Fine-tuning

Why didn't we do this sooner?

2006-06-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate those projects that you avoid and put off because you think they will be a pain or take a long time to complete...and they weigh on you and hang over you. Then you get your act together to do the project and think...why didn't I do this soon?One of these projects for us was relocating the fridge in our kitchen. We lived with the old configuration for 6 months (complete with bad sponge paint job!):

Over our winter break I painted the top half of the kitchen with the extra paint leftover in the basement and J installed a new outlet so that we could swap the fridge and the storage cabinet. (The door frame that you see in the photos is the same door frame -- for a frame of reference.) We also installed some new shelves for additional storage. Now we actually have accessible workspace near the stove. When didn't we do this sooner? LOVE IT!

I'll take "Unidentified Shrubs" for $300, Alex...

2006-06-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know what this shrub is?? We have two of them in our backyard that we "inherited" from the PO. I love their light green leaves (which turn yellow in the fall) and we had the most pleasant surprise this spring (the last two weeks of May) when these these beautiful little white flowers bloomed, with their lovely, light, sweet smell.

I want to keep them, but they are planted too close to the house and really need to be moved. I don't want to kill them -- so I am hoping to figure out what they are so that I can figure out the best time to transplant them.

This Barberry bush, on the other hand, could die for all I care. In fact, that would make my life easier. It is also planted too close to the house and is becoming obnoxiously over-grown. I hate pruning it because of the thorns and my half-hearted efforts are further dampened by the fact that we are leaning toward just cutting it down and starting over...if only I could decide what to put in its place (oh, and had the funds to purchase whatever we settle on).

(On a side note, in this photo you can see evidence of several other projects -- our steps, which need to be cleaned off and/or repainted and the railing which needs to be repainted ; and the piles of dirt under the bush which are left over from a different project and will be used when we try to reseed a couple sections of our lawn.)

Garage Plans

2006-06-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason I can't get my act together and photograph the projects that we have been working on, but I do have some photos of the big project that is looming this summer: The Garage.

We knew when we purchased the house that the roof on the garage needed to be replaced along with the gutter (why they didn't do this simple project a few years ago when they did the roof on the house is beyond us -- and our neighbor that J has discussed it with). The gutter, which you cannot see on the other side of the garage, is also falling apart and hanging on by a thread. (No, our garage stucco is not two different colors -- what you can't see "off stage" to the left is the sprinkle that is watering our garden and half the garage in the process). This has always been on the list as a project for this summer. My dad has offered to fly out and help us with it, but due to scheduling conflicts this actually won't happen until September, as the only other option was July and none of us wanted to re-roof a garage that gets no shade cover in the middle of the summer.

The other part of the garage which needs serious attention is the trim. A majority of the trim around the roof is rotted and needs to be replaced. The rest of the trim looks like this right now:

With the most attrocious portions being around the garage door, which gets the harsh south sun and no shade cover, and the threshold on the back entrance to the garage -- which has actually completely crumbled and fallen apart in the last month:

Part of the reason for the sorry shape of the trim is that the previous owner did not prime before she repainted the trim on the garage or the house (nor did she prime any of the trim inside, which has created ANOTHER summer project to be discussed later). However, I can't hate her completely because bad paint job or not, she did cover up the PO-once-removed's Pepto Pink trim:

I would rather look at the peeling blue trim than that nasty pink any day, so I curse the PO a little more quietly than I would otherwise.

time for a comeback

2006-04-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

Apparently houseblogging and grad school don't mix in our house.
Fortunately, grad school is almost over, so we can get back to the important stuff.

Way back in August when we last posted we were in the middle of a bathroom renovation and planning for a housewarming. We did manage to get the bathroom 95% finished before the housewarming party -- and it has remained 95% finished for the last 8 months. Of course the remaining 5% is installing trim and sealing grout, tasks which are not nearly as motivating as something more functional like re-installing a toilet. Someday we will finish - I swear.

In November we had a new addition to the family:

Bishop was one of our foster dogs, but we just couldn't let him go.

