen Completed

2008-04-20T22:10:00.009-04:00

This weekend was a huge one for us. After almost exactly 7 months of eating out, I cooked dinner! It wasn't anything fancy, but it was wonderful to eat my own home cooked meal. It also meant that I had a reason to do my grocery shopping somewhere other than Target.

Here's the before shot of the kitchen. We've come a long way!

The kitchen is just about done. It's definitely functional at this point. We're waiting on a part for the dishwasher and the island hasn't been installed yet, but I don't need those things to cook. So I cooked for about 2.5 hours tonight. My feet and back are killing me (only 5 weeks till my due date) but it was worth it. It really makes a house feel complete to have an installed kitchen, even if our furniture isn't inside yet.

Here's a good shot of the kitchen floors, from 2 weeks ago when W finished the floors.

Last weekend, we hired a plumber to come out and repair a couple of the issues left over from Maribel. Although they ended up doing a good job, we had yet another gas leak in the house. This time the natural gas for the water heater (which we had to move) was leaking into the kitchen, stinking up the whole first floor of the house. Luckily we got that all fixed, so our water heater is venting properly and we have a working toilet on the first floor.

My sister and brother-in-law also came down today to help us out. L and W worked on hanging a few doors upstairs in an effort to establish some privacy for the bathrooms. M and I worked on unpacking kitchen boxes. They also set up the crib for me!

We still have a lot of work ahead of us- mostly W since I'm not much help these days. But I still believe that we'll have a somewhat completed house by the time the baby arrives, as long as s/he doesn't make an early appearance!

Hard at Work

2008-04-06T16:04:00.009-04:00

We've made some good progress since the last posting. It seems slow going from my perspective, but given that we're doing most of it ourselves, I think we're moving as fast as possible. W doesn't sit for a moment- every evening and weekend are solely dedicated to working on something around the house. Last Sunday he was outside in the cold without much in the way of light, until about 8pm, stripping door hardware.

It is such an improvement sleeping and showering upstairs. I can't explain the difference in having a naturally lit room, with a spacious shower. Plus we don't have the noise of the heater kicking in in the middle of the night (although I haven't forgotten to appreciate a warm house). Even going into the basement now, I can't believe that we lived in that crummy atmosphere for as long as we did. Goes to show you that you can do anything you need to do, until you upgrade. Now I'll never go back!

Also last weekend, I traded in my old faithful car for a slightly used 2007 Outback, something that will be able to cart around a kid and hopefully a dog, plus all the other stuff that comes along with that lifestyle. My old subaru had an expensive mechanical problem, so with some sadness, I traded her in. Here's my new girl, in front of the neighbor's house:

Two weekends ago, we closed up the gash in our yard at last! And now we have some daffodils popping up. It gives me great hope to imagine real gardens around our house, but that will have to wait until next year.

This weekend, W started the refinishing process on the kitchen floors. There's one coat of polyurethane on the floor now and he's sanding now for the 2nd of 4 coats. It's looking really good. We have a couple plumbing issues to work out before we can install the appliances and unpack. I'm hoping for a sparse kitchen in the next 2 weeks.

I've been trying to make myself useful by painting trim or anything else that I can do while sitting. I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable on my feet for too long, but I still want to be involved in the process. It's no fun to sit upstairs while W rushes around downstairs. However even without being 8 months pregnant, W and I have admittedly different work styles. Although I'm a hard worker and will get things done quickly, I cannot claim to be meticulous (as confirmed by my Myers Briggs test this week!) and W is more of a perfectionist than anyone I know. This tends to highlight some differences between us as we get things done around the house.

The upstairs is pretty close to being finished. We need to work on the trim and doors, but otherwise, it's pretty close. Here are some shots of our bathroom. Note the new shower door, replacing the curtain.

W created the mirror frame and hung those lights, which were a major production, involving cutting into the drywall to hang a cross stud, a new electrical box, and on and on. It looks a lot easier on the box instructions!

Moving Up!

2008-03-16T21:54:00.004-04:00

This weekend marks a pivotal time for us. After six months of living mostly in the basement, we are sleeping upstairs tonight! It's still a little rustic but it's a huge step. W even installed out ceiling fan!

It's 10pm and W just finished plumbing the faucet. The grout is sealed so we should be able to shower up there. We still need to install doors and all the window/door trim but it's certainly livable.

You'll also notice all the work that we got done last weekend. Almost the whole 2nd floor is painted and ready to go. We have some touch up that needs to be done, and the hallway is only primed but it's close.

