A Bungalow Transformation

Holiday lights!

2010-12-18T11:33:00.001-05:00

The house is adorned.

Our house was featured on Apartment Therapy Chicago!

2010-08-27T14:49:00.002-05:00

OK, so we've admittedly been houseblog slackers in the extreme.
Our friend Jenny Wray freelances for ApartmentTherapy.com
and wrote and took dozens of photos of our house.
Check it out and write nice comments for her!
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/mary-erics-harrison-west-transformation-house-tour-125603

Have bar, will travel....

2010-03-03T22:06:00.000-05:00

We have a most magnificent vintage bar that we acquired from my stylish and fabulous friend Anne (former proprietor of No Lemmings Allowed). I'm pretty sure that her handy husband Sam made the kidney-shaped top as he used to make custom tables in the same shape. We held a joint garage sale when we were neighbors and when she didn't sell the bar she basically just let me have it. It was stashed in the basement at the old house and has spent the last year in the entry room of the new house, but our little basement project seemed tailor-made to create a new home for the bar. It fits ever so nicely in the back corner of the room. I reupholstered the chairs to go with the decor. And I have grand plans to decoupage the bar top with vintage travel images and luggage tags.
Eric and I created the shelf in the background that houses our vintage and travel barwear. I'll find a better pic that shows that off. We even cleared out some cabinet space in the kitchen by bringing the booze bottles down and we're loving the ledge for storage.

Eric saved the original back porch light in the renovation. He repainted the casing, rewired it with a light switch and mounted it to the rafter for more work light behind the bar. It's awesome and I love it! All of the ducts will eventually be painted with chalkboard paint so our visitors can "graffiti" the place up too:

Bar shelf and bar stools finished.

2010-03-03T21:07:00.001-05:00

Once the shelf was assembled I stained and polyurethaned it. This photo gives a better look at the decorative trim I put on the shelf to fancy it up:
With Eric's expertise we then put the shelf on the ledge (a near perfect fit) and stabilized it by attaching the whole thing to the beam in the ceiling in several places. Then for the fun part, filling it up with our glassware collection:

Next up was to recover the bar stools to better match the room. Here's the gaudy art deco fabric that has been gracing them for the last half decade (my doing, I admit):

I removed two layers of past upholstery and discovered the original vinyl covers in pretty good shape underneath it all:

Really cool, but didn't match the decor, so I recovered them in some canvas we picked up at JoAnn Fabrics that matches the curtain a little better:

An voila! Two barstools updated in under an hour. Next project, to refinish the bar:

Weekend Basement Warriors

2010-02-16T09:01:00.008-05:00

So, inspired by some friends in Cleveland who have an uber-cool basement with a London theme and monikered "The Underground", Eric and I decided to reclaim the first room in our cavernous basement. The room was heretofore home to the furnace, dehumidifier, shelves of comic books, an armoir full of crafting supplies and a pile of project furniture that I've had every intention of decoupaging for the last 3 years (yeah, that's really only about 1/2 the stuff that was in there, but you get the picture).

First we filled in the various holes in the wall with cement and then we drylock painted the entire room - even those walls that did not really need to be sealed, as they are internal walls, but we figured it couldn't hurt. Then we picked a lovely brick red color (same as the one we used for the "wine cellar") and we painted the entire ceiling to camouflage the 100+ years of grime and discoloration - or at least make the beams not so immediately ugly:
While we were up there we also wiped down all of the ducts and cross beams. See the makeshift beam support in the middle of this photo (look for the pole between the ladder and the ShopVac that holds a porch beam to the ceiling):

Eric added some crossbars in a couple places that allowed us to remove the random pole in the middle of the room (apologies to those of you who wanted to practice your stripper techniques):

Then 3 of the 4 walls received a coat of "interactive cream" paint:

With good friends like Suz helping out one afternoon we knocked out the wall painting project in no time:

Suz is also priceless as a photographer and captures a rare "couple" image. We're standing in the corner that we hope houses the bar one day soon:

With the walls and ceiling painted it was time to tackle the concrete floor (after numerous vacuumings and a couple passes with a mop). We believe that once upon a time (eons ago) the front room flooded as it was covered with a very fine layer of silt which we have been sweeping and vacuuming up since the day we got here. Now we're just sealing in whatever little of it is left. First up, a coat of concrete sealer:

And a second coat for good measure. The whole floor is left to "cure" for a week:

And then it gets a nice coat of subtle sage floor paint:

That has to cure for a week as well:

We hang a curtain and rod in the "good room" to shield the view of all of the stuff we hauled out of it to undertake this project. Curtain rod from Big Lots: $10; curtain from Pier One on clearance: $17.50; not having to stare at the almost impassable adjoining room: priceless.

A view of the curtain in action:

The one wall on the left as you enter the room we left white just in case we ever have to re-seal it one day (God forbid). But I was allowed to paint the upper wall and ledge. Now, who can spot the very subtle change in this photo from the one three back?

In the upper left corner you might notice a horizontal board and a cord. The ingenious Mister Martineau created a brilliant contraption to store the dartboard and shield the newly painted walls and wine cellar door:

What you have above is a dartboard on a hinged platform that hooks up to the ceiling when not in use. Hanging from the rafter behind it (and also hidden when not in use) is a bamboo curtain that can be dropped down to protect the walls and door from displaced darts (not from Eric or I, naturally).

In the "while we are at it" category, we decided to replace the ugly vinyl tile on the steps down to the basement. First we had to pry them up:

We found some vinyl tiles at Lowe's that look very similar to our kitchen floor (real tiles). $22 and 1/2 an hour later and we have a swanky new entrance to our future lounge. The oak trim and tin bar signs are from a previous Mister Martineau improvement project:

And now we're onto adornments. From a fence finial found in our backyard (on the old fence when we moved in) Eric created a nifty dart holder:

And in a quest to display some of the cool barware we own (rather than keeping it hidden in our cupboards), I set out to create a shelf that will fit into the wall behind the bar (see the "couple photo" for visual reference). I picked up all of the supplies yesterday afternoon at Lowe's in the midst of the snowstorm. Thank goodness for the help of my husband who's aid (and superior carpentry skills) made this project go twice as fast. The nearly assembled shelf has the decorative molding clamped below. It will also get molding on the shelves, then a coat of stain and poly:

Stairway to Heaven?

2010-01-12T11:42:00.012-05:00

I planned on removing the second-half of our basement stairs to waterproof the foundation wall. A secondary goal was to change the stair angle so that I wouldn't hit my head when going down the stairs. You see, the staircase that was there when we bought the house was not the original (I'm guessing the original rotted due to the water). In replacing the original staircase, the angle was altered. You can see below that the final tread of the replacement stairs extended into the doorway.

In the picture below you can see the original stair dimensions which are still visible in the concrete skimcoat. You can also see the 2nd stairway dimensions outlined in the white paint. This is the wall that had moisture penetration.

Below is the stairway with the dirt and debris cleaned out far enough to allow me to 1. access the wall and waterproof it, and 2. install steeper risers so the stairs don't have such a long horizontal travel. Discovering the hole in the floor, I decided to patch that, too.

Below: I cut new risers after calculating the rise/run which would allow me to walk the stairs without ducking my head. This entailed measuring the total vertical and horizontal distances to be covered and trying to find a rise/run ratio that would get you low enough fast enough to avoid hitting your head but still be walkable.

Back inside: After using hydraulic cement and cement patch against the foundation wall, I dryl0ck-painted the whole area. The wood trim in the photo below is where you would hit your head when walking down the old stairs.

Below is the new staircase. It is really great to be able to walk down the stairs without ducking or doing a limbo walk! They are steeper than they were, but not even so steep as dutch stairs.

And finally, a view from the top. Now the stairs end well before the doorway.

Tales from the Underground

2010-01-08T15:49:00.005-05:00

Still cold, so still working in the basement. We attacked the next section of wall over the past few days. Step 1, clear the wall.
Once cleared, scrape the loose paint.

Next - patch holes

And then paint, paint, paint.

15 degrees = indoor projects

2010-01-04T10:42:00.006-05:00

January has arrived with cold temperatures and a blanket of snow.

Despite the cold, it gladdens my heart to see bicycle tracks in the snow.

Aside from walking the dogs, outdoors is a bit too cold to enjoy. So we decided to work on our basement these first few days of 2010. Below is one of the walls in the first basement room, just as we found it 3 years ago. The bottles are relics from the crawl-space.

We scraped off the loose paint, patched some damaged concrete and began the seal-coat.

And Viola! One white wall! We figure that the one wall is about 15% of the whole room, so we have plenty of work remaining, but it was a good start.

Casings & Cornice

2009-12-18T11:27:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about stripping and refinishing some painted door casings. I posted a photo of the white-painted casings next to our laundry closet door. Below is the door after I removed the casings.

At the same time, I removed the painted casings to the door into the second floor den/guestroom.

After stripping the paint and sanding out the remaining paint, I stained and poly'd them. Pictured below is the finished product.

I also made significant ground on the other project, the tin-ceiling cornice installation.

I'm not done yet, as I am 2 pieces shy of having enough to finish. It turns out when measuring I probably used the actual wall/cabinet measurements and didn't account for the 5.25 inches of overhang on any exterior corner, and also I had to line up the seams in the cornice pieces with the seams on the ceiling, which resulted in me needing to cut-off somewhere between 1 and 6 inches on every corner. It was a challenge nailing into the hardwood cabinets, even after drilling pilot holes, but I didn't end up destroying any pieces so I am fortunate. I think I will take a break and just enjoy it over the Holidays!

Tackling the tin ceiling crown molding

2009-12-14T10:51:00.003-05:00

Below is our kitchen ceiling. We installed the tin ceiling, lets say, 2 years ago, before the rest of the kitchen was installed. After the flooring, cabinets, counters, paint and trim were installed, we still had to install the crown molding. This, quite frankly, scared the heck outta me, since 1. I've neve installed molding and have no experience with mitering/coping, and 2. the molding is thin-thin-thin metal, meaning it the pieces don't join in a tight seam, it could look pretty poor. Oh and 3. Since it has to mate with the tin ceiling, if I don't get it flush you will see a gap and it will look crappy. So, for the last 16 months I have put it off. But a sudden burst of courage and I decided to take it on.

We purchased the cornice pieces at the same time we bought the ceiling pieces and thankfully did not destroy them during the past 2+ years. Armed with all the installation instructions I could find on the internet and a power-miter saw borrowed from old friends, I was equiped to do the job. Now, to see if I could actually do it.

And below you have section #1. Honestly can't believe how well it is coming out. Not claiming it's perfect, but over-all, quite happy with it so far.

Return of the Street Trees

2009-11-19T08:15:00.002-05:00

Over the summer we blogged about how the city cut down all of the street trees across from our house. Well, with the support of our local neighborhood association and our own tenacity, the city agreed to plant new trees "in the fall." After being reminded that fall was fully underway, the city actually did it. The dwarf pear trees pictured below were planted yesterday. Dwarf pears should not grow tall enought to interefere with the electrical wires. As an added bonus, the city planted a total of 9 trees, whereas there had been only 6 on that side of the street.

I'm glad the city followed through and I only hope I'm around to see the trees full-grown!

Strippin' is hard work.

2009-11-18T21:05:00.009-05:00

No, no pictures of g-strings and pole-dancing in this post. Just pictures of the upstairs door casings. In our environmental furvor, we used all the salvage wood we could during the renovation. This resulted in us using 6 door casings (12 boards in total) which had been painted. Below is an example.

So, I pried-off one of the casings and sanded it down, stained it and poly'd it. HUGE pain in the butt, as the paint was applied to unfinished wood so it sank into the grain. Getting it out I gouged the board, but not so badly that I had to replace it. Still, hoping to save some time, I looked at the local architectural salvage yard for unpainted pieces with the same profile, but no luck. Then I called a refinisher for a quote on dip-stripping the pieces. At nearly $30 per board, I could probably get new ones milled for that price. So, I bought some stripper from the local hardware store and tried the second board using the stripper. While messy, it was much easier than sanding out all the paint. Below shows the refinished casings on both sides of the door.

It is exciting, as both casings shown above were painted light-blue as of last week. 2 down, 10 to go...

Tiny Canary application images

2009-09-27T12:26:00.015-05:00

When it's slow we hijack the houseblog for alternate purposes. I'm going to do that right now as the fine folks at Tiny Canary (a fab local craft show) requested a weblink to view images of submitting artists' work. Apologies to regular readers for your house update interruption.

I've been "professionally crafting" since 1996 when I owned & operated Transformations, a gallery on High Street (where Lindsay Gallery is now) for 5 years. There I wildy painted and decoupaged vintage furniture to my heart's content. When I closed the gallery in 2001 I segwayed into smaller projects with the same spirit that I sold at places like ComFest, Yellow Springs Street Fair and Craftin' Outlaws (and, hopefully in a shared booth this year at Tiny Canary with Clinton Reno).

The majority of my work focuses around a few themes near and dear to my heart: the Short North (using my own photographic images), scooters (using my own and found images), comics (using strictly found, never copied images), and most recently, collaborative projects with my neighbor/pal/awesome graphic designer Clinton Reno. With images supporting these themes I create pendants, buttons, magnets, coasters, belt buckles and mirrors.

First sample, pendants. I make square ($8 each, 2/$15) and rectangular pendants ($12 each) decoupaged on glass tiles, decorated with different images on both sides, coated with a durable resin for protection and waterproofing and finished with sterling silver plated aanraku bails. The rectangular pendant pictured below features an amalgamation of 6 separate images layered for the final effect. Many of my rectangular pendants are patchwork designs:

The square pendants are not quite as elaborate as most feature a single image. Images include Short North photos (from my own collection), comic images (found), scooter images (found and my own), Clinton Reno images, and a small collection of found image pendants.

I discovered this trellis in my friend's backyard and it makes the perfect compact pendant display accomodating all of my square and rectangular pendants (as seen at ComFest):

I'm always in awe of how many buttons folks buy. I make comic, scooter-themed and silly celebrity buttons ($2 each, 3/$5- though only the comic and scooter would be at TC):

One of my signature items is Short North magnets ($5 each). I've sold these for seven years. The photos are always evolving with the neighborhood and this year I started combining 4 mini images on these 2"x2" tiles so people get more of the places they love on their little squares:

The tile magnets are typically displayed on an old metal fridge door (space permitting) that I found, where else, in the Short North when somebody was gutting an apartment!

