Progress

I have two problem areas in my house. The weaving room and the basement. Why are they problem areas? Because I’m a slob. That really is the problem. I’m not very good at picking up after myself and making sure all of my stuff has a home.

Last Friday, my aunt and I started the task of going through my mom’s belongings. Apparently, that has inspired me to get my own house in order while I was at it.

Which is ironic. Since when a family friend passed away several years ago (he was a Depression-era kid, so he took the phrase “lifetime supply” to a whole new level) I’ll always remember my mom saying that digging out his house convinced her that she’d never have that much STUFF. And that nobody would have to go through anything like that when she died.

Anyhow.

 The before pictures are really embarrassing, but I’ll give you a taste. This was standing in the doorway of the room. Not one inch of clear counters, I had stuff stacked all over the bench and even on top of the shafts of my loom. Sad Panda all around.

If you looked towards the front wall, you could see the mess of crap near the front window. What you can’t really see is that there were no clear footpaths anywhere in the entire room. It was a broken ankle waiting to happen.


See? Scary. And slightly humiliating. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you how long it’s looked like this.

 My wonderful friend Dianne sacrificed her Saturday night to come and help me tackle this room. I fed her Chinese food, gave her a skein of sock yarn, and called that her salary for the evening. By the time she left, the countertops were almost clear, and I was already starting to sort the many bins of yarn, project bags, “miscellaneous,” and weaving supplies.

Here’s most of the trash that came out. Two huge trash bags. Progress!


By bedtime on Sunday, I was done. And when I came downstairs on Monday morning, I walked into this room and had to smile.

And I have to tell you, I could feel my mom’s approval. I did it. I tackled the weaving room, and I won.



The best part? It makes me feel like I’m capable of fixing the basement, too.

Housekeeping

Last year, we pretty much ignored the yard. Let the grass burn out in the summer, didn’t do more than basic maintenance on the beds around two sides of the house, didn’t do anything about replacing mulch or cleaning up the edging. With all the renovations on the back of the house, it just didn’t make a lot of sense to put extra effort into landscaping that was going to be trampled and/or trashed. So this year, with a little help from a Facebook plea for help that came up with a gold-star landscaper, we have a great-looking house.


The beds were cleaned up last week and finished on Monday. They look spectacular.


The plants on this side (of the front door) don’t seem to grow as well, probably because they catch a lot of shade from the big tree. We moved the sprinkler head that finished under the stairs for the deck, and all parties agreed that trying to grow grass under those same stairs didn’t make a whole lot of sense, so we decided on landscaping fabric with gravel on top for that space.


We’ll be spraying and over-seeding the lawn over the next few weeks. Then we’ll definitely be off the hook as Neighborhood Slackers. I love our awesome house! And, finally, I’ll be headed to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival tomorrow (Friday) and will be there both days. If it’s as hot as forecasted, I’ll probably be wearing this hat and definitely be carrying this bag:


Now where the heck did I put my Ravelry name badge?

Home Sweet Home

When my parents were deciding where they wanted to live for the foreseeable future, this house had two big negatives: a yard and the fact that it needed some significant upgrades.

They chose to move to a condo roughly a mile away. The Hubster and I chose to purchase this house.

Way back at the end of 2008, we had an indoor waterfall that led to a full remodel of the master bathroom with some minor improvements to the master bedroom in the spring of 2009. It went well, we are still very happy with the resulting master suite.

So when we decided to go ahead with the last of the significant changes we wanted to make to this house, there was no question that we’d use the same contractor. And the family-friend architect who designed the house at the Lake.

We started with this.


Enclosed back porch. If it was warm enough to be out there, the air circulation was so bad that it was too hot to be out there. The space was claustrophobic. And those stairs? They were scary. You can’t tell from the picture, but they were all pitched differently. You were never comfortable going up or down the stairs because they were all different heights and widths. Not to mention the fact that nobody is quite certain how they stayed up. When it was time for them to be demoed, Jim and Pete basically used their pinky fingers to push them over. Scary. And GONE.

The finished deck is a composite surface. It’s very comfortable in my bare feet and will be maintenance-free, which was a high priority for us. If you want to picture the old porch in the following pictures, it was enclosed by the roof that we kept (great decision!) and that is still visible in most of the pictures.

Oh, yeah! I have a natural gas grill again. Love it SO much!

We now have a large open area underneath the deck. The part under the roof stays pretty dry, which is nice. At some point in the future, we hope to add a hot tub to the space under that deck.


The chunk of space that was added with the deck is substantial. Plenty of space for the table and chairs that we had and used in California, but that we hadn’t touched since we moved here in 2007. (why didn’t I put the cushions on the chairs for these pictures? I have no idea…)


See? Tons of new space. It’s awesome. And the space under the roof is wonderful. You really can sit on that part during a rainstorm and stay dry. I can’t wait to have a full three-seasons of use in 2012.

And behind that three-panel sliding door? That used to be a formal dining room. Now? It’s our TV room.