In moving stuff around in the garage we accessed the sofa and found bad news on that front. The sofa was claimed by critters over the past months. It's chewed and stained. So we'll be in the market for a new one in the next few weeks/months. Too bad, but I realized that was a possibility all along. I just hope that's the only damage we have.

Trim and Fired Contractors

2008-03-07T21:24:00.008-05:00

I'm hoping to have a reason to post twice this weekend, but in case I run out of time, I'll get one up now! The big development since the last posting is that we are officially done with our contractors. After almost 6 months of torture and still an unfinished house, we signed an addendum to end our contract. This means we're on our own, which is such a relief at this point. This means no more drama with workers not showing up, ridiculous mistakes and careless work. It also means that we've got a lot of work to do, but I think we can handle it.

Two weekends W turned out about 30 headers for the doors and windows. We wanted to recreate the original trim that was in the house. That meant about 20 cuts per header. He also eased the edge of each piece of trim that'll go on the side of the doors. A little bit insane, but it'll be beautiful.

The trim factory:

At this point, we're probably a week or 2 away from moving upstairs to our bedroom. We don't want to move up there until there's a fully functional bathroom, and since that's about a week away, we're trying to knock out a lot of the painting before the trim is done. I've been working on priming the walls this week, and tomorrow my dad is coming down to help us paint those 5 rooms.

Here's a sneak peak of the master bath color. I slapped some paint up there before the toilet was installed to avoid a trickier painting job.

And since a few people have asked for it, here's a shot of my growing belly! 3 months to go!

Big Progress!

2008-02-19T19:58:00.003-05:00

This weekend was a very productive one, much to the help of my wonderful sister and her husband. We are so lucky to have great family and friends who are willing to come lend a hand. It really felt like a turning point. M and I spent Saturday painting the very first room- the half bath downstairs. Having a painted room really changes the feel of the house. I wanted a bold color for the powder room (a.k.a. half bath- apparently some people don't know the term powder room?) and although I had my doubts at various times, I think it came out great. When we initially opened the paint can, it looked like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese sauce- very bright orange! But as we put it on the walls, with 2 coats, it deepened and looks great in natural light.

Meanwhile, W & L were working hard to install door jambs throughout the house. Some people think hanging doors is easy, but they're probably thinking of pre-hung doors. We're starting from studs and building the jambs, since we're using original 5 panel doors.

On Saturday, we had our new washer and dryer installed. I did laundry in my own house this weekend!! I've never enjoyed laundry so much.

We also took advantage of some President's Day sales and bought all of our kitchen appliances! Although we can't install them until the floors are finished (at least a few weeks out) it'll be great to have them here and ready. We also bought a lot of paint (also on sale) for many of the rooms. There's only one color that I'm uncertain about but it'll probably look fine once it's up.

The last lifestyle improvement was bringing in the TV from the garage. It's one of the big old TVs and takes up about half our "counter" space in the basement, but it's really nice. On Sunday, we fell asleep in front of the TV- something we haven't done in months!

W has to continue to come up with creative ultimatums to keep the crew coming. Yesterday they didn't show, but they seem to respond to threats. So today they came and worked on several things, most exciting for me is the back door stairs. Again, it's been months since we could walk straight out to the garage.

So I'm really hoping that these workers will be gone after this week or the next. They could easily finish up the outstanding work if they showed up every day this week, but that's a big if. Either way, I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And thank goodness, because each day I feel a little bit bigger!

Floors and Bathrooms again!

2008-02-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

As my frustration mounts, my posts have decreased. But there is some good news to post, so here goes! W has been working feverishly and things are looking good. He spent the past week working on the flooring in the back of the house. It has been refinished at this point and it looks beautiful! Now that this floor is good, the crew can install the fixtures for this half bath, and we can get a washer and dryer! We bought a set yesterday and they should be delivered next Saturday. I'm hoping to my laundry here at the house next weekend- no more trips to the laundramat! Here's a before and after refinishing shot (different ends of the room, but same space.)

Side note: last weekend, I spent 3.5 hours at the laundramat as a result of a machine malfunction. Very annoying. A very fun Superbowl Sunday for me. I am going to LOVE having a washer and dryer again!

We've had a trickle of workers coming to the house, despite them saying these weeks would be the final "big push". They've started to retile the bathrooms (after completely gutting them back to studs) and it's looking good. And they've done some work on the dry wall patching. Not too much outside of that from the crew though. These guys drive me nuts.

Here's a picture of the master bath. There will be 2 shelves in each corner.

Guest bath. They replaced the tub when the gutted the bathrooms to redo them.