Clinton Reno is a fabulous graphic designer and friend. We started collaborating on projects last year. His images make outstanding coasters ($8 each, 2/$15):

I also make Short North coasters (from my photos) and comic coasters from found images (the Wonder Woman series is especially popular):

My coasters are typically displayed on a small bookshelf which can accomodate a range of them:

Last year I discovered the joy of making belt buckles ($25-40) and can regularly be spotted sporting one of my own creations. These stick to 3 themes: the Short North, comics and scooters. The odd display is actually a baguette baking pan:

Finally, one of my other signature and most recognizable items is my collection of Short North mirrors ($35 each). A half-dozen of these fit on a small tabletop display:

Thanks for considering the joint Martineau-Reno application. I've submitted bunches of options of my work for consideration but will likely pare down the final offering as necessary according to space constraints. I hope we make the final cut!

The only original window left

2009-09-08T07:41:00.004-05:00

Below is the door to our basement. Many decades ago it used to lead to the front porch. The transom window is the only original window left in the house. As you can see, the window had been painted along with the door jam.
On Saturday I scraped the paint on the edge of the door jam and also removed the transom window. It had been nailed shut, so it was no easy task. After removing the transom I scraped off the multiple layers of paint, sanded it, and stained it to match the door casings. I cleaned and scraped the glass as well, though only on the 1 side. Since it looks out on our basement stairs, I wanted to keep the it opaque. While I do have to still polyurethane it, and also add a latch since it now will hang open, I am quite happy with the results of my 1/2 day project.

Summer Update

2009-08-27T09:36:00.003-05:00

Summer is winding down and for the most part we have kept busy with non-house related activities. One of those activities was hanging a hammock in our back yard. It has been quite peaceful to sit out there and read. So peaceful and quiet, that the wildlife which surrounds the house can be totally unaware that someone is suspended in a hammock 5 feet away. Take this groundhog for instance.

He wandered UNDER the hammock and around the yard one night in June. Amazed, I snapped this picture and quietly called Mary on my cell phone and told her about the groundhog in the back yard. Which turned out to be a bad idea: y'see, Mary came to check it out. And where Mary goes, so goes Bogart, our dog. Mary grabbed the screen door handle to prevent Bogart from going into the yard... but he's 70+ lbs, and the screen door is pretty flexible. So BANG! Bogart is out the back door and chasing the groundhog as it desperately runs to the back gate.

So, how thin do you think groundhogs can compress their bodies to get under a fence gate? You'd be amazed. There might be 3 inches of clearance under our gate, and after I grab Bogart so the groundhog doesn't hurt him (Bogart's big, but not tough!), the groundhog flattens himself and squeezes under the fence. I couldn't believe it.

Anyway, just thought I'd keep everyone informed about the wild animal adventures at our new home.

Before and After the City & Battelle cut down the trees

2009-07-06T11:57:00.002-05:00

If you want to get an idea of how 3rd Ave looked before the city, at the request of Battelle's contractors, wiped out all the trees on the north side of 3rd between Perry and the river, go to Google Maps and put in 328 W. 3rd Ave., Columbus, OH. Rotate the image until you are looking West.

Now, compare with the picture below, taken 10 minutes ago.

I may not be able to stop it, but I sure won't be happy (or quiet) about it...

2009-07-06T09:15:00.016-05:00

If, like me you enjoyed the early spring drive down West Third Avenue between Perry and Olentangy River Road and the gorgeous pear trees in bloom:The lovely view out our living room window as a case in point:

Then perhaps you will join me in mourning the loss of "our" trees this morning to a city/Batelle sidewalk repair project. From inside our house early this morning we heard lots of "landcaping" or yard work sounding noise, but did not bother ot investigate. When Eric walked out on the front porch to take his bike to work we determined the source of the sounds:

City of Columbus workers were (are as I type) chainsawing down the trees and tossing them in a (very loud) chipper. It seemed fundamentally wrong to be so (in my opinion) carelessly cutting down what I imagine are 20 year old arbors. We'd noticed last week that the concrete was torn our next to each tree and they were marked with blue "x"es. "Our" tree before 10 a.m.:

I put in a couple phone calls to the mayor's action hotline when we noticed last week but did not receive a response. I guess I got one this morning. I immediately placed calls to everyone I could think of who might be able to help/provide answers: a couple people in the mayor's office who live in Harrison West and the president of the Harrison West Society. The tree-felling gentlemen were kind enough to cease and desist at the tree in front of our house until I could get some answers. I spoke to several individuals at the Recreation and Parks Department Forestry Division from the receptionist to leaving messages for the Head Forester and several others.

Ultimately it came down to said explanation (bear with me as I'm an amateur): the utilities topped off the trees badly last year (that was evident in their lopsidedness, but they otherwise appeared healthy so I'm lost as to how this is a factor in the tree's demise); the "property owner" (presumably Battelle) is required to maintain the sidewalks and the tree roots were interfering with the sidewalk concrete; the "property owner" hired a contractor to replace the sidewalk sections in question; contractor determines that the tree roots need to be ground down/cut for level sidewalks; it is feared that once the roots are cut the pear trees will die anyways so the City is removing the pear trees.

Alas, the tree "after" 10 a.m.:

My frantic calls this morning were only good enough to stave off the action for about 1/2 an hour. They did get me a conversation with Alan McKnight, head of Columbus Recreation and Parks Division. He said he would "work with the community" to get the trees replaced but could offer no timeline for this to happen (and with the current budget crisis forgive me if I'm not holding my breath). It also warranted a visit to my front door by Jim Long (I'm just guessing here as his shirt was embroidered with "Jim" and that was one of the individuals I was attempting to contact) that was merely the signal that the work was about to resume. Jim kindly explained that it was "necessary" to remove the trees as once the roots were cut (and the roots had not been touched yet) the trees would likely die. Just moving on down the line:

All of this is supposedly happening at the request of the "property owner's contractor" and has the approval of the Columbus Division of Forestry. Mr. Long's repeated use of the phrase "it's the cost of doing business" did very little to quell my dismay at losing a row of 6 beautiful mature trees. According to "Jim", supposedly the City would be willing to replace the trees. Supposedly they could do so without the permission of the "property owner" as the City technically owns the right of way. He says this to make me feel better before outrightly admitting that the city would not do so without the approval of the property owner as the care of new trees requires lots of watering, etc. that the City would expect said property owner to assume.

The chipper makes quick work of 20 year old trees:

During my multiple conversations with City representatives I inquire how it is possible that the City would just come in and clear cut a row of trees in a neighborhood with an active Harrison West Society and a neighborhood action plan that includes little details like, you know, mature trees lining the streets. Both representatives reinforced that the notion that the City would bother to inform neighborhood groups of actions like tree removal just wasn't going to happen (but we weren't talking ONE sick tree here people- you just took out an avenue's worth). And by 11 a.m. it was done. 120 years worth of tree growth systematically removed by the City "as the cost of doing business". Do me a favor, call Alan McKnight and ask him when we get "our" trees back. He can be reached at 645-3310.

ComFest is coming! New merch includes coasters with Ohio rocks image!

2009-06-23T21:48:00.002-05:00

ComFest is now just days away and I've been working my little fingers to the bone to create an inventory worthy of my favorite event. This year's stock includes:

Short North themed items including: mirrors, coasters and magnets (2 types this time!) Comic character items including: coasters, magnets and buttons

Buttons galore! Comic buttons, celebrity buttons (does this make them ironic?), scooter buttons and more!

Sooo many magnets: bottle cap magnets, bubble magnets, button magnets

Clinton Reno collaborations: Ohio Rocks!* And Ohio wine coasters and pendants

And one of my newest additions, pendants! Short North pendants, scooter pendants, comic pendants, artsy pendants and, of course, pendants featuring snippets of artwork by Clinton Reno!I fell into the COOLEST display for the pendants hanging out in our friend's back yard drinking wine. (We'll call him Lex). In the corner of the yard was this trellis that looked just the right size to hang my mini-artwork. He was kind enough to lend it to me (kinder still to lug it out to the van even) and VOILA! I'm loving it! YELLOW SPRINGS CLEARANCE: since I've given up on the Yellow Springs Street Fair (I still love you Yellow Springs, but your $165 entry fee is just too rich for my blood and I'm afraid the quality of your vendors has declined)...there will be HUGE DISCOUNTS on all Yellow Springs merch including mirrors (reg. $35 now $10), coasters (reg. $8 each now $3 each and 4/$10), and magnets (reg. $5 each now $2 each and 3/$5)! So if you love YS come get some great deals!
Hope to see you at ComFest. Anne of Wish Art Glass and I will be in our usual spot on the park side of Park Street about 12 booths or so north of the main park entrance. Look for the Wish flag flying over our booth. Brother Michael will be our worker bee for the weekend (fondly known as Baby Martineau to some of you) so stop by and say "Hi!" And for goodness sake bring us a beer!

*Ohio Rocks! is by no means any sort of (our) registered trademark, it's merely how we casually refer to this image created by my graphic designer friend.

Tearing out the last of the Chain-link fence

2009-05-28T07:25:00.006-05:00

2+ years after we purchased the house, we have completely rid the property of the old chain-link fencing. Below is a shot of the last remaining panel as of yesterday morning, 8am. I had already removed the panel & post that went down the hill to the sidewalk.

By 9am I had removed the actual fencing and the post at the top of the hill. As that post was at the top of the hill, I could just dig into the hill to reach the concrete and then pull it out. Mighty heavy, but it didn't require my usual technique: the sledge-hammer. Seriously, provided you don't need to be certain of getting all of the concrete base out, a sledge hammer works wonders. Dig around the post base some, then wail away. It will either loosen up the whole post so you can pull it and its base up, or it will crack the concrete base so you can pull up the post itself. OK, so it's not quiet, and it does dent the posts so they aren't very usable, but I doubt many people plan on re-using old chain-link posts.

After Mary and I hammered this last post into sumbission, we sank the new fence brackets and BAM! We have a new front fence and are 100% chain-link free.

Fencing on the cheap

2009-05-26T07:10:00.004-05:00

On a trip to Lowe's yesterday Mary saw some metal fence panels which resemble the vintage wroght-iron we have across our front yard. It's not a perfect match, but the tines profile is the same, and it has gates, too! $300+ later, we had purchased enough panels and gates to enclose our front yard, meaning we can sit out there with the dogs and not worry about them making a dash to the park across the street!

The only new part in the photo below is the gate, which blends in nicely.

On the left is the antique fencing, and from the gate to the right is the new.

We still have to complete the west side of the yard, but that will entail removing a stretch of old chain-link fence and posts and also drilling into concrete, so that will have to be done another day!

Summer Push

2009-05-26T06:57:00.006-05:00

I put together a list of projects which I hope to complete before summer. One of those is to bury the gutter drain line which lays across our walkway around the house and across our yard to the hill in front. This is not as simple as grabbing a shovel, since the gutter downspout is above our concrete walkway and I have to get beneath a 6 foot stretch of concrete walkway.

So below shows the story in pictures. Using a concrete blade on the ciruclar saw, I cut the one large concrete piece in half (so each was light enough to move...with help... barely). Then cut a notch for the drain pipe. Then dig, dig, dig. Oh, since I was under there I also dug out an extension of the French drain I ran up to the concrete walk.

Once done digging, I laid new drain pipe out the the edge of the hill. Backfill with gravel and move the ungodly heavy concrete back into place and done!

Gone batty

2009-05-26T06:52:00.004-05:00

Below was a small project from last week. We have a Bat House! Being so close to the river, our neighborhood has more than a fair amount of mesquitos. We see a decent number of bats at night, so I thought I'd put out the welcome mat for our flying friends with the hope they will do what they do: eat hundreds of mesquitos every night. Using a plan I picked-up from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources, I built it and mounted it to the back of our shed. Cross your fingers that some bats move in!

It's not easy being green

2009-05-18T08:28:00.006-05:00

With all of the construction over the past 2 years, we had zero grass in our backyard. 100s of nails and 1000s of concrete bits, brick bits and other construction debris, but no grass. I was able to get some to root last summer/fall. But to give you an idea how much, here is a photo from this past March: Only a few tufts of grass survived the winter.

Ahhh, and now a photo from this morning: ITS GREEN! OK, it's not fairway quality, but this was no easy task, given our 2 dogs and the fact we often invite friends with dogs to visit. I love Spring and having a green yard makes me happy.

Polishing a Turd

2009-05-18T08:06:00.005-05:00

Below is the shed in our backyard. Its foundation is not level due to the large tree you can see growing right next to it. Even if it was level, it is simply ugly as sin.

So I decided to polish the turd with a new coat of paint. Of course, brown hides flaws better than "empire gold," so once done, I realized it needed more help.
So, I cut some trim pieces to hide the seams of the siding and to run along the roof-line. It's still a more shack than shed, but I did have 3 different neighbors say they liked it!

Returning to the woodwork

2009-05-18T07:58:00.004-05:00

Here is the result of this weekend's efforts. This is the coat closet off the dining room.
Before, with the unstained woodwork:

After, including the quater-round along the baseboard molding.

I also spent a couple of hours scraping paint off the door jam to the closet and the edge of our mantel. It's a big improvement, but not one that shows up well on camera!

A rough draft

2009-03-16T06:50:00.003-05:00

I assembled the bricks into a rough version of the outdoor fireplace we are planning to build. I wanted to see the dimensions and get a feel for how much space it would take up in our yard. The outter-ring of bricks is the apron and base, which will probably be 4 bricks in height.

The reality is it may be a long time before this gets built for real, but when the time is right we should be ready to go.

And since it was the weekend we went brick-hunting again, coming up with 25 or so pavers and a few other salvaged pieces of stone.

Our New Obsession

2009-03-12T07:11:00.003-05:00

Inspired by our recent purchase of 140 or so antique paver bricks, over the last week we have been collecting additional pavers and bricks to incorporate into various yard projects. We found a place where old pavers had been dumped many years ago, so while it takes a good deal of effort to dig them out and transport them home, the hunt is fun. (No, we will not divulge the location!) In addition, during our hunt we have found a stash of old firebrick. These are similar to the pavers in that most are stamped by the company that made them (A.P. Green, Davis Hi Grade, etc.) but they are not as tall as a paver, instead having the shape of a traditional brick. But we found a pretty big stash of them, so now we are designing an outdoor fireplace! It is a bit of a sickness, as the more we find the more we come up with projects to use them. I'm pretty sure we won't brick up our whole house, but we do get a bit obsessive, so somebody stop us if we start to wall-off our house.