Over our break in Dec/Jan we were full of good intentions when it comes to the house -- and we did manage to relocate the fridge, which makes our kitchen 20 times more functional. We also installed some new shelves in the kitchen and painted over its lovely green sponge paint.

Over spring break we transformed our basement from a disorganized mess into an organized mess. We are currently in the process of undoing that work.

This month we have been doing some work outside. J re-routed a gutter on the back of our house so that it doesn't drain directly on to the patio, right in front of the back door (yes, that was a genious arrangement). We also put in a gravel & rock drainage area on the edge of patio so that water has somewhere to drain other than gathering at the edge of the grass, on top of the concrete. Last Friday J aerated the lawn, as he is determined to resurrect it after several years of neglect. We (ok, mostly me) are also having a great time watching all of the irises and lilies that we took from my mother-in-law's gardens last fall emerge in our flower beds.

We have big plans for this summer:
Repainting the outside trim
Re-roofing the garage
Removing the indoor/outdoor carpeting from the front and side steps (finally!!)
Repairing the windows in the family room
Replacing the carpet in the family room
Hanging pictures, etc. somewhere other than on existing nails/hooks (fancy!)

So we're back in the saddle, with big plans ahead.

it's not a real renovation unless you go to the studs

2005-08-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

The blog has been silent, but we have not been idle.
Life is getting in the way of home improvements, but we've managed to make some progress.

2 weekends ago we did a lot of small things around the house - hanging light fixtures, new curtain rods, new switchplates, etc. A lot of little things that make a big difference.

This weekend we decided to tackle the circa 1982 bathroom:

The cheap shower doors leaked, resulting in mold/mildew problems on the corners of the tub (see black junk under the sink in the last photo). We were hopeful that it would be relatively contained and only require a small amount of repair work...

That was a nice (fleeting) thought:

The backwall of the bathroom and the wall opposite the water spout were wallpapered before the shower surround was (poorly) put up. So the wallpaper had helped to wick the water/mildew up the walls a good 2-3 feet. The painted wall didn't fair much better, given that they used regular drywall in the bathroom.

The "up side" is that the poor construction made it really easy to keep the shower surround in tact when we removed it, which will help to keep costs down on this "small"/temporary renovation (we're planning a full remodel/expansion of the upstairs in a few years).

We stopped there for the weekend, leaving us a functional half-bath upstairs (with our bedroom).

Of course all of this work is just in time for my mom to come visit again while we do bathroom work. Poor mom - sometime she will get to visit when we don't all have to share one 5x7 bathroom.

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In non-house news, I landed a TA position last week. Hopefully this will help fund a few more small house projects during the semester.

renovation fuel

2005-08-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

I guess J doesn't want me to run out of energy anytime soon.

We've settle on a date for our housewarming party as a self-imposed deadline to get a few things done: September 17th. Which, it occurs to me, is also one month from today.We were planning to spend this upcoming weekend tackling our circa 1982 upstairs bathroom - but the days are quickly filling up with (dog) rescue work and possibly entertaining some of J's new classmates. We need to get to the bathroom soon - the shower doors leak and as a result we have a lovelymold/mildew problem under the sink:

It looks much better than it is in reality. I generally try to shower and brush my teeth with my eyes closed and get the heck out of there as quickly as possible.

ch-ch-ch-changes

2005-08-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today I officially gave notice at my job. I'll be there for another 4-6 weeks, depending upon how quickly my boss can get a replacement in (I'm the only employee - and I promised that I would give him a lot of lead time to hire someone new).
This (2 full-time grad students, 0 full-time jobs) wasn't the original plan, but if you don't take a few risks in your life - what are you doing?

As requested by Trissa, one dog who is far too busy romping in her yard to stop and pose for photos:

We are tired.

2005-08-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

We had big, ambitious plans for the weekend. It wasn't clear that we were going to even come close to knocking everything off of our list, but, frankly, we kicked ass.

The office is no longer a dark hole of black and green paint:
Going...

Going...

Gone...