At this point, I'm very ready for a completed house. I'm really tired of sleeping in the basement. I crave a normal settled house with furniture. As I enter the third trimester of my pregnancy (next week I think?) I'm really feeling the need to establish our house. I know W feels this pressure too. There's very little that I can actually do to help speed things along though, since I don't have many of the required skills. Clearly W does! Take a look at his new shop in our dining room.

Cabinets Up, Floors and Tree Down

2008-01-13T22:07:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've updated. Although I don't have much news on the contractor front, we've accomplished quite a bit on our own. We've been going round and round with the contractors on the tile issue. I don't think they've shown up in about 4 weeks, but I think we've come to an agreement so that we can move forward. We'll use their subcontractor (with referrals and pre-work meetings) and they'll give us money back. At this point I think that's the best solution. And maybe we'll have bathrooms by the end of January.

We did make a big dent in the kitchen however! We installed all the cabinets and had the counters installed last week. I'm really happy how it turned out. We'll have an island (the white cabinets) but we can't install that until the floors are refinished. And we can't install the fridge until the floors are done either. The stove is on hold until the workers fix the gas hook up... but we have cabinets!

We also installed the flooring in the laundry area. This flooring is going to have a lot of history. This is the flooring that W salvaged from the 2nd floor back in October. We've moved this wood about 10 times since then. And I've cleaned every board at least once. Some of our friends came to help us install most of it. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it'll look nice once it's refinished. Most of my body is aching tonight because of this soon-to-be beautiful floor. It'll be worth it, and it earns us the restoring badge of honor.

We also did some exterior work this weekend with the help of my sister and brother-in-law. This was an exciting job since the dead tree we needed to take out was right on the street corner, so we ran the risk of the tree falling into the street. To avoid this, we tied the tree to W's truck, which turned out to be really good foresight. As L was cutting the second notch in the tree, the chainsaw fell apart. It all worked out fine, but it was a tense few minutes as L reassembled the saw. But the tree came down perfectly in our front lawn.

Our last victory of the weekend was getting cable wired to the house! So it'll be much easier to get connected from here out. Cable doesn't equal a TV yet- that's still in storage and we don't have any where to relax and watch it. But hopefully that'll come soon enough. The idea of a sofa sounds like bliss tonight.

Rest In Peace Harley Joe

2007-12-31T17:29:00.000-05:00

We lost Harley today. He passed away after abdominal surgery on Friday. He ate a toy that lodged in his intestine. Although he's eaten toys before, apparently this one started to kill his small intestine before he could pass it. Anyone who knows me, knows that I get attached easily to pets, and Harley was the first dog of my own. I'll be grieving for a long time. We got to see him a few times after the operation and I knew he needed go. Although he couldn't get up, he put his big paw on my chest. I'm going to miss him and his funny personality so much.

RIP, my loyal friend. We'll miss you so much.

Has Anyone Seen our Crew?

2007-12-16T19:32:00.000-05:00

I wish I had good news to post on the progress the crew made this week, but alas, I don't have any news on that front. A few guys came a few days this week, but no noticeable work was done. So frustrating! We have now issued an ultimatum that if they don't complete certain tasks by Thursday, they're fired. Frankly, I hope they hope they comply, since it would be a pain to find a new contractor. But I'm willing to follow through on our threat.

W got quite a bit done on his own this week. We're trying to seal the house as best we can, in the hopes that our utility bill might go down a bit. He hung a door to the attic, keeping the warm air downstairs. As I previously posted, hanging our doors is no small challenge. It involves first squaring up the old door, then building a frame, then hanging it and getting it to swing correctly. I think we still have 12 doors to go! W is getting good use out of his nail gun.

This weekend, we focused on the back "new" part of the house (it's an area that was originally a porch, but enclosed at some point, a while ago). We insulated the pipes so they don't freeze up. There's a crawl space under the laundry/ half bath area, and those pipes are fairly exposed. We still need to get insulation under the floor, but that isn't quite as pressing.

We also pulled up all the old flooring in the laundry/bath area, so that the crew (hopefully) can easily and evenly lay the new flooring. We'll use the flooring that we salvaged from upstairs, a nice looking pine. Some of it looks like heart of pine with a nice, tight grain, although I'm not sure that all of it is as high quality. In pulling up the layers, we noticed some water damage and cut floor joists, so we were able to repair those. I'm glad we did that ourselves to be sure that the foundation is solid.

I'm really looking forward to the point when the crew is done with their stuff and we can get into our part. We certainly have a lot of work we can do now, but it's hard when we have to clean up our stuff every night to make sure it's out of the way of the crew. And even more frustrating when that crew doesn't show!