Here is the current haul:

Brick Paver Haul

2009-03-05T22:25:00.004-05:00

With the temperature above 50 today for the first time in months, I thought of the backyard and our patio plans. A quick search on Craigslist and I found a listing for some granite edging stones. I arranged to look at them around 5pm. Turns out that in addition to the great granite pieces the guy was also selling antique paver bricks. These are the bricks that most Ohio streets were built using before asphalt took over. Historic districts still have the paver streets (and any section of town before 1940 probably has the brick under the asphalt). These bricks are all different makes, including Nelsonville, Hocking, etc. and even some Ohio State Penitentiary blocks which read "convict" since that was who made them.

So here's our haul. Please don't tell our VW mechanic as we might have stretched the weight limit of the Eurovan.

We were very lucky in that the seller had a dolly to move the bricks close to the van. And once home, our good neighbors Clinton & Becky (and Wyatt) helped unload the bricks. In thanks, we gave them the "Clinton" stamped brick. Sorry, no Becky or Wyatt stamped bricks.

2009-02-25T10:53:00.003-05:00

This is the project I've been working on for a few weeks. It started as a 10-speed left out for the trash. I've converted it to a single-speed (no, not fixed gear. I love my knees too much).

It isn't finished yet as I'm planning a few upgrades, but the drivetrain and wheelset are done so I have been riding it the past couple of days. It's been fun and I've learned alot in the process.

How does this relate to the house? Now that I have the workbench set up and a room to work in, I get to tackle fun projects like this. I love me an organized basement!

If you ever need a special gift....

2009-02-17T19:37:00.001-05:00

My very talented friend, Anne Simon, is an amazing glass artist. She's been working in stained glass and creating her own unique designs for more than a decade. She "recently" (well, recently in the time I've known her, which probably means in the last 5 years....or more) has begun working with fused glass. The combination of her gorgeous fused glass panels incorporated into her stained glass designs is stunning. And now others are recognizing her genius. Anne was just featured on a well-known craft blog: Found-Handmade: Flowers , Water, & Sky
And she's got a terrific etsy site: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5672973 should you ever need to buy your your wife/girlfriend/sister/favorite aunt/ or me (Mary) a unique, beautiful, affordable gift! If it's too much to shop online (or you're the type that needs to touch and feel things before you buy them) I suppose you could just wait until the last weekend in June and track her down at Community Festival in Goodale Park. Anne and I have been ComFest booth neighbors/partners for the better part of a dozen years. And it's all good unless we're experiencing one of those notorious ComFest monsoons. In which case we'll be happy to offer you shelter (we create quite the rain-preventitive-but hardly rainproof -bunker) but if you try to shop while we're holding onto our tent for dear life you'll likely find yourself cast out to fend for yourself. We'll be in Goodale Park June 26-28 on the park side of Park Street about 12 booths north of the main park entrance. Look for the yellow Wish Art Glass flag flying proudly over our booth!

Valentine's Day Projects...

2009-02-14T16:09:00.007-05:00

Ever since we purchased our rolling library ladder earlier this week we have been eager to fully install it so that we can climb up into the loft without damaging the wall (as we would if we tried while it was just leaning there). Which is not to say we didn't think it wasn't uber cool when we were just sitting in bed admiring our awesome find. We weren't sure how difficult the task would be, but were delighted when it all came together in under half an hour. First I removed the extended bracket pieces while Eric drilled out a piece of dowel rod that was stuck in our rolling bar. Then I climbed up into the loft (carefully using the library ladder) and held the bar in place about where we thought we were going to hang it. Once we decided on the spot I threaded the brackets onto the roll bar (it's hollow and has a slit on the back).

In retrospect, we're extremely lucky that we found both a roll bar and the hardware as we certainly could have rigged something up, but it would have been a little more difficult not to mention not as secure as the existing system. Eric used the stud finder to determine the best spot to anchor the bracket that would be closest to the ladder. Once that was in we checked level on the bar and anchored the other end. From there we used the stud finder to locate joists in the center to attach the other two brackets, and we were in business! Here's a view of the ladder's roll bar:

And the full view from across the room (obviously we won't be rolling it at all with the lingerie chest and TV in the way, but we could if we wanted to move everything!)

Eric looking gargantuan from below tests the ladder:

And a view from the other side of the room: We are quite pleased with the result! Eric also wired the Max and Erma's lamp:

We still have to figure out where we're going to hang it, but in the meantime it's ready to go once we make the decision!

A last stroll (and souvenir seeking) through City Center

2009-02-11T09:15:00.014-05:00

We received notice that City Center Mall was starting a fixture clearance sale yesterday. City Center was "The Mall" when E arrived for law school in the early 90s. At the time it boasted Henri Bendel, Coach and Gucci stores among the ranks of other highly regarded national brands. Since around 2000 it's been on a steady decline. As of last night Mark Pi's seemed to be the only place still in business (ironic given the chain's performance elsewhere). But we'd been patrons of the place, have an affinity for it and decided to go on a final nostalgic tour. The neighbors joined us as Clint's always looking for fixtures for his art studio. We hit the main parking garage and scored spots 20' from the entrance - if you are a former CC shopper you know what a jackpot that would have been in the heyday- now it's open season on spaces. We took a memorabilia shot at the entrance (putting on our sad faces- well, except Clint who's beaming in anticipation of finding cool stuff):

Not far from the entrance we discovered a corral of strollers perfect for securing one squirming toddler for the first leg of the journey:

Then the tour began. It was downright amazing. Almost every storefront was completely open (many had been boarded up with the scenic store facades long ago), many had fixtures pulled out into the aisles for inspection, some had lights, some you wandered through in whatever haze was left from the main mall lighting (if you go, I recommend taking a flashlight). Clint was enamored of some lighting and shelving almost immediately. We tracked down the folks at the staged "main office"/checkout (1st floor right outside the elevators) to learn what the deal was if we were interested in anything. It appeared that anything not attached: props, mobile fixtures, mannequins, etc. was fair game to ask for a quote or make an offer. If it was "attached": light fixtures, wall shelving (even on brackets), etc. they were going to try to sell it as a "whole store" and that game was likely out of our budget/aptitude. We wandered the whole first floor and - I hate when people use this word- but it was really surreal. We had a guessing game of "what store did this used to be"? And based on the dregs of what was left: literally the color of the walls in some cases, we'd try to peg the place - we were pretty poor at it in most cases (although every former Limited-brand store is still readily identifiable). Clint was innocently snapping pictures on the first leg of our journey until we were scolded by a security guard and informed that was not permitted (?!).

I think it was on the far half of the first floor (a big empty mall is disorienting) when we rounded the corner and Eric and I laid eyes upon something we've been wanting, weren't looking for last night and would never have expected to discover here...a library ladder laying in the aisle outside the former Lady Footlocker! Alas, it was marked SOLD.....but wait....there's another one lying in the store and it is unmarked...awww, but it's cracked....but we're handy people, we can glue it! And so I jetted off to find one of the "people with the clipboards" who were roaming the mall writing up tickets for the dozen or so gawkers/shoppers. While Eric was pondering the ladder fix I found "Doug" (so said his name sticker) who immediately knew the ladder in question as well as its shortcomings (structurally speaking) which we discussed as we made our way back to the shop. Upon consultation with Doug we decided we could make it work and then headed back to the stockroom to see if, by remote chance, the brackets and roll bar might also be about. There was hardware attached to a tall shelving unit, but better yet...Doug spotted a completely unscathed ladder for us! We were giddy at the prospect and giddier still when we uncovered brand new brackets in a tub of random hardware and a 9' long section of roll bar just leaning in a corner. All right! We've got our goodies, now comes time for negotiation..."What do do think this is worth?" Queries Doug (who in conversation we come to find is an IT guy who's on vacation and just here helping out an uncle). "Um, I have no idea" says Eric. "Well I think $1,000 is too much," Doug says. To which Eric laughs and responds "And if I paid $1.00 for it I'd feel bad, so we'll have to come up with something in between." Then Doug says the magic phrase, "How about $50?" Eric doesn't even have time to respond as I jump in "That sounds fair!" Knowing my complete bargaining nature my husband is a little surprised by my quick acquiescence, but I'd researched library ladders awhile ago and while I didn't remember exact figures that sounded like a great bargain to me! Eric went to the main office to pay, then we hauled the ladder, pole and brackets off to the car (oh wondrous Eurovan) and returned for more exploration - there were 2 more floors to go! I'll interject here with photos of the ladder which we promptly staged for display at home this morning. Here's the ladder in its intended ultimate vicinity which we'll use to access the loft in our bedroom:

It's even got really cool retro-looking wheels:

It's also stamped Putnam Rolling Ladder Co. (to whom I have emailed for a quote as they don't have pricing on their website- I'll update here when I receive it...and the price estimate says: $1,956.80!!!):

The brackets which will mount it to our wall:

I did a little internet research this morning and the similar ladders I found start at $779 for a kit on Ebay! I used the estimator on another company's website, put in our specs and it gave me the whopping sum of $1,809!!! That makes us muy content with the $50 price tag! (The cracked one and some brackets were still there if you're in the market. And if you take a phillips head screwdriver you can always salvage the ones still hanging).

After stashing our ladder we rejoined the neighbors on the hunt. Baby neighbor was having great fun running about the vast empty storefronts while we scavenged for goodies. We came out with a nice little haul from the old Po Furnishings. We picked up these mod cubbies (and a big roll of bubble wrap for my crafting) for $20:

We're not that mod so they may become black one of these days. Neighbors found a cube wall unit (not attached and thus available for picking), a cool mod square table, some drapes and signage display stands. While paying for our second load of stuff I noticed that the woman in front of us had a gorgeous Tiffany-style lamp shade that she hauled off. "Was that from Max & Erma's?" I asked the cashiers. "Yep! They're selling it all!" C'mon Eric it's time for another nostalgic tour as we shared at least a few meals in the CC M&E! We walked into the restaurant and it was contentedly familiar with its massive dark warm wood fixturing and brass railing (albeit covered in a not-so-fine layer of dust). There were at least a dozen of the stained glass lampshades still hanging over tables that used to occupy congenial casual diners. "So what's the deal?" I ask the clipboard-carrying Doug who appears from across the restaurant where he's been helping another couple. "Any lampshade is $75." There are a dozen light bulbs scattered on tables around the room, most blown. Find a light bulb that works (even if you have to take it out of another lamp) and put it into any lampshade you're interested in. Check it thoroughly- some of them are marked SOLD on the glass - those are already paid for and not up for grabs. But if you find one that's unmarked and you like it, it's yours for the sum of $75. Eric and I aren't much for fussy decor. While I love the whole notion of the Tiffany (or in this case Tiffany-style) lighting, it tends to be too Victorian for my taste. So while I admire the fine craftsmanship and the artistry of the details, they're not my cup of tea decorating-wise. Still, it seems like kind of a steal at $75 and it would be piece of City Center history and my nostalgia is beginning to override my rationality. There were lampshades with dragonflies (which my sister loves - maybe in honor of her?) and irises (hey, mom used to grow those in our back yard) and other lovely floral patterns....can you see me talking myself into this? And then in a little nook next to the bar we found the one. It was still Tiffany-esque, but it also had a nice craftsman aesthetic. Mother-of-pearl-y quadrangles framed a border of copper glass squares. That's it, we're buying it...and then we're done! We paid for the last of our bounty and headed out of the once-grand mall. When we got our lamp into the "bright light" provided by the glaring parking garage security bulbs as compared to the semi-dusk glow of the restaurant the rich colors really perked up (not that you can tell in this shot on my dining room table):
It occured to me on the way home that the lamp nicely complements the fixture that is on our front porch....and that was a Valentine's gift to each other just a couple years ago:
And so on our slightly melancholy (for the loss of City Center) but totally geeking (for the really cool treasures we found) trek home we declared our shopping spree's unexpected bounty our early Valentine's Day gifts to each other...and it looks like we just picked up a couple projects to complete on the holiday this weekend!

Sunday's small project

2009-01-26T08:11:00.005-05:00

Now that the work bench and tools are a bit organized, it is way easier to tackle other projects. One project that has been on the list is to re-hang the mailbox, but to do so in a way that makes it more useful. Below is the vintage mailbox we have for our house. But "back in the day" they apparently didn't get Crate & Barrel catalogues and junk mail, so it's too small for most day's mail volume. So, using my jig-saw and work bench, I cut a frame for the mailbox to rest on and I removed the back. I'd say it's interior volume was increased nearly double. Exciting? Not really, but I'm sure the mailcarrier will appreciate not having to fold our mail like origami and jam it into the mailbox... at least most days.

Just a bit of paint and caulk and it's done. But it's too cold out right now for that.

The workbench

2009-01-21T11:04:00.003-05:00

Eric worked really hard over the weekend and the last few days to finish the workbench. The crowning achievement of the basement organization. As you recall here's the space before:
For more drama, and an overview of the room another "before" shot (with the now-relocated doors):

And after:

All that remains is to hang our gazillion random screwdrivers, wrenches and random tools on the pegboard and to put in the lower shelf for....more storage!

Back to the basement!

2009-01-18T19:04:00.004-05:00

...on the continuing tour of our overloaded basement. I didn't take this pic last time:
The comic book stash. It greets you as you enter the basement. We spent the majority of our Saturday down there and felt mighty accomplished. First, a glimpse at the space "before" the multi-boxed cabinet goes up. That concrete wall is holding back lots of dirt, and not very well.

In front of the brick wall above all of our leftover doors used to reside leaning up against the wall. First order of business was to move them to the middle room:

Eric assembled a nifty support system and voila! Lots of storage.

As I was emptying boxes and filling the cubbies with hardware parts I discovered that it was originally used in a hardware store after all! On the side of each box is a space where the description of what it used to house (nails, screws, etc) and the sizes are written!

The man and his masterpiece:

For "fun" we then put up a shelf for our supply of spray paint:

The shelf came from an old JoAnn Fabrics store that used to be in the neighborhood but went out of business years ago. I have a small obsession with retail fixtures (thanks to my first "real" job as a manager at a Department Store) so I scavenged the place when they were having their going out of business sale and thought I could use it to house my craft stuff (specifically coasters at ComFest). Instead it gathered dust and took up space on a shelf at the old house, but it seems to have found the perfect use at this one (thus encouraging me to continue to keep other stuff I've not yet found a use for). It's an odd assortment of colors that I really keep meaning to weed out and donate to some artistic cause (we have 4 cans of dayglo orange and 4 of boring gray for instance), but in the meantime we just move it around. The shelf really JUST FIT every last can of spray paint we own, so if we acquire more we'll have to get rid of at least a few cans!