Jim and Pete built us a completely custom full-wall entertainment center that faces the sliding door. Lots of shelves, drawers on the bottom-left for blankets, and storage on the bottom right and above the TV.


The great hardwood floors? Were sitting there under the carpet. We didn’t touch them. No refinishing. They didn’t need it! We did spend about $200 on an area rug from Ikea to cover the floor, just to give us a little warmth in the winter. But even then, this room is above the laundry room, not the garage (like the old TV room and kitchen), so it’s warmer in the winter.

Once the TV that my mother won at a Rotary Club fundraiser worked, it was put in place and we were ready to move in to our new space.


We love it. I’d have to say that most mornings I still come downstairs, turn on the electric kettle for my morning cup of tea, then look either out the kitchen door to the deck or into the new TV room, and I’m happy. I love everything, the workmanship is great, and I can’t wait to spend the next 20-30 years enjoying the changes that we’ve made to this house.


Yeah, we have a few minor tweaks we need to handle. A sprinkler head to move, a tiny bit of landscaping. But I think it’s already pretty awesome.

So Close, And Yet So Far Away …

Sorry for the radio silence. I’ve been neck-deep in the mess in the basement and running around trying to keep up with this and that. But I figured it was at least time for a renovation update.

We’re down to a long list of small things that still need to be finished. But let me show you what’s been done since I blogged about it last!


Once our limestone actually made it here from Indiana, our fantastic stone mason got rolling. Bits of stone all over the place, but as the pillars went up, they look wonderful and really make the deck look like it’s integrated to the house … and always has been.


And, in case you were curious, stonework makes a massive mess. Our driveway started out black. Fortunately, it finished looking black again, after meticulous powerwashing.

So here are some peeks at the finished stone work:

A stone frame was put in around the sliding glass door. It makes it look like it’s always been there.

(The dark line going down the stone to the right of the door? That’s from the caulking they used to seal the enclosed back porch. The caulk is gone, but it stained the stone. Fortunately, it’s less noticeable IRL.)

Each of the three finished pillars will have a light fixture on the underside of the deck.


And the pillar at the bottom of the stairs will have one light fixture on the interior, and one on the exterior.

All in all, the stone work looks great.


Really, the only remaining exterior work is a little bit of electrical work (covering one of the outlets, installing the exterior lights, turning the last circuit on), one piece of molding under the roof and the downspout for the roof. Hooray!

The next huge milestone was seeing the dumpster go bye-bye.


When a Dumpster is parked in one spot for months (!!!) it collects a lot of water. And when it’s time for the dumpster to move, it pees lots of disgusting black water out the back door. But it’s gone! And that’s HUGE!

There is more stuff to do inside the house. The carpet came out on Friday.


And when it did, it revealed a swath of the linoleum of my childhood, which is obviously still under the floating “wood” floor of the kitchen.

Original hardwood floors in former dining room above, kitchen floor below.

And, finally, the built-in custom entertainment center.


This bad boy takes up the whole wall. The thing in the center just below the plugs on the white wall is the second drawer for the left-hand side of the unit. The thing on the floor will span the distance between the shelving units, above the TV.

This has been one of the bigger hold-ups, since Jim ran out of stain and had to order more from Pella. Which took for.ev.er. Doors, shelves, and panel behind the TV are expected tomorrow, along with the electrician. We’re starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Getting Closer

It’s been a few weeks since I last showed you the renovation here at Casa DPUTiger. I’d say that our fabulous and wonderful contractor only has a couple days of outdoor work remaining.

After more than a month of our stone sitting in Indiana (the state, not Indiana, Pa.), it’s finally being delivered tomorrow. There might be one more day’s work of outside stuff, excluding the stone work. Then it’s all about the interior improvements.

Meanwhile, here’s the update.

Over the 60 or so years since our house was built, the relatively narrow door from the kitchen to the back porch managed to shrink vertically, leaving an inch-high gap at the bottom. While that created an annoying draft when that door opened onto an enclosed back porch, it was something that absolutely had to be remedied when it was going to open directly into the Great Outdoors.


That’s Pete putting in the shiny new door, shortly after my last renovation post.

July 1 was a pretty big day around here. The picture window came out (and that’s Pete again, helping carry the picture window down the stairs)

(by the way … if you are in the market for a picture window, please let me know ASAP. This window is in pristine condition and was never actually exposed to weather. We’d really rather not put it in the dumpster if we can avoid it. And yes, we’re planning to put it on CraigsList.)

The hole got bigger



And the new sliding door went it!


Meanwhile, our HVAC guy was making a big mess too


That ductwork comes up from the basement, goes into the attic and snakes over to the ceiling of the master bedroom. It’s a big room, and Ralph felt it needed more air flow to heat and cool properly. As long as that exposed ductwork is eventually returned to its hole in the wall (literally), I’m fine with that.

Much of the remaining exterior work has been cosmetic stuff that has made a big difference. The bottom 6” of the roof was looking rather ratty the whole way around, and the gutter was leaking in the center. Contractor put in a new gutter, the vinyl siding the whole way around the bottom and added a third support post for the roof.