I'm hoping we'll get started with hanging the cabinets this week, but it's tough with the holidays approaching. Hopefully we'll have a few up by Christmas. That's my Christmas wish.

For those who have asked, my pregnancy is going well! I'm going into month 5 and still feeling really good, although I need to find some better clothes to work in on the weekends. My jeans aren't cutting it. My doctors are aware of our home renovation and I really don't have to change my behavior too much. I'm more careful about the things I lift, but I'm still able to haul things around. I'm also careful around any chemicals, but we haven't had too many of those around. To strip all our doors, we have a natural product so I can still help with that. I think I'll get out of painting, but I'm not upset about that at all.

This will probably be my last post for a couple weeks, but I'll try to get some pictures up. I realized that I haven't posted any since the walls were primed. It's coming together, albeit slowly. Seasons Greetings to all!!

Hit man for hire?

2007-12-09T11:42:00.001-05:00

This week was another frustrating one. Again, no need for pictures, since nothing changed! The crew didn't even show up most of this week. I think they came on Monday, but I'm not sure about that. Tuesday was W's birthday and it was spoiled by our contractor. It's been six weeks since we told them what tile we wanted for our master bath. On Tuesday, they finally admitted that they didn't place the order for our tile, after first trying to place the blame on Lowes. Apparently this type of thing is par for the course when working with contractors, but it blows my mind. In most occupations, this type of thing would ruin your business, but that doesn't seem to be the case for contractors.

However I will take this opportunity to tell anyone who's reading- never use or refer Maribel Construction. They're incompetent and irresponsible. Three more bath tiles popped off this week, a sure sign of poor installation. Maybe this will pop up on Google searching. I can hope. If only we could find a statue of the head sales guy, we would most certainly topple it. It may involve turning the troops against their leader, but I'm sure we could rally the crew. Sometimes a civil war is all it takes to get things moving. Ah, I feel better now that that's off my chest.

After the contractors declared "Mission Accomplished" prematurely this week and quit showing up, I'm hoping for a surge in troops next week before a draw down in January. We picked out a new tile (more expensive, but I don't care about that!) that matches the other tile, cabinet and vanity we selected- no small task. It should be in on Tuesday. The floors on the second floor should start Tuesday. And they should wrap up the decks as well. And if they don't show, W and I may revolt and start using their equipment as weapons against them.

It may be overly ambitious, but I'm really hoping to move out of the basement by Christmas. The gas smell still lingers and I'm tired of it. W and I started laying the foundation for the cabinets this weekend. I'm hoping we can get most of the cabinets up by Christmas too, although I'm resigned to the fact that we won't have a functioning kitchen with counters and appliances until 2008. But I'm taking it one step at a time- first a bedroom, then a kitchen. I think this time last year, I was hoping for a new pair of boots or something luxurious like that.

Keep your fingers crossed for progress this week.

Highs and Lows

2007-12-01T08:08:00.000-05:00

With the Thanksgiving holidays, I've been remiss in my postings. I'm out of town for the weekend, so no pictures right now, but I thought I'd go ahead and post an update.

The workers got next to nothing done while we were gone for Thanksgiving. However they did leave our heat running at 75 degrees for 4 days, just to make sure our oil bill didn't dip. Although they had said they were coming on Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after, they didn't show for either.

But they did make some improvements this week after W had a good talk with the crew. The bathroom tile job is still dragging on. I swear, this is the longest tile job I've ever seen. And as you saw below, we didn't choose a crazy design. All of the drywall is completed now and the walls have even been primed, or in some cases painted with a flat coat. That wasn't our intention, but there was a little misunderstanding on that. I think we bought about 50 gallons of paint in all.

The low point came on Wednesday night. The crew left a small puddle of oil on the basement floor from the old furnace line. (Side note: the crew did not remove our old furnace tank. There's still some oil in it. Any ideas on how we can get it safely removed? I'm guessing this will be an insurance issue later down the road.) We were out eating dinner (yep, still eating out every night) and making our nightly stop at Home Depot, so we didn't make it back home till 9pm. We walked into the house and it smelled like a gas station. (Now you see why this was the "high" point of the week as well.) As we approached our cozy plastic corner where our bed is, the smell got stronger. When W found the source, and realized the crew caused the problem, we called the head honchos and they sent us to hotel for the night. So at 11pm we made it to a hotel and turned in for the night. BUT the next night, the oil puddle was still there! AND they left 2 gas soaked rags in the living, just to ensure the odor permeated the whole house! They must have missed the warning label on gas tanks about spontaneous combustion, or maybe they were trying to prove it. So we headed out to a hotel again.