Simple but satisfying

2009-01-15T17:38:00.003-05:00

Here's one of those ridiculously simple tasks that once done makes you feel silly that you are so excited about it. Hanging the curtain and rod in the upstairs hallway:
Hypothetically the neighbors, if their timing was impeccable, could have been catching glimpses of skin as we dashed from bathroom to bedroom as one is occasionally wont to do. This was a dual project. Eric "fixed" the curtain rod we'd purchased on clearance somewhere. By the time we were ready to used it the cute crackle-glass globes that were the finials had genuinely (and dangerously) cracked. He replaced them with these industrial knobs that we'd acquired and intended to use for our kitchen cabinets, but they just didn't work out. The curtain may have originally been a sheet that someone else converted to a shower curtain that I found at a thrift store and loved the leafy green pattern. Its varying shades looked to be a good match for the hallway's trio of greens. Once Eric had hung the rod I grabbed some shower curtain hooks (it was even grommeted already!) and put up the curtain. Magically, it hung to the precise length and didn't even need hemming. We giggled with glee!

Hints of organization in the bowels of the basement

2009-01-15T17:32:00.009-05:00

I'm one of those people who likes to peer into people's basements. I find it one of the more interesting areas of the house as it's not all "prettified" for daily living but purposefully (sometimes) organized for projects or cluttered with all the stuff that just doesn't "go" on the main floor and more likely than not should just go to Goodwill already. (Seriously, I've moved several boxes of garage sale stuff multiple times now). So I did a photo tour of our own basement to personally track its progress. Two weeks ago the place was barely passable, but Eric has been diligently building shelves from scrap wood and putting things in their place and now you can (more or less) walk through the rooms without fear of tripping. My main area of domain is the "wine cellar" (a glamourous name for the cave that I painted, tiled and outfitted with cheap IKEA racks slapped with a coat of stain and which will likely never hold a bottle of wine with a price greater than $14.99 (hey, we're simple people). If you want to see some original wine cellar and basement pics wade through here (http://martineaubungalow.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-it-looked-for-party.html)
Through trial and mostly error we learned that Eric's home-brewed beer does not work on the wine racks. Since it's only capped when placed on their sides the bottles tend to leak. So with leftover wine rack shelves I custom built E a rack with a ledge at the front to set the necks of the bottles up on an angle and a brace toward the middle to keep the bottles securely in place. And voila no more leaky beer bottles:
If you went through the old thread you saw the front room in the basement completely empty. It has not been that way in months and likely never will again until the day we leave (ha!). Here's the furnace camouflaged by stacks of our stuff:

Across from the furnace is a wardrobe unit we crammed down here that now holds my craft supplies:

Lacking Eric's ingenuity to assemble shelves from old door jams and such I cheated and went with the Gorm IKEA rack to house my Comfest tubs:

In the waaaayyy back room that has been dubbed the workshop here's the shelf Eric built out of old door jam pieces with shelves donated by our friend Rick:

Across the room is my former shoe rack (from the old house) converted to tool storage. We barely squeaked that one down the crazy stairs (after it sat in our dining room for months because we feared it would never make it, but didn't bother to actually check until we finally got sick of it and needed the room back for Thanksgiving), but we made it and what a diffence it makes!

Another view of the same shelf (and our glass block window that replaced the plywood). Where the wire table sits Eric intends to build a workbench:

My parents bequeathed to us (after much pleading on my part) an old library card file system (silly me I don't have a photo of it here) that in my childhood home used to hold all kinds of things. The tags on each little file label say things like: pencils, brushes, washers, nuts, nails, emery boards and stones(?!). It's an awesome place to stash all the crazy little hardware pieces we have collected over the years as it's got 96 drawers! We hemmed and hawed and negotiated about where it should live and Eric gets credit for the idea put it here where the bags of concrete and mortar are resting:

There are about 7 inches of brick shelf there to stabilize it (it's only 15" deep), and just enough room across to fit it between the cubby shelf (left) and the post on the right. We'll add legs to the front end which will leave us with shallow storage underneath, it will block the nasty dirt-filled crawlspace behind it, and put the drawers at eye-level for easy access! Wait! If you look closely in the photo below you can almost see it underneath the sled:

The shelf above came from the basement in the old house. Eric created it using our old futon frame for the shelves. He had to dismantle it to get it out of the old house and reassemble it in our basement where it holds bicycle equipment, boxes of Christmas crap, cleaning supplies and who knows what else right now. We've still got many shelves and a workbench to build before we will declare the basement "organized"!

Sweater Party Pics

2008-12-14T17:25:00.002-05:00

So, in case you didn't know Eric and I are sometimes silly people. When we bought "the house" at the end of 2006 we threw a get-together to show friends and family what we were getting into. Since we survived the demo/reno and have moved in we thought it would be fitting to throw another party to prove that we really are living there and actually even have furniture! But we also like to be goofy so we decided to theme it a sweater party, not knowing those would be all the rage this year, so don't credit us with too much "hipness." I hit the thrift stores and gathered us a stock worthy of shuddering, we took a frightful pic expressing our feelings about holiday sweaters, plastered it on an evite and we were off! The photo that started it all:
(Rumor has it there are t-shirts with this image on it out there somewhere). Some of our first arrivals, Jon and Missy sported frocks that Missy crafted out of wrapping and contact paper:

We even gave out cheesy prizes for cheesy themes. Bru won "most ho ho ho-ish" &
Amanda made us want to put on sunglasses just to look at her:

Barb and Doug were tastefully matching and looked like they were apres-ski ready!
Goofy Dave (bouncing up in the background) wore a big furry sweater to match his lamb chops but you can't see that here:

The always-adorable Clark and Anne:

Anne's handcrafted sweater featured a tree with googly eyes and when she lifted her arms her sweater would SING! Our neighbors Billy and Michelle went for a white trash en vogue look in their holiday colored sweats. They flank other neighbor Clint in his woodsy themed attire:

Patrick and Patrick won "most crafty " with their ornament-al sweaters:

Amber and Nand should have won most festive:

Mark's home-slashed snowman was priceless...do note the creative use of "yellow snow":

The Best Kind of Night Lights

2008-11-30T17:46:00.001-05:00

Are holiday lights. And this is just half of them. Eventually the porch columns and railings were decked out too!
It's hard to get a non-blurry photo at night. Sorry!

Halloween horrors!

2008-11-03T19:43:00.001-05:00

Eric and I like to have fun in couples costumes when possible for Halloween. We've been Zorro and his lady love, Storm and Cyclops of the Xmen and one of the more goofy/ingenious creations: the Verizon wireless guy (can you hear me now?) and Eva Save-a-lot. This year we went with Amy Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil. It might be our most frightening combination yet. Do you have any idea how time-consuming it is to apply that many (realistically researched) temporary tatoos? Or the crazy eyes? Behold the power of wifebeater, fake fur and bouffant beehive hairdo:

Eric gives a worthy cracked-out look:

The duo:

We went to a party at the Adam's famiily household and shared couchtime with "Sheriff Aggie":

MUCH earlier in the evening we were visited by the too darling Reno clan:

Amy Winehouse was a far from original costume as there were three others at the party we attended. But Ivan had to be one of my favorites:

Bru and Amanda came with us. Amanda makes a mean Sarah Palin. She met her running mate at the Halloween High Ball:

Angela B wins for most realistic portrayal of Amy Winehouse. I think that's even her own hair: One may question who is the drag queen in this photo:

And it would be a legitimate query!

Proof Possum-tive

2008-10-15T09:47:00.002-05:00

Have ye no doubt in the power of the peanut butter and pretzel sticks bait. Case in point...on the fourth setting of the trap on the following morning we find Mr. (or Mrs.) Possum lounging in the cage:
He/she was fairly unimpressed with our closer investigation, but still not nasty enough to warrant anything other than being released.

It waddled its way over to the neighbor's house (sorry Renos)! And the scoreboard has been updated.

Batting 1000

2008-10-13T13:35:00.003-05:00

After capturing a raccoon last week I set the trap the very next night. We caught a possum. Since he was a gentleman (meaning he didn't hiss or growl at me) and I have no evidence that he is residing somewhere he should not, I set him free and he waddled off down the alley. Then we took a few nights off from what Eric refers to as "land fishing". Last night I set the trap again with our tried and true bait- pretzel sticks and peanut butter. Let's say I did that about 9pm. Just for fun I checked it about 10:30. Lo and behold...I found this guy:
We think he's number 2 of 3 who lives in the neighbor's roof (make that LIVED in the neighbor's roof).
So far we've not set the trap and NOT caught anything. Kinda funny and kinda frightening. I decided more funny and decided to keep score on our chalkboard in the kitchen:

Let's hope I don't have to add any other faces to the board. A squirrel wouldn't be bad...and there's the ground hog spotted in the shed. Luckily so far we haven't seen (or smelled) any evidence of skunks! I have no idea what we'd do if we caught one of those.

Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

2008-10-06T07:15:00.000-05:00

Along the way we picked up our own humane animal trap. It's been sitting in the back yard with the wrought iron fencing pieces. Since we put up the fence yesterday it gave me impetus to also clean up and set the trap. I used our tried and true bait of pretzels and peanut butter (after all, if I love them, why wouldn't the raccoons?) But let me give you some background information. Since we moved in we've thoroughly enjoyed our second story porch. We like to sit out there with a glass of wine and watch the comings and goings in the alley. Before the seasonal skeeters (mosquitoes are thick down here by the river) chased us back in the house we became acquainted with a trio of raccoon siblings who would ramble about during dusk. We think one got a little too comfy in our yard back in June http://martineaubungalow.blogspot.com/2008/06/old-friend-returns.html

That was when they were tiny and pretty cute. Now we've determined that they are all grown up and living in the neighbor's roof where it overlooks our house. We discovered this twofold: once while I was lying in bed Bogart suddenly became rapt with something going on outside. For visual effect, imagine Bogart calmly lying next to me in bed one moment getting his ears scratched then jumping up and "pointing" to something intriguing outside (and, effectively over my head). A raccoon was peering over the neighbor's gutter into the bedroom windows of our house. Further outside investigation with a flashlight led to the determination that the usual suspects (all 3 masked siblings) were foraging in the gutters. Another recent evening E was returning from a stroll with the hounds when he witnessed one of the now larger raccoons prying its body out of the hidey hole in the roof. Note: Eric is aware of the hole because he's been up there on a ladder cleaning out our neighbor's gutters (a task they do not see fit to accomplish themselves) in an effort to keep our basement drier.

While putting up the fence we mentioned the furry tenants to our neighbor who owns the house and who was on her front porch. She seemed entirely unfazed with the news as evidenced by this comment, "Really? Oh, I knew I had a squirrel living in there, but I didn't know anything about the raccoons!" Well, alrighty then! Keep in mind that an enormous branch from the tree in her backyard that was blown over during the "hurricane" back in mid-September is still attached to the trunk and lying across the backyard. We suspect she'll address the animal issue with the same urgency.

So, just for "fun" we set the trap out by the van. And early this morning found it occupied with one of the bandits. At first we weren't sure whether it was one of our familiar trio, but then the evidence mounted. I heard something on the neighbor's roof and saw a single raccoon "watching" us investigate the trap. Then we heard something clammoring through the bushes (we thought on the other side of the neighbor's yard). Until Eric shouted, "Mary! He's on the tree RIGHT NEXT TO ME!" Once spotted he decided to go a little further up the tree (but he was originally only about 8 feet away...um...maybe fewer)

When I started taking photos of him he sought refuge in the crook of the tree:
We decided he was trying to spring his bro (we're assuming gender here, we didn't check). He failed and his sibling will now reside....elswhere.

Just in time to add Halloween flair

2008-10-05T21:48:00.000-05:00

You may recall that about this time last year we went on an adventure to Dayton and purchased an old wrought iron fence. http://martineaubungalow.blogspot.com/2007/09/another-quality-find.html Those unwieldy pieces have been resting in the backyard (chained up of course given the price of scrap metal these days) since we moved in back in April. Yesterday, E got the brilliant idea that we should try to put it up. So off to Lowe's we went to purchase rebar and straps. We had six lengths of wrought iron fencing in various lengths. The fence took about an hour to install, each length had a wrought iron tube attached which was perfect for hammering a piece of rebar in to anchor it. We used metal straps to anchor the end pieces to the hand rail and adjacent sections of fence. Here's Eric levelling the fence:
The view from the sidewalk:

An "artistic" view from the lawn...

One of these days we'll scrape and repaint the fence black. For now we think it adds extra spooky ambiance to our Halloween decor!

Animania Continues

2008-09-03T13:03:00.004-05:00

Been awhile since we posted, but this is one of my favorite subjects to share: the wild creatures that visit (or live at) our home. Who would have thought that such an urban neighborhood would have such wildlife?

Take a look at the photo below. This is our very full shed. Notice anything? Near the front bike tire & green shelf? Brown, and kinda ground-hog like? Well, I surprised this fellow outside the shed next to my Vespa. He darted under the door to the shed and I thought: "Oh, is he living under the shed? I thought I closed off all the holes leading below the shed." So I open the door to see, and it looks like he might be living IN the shed.

Beautiful Inside & Out

2008-07-07T16:40:00.012-05:00

Summer is usually a hectic time for us. I took a 2 month hiatus to prep for ComFest where I am a vendor. There was much crafting to do to have stock to sell. Now that that's done I can refocus on our abode. For instance, after 11 years of owning this lovely metal plant screen we have for the first time used it for its intended purpose...the housing of plants and the screening of our neighbor's too close for comfort porch:
We planted a lovely assortment of herbs and created a mini kitchen garden. Here's to hoping her cigarette smoke doesn't smother our little greens. Next up I filled the gorgeous ceramic planters that Eric gave me for Valentine's day last year with rosemary and flowers:

Eric and I are now Elfa-addicts. Elfa is the Swedish shelving systems available at the Container Store. They have sales twice a year and our neighbor Becky is on their list to receive coupons. She kindly adopted us and we got a deal on the shelving for our basement stariwell. We now have an organized place to put all of our not so oft-used camping gear:

As well as our year's supply of carbonated beverages. There's just so much space in the stairwell (it was formerly a wraparound porch MANY years before we owned it) and the shelving really maxes out the opportunities. Since the shelves on the back wall are so far up we also mounted a ladder on the wall (a metal one came with the house but some scrappers stole it out of the back yard) for easier access:

I created a new bed in front of the porch and augmented the free flowers from our friend Biran (irises and coreopsis) with some purple balloon flowers:

And I added the containers around the steps. Our formerly tulip-ed front bed had become a weedy mess so I ripped out all of the interloping weeds and added perennials:

Eric found one of the terracotta pots that mounts to the wall and put it on the back of our shed. I accessorized it:

After many headaches with the water in the basement we may have come to a happy conclusion.