Just in the nick of time - my little sister is coming to visit us for two days starting tomorrow morning. Now we actually have a pleasant room for guests to sleep in.

The color is a silvery blue, instead of the gray-blue that I was initially aiming for. I knew I was running the risk of erring on this side because I was very concerned about not picking anything too dark (the room gets very little sunlight). The good news is that blue is my favorite color, so I'm happy with just about any shade.

We also had to completely dismantle one half of the L-shaped desk to get it into the room (it has been sitting in the living room waiting for us to paint). The upside is that the pieces are much lighter than the whole.

Putting the office together also freed up some room in the living room to actually put the furniture in place. If you squint hard, you can almost imagine this as a habitable room. Now J just needs to unpack his 23904823940283402 books and we will be well on our way to clearing the moving boxes out of this room.

Finally, we solved the bizarre backyard dog mystery.
Around 4 weeks ago the poo suddenly started refusing to walk on the grass in our backyard. She was fine on the back patio, fine in our front yard and fine wandering around anyone else's yard on walks. She simply would.not.under.any.circumstances voluntarily walk on the grass in our backyard. Even if her favorite person (me) stood 5' into the yard with a treat.
It was very bizarre. It all started one Saturday afternoon while we were out. There was a large thunderstorm while we were away and when we got back, she started up with this. I called the vet after exhausting all of my ideas and they suggested that maybe there had been a lightening strike in/near the backyard that had freaked her out. With their advice we tried to coax her back into the yard with treats and praise - still nothing. I spent an afternoon with the landscaping rake pulling all of the dead thatch out of the grass to see if that helped. No. We watered the grass repeatedly, thinking it was something in the rain. No. We thought maybe she didn't like the saw dust from the recycled timbers we'd used to build the raised garden bed - so we spread some top soil and new grass seed over the area where we'd been working. No.
Finally I thought that it might be the diseased apple tree in the middle of the yard. It was located in a position where the canopy reached right to the edge of the patio and covered the area of the yard that she was the freakiest about. The tree had to come down anyway because it is A. diseased B. non-fruiting C. smack dab in the middle of the yard D. growing into the overhead cable and phone lines.
This weekend it was only in the 70s and the best chance for outdoor manual labor in a long time. So we went for it - we took the tree down, picked up all the debris and raked the diseased leaves out of the grass. The dog now happily romps all over the back yard.

Before:

During:
After:

split personality

2005-08-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

The right side of our house is neat and orderly, the left side of our house is a disaster area.
Last night I couldn't take it anymore so I cleaned all of the remodeling tools/supplies out of the dining room, family room and kitchen. Finally we have a living space that isn't under construction.

On the right side of the house we have the neat and orderly kitchen, dining room and living room (and the non-cluttered hallway upstairs). On the left side of the house we have the disaster areas known as our living room, office and upstairs bedroom. It seems fitting in a left brain/right brain way.

Some people have requested photos of the interior, which I have been holding off on until there were some clean rooms (we were so harried on moving day there was no time to take photos of the empty rooms). Without futher ado:

The kitchen:
This room isn't changing much in the first remodeling pass. We've already installed a new kitchen faucet. We have a new light fixture (yet to be installed) to replace the ceiling fan. We also plan to swap the fridge and the small sideboard to create more counter space near the stove and make it more accessible. This will require installing a new outlet for the fridge, which is why it hasn't happened yet. Eventually we will paint.
In the second pass of remodeling (2+ years from now) we will replace the fridge, the flooring and the countertops, add a dishwasher and replace the sideboard with upper and lower cabinets.

The dining room:
This just needs to have the new light installed. The red paint is from the previous owner (PO). While it's not my favorite shade of red and I hate that the ceiling is painted in the same red, it will stay this way for the forseeable future becasue it's really not all that objectionable. We have a new light fixture which needs to be installed - the current light fixture would be cool if it wasn't cheap plastic.