It turned out to be a great night. Take food on the hotel beds, and watching a full night of Thursday sitcoms. For someone who has been living without a TV for 2 months, it was a big treat.

Our new kitchen cabinets arrived on Thursday, so we may have a kitchen in a few weeks. We're approaching the point in the project where more of the work will fall on us, which is fine by me. I'm tired of dealing with the contractors, and I know W feels that much more than I do.

The crew only has a few more key tasks (flooring 2nd floor, finishing baths, build back entrance steps) to complete, so I'm hoping they're gone in 2 weeks. Then we can start refinishing the 1st level floors, installing trim and wrapping up the kitchen. I'm just hoping they stay on track and finish soon! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Big News!

2007-11-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

We have lots of progress to talk about finally! After 2 tries, they have started tiling the guest bath correctly. They have almost finished mudding all the walls, and are working on sanding them. That's a very messy process, and almost always results in me getting to work with white dust on my clothes.

The exterior of the house improved this week by adding the recessed lights on the deck. It looks pretty driving up to the house now.

W has had a rough week of it, and at this point he only has 7 working fingers. He broke his pinky finger in the palm of his hand, and Sunday, he sliced his thumb very thoroughly. It was a good test of my first aid skills and stomach. We got through it without a trip to the emergency room though.

In spite of these setbacks, we managed to frame and hang a door together. It was my first time using power tools, and it was fun! I managed to use the router to create mortise holes for the hinges (all with W's guidance of course). This being our first time hanging an antique door, we learned a few things, but all in all I think it looks pretty good!

Also, we're very proud to annouce that in addition to planning a home renovation, we're also planning for another big change. Yep, I'm pregnant! Today begins my 4th month, with an expected due date of 6/1. Some of you may know that's just one day off of my sister's birthday. Adding to that irony is that she got married on my birthday. We've always been close, and I take this as some sort of promising sign for good times ahead for both of us.

Ok, I'm getting kicked out of our hot spot, so signing off for now! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Things to be Thankful For- Heated Homes!

2007-11-14T21:39:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry for my tardy posting here, but I couldn't bring myself to write on Sunday. I was depressed at the thought of another week without heat, but I'm thrilled to report that yesterday I walked into a toasty home!!! It was very, very exciting. I will never take heat for granted again. It took a lot of self control to turn back the thermostat to a reasonable 68 degrees. I would have sat in a t-shirt on my folding chair and smiled all night if I could have. For comparison, here's what my relaxing evenings looked like before Tuesday:

W improved the quality of living tremendously even before the heat was turned on. He created a little corner of plastic tarp heaven that kept in the heat from our propane heater. And despite very little help from me, he managed to bring our double mattress into the basement. It's so wonderful to sleep on a mattress, compared to the air mattress we were on for so long. I married a good man.

We did have a slightly unfortunate event on Friday night. W & I took off for a relaxing week at my aunt & uncle's house, and some neighborhood kids (assuming) came in with a paintgun and started off painting our living room walls royal blue. It's not quite the color I had in mind. Kidding aside, it could have been much worse and gave us the impetus we needed to install new locks on all the doors. I don't expect we'll have any future trouble.

Frighteningly little progress was made towards the end of last week, but they've been cranking this week. I'll have a newsy posting for this weekend, including pictures of the bathrooms being tiled and the front deck coming together. And we just learned that our kitchen cabinets are ready to be shipped. We just have to get that floor refinished in time.

That's all for now!

More Drywall, Less Heat

2007-11-04T20:48:00.001-05:00

We made it through another week without heating. I convinced W to head to a pet-friendly hotel one night last week and we had a blissful weekend in a nice, warm hotel at Penn State. So all in all, we spent three or four nights in the cold. We did buy an indoor propane heater, but it doesn't have much of an effect on our large space, despite the tarp we use to trap the "heat" in the basement. I figure it dips into the 50s inside each night. W did manage to find our box of coats, hats and gloves, which I am so grateful for. A generous friend lent me her down coat until I found my own. I wear it around all the time, including right now. I do wish I could find my flannel sheets! W tells me that we'll have heat by the end of this week. I'll cross my fingers. Here's a picture of our luxious sleeping quarters. Note Harley curled up on his bed to the left of ours, tucked under a blanket, and the space heater on the right side.

We do have a good deal more drywall than last week. I love to see that stuff go up. It really makes our house look liveable. Here are some pictures of the bottom floor now.