Eric spent a few hours putting hydraulic cement about 2 feet up the entire wall:

The perimeter:

The battle with nature continues. The evil squirrels decided that they wanted back into the comfy house they used to have in our eaves. Little brats tried to chew their way back in:

While I ComFested last weekend Eric made use of the Miller's tile saw to finish the final detail work in the bathroom:

A little grout and we're good to go!

This has been your mid-July update!

The battle against nature continues

2008-06-17T12:35:00.003-05:00

We've been a little waterlogged Chez Martineau with the summer storms of the past couple of weeks. When we bought the house we knew that we could get a fair amount of water in the front room of the basement, but it appeared that the water came from under the stairs and so one day might be fixable. Perhaps that day has come.

With repeated storms last week (we got 4" in one hour one day) we took on some significant water in the front room of the basement (a couple inches, but not enough to make it into any of the other rooms). Normally, this would be a minor inconvenience, however, as we stashed most of the contents of the basement of our old house in the first room while making plans to organize the back two, there's a little more at stake. At one point (well, at several points) Eric was outside in the midst of a rainstorm re-grading dirt and push-brooming the lake of water down the hill from between our house and the neighbor's (who we will patently blame for the water in our basement as their gutters are so clogged and dirty that brand new plants are growing up there and they overflow and land between our houses). Meanwhile, I was shop-vac-ing water out of the front room when I realized there appeared to be water in the heretofore DRY second room. I flipped on the light in there to witness a small stream coming in below the new glassblock window. I alerted Eric who immediately tackled that fountain from the outside and stopped the flow. It would probably help if we had actual grass in our backyard instead of the mud patch that just creates a pond out of our entire backyard.

Then we had guests staying over this past Friday when another storm broke out at 4AM. I awoke at 6AM on Saturday morning wondering where my husband was. He was in the basement shop-vac-ing water (sorry Tim & Carol!) and using hydraulic cement to attack a new (3rd) leak that sprung around our water connection in the second room in the basement. So finally, fed up with the repeated deluge, on Sunday Eric removed the stairs to the basement (actually just took them up) and used the Dry-Lok cement to fill in a number of holes under the steps. We've not had any serious rains since, but we're hopeful that we've finally addressed the main problem!

(Eric Here): Quite discouraging, really. For long-time readers, you may recall a half-dozen previous posts where I discussed my attempts to control the water in the basement. New gutters, a french drain, re-grade, gutter extensions, a drainpipe to direct 100% of the east side roof water down the front hill... I'm probably forgetting a few. And each time, a mother-of-a storm rolls through and our basement gets an inch or so of water.

On the positive side, it does happen much less frequently (or so it seems, as the frequency depends upon the weather). And the 4'' rainfall was truly a record-setter which had some streets in Columbus under 3 feet of water, so I shouldn't be surprised that the improvements I had made couldn't cope with such a massive rain.

So as Mary said, I tore up the stairs to the basement to access the wall where the water was coming in. The good news is I found a number of cracks where the water seemed to be entering. My hope is that by filling the cracks with hydraulic cement, the water will no longer be able to enter at all. Of course, water has to go somewhere... it is my hope it finds its way into the french drain rather than finding some new hole.

Time will tell...

An old friend returns

2008-06-06T07:44:00.010-05:00

Remember our great adventures with raccoons from last year? Well, we deported a number of them. And it seems at least one decided to return for a visit. Or maybe, as it looks pretty young, it is a teenager who just wanted to see where his mom or dad grew-up. I (Mary) let Bogart out to do his business this morning. I sat on the porch and watched him for a minute then went in to pour his breakfast...when all of a sudden a RUCKUS broke out in the backyard and Bogart was barking hysterically (really, he was using his "big dog" bark). I run out and see a raccoon cowering behind our flower planter. I corral Bogart back into the house and don several pairs of leather gloves and think "he's itty bitty, I'll just put him in a tree." So I pet him on the back and he hisses at me nastily. I think better of attempting to manually relocate him and figure he'll move along once he's calmed down from the canine hysteria. After half an hour I have to be getting off to work and warn Eric about our visitor lest he accidentally let the dog out for round 2. An hour later and Eric finds we have a new resident in the backyard. Somehow he thought this was the best place to bunk down for the day, right off of our back porch in the fenced yard where we run our dogs.

Below, I've (Eric now) delivered a wake-up call and explained our "early checkout" policy:

With the aid of my trusty hockey stick, I manage to get him to leave the fenced yard. At which point he decides to find new accomodations:

Yes, that is the rim of our van tire. Well, with gas prices being what they are, I'll be taking the vespa today anyway, so I guess he's safe for now.

Cardboard Kingdom

2008-05-23T12:21:00.002-05:00

It's been over a month since our last update. The reason for the lapse is there just is not that much to report. We have moved in and things are going well, but it takes a long time to settle in. There is the whole issue of unpacking. We have the major rooms unpacked, but still have a sea of cardboard boxes in the LR and DR. Plus, the 101 small items of differing priority that we have to tackle just don't have a whole lotta WOW! factor. We hang some art one night. Another day I clean out the shed so we can 1. reach the items in it, and 2. put more in it. We do some more painting on the exterior porch. I rake 1 million concrete pieces out of the dirt that is our yard. See, no "Wow!"

One major accomplishment was to hook up the washer/dryer. Long-time blog readers may recall our dryer's cord didn't match the dryer outlet (3 prong vs. 4 prong cord). A new cord from the hardware store and some heavy lifting (to reach the cord connection) and gymnastics (to plug it in inside our small stackable-w/d closet) and we are able to clean our clothes!

I have a list of about 50 other small projects to complete, and I know it's not a comprehensive list, so it will keep me busy for months to come.

Another organizational feat!

2008-04-21T19:25:00.001-05:00

You might recall that we had them frame in the extra space behind our master bath for a slim little linen closet:
This weekend I got out the tools and put in the shelves for our previously open space. Some cheating was involved. As I picked up the paint-ready pine boards at Lowes they were already the right width for the closet (hooray for 20") and they will do a couple cuts for free, so I just had them slice my shelves to the right depth. Then I painted them hearts of palm green (like the closet walls). We had lots of leftover 1" trim that I cut with the jigsaw (just because it was handy and they were only tiny cuts) to the right length for shelf brackets. I squeezed into the closet and did lots of measuring and leveling and stud finding to attach the brackets, popped in the painted shelves and VOILA~ instant linen closet:

OK, it was really like 2-3 hours worth of work between the finding of supplies, cutting of supports, sanding, painting, measuring, affixing, etc. But it all worked out right (read: level) the first time and I did it all by myself (Eric was at the Clarksdale Blues Festival in MS) so I was pretty pleased with my organizational quotient for the weekend! Now we just need storage for the basement, the steps to the basement and the shelves and bar for the coat closet!

What to do with an obscene amount of clothing?

2008-04-21T09:11:00.004-05:00

Hi, my name is Mary and I am a clothing addict. My weakness is vintage clothing and thrift store finds. I likely have not seriously shopped in a bonafide department store since I left my job as assistant manager at Elder Beerman (Department Store) some dozen plus years ago. But I can have a field day at an outlet mall. Which has led me to this...we have a magnificent and HUGE new closet (compared to many in old houses + our old house) and I am still trying to devise a system that will accomodate my collection of clothing and shoes (Doc Martens are kinda chunky, ya know?). Eric seems mostly settled on his half (40%?) of the closet...while he technically has less of the space, he's got the "full-size" space with walls and a ceiling that neatly meet at 90 degree angles:

I am working in the eaves on my side. So envision a 16 inch span of flat ceiling, that connects to a wall that is immediately at a 120 degree angle until it meets the floor (it's been a long time since my last geometry class, forgive me if that is totally off). My ingenious mother helped me put in four wood pillars which then attach to angled blocks anchored into studs on the drywall so I've got 4 hanging bars that work for my on season (in front) and off season (in back) shirts and jackets. The right side:

The left side:

And I've got a fabulous old brass fixture from my former clothing-store-owning friend Anne (thanks Annie) that sits amidst the pillars and houses my "long hanging":

Because, yes, I'm still sentimentally attached to my wedding dress (among other things) and my parents kicked it out of the closet at their house. The big hanging picture:

So, most of my tops, jackets and dresses have a home in the closet. What I'm still working on is medium-height hanging for my pants. I thought it would be brilliant to just hang a bar from the ceiling- it's flat, I can fix it into the studs, I can still access my other stuff....but I can't find anyplace that sells ceiling hanging bars (our ceiling is maybe 6' tall, so I could easily reach it). I think this space needs just that:

Not Lowes, not Bed Bath & Beyond, not even my last bastion of hope The Container Store could solve the dilemma and give me a ceiling hanging rack or suitable alternative. And, yes, it's all on an adjustable mobile rack right now, but it's taking up too much space. So if anyone has any brilliant insight, I'm all ears!

Other workable stuff we assembled includes a sweater shelving rack that steps down with the angle of the wall:

A shoe rack that fits in at the bottom of the floor angle for shoes on top and storage below:

And these great armed towel holders that I got from Ikea, but mounted on the side of the sweater shelving that are working fab for handbags:

That's the closet so far! Stay tuned for more organizational accomplishments!

Do you miss us?

2008-04-19T12:41:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates...but last weekend we started MOVING....and now the computer is still at the OLD HOUSE...and we're not so much anymore. And the packing, loading, unloading and unpacking is still just as much fun as I remember from 11 years ago (NOT!) And our basement is still untouched. Ugh!

Fence on a Budget: $0.00

2008-04-07T12:50:00.008-05:00

So we need to enclose the backyard for our dogs. And we have hopes of either building a garage or replacing the whole Western fence in the next couple of years, so we don't want to spend any $$$ on something we are going to tear out soon. But we don't want it to look crappy. So, using lumber salvaged from the front deck when it was torn down (posts and rails), other 2x4s from the interior demo we did last year, plus some fence board and an old gate given to us by the Magnificent Mr. Ressa, I constructed the following fence. At 52'' high, it's not a true privacy fence, but it will certainly keep our dogs in and uninvited guests out.

Day 1 I finished the first panel (after having sunk the posts earlier in the week):
Next, I hung the gate and began constructing the second panel:
Here is the cheesy handyman pose:

And below is the "best face forward" look. Only a top rail to install and the finish pieces on the backyard side and it is done.

Bonus shot: We dog-sat this monster over the weekend. Anyone who thinks we have big dogs needs to meet Luke, a full-blooded Bernese.

Yes, as a matter of fact he is sitting completely ON TOP of Bogart...and neither one appeared to mind in the slightest....

Puttering about here and there

2008-04-03T20:37:00.003-05:00

We've been over to the house the last couple evenings and the weather's been so nice that we weren't overly inclined to work INSIDE. Not to mention we are now (still) in possession of an extra dog and the three like to romp in the yard. So Eric has been working on constructing a make-do fence with all of the pieces parts that we've got lying about: fencing planks from friend Jim, posts from the now-defunct front deck, random wood beams from whatever else. The current conglomeration is looking a little white trash, but it will have to do for a bit while E assembles something better. Meanwhile I started to tidy up the mountain of bricks. Once upon a time they were organized: the red-orange bricks from the wall taken down in the center of the house, the hard-fired pink ones from the chimney and exterior walls and the pavers from the porch foundation. At some point they started looking chaotic, falling over, getting mixed up, etc. As seen here: http://bp3.blogger.com/_HijigrFLVq8/R6EUVaF_PsI/AAAAAAAABPk/AC2WIS39FOI/s1600-h/DSCN1730.JPG
So we took a pallet, put it on the side of the house and started re-organizing them. It's a nice workout to haul half a dozen bricks at a time across the yard. And eventually, our brickyard will return to our actual yard and we'll have better access to the shed. Today I did a little bit of polyurethaning in the master bedroom. The side cabinets and one eyebrow window. We want to get that done so that we can move into our bedroom "for real." Who needs a really charming young male golden retriever? Animal Kingdom continues!

Final Inspection!

2008-04-02T07:23:00.005-05:00

In the hopes of having an uneventful final inspection by the city, we had hand-rails installed on both porches. While the porch design looked cleaner without them, the city likely would have required them and they do serve a purpose. So, voila!
Back porch:

Yesterday was supposed to be the final inspection by the city. I waited at the house all day, and happily the inspector did show up at 3:00pm. While waiting I stained the woodwork in the entry/dining room area:

While also waiting, I dug some post-holes for our fence. Turns out we have all the components to finish the fence, thanks to Mr. Ressa and some other wood we salvaged from our old deck.

So, how'd the inspection go? Passed without a hitch. We have our occupancy permit and are free to move in!

Oh, final bit of news from yesterday. While on our way to the old house, our celebration plans (dinner at Basi Italia) nearly got derailed as we found this creature wandering along 4th Street (a very busy road). Had a collar but no tags, though it is obvious he is a well-cared for dog. So we lured him into the van and are now trying to find his owners. Thankfully, he and Bogart have been getting along very well, wrestling non-stop. And he has enough sense to leave Wiley alone.

Pre-work staining...E polyurethaning

2008-03-26T10:42:00.001-05:00

Usually I'm the Market "opener" meaning I get to work at 7AM. Every once in a while something's going on and I'm the "closer" so I get the morning to do other stuff. Today it was staining. My coolest accomplishment today was the first section of railing off the master bedroom:
Let's look at it again from another angle:

I also stained the steps into the groovy room, they look like cedar in this picture:

And the door crowns to the master bedroom and the laundry closet:

Eric got another nice day and put a coat of polyurethane down on the back porch:
He also re-attached the gutter that our carpenter removed to construct the porch and never replaced. And we took a desk to the house in the morning...so we're SLOWLY moving!

Still on task...

2008-03-25T20:07:00.007-05:00

Meaning another piece of furniture made it to the house today. The wine rack from the kitchen:
Now in the new kitchen in the little space between the basement door and the arch:

Eric took advantage of the latest dry spell and slightly (50s) warmer weather to finally get a coat of polyurethane on the front porch:

And from the side view (that really red strip is new):

After work I stained more trim. The window in the groovy room that overlooks the living room:

The window in the upstairs hallway that overlooks the backyard:

Another day..another piece of furniture moved...