(note the classy cable wire which needs to be run up around the edge of the ceiling in the family room)

The family room:

The only thing we're doing in here on the first pass is replacing the sagging curtain rods and replacing the valances on the back windows with some matching ones that don't have scallops (which the PO left for us). All of the molding around the windows in this room is plastic. Several windows also don't fit correctly and are plugged with expanding foam. It's lovely. You may also be able to make out the crank for the security shutters on the back window. There is a matching crank behind the drapes for other large bank of windows. These are the only two sets of windows in the house that have security shutters - which makes me think??? Are you just trying to encourage the burglar to break a smaller, less expensive window? The corresponding metal boxes which house the security shutters on the exterior are also extremely attractive. Someday we will fix all of that.
It makes it sound like this room is hideous, but actually it's fantastic. The windows give us a great view of our yard and let in a lot of light. There's also a door to the back patio off to the right in the first photo. Add in my beloved sectional couch and it's my favorite room in the house.

On the other side of the house we have this (ironically, the living room):
And this - the office/sorry excuse for a guest room where we have made my wonderful parents who came to help us out sleep!:
I refuse to post a photo of our bedroom.

The office is the project for the weekend. J started patching the hole from replumbing the shower last night and tonight we're going to get everything prepped for painting. As you can see in the photo, there is one VERY dark green wall that I'm dreading. We also have to repaint the ceiling as it is currently the same color as the tan walls. If all goes according to our (overly ambitious) plan, we will have the office painted and "put together" by the end of the weekend.

We have another "big change" in the works, but I won't say anything more about that until it's official next week.

rested and refreshed

2005-08-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

We've fallen silent on the blog for one of the best reasons ever: Vacation!
We got back from a whole week at a cabin on a lake in the middle of nowhere (seriously, the nearest town didn't even have one horse). No agenda for 7 straight days - sleep, swim, read, eat and play cards. Just what the doctor ordered.

Before we left we made some progress on the house.

One of those projects that you don't talk about it until it's over - the busted lock on the front door. We went about two weeks without a functioning deadbolt (just the handle lock). Obviously this was a priority task for before vacation. I wish I could say more about the process, as it was a process to replace the thing, but I have no idea what happened because J labored away on it while I took a nap one day after work.

We also pushed to "finish" the bathroom (I still need to re-paint the door and window trim, but since we don't shower in this bathroom, it is now fully functional for us).
Complete with beautiful new, hard-to-find 11" on center tub supplies:

The bathroom has about 12 different shades of white in it - the tub, toilet, sink, ceramic wall tiles, plastic wall tiles, shower curtain, floor tiles, caulk, grout, air vents and shades on the light are all different shades of white. J picked out the very bold color for the walls, which I think is fantastic and has the unexpected bonus of drawing the eye away from the aforementioned shades of white:

We also have a new gas stove. The house came with an old (but not ancient - read: cool) electric stove, complete with oven that never fully turned off. We were planning to buy one "soon" anyway, but J got a fantastic deal on a last-year-and-floor-model clearance Jenn Air, which is about 2x as nice as the stove we planned to buy and was only 25% more expensive. There was also the happy surprise of an existing gas line - saving us $$ on the gas company service call. (J will do water pipes, but not gas pipes):We do not normally decorate the stove with bamboo.

There have been other big changes in our household. We are officially 1/2 way to poor grad students. J's final day at his job was a week ago last Friday. He starts the MBA program tomorrow morning.

This, combined with the fact that we are sick of living with the two rooms of boxes, has moved the completion of the office to the top of the priority list. We have a busy week (getting my car ready to sell), so it will be our project for this weekend.

dog days of summer

2005-07-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Not at all related to the house, but one of the best excuses that I can think of for getting no work done on the house today:

I've gotten involved with volunteering with a local golden retriever rescue (http://www.ragom.com) while we bide our time and wait for our lives to settle down enough to adopt our own golden (we're hoping to do it this winter).