Dining room:

Kitchen, hasn't been done yet:

Living room:

We're hosting our first guest tomorrow night! Our brave friend is coming to stay the night despite our warnings about the state of our house. He's a hardy guy, up for any type of challenge but still I feel bad that we don't have a better situation.

The work team says they only have 2-3 weeks of work left on our project. I hope they're right but even if they're slightly off, we've been really impressed with their fast progress. If they're on track, this week should be a big week of progress on the bathrooms and flooring.

Just as I finished typing this up, I noticed that our propane tank must have run out. So it's going to be a cold one! Wish us luck, and think of us as you roll out of bed into your nice snug homes!

Drywall and Insulation

2007-10-28T18:46:00.000-04:00

The appearance of the exterior of the house hasn't changed dramatically from last week. Sadly, no new decks. The real changes are inside. The workers put dry wall throughout the second floor. It makes such a difference to have walls up. I could actually hear my own voice echo! very exciting stuff. However, we won't be able to get a foothold on that floor because we're replacing the floor soon.
They also finished putting up insulation in the back of the first floor, where the powder room and laundry will go. You can see the framed walls for those rooms. Hopefully they'll start putting up dry wall on the first floor this week. But already it's much quieter. I can't really say that's it's warmer, since we still don't have heat. But I image it would be worse without the insulation. Tonight will be the coldest night yet (in the 30s), but this should be one of the last cold nights. I think the electrician is going to work on wiring the thermostats early this week. If that wasn't his plan, I think we'll have to ask him to reprioritize. Those who know me, know that I'm chronically cold and dressed in layers, so it's pretty comical to see my bed attire these days. It usually involves at least 2 layers.

We made a couple big decisions this weekend- picking the flooring for the second floor and the granite for the kitchen. Going to the granite store is so cool. Seeing these huge slabs of polished stone in such a variety of color, it's hard to believe they all came from the depths of the earth. We picked a tan color with some black flecks, and then we hope to have a soap stone island.

Today was a busy day. We started off by watching 3 people carry off some of our radiators. We were hoping to salvage them, but it turns out that it's more of a hassle than we were willing to go through with. But the crew was comprised of 2 women, one in flip flops and an older man. It made me laugh to think that our crew of 11 guys wouldn't handle the radiators (they're still scattered throughout our house), but this motley crew was ready to take them on. Good for them!
W's project today was carefully removing the upstairs wood floors so we can reuse it in the back of the house. In the 1930's, oak was more desirable than heart of pine, so we have oak on the first floor and pine on the second. These days, heart of pine is a rare commodity, so we're salvaging it to reuse in other areas of the house.

We hung out with good friends on Saturday night, which felt like such a treat. It's been a while since we've seen our friends. Plus, they were so kind to bring up a new air mattress for us Sunday morning! And I enjoyed a respite from the house work today by having a fantastic lunch at Z&Z's house in DC. They finished renovating their house last year, so can relate to our process, and their house is proof that it's worth the pain of renovation. Thanks again for the great visit and wonderful home-cooked meal!

And a closing shot of our pup, who is happily enduring the renovation!

Siding and Basement Bugs

2007-10-22T21:34:00.000-04:00

** Updated Tuesday evening for pictures **

I'm only halfway up and running tonight. I won't have any pictures since they're on the other computer, which isn't here right now. I'll do my best to paint a picture of our progress to date. As of my posting last week, we were sleeping with the carbon monoxide detector. I'm happy to report that it never woke us with its alarm, and the water heater has been vented properly, more or less.

The siding is as complete as it can be for now, until the roofing and decking is completed. We're really happy with how it turned out in the end. We had to have the workers change the siding on the dormers, since they filled the whole thing with framing and no siding. It looked silly, but looks great now. We realized that the front roof isn't very stable, so we're having to rebuild that. So far, that's been the only unexpected project.

Today is a huge landmark. The electrical and plumbing are all roughed in, so the drywall can start to go up. Once this starts to happen, it'll really start to look more like a home. I'm getting a little tired of our temporary status, as we enter our second month of living from the basement. It hasn't been too uncomfortable so far, but it does get frustrating having dust coat everything and sleeping on a dying air mattress loses its charm.

I finally identified our basement critters as camel crickets, thanks to the help of the Washington Post. Apparently these guys really like the dry weather we've been having. In the scheme of basement bugs, these crickets aren't too bad, but I'm not a huge fan of them. They're usually at least an inch across. They don't bite, and they don't make noise. But either way, I do NOT like sleeping anywhere near them. For more info: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Urban/camelcrickets.htm

Tonight our basement had an unusually large presence of camel crickets, and so I'm moving our bedroom upstairs to the kitchen area. This means sweeping and mopping, but I'm happy to oblige.