2008-03-24T21:32:00.001-05:00

Day three of our task to bring a new piece of furniture to the house per day. We're on a roll, but I suspect that after a week of this it's going to get a little trickier about what we can sacrifice at the other house and still keep it functional. Today's pick, one of the bookshelves from the study. Eric adjusts the shelves:
We'll have to think about whether we really like it there or if it blocks the window too much, but for now it stays:

Then it was on to our new perpetual job of staining woodwork. These photos are for Suz, "Any new photos? I guess photos of stained woodwork probably aren't that interesting, huh?" You wanted them, you got em! Here's the master bedroom just awaiting polyurethane (now poly drying is REALLY dull)!

It's nice to compare how the stain really warms up a room. Case in point, the HVAC box before:

And now with blue tape and red oak stain:

And the window in the groovy room also got stained yesterday:

A couple hours of that and we deserved pizza. Homemade in our new house...our first "real meal"!

Easter Weekend Progress

2008-03-23T18:41:00.012-05:00

We worked on Saturday morning before heading up to Cleveland for Dad Mac's birthday dinner. More staining of woodwork was involved. We finished up the French doors:Here's the dormer windows in the master bedroom:
The little window in the master bedroom that overlooks the park (if you're tall enough):

And you can see in a couple of the above pics that we stained the little "cubbies" on either side of the room. We've decided to try to bring a piece of non-essential (at the old house) furniture each day on our trip to the house. Saturday morning we transported this dresser out of the dining room and into its final resting place in the guest bedroom:

And on Sunday afternoon we brought this desk out of the guest bedroom at the old house and think it works rather well with the color scheme in the groovy room:

Sunday afternoon we installed some cabinet hardware on the linen closet and the "cubbies". We found the backplates in a bin at the Habitat for Humanity Build-it-Again-Center and the knobs we picked up at Great Indoors. The linen closet:

A close-up of the hardware details:

Our architect warned us of a couple things we'll need to pass the final inspection, like house numbers. So we picked those up at the Great Indoors too and put them up:

Eric is meeting Justen at the house tomorrow to go over the final details of the trim work...and maybe paying him if he's done. And then it's all us. Since it was nice out today I took a new exterior shot:

Entering the final stretch

2008-03-20T20:31:00.002-05:00

We've been to the house the last couple of nights to stain the woodwork. We're starting in the master bedroom because once that's done we can gradually move our stuff and ourselves over here. Last night I taped off all of the woodwork on the second floor to prep for staining the rest of it (necessary since all the trim is up and we don't want to remove it) while Eric continued staining in the bedroom. And not all of the trim "channels" have been sanded enough to start staining (no more splinters please) so it's a little patchwork right now. We've not actually seen our carpenter since the day of the party (when he was literally still working on the porch as our first guests arrived). This is a good thing. He's apparently coming in when we're out and finishing projects like boxing in the heating duct in the groovy room, putting in the trim piece missing in the closet, and stuff still on his list. I'm going to have to take a "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything" approach and simply avoid him. I'm still upset about the pre-party-family-picnic-preventing-my-cleaning-chick-from-doing-her-job-so-I-have-to-spend-two-hours-cleaning-when-I-just-PAID-someone-else-to-do-it-fiasco so it's really for the best that I not see him. He did nicely install the over-the-stove microwave yesterday so he gets warm fuzzies from Eric for that.

Virtual touring time

2008-03-19T21:33:00.000-05:00

Sister Heather requested MORE photos of the house to vicariously view from the Bay area. So here's a photo tour for all of you who couldn't make the party. The front porch (all new) and two front doors stained by Eric:

Approaching the main door and the glow of my favorite porch light:

In the front foyer/entry/dining room on the right is the mantle and the coat closet (glass door):
On the left is the chandelier over the bar (one day to be a dining room table) and the French doors to the study:

A wider shot of the fireplace, mantle, coat closet and on the left is the main arch into the kitchen:

To the far left of the entrance are the pocket doors to the living room. View of the left half of the living room including the new exterior door on the far left:

A view of the park from the picture window:

The full view of all 4 windows facing the park on the exposed brick wall. The eyebrow is in the cathedral ceiling where we removed the original ceiling:

We exposed the brick fireplace and had the firebox rebuilt...now we need to get an insert...that's for another budget!

Back out to the dining room:

View from the entry/dining room through the arch into the kitchen (we've still gotta figure out how to paint the arches):

View into the kitchen from the archway. The full panel glass back door is new too:

View from the back door through the kitchen into the dining/entry room:

Lovely flowers in the photos by Market Blooms. View from the basement door into the kitchen:

View from the entry room into the den/study:

Inside the study the door to the guest bathroom (we painted the WC):

Into the guest bedroom from the hallway:

Into the guest bathroom from the other side in the bedroom:

Sorry- I didn't post guest bathroom photos again because I figured you'd seen enough and nothing is new. Here it is in progress if you need a refresher: http://martineaubungalow.blogspot.com/2008/02/return-of-plumber.html

The hallway to the second floor:

A single shot of the master bedroom because it's just hard to get a good angle:

The master bath from the shower:

The master bath from the sinks:

The hallway on the second floor. To the right is the master bedroom and a closet with the laundry. To the left is the bathroom. Past the railing is the steps down:

From the hallway into the groovy room/den. The window goes to the living room:

Stepping further into the room:

Our fun and funky seating area in the groovy room. Watch your head when you stand up. According to Brian, those angles can be concussion-inducing!

Back down the stairs:

And back to work! Tonight we started staining woodwork in the master bedroom. Eric worked on the French doors while I did the eyebrow windows above:

He also hit the little window next to the doors a bit. Yeah, the photo is upside down:

And those eyebrow windows are tricky and will require lots of touch-up painting for the walls:

The hounds are happy that they are once again permitted to accompany us to the house. Here they are in their favorite room that overlooks the park:

They are also willing to snuggle on the futon:

Bogart doesn't "get" this photo-taking thing:

How it looked for the party.

2008-03-19T08:32:00.010-05:00

Below you will find some photos showing the house shortly before the party. First, I have to showcase Barb & Doug's gift to welcome other Martineau "Friends":
Here we have Mary setting up some food for the party. Flowers are from Market Blooms in the North Market, of course!

As we haven't moved in yet, we only have the absolutely necessary furniture in... such as the bar. Or as one guest quipped, "I love your dining room table."

Below is the view of the entryway/Dining Room from the study. Yes, we removed the mop and rag box before the party:

Not a great shot, but this is at the top of the stairs and shows the railing, the door to the laundry closet and the (open) door to the master bedroom:

Below we have the door to the master bath... which was nice for our guests that they could actually shut doors when using the facilities.

Next is a before and after shot of the wine cellar door. The door was filthy from being in a farmhouse attic for years. But it did clean up very well. Before:

After:

Of course, the wine cellar itself (pre-filling):

Finally, a shot of the mostly-cleared out first room in the basement, looking on the wine-cellar door:

It was such a simple plan.

2008-03-14T23:57:00.005-05:00

Hire a housecleaner. She'll have the house to herself and can wipe down walls and mop floors to her heart's content and I'll have one less thing to worry about before our party on Saturday. Of course, things are not always as uncomplicated as they should be. Our carpenter has been working overtime all week on an ever-moving deadline (I'll be done Tuesday, no Wednesday, ummmm Thursday) and every day I reminded him that he needed to be gone by Friday and every day I was assured it was not a problem. He then showed up Friday morning, but promised he'd be done in a couple hours and out of Casey's (cleaner) way. When I got off work at 4PM, Eric and I headed to the house to check out the progress. Imagine our surprise that not only were there power tools strewn all over the entry room that had not been touched, (nor the den and half the guest bedroom- which had a baby blanket and toys set up on the floor) but the wife and kids (ages 3ish and an infant) were there as well. Not yet thinking about the implications of this I went about other work. And Casey exclaimed "Good! She (toddler) can follow you around now!" I guess I wasn't interesting enough as she actually went upstairs by herself and wandered around while Eric was staining (this I didn't know until later tonight). And I'm still not putting all of the pieces together. After toddler spilled coffee all over the swept kitchen floor and walked across the newly mopped living room floor leaving trek marks through it (she's bringing in stuff from the rooms that haven't been cleaned because they are camped out in them), mom decided it was time to go (or maybe she saw the steam starting to come out of my ears). Casey finished the guest bedroom and bath (it's now 5PM) and said, "I'm really sorry Mary, but I'm afraid this is all I'm going to get done today. I'd have done it differently and gotten everything finished if I'd known it was going to be so crazy around here!" Now the pieces are starting to fall into place. "Hey Casey- HOW LONG has the whole family been here?" Because I was thinking they'd just popped in a few minutes ago to day 'hi'. She looks at me and I can tell she doesn't want to snitch, "since sometime around 2 this afternoon." OK, now my head is going to explode. So, having paid someone to clean the house, I will now have to spend 2 hours wiping the rest of the sawdust off the walls and mopping the floors in the unfinished first floor rooms...Oh, and re-mopping the living room...and it's not like I don't have lots of other stuff that needs to get done before we have friends over tomorrow...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! So, yeah, I did. Feel free to share your contractor horror stories in the comments section because misery LOVES company!

Cleaning frenzy

2008-03-13T23:09:00.002-05:00

My duty tonight was to empty the first floor of everything not nailed down so that a cleaning helper can wipe down walls and mop floors tomorrow. Eric tackled the massive molding (trim, not funky stuff) and random cut wood piles. We're packrats so much more was organized than actually discarded, but one can now walk through all 4 rooms in the basement without peril of tripping. And all tools, drop cloths, cardboard shields, etc. are now gone so we can once again admire our lovely hardwood floors. Justen had worked until about 2 AM on Wednesday night according to neighbor Renos. He and his helper sanded, put up more trim and started their cleaning yesterday too. We took the dogs with us last night because there was a lit less trouble they could get into. We blockaded them into the living room and while they would have preferred the run of the house, they seemed to enjoy the action of watching Justen work in the entry room. Two days until deadline....

Baseboard molding....trim nearing completion!

2008-03-12T22:51:00.001-05:00

Our carpenter is going to town to get all of his projects done by Thursday....ummmm, yeah, that's TOMORROW! He made huge strides today on the first floor baseboard molding that Eric had stained and polyurethaned (much easier than trying to do it on the wall as we'll do with the window trim). Here's the front door:

The living room:

The finishing trim work between the brick and drywall:
The kitchen:

See the big white patches in the photo above? Eric got out the joint compound yesterday and filled in the myriad holes, dings and gouges we've put in the walls since we painted them. Tomorrow night we'll sand them down (or judging by the white dust maybe E's already done that) and touch them up! Our darling study:

The study's even got the quarter round going on! I got the grout haze off the river rock in the bathroom before going to work this morning:
And managed to not give myself a shower in the process this time. I also put more of the wine rack together and Eric finished off the job this afternoon. We'll try for some good shots of that tonight, but they're hard to get in a five-foot-wide room! I guess you'll just have to stop by and see it in person. Tomorrow night the cardboard boxes come off the floors and the cleaning starts in earnest on Friday. It will be funny to actually be able to see our floors again! You might not have noticed in photos but we cut open every cardboard box (and there were many for everything from kitchen cabinets to appliances) and put it down to protect the floors. I am so excited to see them all again...it will feel like we're almost home!

Party Approaching!

2008-03-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

Now that we've invited 100 people over to the house on Saturday we're working frantically to get a short list of stuff completed. When I got off work today I went straight to the Tile Shop for a final (we hope) bag of charcoal grout and grouted the river rock shower:
The rocks are still a little hazy, but I got a good story out of the task. I seem to be naturally inclined to be a clutz around plumbing fixtures. After I'd made the first pass to clean up the big grout globs, I stood up to rinse out the sponge and accidentally turned on the shower. On me. And the newly grouted rocks. In the shower. With the drain taped off to prevent grout from getting into it. It took me a little while to figure out HOW to turn off the shower (I've never used it before). Then I had to rip the million pieces of blue tape off the drain to let the gallon of water drain out of the basin. Then I had to mop up the remaining water with my sponge. I don't think any damage was done and it certainly did a better job cleaning the grout off the rocks than my sponging efforts had been going. But it freaked me out just a little too...And now I was slightly soaking. Justen worked on more trim today. Ooh, and put in the back door. Here's the result of both efforts:

And he trimmed out the doors from the outside too. A little green paint and we're done (haha and my picture is upside down)!

The door to the basement is now up:

Remember this? It's the stack of Ikea wineracks pre-staining and pre-assembly:

The lovely Suz continues to help with this task. With the lure of wine we got her to help us begin the wine rack assembly. Much more wine will be needed to complete the task:

House blog hijacked....for the cute kid....

2008-03-11T14:58:00.013-05:00

I spent last week in Oakland visiting with Heather and Bernadette. It was a lovely getaway to a warmer climate (I missed our blizzard) and great fun to see them both. Here they are walking down the hallway at the hospital where Heather works:

Here's Bernadette sitting pretty and showing off her impromptu potty skills on a tree stump at the park:
Here we all are ready to get on the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco. Obviously Heather and I are a little more excited about it than B:

Mama and baby snuggling on the wait for the ferry:

Bernie checks out the colorful flowers near the ferry entrance:

Playing with the pig face in the wall of a restaurant:

Looking stylish in her auntie's shades:

San Francisco from the ferry:
Taking a break in the plaza across from the Market tower:An apple a day keeps Bdette at play:

Fun at the fountain:

"I am so over this...can we go back to Oakland now?"

Monday update

2008-03-10T20:59:00.004-05:00

The blizzard kept Eric at (the old) home this weekend and I was fortuitously in sunny Oakland visiting sister Heather and niece Bernadette (since Wednesday- what perfect timing). While I enjoyed gorgeous 65 degree weather, perfect company and such adventures as travelling to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, Eric was shovelling snow and hibernating with friends Brian and Suz. I'll get up some cute niece pics up later, but you can check out Heather's blog for hers in the meantime because she's on it like that!(http://cafines.blogspot.com/) So we both got back to work yesterday. I finished the river rock base in the master shower and have plans to grout it tomorrow. Eric poly-ed more of the base trim. Then I started patching nail holes in the trim on the second floor with wood filler and Eric sanded it down to prep for eventual staining. I put in the last carpet square around the door and we set up the futon in the den...we have actual comfortable seating! Justen arrived on the scene to put up the basement and front door molding. He's promised he'll be done by Thursday, which will be perfect timing as I've hired someone to do a "big clean" on Friday because we're having folks over to check our progress on Saturday and the place needs some serious scrubbing. So E and I are prioritizing stuff to get done. Some of it is questionably sill stuff like completing the wine cellar. So Eric and I returned to the house yesterday evening and finished staining the last of the wine rack pieces with hopes of assembling it before Saturday.