So today I helped 5 goldens on the road to a better life.
This morning I picked up 2 senior goldens from a woman who no longer had the resources to care for them. I also met up with some people who had picked up a 2 year old female golden who had been rescued from a neglectful situation. The three dogs and I drove two hours north to meet up with their new foster parents. From one of the fosters I picked up 2 more goldens, a mother and son, who came from a highly neglectful situation. Brought these two dogs down to the cities to help them on their way to the golden life as well:

The two seniors:
Rock:

Baby:

The 2 year old:
Misty:

Mother and Son:
Anne:

Chubby (who is half St. Bernard!):

Today was a good day.

After September...

2005-07-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

This is our new tag ling in the house.

All projects are being separated into those we should do "now" and those we will do "after September..." The September timeline is was chosen arbitarily (by my dad, actually), but is actually noteworthy because we are hoping to have a housewarming party on/near Labor Day weekend and September is when we will drop down to having almost no household income. J's last day of full-time work is July 29th and I will drop down to working part-time as of September 6. We will both be full-time graduate students and, no doubt, be very busy.

The "now" list includes things such as:

finish the bathroom
replace the stove and move the fridge
paint the office (no small task as it is currently dark tan and hunter green - including the ceiling - and we are going to light blue-gray)
replace the locks
replace a few lights
replace a few blinds/curtains

The "after September..." list includes cheap/free things to do this fall:

remove wallpaper and repaint 2nd bath (using leftover paint)
set up/organize the shop in the basement
organize the rest of the basement
organize the garage
replace gutter on garage (already bought supplies)
paint kitchen

The list also includes much more long term/"someday, when we have money" things:

Flagstone patio in backyard
more cabinets in the kitchen - custom made to match existing cabinets
add dishwasher
replace fridge, washer and dryer
refinish the floors
new flooring on 2nd floor
replace garage roof
etc, etc, etc.

At least putting things in the before and after September categories helps us to prioritize our work and keeps the work that needs to be done on the house from being entirely too overwhelming.

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We received our financial aid award information last night, and while it was good news - it still forced us to get real about what we are going to have the money to do in the next nine months. The "good" news is that there is a wealth of cheap/free cleaning and minor repair to keep up busy for at least that long. After I graduate in the spring and get (oh please oh please oh please) a decent job, we will be a position to look at some of the bigger projects.

What do you do on the hottest weekend of the year?

2005-07-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

You put in a new fence, build a raised garden bed and expand/replant your flower beds, of course!

My dad arrived on Wednesday night for a weekend of work - and work we did. If anyone bought stock in Gatorade last week - we just made you a killing! It was in the mid-90s and humid all weekend and were the fools outside doing hard manual labor the entire time.

Thursday we rented a post-hole digger for the fence. Thanks to the wonder of instant post cement, we were able to put up 90% of the fence that day. The rest we could have finished, but it was easier to build the raised garden bed without those panels in, so we waited.

Now for the fence all we have to do is attach the decorative post caps - and sit and admire it.

Oh, we also have to teach the dog how to deal with being in the yard without her leash. She is at a total loss.

On Friday morning J had to work from 6 - noon, so my dad and I rented a tiller and dug up the corner of the backyard where we were going to build a new raised vegetable garden bed. We also had plans to expand the beds in front, so we figured out what were going to be doing up there and tilled that soil a bit as well. Once J got home we borrowed his dad's pick up and went to get some top soil that my boss had pulled out of his yard (to put in our raised garden). Then we wandered around the nursery and picked out our new plants - which my dad very generously purchased as a house-warming gift. (thanks, Dad!)

Saturday morning we built the raised garden bed and put in the final 3 fence sections. We goofed around in the afternoon (during peak heat) and then got to work putting in the front flower beds until it was too dark to work anymore.
This photo makes our fence look really crooked - and the tops of all the pickets look busted - but I swear it is a very nice fence in real life! (see previous photo)

This morning we had to get up early and finish the front beds. We got 98% of the work done before my dad had to leave for the airport. So we dropped him off and then went to pick up the last of the mulch to finish the beds.
Before:
4 over-grown yew bushes and an unidentified shrub.

After:
Expanded gardens - no more mowing the dirt around the tree!