W & I had our own project yesterday in trimming the ash tree that is close to the front porch. W bravely pulled out one of the big ladders and scaled up the tree with the chain saw to cut off one of the limbs that was brushing the front. I'll post a picture to show the improvement. It looks nice now that the front has a clear view. We still have a lot of work to do on the old oak tree along the street. It's over grown with a couple vines. We've cut the roots and hopefully the winter will aid our efforts.

Before tree trimming, and before they fixed the dormer:

The workers were focused on putting up the siding, and finishing the electric and plumbing last week. This week I think they'll be working on the front and rear decks (only a small one out back) and putting up dry wall. They've framed in the powder room downstairs and the bathrooms upstairs. W & I have almost finalized all the selections, which has been no small task. Picking bathroom tile proved to be the most difficult selection. We ordered our kitchen cabinets, so we may have a functioning kitchen in 4-5 weeks! I'm hoping for a washer and dryer sooner than that.

One of the nicest things about this renovation has been the neighborhood's excitement about our project. They are thrilled that we're fixing up this house that had obviously been uncared for for many years. Many people stop just to shout "looks great!" through their window as they drive by. And lots of others have walked up to chat with us about our project. Even in Lowes, the tile guy said, oh that's YOUR house!

So maybe by my next post, I'll have some dry wall to show off! I'll try to get pictures up tomorrow.

One quick shot of our friendly neighbors, Sam & Bella:

Technical Trouble

2007-10-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

Hi all-
We had some connectivity issues last night and weren't able to post anything. We'll get a new posting up Monday night. Sorry!

Facelift

2007-10-14T21:03:00.001-04:00

**Monday update- I'm able to upload pictures now. Water heater is still not fixed. **

This week was an interesting one. The workers made a good amount of progress both inside and outside. Blogspot is having some technical difficulties, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to upload some shots.

They've completed a good amount of the siding. I really like the color we went with. We plan on installing black shutters in a few weeks, but I think it looks nice even without. They've also made a lot of progress on the plumbing and HVAC. Most of the plumbing is roughed in and all of the ductwork is installed for the HVAC on both floors.

You may remember that we were going to sleep in the penthouse this past week. That went well for the first few nights. It was a little louder than I was prepared for, but it was doable. Then on Wednesday a cold front came through during the night. With it came a strong storm with lots of wind and rain. The purpose of an attic is for ventilation and ours is particularly effective right now, since we don't have windows (or didn't at that point). The wind was blowing mist onto our faces and we could hear a leak somewhere in the room. After we closed the tarp to block some of the rain and wind, the sound of the tarp brushing on the floor sounded eerily like a squirrel scurrying around the attic. Needless to say, it wasn't a restful night.

Thursday wasn't quite as bad, but it got cold! We have insulation in most of the house, but we don't have heat and there are still some gaping holes near windows. It was in the mid 40's outside and it couldn't have been more than 55 inside. We were fine bundled up beneath our down comforter but it's an experience I hope we don't have to repeat too many times.

Tonight marks a significant breaking point for me; I've caved and agreed to sleep in the basement. Till now, I've resisted due to the crickets and general damp smell, but it turns out that it's the warmest place in the house right now. To add to the excitement, the hot water heater was replaced but only slapped together, so the exhaust is dumping into the basement, as opposed to outside. So tonight we'll be sleeping by our newest purchase, a carbon monoxide detector. So far, we're clear.

(Harley warming our bed.)

Note the open exhaust pipe pointing to the left- excellent.

My parents dropped off our dog today too, so our little family is complete again. He seems to enjoy the excitement for the most part. And during the day, we'll drop him at a local doggie day care, so that he's out of the way of the workers.

I think the main pushes for this week will be completing the siding, plumbing and electrical. I'm also hoping they'll work on redecking the front and back decks. Right now the back door just opens to a drop off, so it would be convenient to have that decked again, especially now with that the dog needs access to his yard again!

Sorry for the lack of pictures tonight. I'll try to get them up early this week.

Living with Studs

2007-10-07T20:55:00.000-04:00

I thought we had things pretty well gutted out, but apparently there was much more to be removed. We are really down to studs now! There are only a few small areas that have any type of original blown in insulation. There are no walls whatsoever. The house looks like this throughout.

We had some great progress, scattered with a few irritations, mostly from my perspective. We had our first delivery of dry wall and insulation. This is a great sign of progress. If dry wall is coming, that means we should have walls before too long. Dry wall delivery was an amazing process for a first time renovators like myself. They just popped out a window and lifted the pallet up. I thought it was cool.