Weather Update

2008-03-09T16:41:00.003-05:00

No house news, but thought some might like to see the view from the old house after yesterday's blizzard.

Stainin' & Urethane-in'

2008-03-08T09:33:00.005-05:00

Yesterday saw me start the polyurethane on the baseboard molding. I also finished staining the last few pieces of molding.

Next, I did some more staining of the new wood added to the salvaged casing. Below are photos of both doors to the guest bathroom. Our woodwork is going to be a medley of wood tones, which frankly does not bother me in the least. My only concern is the all-new casing and how dark the poplar is taking the stain. I might have to change the stain color for the new casings...

Below you can see what our carpenter did on Thursday. He brought the future basement door up from the basement and delivered casings for the exterior doors and the basement door. That's all to report. He says he'll be done on Tuesday of next week. I hope so, but I think that would take a miracle as there are dozens of items which have to be started or finished.

Here... the door appears.

Next to it is the casing. As it is not sanded, I can't stain it yet.

And for those who read this and don't live in Columbus, we are currently experiencing a full-on blizzard. There is about 14 inches of snow on the ground right now and it is still snowing! I'll try to post some photos later if I brave the elements.

The Wall

2008-03-06T12:49:00.003-05:00

So last night John finished the glass-block shower wall. The 2 coolest features involved John cutting one of the blocks in half so we could have a rounded cap piece over our 4'' blocks (we could not find 4'' rounded blocks). He also put in some rebar and a bracket which I fashioned so that our shower rod would serve as a structural support and anchor the glass block.

Otherwise, I spent my time staining the new trim pieces, trying to match them up to the old. Here are a couple of shots showing the work.

Monday's Action

2008-03-04T07:26:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we had the 2 front doors installed. The dented metal door and the barn-siding which used to fill the second door opening will not be missed!

In other news, the baseboard molding was delivered and Eric became a staining machine last night. Meanwhile, Mary completed the laying of the carpet squares in the den. Pictures of these accomplishments? We lit out of there so quick we forgot to take photos, so you will have to wait.

Shower wall, going up...exterior doors, not so much

2008-03-02T17:04:00.010-05:00

We promised you photos of the exterior doors last week, right? So here you go:
They are still sitting in our living room as our carpenter is awol. Maybe next week instead.
On a happier note, John who did our tiling came back Saturday AND Sunday to work on the glass block shower wall in the master bath. Here's Saturday's progress:

And by the end of Sunday the wall was almost complete:

I enjoyed admiring it from every angle. Here it is from the shower seat:

Note the perfectly levelled matching mirrors. It only took me a couple tries to accomplish that!
Friday night we installed our shower curtain in the guest bathroom:

The Ikea curtain gives a lovely shot of color to the room. We picked up the tension shower rod at Target. Saturday Eric put the doors on the IKEA vanity in the guest bathroom:

So when you come to visit we're almost ready for you. Sunday I decided to start laying the carpet squares in the den. Here's my test run:

And here's as far as I got "for real":

It seemed like it should be such a simple task, and for the most part it was. But, ala tiling, once you get to those edges there's a lot of measuring and cutting to contend with. I've still got the final two rows to go, because I had to quit. My hands were aching from the uitility knife and carpet scissor use. Sunday I also grouted in the wine cellar. I'm liking the contrast of the terracotta grout with the earthy tiles. It feels very craftsman style. Wall to the left:

Left wall and a hint of the main wall:

Other stuff that got done:

Eric did some trim staining.

Brian and Suz helped us remove the dryer from the hallway and stack it on the washer.

We tried to hook it up. It involved an acrobatic Brian removing his belt and pants and shimmying into a gap between the dryer and ceiling and attempting to plug it in. Alas, the plug does not match the cord provided so we'll have to take it our and change out the cord. Ugh, that will be a pain.

With flying colors!

2008-02-28T21:14:00.002-05:00

We passed our plumbing inspection today. That means we've got two fully-functioning bathrooms, a kitchen sink with garbage disposal, dishwasher and a basement utility sink. Yee-haw! As a bonus our stove was also hooked up to gas yesterday and they're working on the gas to the two fireplaces. The exterior doors are stained, polyurethaned and eagerly awaiting our trim carpenter to give Eric the call for help to install them. Cross you fingers and mabe he'll return to us tomorrow.

Plodding along....

2008-02-27T22:42:00.002-05:00

The details we are working on are fairly uninteresting. Eric is putting polyurethane on the exterior door jambs (still) and I am working on grouting the wine cellar. They are sorta slow, methodical projects. We flipped the door jambs over this morning and Eric put on the first coat of poly on the remaining side of the three frames. He'll go back this afternoon for a second coat and perhaps this evening for a third and they'll be ready for installation....which may happen as soon as tomorrow! I grouted the shelf base tiles yesterday night and the left wall today with terracotta colored grout. The seams are larger and fairly "freeform" so it looks like I'll need another bag of grout. Luckily I'm doing a lot less grout wiping due to a tip from our tile guy, John. Since they are ceramic tiles, they should not really absorb the grout, so if I give them a couple good wipes with the damp sponge, once the seams are dry I should be able to "buff out" any remaining grout. So far that has held true. Fun note: the carpet squares we ordered last week showed up at the house today so we should have another new project to show off soon!

Mundane (Monday-ne) happenings

2008-02-25T18:26:00.010-05:00

First, I got a decent photo of the arched window trim:
The view of the park looks a little bleak on this overcast day. Justen put in the window that overlooks the living room. Here's how it looks from below:

And from the den. It's got nifty manual casement window hardware:

Today we got Tim Truxall plumbing. I think he hooked up the dishwasher and drilled holes for the vanity:

I attempted to hang the mirrors. I measured a dozen times and used the stud finder and managed to only get one decently placed:

I spent a couple hours staining wine racks until my head was spinning:

I got rid of the grout haze on the wine cellar tiles:

And I couldn't resist "playing" and filling in more spaces with mosaic tile:

More tucked into the corner:

Still staining and tiling!

2008-02-24T17:35:00.009-05:00

Actually, the first order of business today was to pick up the supplies to build our glassblock shower wall. We tried Home Depot yesterday, but they were short the necessary decorative end pieces. They were going to send us out to one of their remote stores, but on the way there today we decided to rule out our local, 2-minutes-from-home Lowes (we didn't remember them having everything we needed either). As luck would have it, our Lowes had every last piece we needed and we saved ourselves a 1/2 hour car trip! Then it was business as usual at the homestead. The exterior doors themselves are complete so we swapped them out with the jambs and Eric got to staining: If you squint at the photo above you can also get a vague glimpse of the finished arched window trim. I tried eight different angles and still couldn't get a good shot of it in the broad daylight, too much backlight! Eric's staining setup from above:

The basement tilework I finished yesterday (entrance left):

The very farthest wall:

Today I grouted the floor in there. The familiar grout haze dilemma:Here's a trick I learned, if you take the photo while the tiles are wet, the grout haze disappears:

A view above and below, floor and wall:

More plumbing, trim, poly and tile

2008-02-23T21:32:00.002-05:00

Justen (carpenter) worked on the trim around the living room window arch and it's looking really good. Alas, the photo did not come out as we were taking a pic into a bright window. We'll have to give that a "do-over." The coat closet door now has glass:
The plumbers put in the guest bathroom toilet and Eric affixed a toilet seat today:

Likewise he did final assembly on the master bath toilet:

The kitchen sink now has its IKEA faucet, garbage disposal AND running water:

Eric did some furniture assembly today and put together our bathroom cabinet:

I tiled for a few hours and Eric gave the doors their final poly coat. That's all folks!

Photos as promised!

2008-02-21T19:17:00.007-05:00

The new steps leading from the hallway into the "den":
New threshholds so you don't trip into the guest bath:

Cute framing on our extra bedroom storage left:

Justen used the cabinet doors I so love that are also on the linen closet. And on the right:

More rows of tile in the wine cellar. Wall to the left as you enter (on the right is the wall that's straight ahead as you enter):

All this row needs is the grout:

In other flooring news.

2008-02-20T22:54:00.000-05:00

Eric and I have been contemplating what sort of flooring to put in our little "den" area amongst the eaves next to the closet. Our first thought was cork flooring and we were jazzed about these Atlantic Green cork tiles from online:
http://www.blackriverfloors.com/product_details511-24/Atlantic-Green-IN12321M/
But then we also considered that the room could probably use a little help with noise reduction (if we have a TV/music in there). So our next investigation was floor tiles. While we really liked the tiles over at www.flor.com I then discovered these online at Home Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/THDCoordinatingItemsView?productId=100591518&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
They are the current fave for a number of reasons: (1) they are within our budget, (2) they've got the "funky green" thing going and (3) they give us cool pattern options to play with. We were thinking of creating a "rug within a rug" design by using the "Legato Fuse Block" design in the center of the room and surrounding it by the "Legato Fuse Texture" to take it to the walls. With the various shades of green going on in the hallway and the runner we picked up at Lowe's
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=173953-43881-RS0107010208&lpage=none We think the carpet squares will work well in our "groovy room"!

More tiling for me...

2008-02-20T21:26:00.002-05:00

I came to the house tonight to work on my ongoing project of tiling the walls in the wine cellar. It's a little slower going because these are chunky, heavy tiles, so as they are going up the wall I'm afraid if I do more than one row at a time I will have them falling off. Tonight I managed to get a fair amount of the main wall that you see as you walk in the door and the side wall to the left completed. I suspect one more day of tiling and I'll get them all affixed, then I'll be good to grout! I was at the house alone (Eric went to a meeting) and managed to freak myself out over all of the little noises it makes. I'm in the basement, in a tiny brick room (with a nice view of the stairs from the doorway) and occasionally the floor will creak or some other weird noise will cause me to pause, then walk to the base of the steps and listen to make sure no one is prowling around upstairs. I had to get water for the mortar and now that we have RUNNING WATER INSIDE THE HOUSE (sorry for the caps, that's an excited emphasis) I headed upstairs to the master bath only to discover that one of our contractors killed the breaker for the hallway lights to the 2nd floor, at least that was my rationale as the hall lights would not turn on and I had to skulk upstairs in the dark. Thankfully the bathroom light worked, but that just made me feel illuminated on a floor of darkness. After 2 1/2 hours of tiling (and an hour of over-listening to creaks) I called it quits. Photos? You wanted me to go back down the basement with the camera after all of that? I think not tonight! You'll get some photos from a trip in broad daylight tomorrow. Other notes: Justen put in the stairs up to the closet. They look nice, but in doing so he removed our copy of the blog that was supposed tucked under the stairs and supposed to be sealed in there as a "time capsule" of our work for some future owners. Oops.

Full house

2008-02-19T19:37:00.008-05:00

When we got to the house after work the backyard was full of contractor vehicles. Bish, our plumber was there, Justen our carpenter was working and Travis the tile guru was finishing up with caulking the weekend's work. The muy impressive thing finished today, the eyebrow windows received their proper adornment. This one faces the backyard:
This one overlooks the front of the house and Batelle Park:

We are loving the "keystone" piece at the top of each arch that Justen custom-made for us.

Both pedestal sinks in the master bathroom are now completely installed:

And fully functioning...running water INSIDE the house...no way:

A well-placed note (not that you can read it- it says "NO MORE SAWING UPSTAIRS PLEASE") means that the sawdust was relinquished to the basement today:

We resumed our tasks....Eric polyurethaned the doors (side 2 coat 2):

Guess what I did? If you said "TILING" give yourself a gold star! Here's row two up the wall for the wine cellar:

And an overview of the completed work on two walls:

The return of the plumber....

2008-02-18T20:30:00.008-05:00

No sooner had the guys finished tiling on Sunday then come Monday morning our plumber returned for the final install. Behold the master bathroom toilet:
We now really NEED to get toilet seats, obviously,and while there's water in the toilet we were too afraid to flush it as we've not seen one of these in the house in about 9 months and we didn't want to jinx our good fortune. He's also got the pedestal sinks set up, but they are not hooked up to water or attached to the wall yet:

And now we've got a lovely showerhead:

Eric practices singing in the shower:

Our fabulous tile guy, Travis, left his tile saw for me to finish up the basement floor today:

And since I had leftover mortar I put up the running pattern of tiles on the bottom of the wall:

We came back later this afternoon and Eric polyurethaned the back of the doors:

I deciphered the Swedish hieroglyphics on our IKEA base cabinet for our guest bathroom sink. It ain't much now, but will be much cooler once the doors are on (and the shelf is in). Voila:

Mostly we're just stoked that it fits the sink we bought over a year ago. We'd been searching for some sort of vintage cabinet or something that would fit the drop in sink, but we've settled on the IKEA version until we find a piece that works. My other task for this morning was spending over an hour vacuuming the entry/dining room. Apparently our carpenter was using it as his sawing studio. I wanted to cry when I walked in after being sick and out of the house for half a week and the room was literally buried under inches of sawdust. So I broke out the ShopVac (you'd think a contractor MIGHT know how to use one of these) and vanquished the nasty mess myself (again). Time to reinstate the "no sawing in the living areas of the house" rule.

New week in review

2008-02-18T08:53:00.010-05:00

Sorry for the slow updates this week. I've had a nasty chest cold and haven't been at the house since Tuesday. The great news is that the tiling in the bathrooms is COMPLETE! John did a fantastic job. Here's the master shower nook:
John sitting in the guest bath tub grouting:

The finished guest bath window wall:

The finished wall where one day will roost a shower head and faucet:

Future home of two pedestal sinks:

A closer look at the shower bench:

Getting a feel for how it will look all put together:

2008-02-14T22:09:00.004-05:00

Third verse, same as the first....

2008-02-12T21:01:00.001-05:00

It goes something like this, "Eric stains,"

Three exterior doors times two or three coats of stain times two sides each...and let's not even talk about the door jambs that haven't been touched yet! Drying again:

"Mary continues tiling." This is the wine cellar room in the basement:Tonight I got most of the side cuts done and mortared and have about a row and a half to completion. Meanwhile with the paltry amount of leftover thinset I "played" with the first row in the way back of the room:
The "real" laborers had a productive day as well. Here's the main wall in the master bath:

Main wall towards where the pedestal sinks will sit:

Justen started on the railing between the hall and precipitous drop over the stairs:

Another view of the same, now with handrails:

The electricians also worked today. They had the final inspection Monday and had six areas they needed to address before we can pass. All seemed fairly nitpicky to us plebes, but hopefully we'll get the sign-off tomorrow! And the Blackburn Fireplace man paid us a visit to estimate how much it will cost to install some sort of fireplaces (they are both formerly gas) in our two fireboxes. Answer: likely too much at this juncture!