Left garden:
In the back, under the windows, we have two dogwood bushes. Right next to the step is a hydrangea bush. In the middle we have two other bushes that I don't know the names of (I kept the tags from their buckets so I can learn this stuff before our housewarming party!). We also have a couple of hostas, Stella d'Oro day lilies, another flowering bush I don't know the name of, and a few clearance impatiens for instant color.

Along the walk we have some miniature boxwoods that J is planning to turn into a very low (18") hedge in a few years.

Right garden:

More of the same plants - plus a walkway that is no longer covered by over-grown yews!

This afternoon we planted a few ferns in the backyard. I took a nap and J picked up a little more top soil and peat moss for the raised bed. He also bought a gas-powered trimmer with a tiller attachment to help amend the soil...some other day. We are now resting!

Of course, now that we are done toiling in the yard, the thunderstorms are rolling through and dropping the humidity. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 20 degrees cooler as well. The upside is that I won't have to haul out the hose to water the new plants again tonight.

you know it's hot when...

2005-07-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

...the paint melts off the wall. ba-da-bing!

Not quite, but basically - yes, that's what happened.
We finally got to the point where I could prime and paint the bathroom. So Monday night I got to work. I primed the whole thing (sweating buckets, as I had to keep the door closed to keep the pets out, and it was 90+ degrees outside, so the "breeze" from the window wasn't exactly "refreshing." Then I showered and ran out to pick up the paint. Came home and happily put the first coat of paint on the upper half of the bath. Showered (again - 3rd time that day) and went to bed. Set my alarm to get up extra early Tuesday morning to put on the 2nd coat of paint before getting ready for work (because 1. I am insane and 2. I didn't want to shower 2394082342 times that day). I walk into the bathroom to find that on one section of wall, the paint is streaking down the wall, like someone through a bucket of water on it.
I can't decide whether to laugh or cry? I hate this bathroom project!
I put the 2nd coat of paint on the other three walls and went to work.
Finally, after work yesterday, I realized that the vent for the upstairs bath runs in that wall (discovered while reassuring myself that no, there is not a water leak from the roof or upstairs bath). Between the excessive heat in the tiny bathroom and the A/C running through the vent in the wall - all of the moisture in the area had condensed on the wall and the wall was sweating like a cold glass of water.
Again - laugh? cry? Tough call.
So I turned off the A/C, brought in a fan and successfully sanded, re-primed and re-painted the wall last night. I refused to let J turn the A/C back on until this morning.

The paint looks fantastic. I'm beginning to love the bathroom again.
Now all we have to do is:
Paint the tile
Re-plumb the shower
Prep/clean the walls and install new baseboard
Scrub the floor (especially the "white" grout)
Fix the wet/rotting windowsill
Paint the window and door
Re-caulk the tub
Install the new light and mirror
Re-install the towel bars
New toilet seat
New vent cover
Clean

See? We're almost done!

Aside from installing the new light (as there is currently no light), this project is on hold for the weekend. My dad flies in this afternoon and we will be turning our attention to the new fence and landscaping.

lest anyone think we're over-achievers...

2005-07-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

There's a reason there are no inside shots of the house...this is what our living room looks like right now:

Our box spring wouldn't fit up the stairs, so we had to order a split box spring, which was just delivered this afternoon. I'm inordinately excited about the fact that I won't have to sleep (on the mattress) on the floor tonight.

fence prep and yard work

2005-07-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

Before:

Now (after a long hard afternoon of work with some fantastic help):

The backyard, before:
Weeds:

Shrubs:
More shrubs:

Backyard now:
No weeds:

No shrubs (in the ground, anyway):
No more shrubs, lots of bags of yard waste and our fence, waiting to be installed (behind the garage is another pallet with the cement and new dirt/compost for the raised garden bed that we're going to install). In the foreground, former shrubs:

my arch-nemesis - the bathroom

2005-07-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

This is what we started with...looks innocent enough:
But in order to replace the plumbing for the sink, we had to remove the vanity, which ripped some of the "quality" plastic tiles off the wall - so we decided to rip out everything behind the sink and re-tile it:

We also ended up having to replace the shower hardware in order to re-do the plumbing there. That led us on a search for a "very hard to find" (in the words of the plumbing guy we bought it from) 11" on center three valve shower pipe (the piece that goes in the wall - and saved me from having to re-tile the shower).