The house has almost completely been rewired as well. Although the old knob and tube was interesting, the new insulated wire looks much safer. We have new windows in the garage and the house and garage are wrapped in green shrink wrap (I'm sure there's a more technical term).

The 2 minor frustrations of the week were fixable. First the workers tossed the contents of our dog's rubbermaid box, including about $200 worth of medications. Second the oil from the boiler was drained onto the basement floor, not touching our belongings but filling the area with the pungent smell of gasoline.

W is telling me that we should be able to create a semi-permanent bedroom for ourselves in the attic, hereafter referred to as the penthouse. This sounds like a pretty good plan, since it'll get us off the air mattress for a few nights (which I think has a small leak) and might relieve me of mopping duty for a little while. However, the penthouse does have a few drawbacks, including the gaping holes where windows will go and neatly drilled 2" holes where insulation was blown in. I think we'll give it a try for a few nights. Here's a shot of our penthouse suite.

This week, the electric should be completed and the siding should start to go up. I sure hope I like the color we picked!

Good Bones

2007-09-29T16:58:00.000-04:00

We thought our house had good potential- good bones- and this week they were exposed! The workers showed up Tuesday morning and made a lot of progess. It was really exciting to see. The big accomplishments of the week were removing the siding and stucco from the house, opening the front porch, removing almost all the plaster interior walls, and removing the wall that was enclosing the stairway. I think they filled at least two 30 foot dumpsters. They're doing a good job of keeping our home pretty clear, but the dust is inevitable.

Here's a shot of the newly exposed staircase. It'll look even nicer when that door is repaced by a window for morning light. The exterior staircase to that door has already been demolished.

We've been sleeping on the air mattress again, which is pretty comfortable. However I don't like the idea of sleeping right on all that dust (created from tearing down the plaster walls), so before going to sleep, I have to mop the floor. Never did I imagine that part of my "getting ready for bed" routine would involve mopping! We slept in the future kitchen Friday night, as shown below, since we thought it was the most insulated at this point. In some rooms, there are missing windows or exposed gaps in the walls. However, I still woke up freezing at about 3am, but didn't want to go to the trouble of finding my shoes, the flashlight and the heavier blanket in the basement. After shivering for 2 hours, W rolled out of bed and grabbed the down comforter.

You'll notice our 1 lamp without a shade that we transport around the house to where we are.

It's hard to see the layout, but you can see all 3 remaining bedrooms and 2 closets on the second floor in this photo.

We were looking around the house at the progress and noticed some newspapers that were lining the floor of the attic. They were from 1969! I realize that's not all that old, but it was funny to see how untouched the house has been for so many years. Plus I got a kick out of the wedding announcement pictures.

Home Sweet Home

2007-09-23T22:05:00.000-04:00

We spent our weekend moving out of our condo and into a few small areas of our house. About 90% of our belongings went from the moving truck straight into the garage. The other 10% is in a corner of the basement.

We were wiped out Saturday after a day full of moving, so we crashed on the air mattress. Although we live next to a fairly busy residential street, it is so nice to hear crickets as we fall asleep.

We're finalizing plans with a contractor, so hopefully big progress will start shortly. W already made big strides and demolished all the walls in the basement. He filled up a third of a 30 foot dumpster with all the drywall, studs and metal framing. It looked cramped and creepy before last weekend, but it almost feels downright airy now!

And here's our temporary bathroom in the basement that we'll be using during the renovation. Note the huge pipe that runs through the shower, over the toilet.

All in all, we've got things pretty well set up. I'm hoping for dramatic changes by the time of my next posting. Have a great week!

And thus it begins...

2007-09-14T22:50:00.000-04:00

This weekend marks the beginning of our home renovation project! We bought a 1935 American Four Square home that needs a lot of work. It was retrofitted into upper and lower level apartments and it hasn't been updated (or cleaned for that matter) in a very long time. Our plan over the next 9 months is to gut the whole house, re-side, re-wire and re-plumb the house, build a completely new kitchen, create 2.5 new bathrooms, all while living in the house! I thought this blog would be a good way to force me to record this project, and allow others to enjoy our project vicariously- for better or worse.

So this weekend we managed to gut the basement down to only essential studs. W did all of that while I focused on the making the rest of the house liveable- cleaning floors, walls, & the most disgusting toilets I've ever seen. My other chore was removing carpet tacks from 2 rooms and a hallway. I still have one room to go.

We've got one week till moving day, but it's pretty liveable at this point! If at any point, you'd like to see more pictures, just email me.