Monday progress

2008-02-11T19:31:00.001-05:00

I like having Mondays off because it feels like a bonus day to work on the house. John from Bernon Tile rocked the guest bathroom today and made good use of the bullnose tile we picked up on Friday. Here's the completed window mortar drying:
Justen was a busy bee too. He framed out the French doors:

And the little window in our funny upstairs "den":

Here's the window in that same room that overlooks the living room:

And here's what I did: tiling the "wine cellar" floor. Or at least about 2/3 of it:

John also started on the master bath cove molding around the shower:

Stainmaster E!

2008-02-10T17:54:00.000-05:00

Eric wielded his foam brush today and applied "red oak" to a variety of things. The doors all got a second coat of stain (on the first side):
The inside trim of the laundry closet got a first coat of stain (putting us that much closer to getting the washer and drier out of the hallway):

And the bathroom window got hit with the poly!

Meanwhile, I was the tiler. I cut the back row of tiles to fit (Travis' tile saw ROCKS) and mortared in the ledge of the wine cellar room. Next up....the walls:

It's the basement and a wine cellar, we're going for a rustic look. Hence, I freehanded it (no spacers):

Cutting terracotta tiles on Travis' monster saw turned the previously white/grey covered thing bloody red. It looked like someone lost an appendage. For penance I cleaned the thing. Note the blood red tray at the bottom of the picture:

You'll have to trust me that it is far cleaner now than when I found it.

The week in review....

2008-02-10T09:12:00.000-05:00

So to recap.....Mary chooses a pattern for the wine cellar wall in random tiles acquired from Habitat for Humanity's Build it Again Center:
Eric returns on Wednesday night and on Thursday helps stain wine racks:

Tile guys start Thursday and complete first course in guest bath:

Tile guys return Friday to create the "running band" of tile mid-wall, the course of tile above it and begin to trim out the window. Eric second coats the window in the guest bath with stain:

An ant's view of Friday's progress in the guest bath:

Remember the dingey walls in the basement wine cellar?

They got a fresh coat of paint on Saturday that brightened them up a bit:

Carpenter Justen returns on Saturday and knocks out a lot of window trim like this one on the window overlooking the living room:

And the master bath window:

And the nifty little window next to the French doors in the master bedroom:

Eric starts staining the exterior doors on Saturday:

All three doors got their first coat of stain and are drying:

On Friday the tile guys let us know that they needed more bullnose tile in the guest bath so we made an emergency trip up to the Menard's in Marion and cleaned them out of the remaining stock of it. Just in the nick of time as they've changed the border and the new one will no longer match our existing bullnose tile. While there we picked up the last of some grey slate ceramic tile for the "wine cellar" floor. The M&R guys returned Friday to hang the glass doors in the kitchen too...except the 1 little one they broke (oops) so we'll see them one more time. And the electricians came to hook up the radiant heat in the master bath so the floors are nice and warm in there now. That's our week in a blog entry.

Mary's little secret part 2.

2008-02-04T21:35:00.000-05:00

If you are reading back you'll notice a couple of new posts (if you haven't read anything in awhile then this seems in order). I put my "pet project" posts into drafts (ie., they don't show on the blog until I publish them) because Eric was out of town and (a) I didn't want to announce in a public forum that I was home alone for a couple days and (b) I wanted what I am accomplishing to be a little surprise for Eric when he gets home and he's been reading the blog while visiting his folks in Ft. Lauderdale. Lucky him- it was 80 and sunny. We had an event at the Market so I had to work. Our consolation prize was a couple of 60 degree rainy days. Anywho, tonight I returned to the house to finish painting the "wine cellar" ceiling. I was accompanied by the perfect painting companion for this job, our friend Suz. Now, Suz is an awesome painter to begin with, (witness our guest bath and front porch for proof) but she was perfect for this job because she's statuesque (aka tall) and has long arms. So while I was making frequent use of the 3-step stool to get in painting proximity, Suz could reach all quadrants of the ceiling on foot. We knocked this project out in an hour. All cobwebs were banished, electric wires camouflaged and funny unnecessary pipes rouged. Not much we could do about the pvc plumbing pipes and HVAC ducts:And the prettier part on the other side:
I've been contemplating how to "pretty up" this dungeon room in the basement which we aspire to call a "wine cellar." I picked up the moss green brick-shaped tiles on Saturday from the BIAC, but there weren't enough to do more than a couple square feet. After mulling it over I decided that I might be able to work with the random remaining stock they'd had and do something cool with the stretch of back wall/ledge (visible in the photo above at Suz's shoulder) that's above where the wine racks will likely stop. Since I closed the BIAC Saturday, I was there at opening on Monday and got 4 big boxes of the remaining rustic looking terracotta tiles for a mere $20!

I have inventoried the colrs and plotted the various designs and now have to figure out what will make the most appealing design. I played with patterning them a bit while I waited for Suz this evening. The back wall is 24" tall and 144" wide. Each big tile or smaller tile combo accounts for 8" so I know I'll need 18 "squares" across and 3 "squares" high. For the back wall and 8 squares across and 3 up for each of the end walls if I can stretch my tile supply that far. Here are a few of the combos I was playing with:

I think my current favorite is the very bottom 4 rows. A running pattern of light teal brick above and below two runs of alternating dark and light "squares." I'll have to review my inventory to see if I can pull that off!

Return of the cabinet contractors!

2008-02-04T19:25:00.000-05:00

A couple of guys from M&R, our Lowe's-appointed cabinet installation contractor, came to the house today. Recap: there were 9 KraftMaid cabinet doors with assorted dings and damage that were to be replaced. They had all been delivered (oddly enough individually) over the past several weeks and we were ready for the damaged ones to be swapped out with the new ones. 5 of these doors had the glass inserts but the replacement doors sent were open-framed without the glass. The guys looked at the glass doors (scratched ones hanging) and determined that they couldn't remove the glass and put them in the new open frames because it looked like the glass had been siliconed in and they didn't want to mess with it. So 4 of our new solid (no glass) doors were installed and the knobs put on today, but there's further wrangling with Lowe's to be done over the glass insert cabinets. The cabinet contact at Lowe's says they (the contractor) should be able to change out the glass and she'll show the installation guys how it is to be done and they'll get back to me on installing the new ones. It was a tiny bit disappointing, but it's not like I was planning on using the kitchen immediately anyways and we've been thrilled with the work of M&R so far! No pics until those cabinets are DONE!

Mary's little secret...

2008-02-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

Really, this is a little pet project I worked on (am working on) while Eric is out of town. So Eric, if you are looking at the draft of this STOP READING NOW! One of the other little sidelines of Saturday was a trip to the Tile Shop. I was going to buy self-levelling concrete and another bag of mortar and maybe work on the "wine cellar"....until the sales guy gave me the figure of $200+ (for six bags of leveller & 1 bag of thinset) and I decided to check and see exactly how uneven the "wine cellar" floor is before I went crazy with the concrete. Back at the house a little later with the 4-foot level I checked at both ends and everywhere in between and I'll be darned if that floor isn't almost perfectly level...it is certainly level enough to forego $200 in expenditure for the self-levelling concrete! So the last thing I did Saturday was pay a little visit to the Build it Again Center and hit the jackpot. A 50# bag of thinset is $5 (compared to $30+ at Tile Shop). I also got a box of a couple dozen mossy green terra cotta brick-shaped tiles that I thought were a good match for the green Mexican ones that I am contemplating using for an accent in wine cellar room if they don't go anywhere else in the house. And 2 bags of sanded grout in gray and terra cotta ($3 each) in case I got the wherewithal to move this thing along Sunday and they'd be closed. I'm thinking something in a terra-cotta color in 12" squares (with gray grout) for the floor since it will contrast nicely with the greens. There are 2 styles at Lowes that I like that are about $2 per tile, but I couldn't commit to that. And I might pop back over to BIAC on Monday and scout the remaining brick-shaped tiles (in a couple other assorted colors) after making a few calculations and seeing if they can fill the upper wall in a running brick pattern. What I DID come up with was a nice deep red paint color (that coordinated with both of the favored floor tiles). I am using it to finish off the wooden beams in that room and it reminded me of the color of old barn siding. It lightens up the room just a touch and disguises the rough nature of the beams. Here's a hint as you come in the room looking left:

Same shot but taken from across the room (and you can see one portion unpainted on the far left):

The electric wires seemed to paint up OK, but I'll have to come up with at solution for the bright blue light boxes! This is the view straight into the room from the door:

Me, myself....and Suz!

2008-02-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

I grouted the master bathroom floor solo today. It went much better than I expected. I mixed up about 1/2 a container of non-sanded grout (2.5#) and managed to lay it all in about 20-25 minutes (exactly as prescribed by the container). Then I played the usual sponge the tiles a dozen times game. The grout color (Dove Grey) is a great match as you can barely see it: And the camera flash showed me the spots I still needed to de-haze! The most fabulous Suz showed up and helped me poly the other side of the shelves. It went crazy fast with the 2 of us and the whole project took all of 1/2 an hour! Later I went down to the funky "wine cellar" room and played with dry-lok quick patch cement and filled in the holes in the wall (the dark spots on the lower half):

The smell of polyurethane drying...

2008-02-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

Looks like this:
That's all of the previously stained future closet shelves drying. That (there's another full table in the dining room) and a whole lotta vacuuming are what I got done today.

Pretty as a picture...window!

2008-01-30T19:15:00.000-05:00

Today we found more windows trimmed out. The right side in the living room:
Here's one of two in the study: The guest bedroom next to the closet and overlooking the scenic shed:

Justen giving a consultation from his "office":

Window framing!

2008-01-29T19:32:00.000-05:00

Justen worked on the windows today. The front room has a sill!
To the left of the front door:

The kitchen window:

And Justen's basement workshop where all of the chopping gets done:

Grouting and staining

2008-01-28T18:09:00.000-05:00

I de-hazed the guest bathroom tile today. We got grout haze remover at Lowe's and it does the trick nicely:
And not that I have a picture of it, but I whipped up a mini-batch of charcoal grout and filled in some spaces in the baseboard grout. It was hard to see when we did it the first time and on closer inspection I noticed we missed about a dozen small spaces so I fixed that. Then it was on to staining the myriad pieces of closet shelving. Here's the tall end of my sweater shelf pre-stain:

My mom was the expert in shelf construction this weekend and we cut out all of the parts. She kept saying, "we won't fasten them together until you have them sanded, stained and poly-urethaned" and I was all, "yeah, right, like that's ever gonna happen!" But I had Monday off and it seemed like a nice little not-so-difficult task. So I set up some tables with 2x4s atop and put minwax red oak stain on all of the pieces (both sides- yes, I was lazy and did not necessarily let them dry more than 1/2 hour before flipping them, but hey, it's closet shelving people!) The shelves to my sweater unit:

The hardwood plywood pieces to Eric's unit (insert your inappropirate comment here):

That big board in the background is awaiting further measurement for cutting and staining.

Grouting the guest bath

2008-01-27T20:39:00.000-05:00

I forgot how tedious grouting tile can be. I was reminded yesterday as we tackled the tiny guest bath. Seriously, it's about a five by five square that required grouting and it made me grumpy! The laying of the grout isn't bad. Since we have small grout lines we used unsanded grout and it seems more workable than the sanded stuff, but it also seemed to dry a lot faster. Then there's the cleanup. Ugh. Here's the tile after a couple passes with the sponges...yep, still got grout haze:
Another view:

We're letting the grout set and will return for the remaining streaks tomorrow!

A whirlwind weekend of activity

2008-01-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

Two extra pairs of hands certainly made for much lighter work and more progress this weekend thanks to the help of my parents. Although dad would likely argue about the "lighter work" assertion given the obnoxiously heavy things he helped haul. First he and Eric retrieved our future dining room mantle from a neighbors garage (and it is just as heavy as it looks):
Then it took all 4 of us to unload and maneuver the exterior doors we fetched from the custom door shopt. We hauled them from the van to their current resting place in the living room (carefully past the new granite on the island now):

Funny, but it only took 2 guys at the door place to load em up! We made some proress on tiling too. I cut the baseboard tiles for the guest bath and Eric and I mortared them into place:

Mom and I played mosaic with the river rock to put them up the sides of the shower basin:
We got a consult with Travis with Bernon Tile who we may have take over the wall and shower portion of that project. He had some great suggestions for future courses of action whether we use his expertise or not. Mom got a little color on by filling in the white space where we hope to someday build in a China cabinet, but in the meantime thought we may as well have color there:

Dad was a painting maniac, he's an expert at it after all. First he coated the guest bedroom closet with the kilim beige from the living room ceiling (mom gave an assist by washing the filthy shelves to prep them for painting):

Then he steel-wooled and urethaned the back portion of the floor. We chided him for going overboard and he reminded us that it's "his" (and mom's) closet when they come to visit:

At Travis' suggestion we painted all of the raw joint compound spots on the bathroom walls to assist with tile application (the compound absorbs the water from the thinset mortar more quickly than the concrete board and that's BAD). So dad hit the guest (pictured) and master bathrooms:

And for good measure he filled in all of the white space on the walls in the kitchen to give us a finished look until we someday get around to tiling the backsplash:

Mom and I did some serious design work on the upstairs closets. We took the measurements and formulated the plan for the master and linen closets. Then we got most of 2 shelving units constructed and cut. It took all 4 of us to rip the 4'x8' hardwood plywood that we used to create Eric's shelving system and you can tell we created a little dust in the process:

My parents were priceless in their help and advice this weekend. We're going to miss them (even more) when they go back to Cleveland today!

Bringing in reinforcements

2008-01-24T19:35:00.000-05:00

Mom and Dad MacDonald came to town Wednesday night and got right to work spiffing the place up on Thursday. Dad spent the better part of the day patching the guest bedroom closet with joint compound. Judging by the way the formerly dust-covered granite was sparkling this afternoon, I'd say my mom has been hard at work wielding the cleaning supplies! She's got some magic potion a carpenter recommended to test on our woodwork. I'll be taking tomorrow off to join in the fun. Justen was here today for a few hours. I think he finished the closet trim. He put the trim in the washer/dryer closet so we can attempt to install those this weekend. We'll cut him some slack as it was his birthday and all today!