And of course if you're going to do the big stuff, you might as well do the small stuff - so this the lovely wallpaper behind the old medicine cabinet and light fixture:

Tile job - eventually we will re-do all of the plastic tile, but we don't have the time/money for that right now. The color difference between the two is not nearly as noticable in person - and there's a pedestal sink in front of the whole thing anyway:
This is where we are now - I primed everything this afternoon, but don't have it in me to start with the paint this afternoon. It's a sauna in there today! Note the new pedestal sink, hole from the old old medicine cabinet that was covered by the old medicine cabinet and the wet/rotting window sill that I am still working on - the previous owner showered here and didn't protect the window sill:

home is where the poober is...

2005-07-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

I finally found the cord for the camera.
Kicking things off with a photo from the moving prep - our pets were very concerned that they not be left behind. We repeatedly told them that "home is where XXX is," but they still insisted on getting in the boxes, just in case:

House History

2005-07-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

Before I post about the history of the house, I would be remiss if I did not first mention/thank my fantastic friends who came over on Saturday afternoon (amid 90+ degree temperatures and high humidty) to help me rip out the bushes and lava rock in our front yard). N, B, M and A rock! We owe them a lot of beer (and in the case of B & M a lot of wallpaper scraping/painting when they close on their house at the end of the week!).

I still haven't found the cord for the camera, so we'll save up the details of the work that we've been doing for a few more days. J has a good lead on where the cord is (since he's the one that packed it) - I just haven't had a chance to look for it yet.

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Through various sources we have managed to put together a little bit of the history of the house. We bought the house from a single woman who had owned it for 2.5 years before deciding/realizing that she didn't have the time to maintain a house. She traded it in for a townhome. She told us that she had purchased the house from an older couple who had actually owned the house twice. The owned it back when it was first built (the original owners?) but sold it when the husband went off to the war. They continued to live in the area, always loved the house and eventually decided to knock on the door and see if the current owners were interested in selling. We learned those details from the block leader who has lived on the block her entire life (and she's probably in her late 40s/early 50s?). She believed that they may have even just swapped houses with the people who owned the house at the time they decided to knock. We also live about 3 blocks from J's uncle's parents. His uncle was able to tell us that his father had worked with the man who owned our house twice and that he was the head chef at the local VA Hospital for many years. J's uncle thought that they had moved out of the house a while ago, so we aren't clear on whether or not the woman we bought from bought the house from the couple, or if there was another owner in between. I'm hoping to get a little more on the history of the house from the block leader at some point.

The block leader and previous owner were also able to tell us that the addition on the back of the house (extra room on the first floor and the bump out of the roof to expand the 2nd floor and add a second full bath upstairs) was done sometime in the 80s:

You can also barely see in the photo of the backyard, our neighbor's house (behind the addition). This house was clearly built within the last couple of decades and the block leader told us that the property used to be home to a crack house 25 years ago (though even then, it was not a bad neighborhood). She said that they worked with the police to get the residents arrested (the adult children of the woman who owned the house) and then bought the house, to get rid of them permanently. They said the house was one of the oldest ones on the street and was a total dump, so they had to level it. They were planning to rebuild on the property themselves, but ultimately decided to stay where they are on the other side of the block (their current house is the one that her parents and grandparents owned - difficult to give up). So they sold the property (taking a huge loss, as it was now just a lot without a structure) and a new house was built. She said that despite the lost money they were glad that they did it because it was getting to the point where they were either going to have to get rid of the crack house or move.
The new house was not built to look old, but does a nice job of blending into the neighborhood in terms of its size and general presence - as much as a split-level house with vinyl siding can blend into a block full of stucco cape cods. The current owner is a 50-something single man who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time maintaining his lawn (eg: he stood outside frowning at his sprinkler in the front yard for about 10 minutes this morning) - about as far from a crack house as you can get at this point.