Jim (the contractor) decided that the sliding door should have a step between it and the deck. That went in on Monday. It’s perfect.


We’re really getting close. It’s kind of exciting.

In other news it was eight years ago today that I married The Hubster. He’s certainly proved that he’s a keeper, and I love him lots. I’m a pretty lucky girl, to be honest. Here’s hoping we’ll be enjoying these renovations together for decades to come.

Full exterior of house, Tuesday, 12 July 2011.

Renovation News

The renovation is moving right along. I’m hoping the sliding glass door will be in prior to the holiday. That would make me very happy.

Meanwhile, here are a few highlights since my last blog post. As always, there are entirely too many pictures on my flickr set (HERE).

One of the biggest days of excitement happened a few Fridays ago when we had a concrete pour for the area under the new deck. It was very interesting to watch. These guys really knew what they were doing and the Head Dude was obviously a perfectionist.


After the pour dried for a few hours, one crew member came back to give it a power wash and acid bath, revealing the exposed aggregate concrete. I never thought I could get excited about concrete, but then I saw this:


It’s beautiful. I love it.

While I was at The Mannings for my class, the contractors finished the treads on the stairs, which led to a text-message picture of the Hubster’s dress shoes standing on the deck, and me having to ask if that meant we had a door. It didn’t mean we had a door. It just meant that we had stairs.

Since my return, most of the work has been on the vinyl railing. Here’s a peek:


I’d say that as of yesterday, the railing is about 75% finished. They’re waiting on some long pieces before they can totally finish it up. It’s easy to get excited about this project now that we can really see it taking shape. Hopefully I’ll be blogging about the interior work very soon!

Meanwhile, here’s how the exterior of the house looked as of close-of-business on Tuesday.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today, I had a birthday. One of the ones that ends with a “0”

And demolition started on my house. It was awesome.

As my IRL friends have heard me saying for months, this is the last big planned renovation that we want to do on my kid-hood home. Back porch will be demolished (roof stays), we’re putting on a big ‘ol deck and we’re taking what used to be the formal dining room and making it the new “family room” or TV room.

It’ll be great when it’s done. I’ll try to document as much as I can here, but I’m out of town for the first two weeks of June (eek!) so I’ll do the best I can. Meanwhile …

Here is what the back of the house looked like before we started anything. It’s the layout I always remember, although apparently the stairs were re-done when I was a kid.



Some interior shots of the enclosed back porch …






My parents insist that they used the back porch all the time. I remember my mom sleeping out there occasionally when I was a kid, before the house was air-conditioned and it was the hottest part of the summer. Personally, I always felt like when it was warm enough to use the back porch, there was so little air circulation out there that it was stifling on the porch.

We’re gonna fix that.

For the first day of demolition, I’d say we really only had one surprise. Ants in the far wall, center post. Yuck-o.


Beyond that, it was just kind of cool to watch the back porch melt away. Demo is loud, but it’s fast. A lot got done today.



The stairs were one of the first bits to be altered.



If you look at the ground in this next picture, you can see that the AC unit is already gone. This pic was taken at lunchtime.



And a look at the outside, also at the lunch break.



So that was pretty much it from opening day. I’ll try to update periodically, but I’m also planning to put lots of pictures HERE, on my Flickr account.

Best Laid Plans …

Hi there!

I had all kinds of stuff I was going to share with you last week. Beach glass, a finished project, a great rainy day at the Lake, sunsets …


But first this happened


I left half of the power cord for my laptop right there, plugged in next to the loom. Oops.

My mom’s laptop was available for some basic internet usage while I was there Monday AM-Wednesday early afternoon, but any photo editing or downloading just wasn’t going to happen. I figured I’d catch up on Wednesday evening when I got home from the Lake.

Yeah.

I got home shortly after sunset. And this had happened


Wide view:


That’s parallel to our back fence, over the hill in our gully. We’ve called for estimates to get it cleaned up. Fortunately, if it falls between now and then, the worst thing it could take out is the actual fence. No biggie.

But the bigger deal was this


Don’t see the problem? How ‘bout this view of the same tree


Yeah, those are our power lines (and the power lines for Sydney's humans). Just below the large branch that's horizontal to the ground.

Our power was out when I got home on Wednesday at 7 p.m. (storm had gone through around 4:30 p.m.). We were still dark on Friday afternoon when the power company made it to our neighborhood and started chipping away at our problems. The second tree I showed you was taken care of by these guys


And we had power by around 8:45 p.m. on Friday night. Hooray!

We were fortunate that we had no actual property damage. Just about 52 hours in the dark. We lost the full contents of the fridge and it got a little toasty in the house, but otherwise no actual complaints. As I said to KnitN’at on Friday, the annoyance level was around 12, but the actual danger/damage level was zero. We were pretty fortunate, all things considered.

Meanwhile, we moved some furniture around and are test-driving a different room as our TV room. So far, so good!

I’m headed back up to the Lake Sunday evening. My last trip of the year.

I promise to take all of my power cord this time. You’re welcome.