Even though there are a lot of things done to the house that make me want to bang my head against the wall (like the plastic "wood like" trim in the 1st floor addition and the fact that there is only one small vent in the 17x18 upstairs bedroom) - it is clear that the house has been well loved. Many things have been well-maintained and most improvements, while if not to our liking, were at least well-done.

2005-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know us from various places...here is a brief run-down on our household:

kk
25, full-time state government employee and part-time graduate student (Master of Public Policy). Starting in the fall, I plan to be a full-time student and part-time employee.

J
25, currently works full-time but has officially let the cat out of the bag and submitted his notice at work. He will be starting a full-time MBA program in the fall and working part-time evenings/weekends.

Tora
Maltese/toy poodle. Alpha pet. Spoiled little love of a dog. Must.be.near.you.at.all.times - preferably in your lap.

Rogue
Cat. Skittish and fascinated by all things outside (where she is not allowed). Spends all summer (when not sleeping) figuring out how she get her face closer to the open windows.

Storm
Cat. They told us she was a quiet cat when we adopted her. She is not. Pretends to hate the dog. Shows little interest in being outside - as she was a stray for a while and knows that the good life means your food is delivered in a bowl.

This winter we plan to add a rescued Golden Retriever to the mix - you know, just to keep things interesting.

under pressure

2005-07-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

*content deleted for privacy*

My mom has been here with us since the day before we moved. She has been a big help - serving as a "gopher" for our big projects, unpacking where she can and cleaning up behind us. I shudder to think of what kind of shape we would be in without her help.

Tomorrow it is back to work for J. My mom is headed home tomorrow afternoon and I am headed back to work on Wednesday.

Of course I have pictures of our progress, but I have no idea where the computer cord for the camera is.

The only casualties of the weekend were some bruised knuckles for J and I and a nasty burn from the heat gun for me.

property ladder

2005-06-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

We closed on our both properties today - everything went very smoothly.

We are so on top of this move that my mom (who is in from out of town to help us move) and I went to a movie this afternoon.

Moving Day is tomorrow!

house of boxes

2005-06-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

Preparations to move are going surprisingly well. J worked this weekend and I packed like it was going out of style (and believe me, packing is so last year). We are actually in very, very good shape. In fact, I plan to spend the evening reading The Red Tent for my book club - with no frantic moving preparations in sight.

J is pre-signing on both houses tomorrow because he has to work on Thursday morning. Wednesday morning we have our final walk-through on the new house and my mom flies in that evening. Thursday we will have both closings. Friday we move!

Last Wednesday the buyer for our current place moved some of her belongings into our garage and dining room. Actually, "some belongings" is misleading. Her entire house is in our garage and dining room. She had asked to just store some things here (she closed on her old place already and is staying with family for 10 days), but when she showed up with the moving truck, I told her to feel free to store as much stuff as would fit. It's not like we're using the space and moving sucks. I would never wish moving twice in 10 days on anyone.

Friday morning I took advantage of Best Buy's annual electronics recycling program and got rid of 2 old laptops and a dead television. On the way back from the drop off site at their headquarters, I decided to drive past the new house (amazingly, only the first time I had driven by the new house just for the hell of it in the 2.5 months since we went under contract!).

Now, we knew that the gutters were full, needed to be cleaned out ASAP and then desperately needed leaf guards (2 large Maple trees on the property - one in the front yard and one in the back). But when I drove by on Monday I saw that recent heavy rains had caused the gutters to overflow and stain the front stucco with the tannin from the leaves. Ugh. The seller has now agreed to clean out the gutters before closing. We will try and clean the front of the house and we were already planning to paint due to some old stains. I've read some mixed reviews on painting stucco, but we don't have the funds to restucco the house right now. So the plan is to find a paint color that closely matches the natural stucco and only paint the front, which we can easily do ourselves and won't be a major undertaking to maintain and re-paint when necessary.

I'm just excited that I won't have to spend next weekend cleaning gutters!

2005-06-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

This is the house, as we found it in April.