Sore arm Sunday and achey back Monday

I had today off so I used it for the "fall planting" at the house. The finished product: mums and some plant whose name I don't remember, but it's a perennial whose coloring I thought coordinated nicely with our brick:
What is not visible in the above photo is the 100 tulip, 120 daffodil, 80 crocus and 60 muscari bulbs that are planted UNDERNEATH it all. This was my 6 hour project yesterday. The photo above started with me digging a 3 foot wide, 10-inch deep trench in the shape of the bed. Then I added bulb booster, spaced the plants and laid out all of the tulip and daffodil bulbs...added 5 inches of dirt back in...placed the crocuses and muscari (grape hyacinths)...add the remaining 5 inches of dirt with the priceless help of Eric. An intended future task is to add a brick border using the bricks from the (former) wall in the middle of the house that are currently stacked in the back yard. The front planting was the final task of the day. I started with the "easy stuff." On the side of the house I planted big hostas transplanted from the "original" homestead that I've split for the season and small variegated hostas in the strip over the gutter pipe:

Through all of this digging and dirt disturbing I also removed about 60 roofing and other nails, a window's worth of glass and a dozen of the old school ring pop tabs. We took a break for dinner with the Reno's (Becky's is due today, but no baby...and those crazy kids are going to a concert tonight!). Sunday Eric and I spent the entire day at the house. I spent a few hours on my knees pulling staples from the hardwood floors that we want to have refinished in the living room and dining room:

Eric added some extra insulation in spots to reduce noise in important places like the guest bedroom wall that faces the dining and living rooms:

And the guest bedroom wall next to the stairs so any visitors don't have to listen to us and the dogs clomp up and down the steps QUITE as loudly:

We also spent time shaving the foam insulation (Mary) to fit WITHIN the channels (makes sense to you and me right?) so that the drywall will fit flat on the studs, chipping off extra mortar from the stairway (Eric) for the drywall guys to have better adhesion, and removing traces of wallpaper from the remaining plaster over the brick in the study...again for direct adhesion of drywall to the plaster. We took a "time out" for lunch with the Reno's who are still waiting for the arrival of baby Reno and a trip (was it two?) to Lowe's for Shop Vac bags. it felt good to suck up some of the extra grime and make the place just a little cleaner.

Getting close

We did some more exterior painting yesterday. The leaves and branches do a nice job of concealing the fact the peak remains unpainted. Of course, there is the whole right-side dormer, too.

Thanks Clinton!

So, fellow neighbor/houseblogger(see Adventure Reno in the sidebar)/Daddy-to-be, Clinton created this lovely banner for us:
So when our entries stream to http://www.houseblogs.net/ they should have this nice deocrative little heading. Alas, due to some glitch (or perhaps due to my IT-incompetence) it's currently not working. So here's a little love for Clinton anyways. If you like this little piece, you should see the most fabulous rock-n-roll posters that are his forte. See here: http://www.galaxyreno.com/
Consider buying one a contribution to Baby Reno's college fund.

And now for more contractor interviews...

We met with Linda from L&L Floors this morning to give her a tour of the hardwood we'd like to try to patch and refinish. They get rave reviews on Angie's List and from our immediate neighbors...let's see what the price is and whether they can work us into their busy schedule! This evening I interviewed Justen Fick of JLF construction. We're desperately trying to get SOMEONE (ANYONE?) to actually GIVE US A BID on building our porches. It does not LOOK like it would be such an awful job that no one would take it. The roofs are already up even! Thus far we've asked 3 folks for bids (including Justen tonight) and nobody's gotten one to us...we're willing to pay to have it done...is this too much to ask? Justen is also a trim carpenter who mills his own molding...which might come in handy when the drywall is up and we have to start putting the final touches on the place...like replacing all of the molding that was missing from the house with the various pieces parts we've been collecting! And he does built-ins so we might also consult him for the china cabinet and bookshelf next to the fireplace in the living room. Stay tuned...let's see if anyone wants to build a porch or two!

Insulation realization!

Three quick days and it would appear that our house is fully insulated. 75% of it is the rigid foam insulation. Here's what the cathedral ceiling in the living room currently looks like:
The guys were so thorough that they even insulated the space where one of our new entry doors will eventually be placed(hey- it LOOKED like framing)....and filled in the broken transom window so it now oozes primordial foam:

We popped over to the neighbors to check out their refinished wood floors as we're having the same company bid the job at our house tomorrow. In other flooring news, we went to Lumber Liquidators on the west side and picked up three boxes of Morning Star bamboo flooring for the downstairs study (http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1918&categoryId=9&sectionId=2&subCategoryId=87). We think it will make a nice transition from the original hardwood and set the room apart as a separate space. We also considered the cork flooring they have for the upstairs "den" (that funny room space with the skylights in the eaves next to our closet). We haven't committed to that yet, although they had some nice colors (here's the sample we took home: http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1586 ). We're thinking maybe we should go with a stained cork in a "funkier" color (if such a thing exists), since this is such a unique space that we can totally get away with it!

A flurry of activity!

Eric and I showed up at the house tonight to tackle a pretty basic project...rid the kitchen of the old refrigerator....one of the last vestiges of awfulness from the original state in which we found the house. We walked in the door to delightedly discover that the Phillips' crew had framed in our future arches:
The grand arch looking from the front door/dining area into the future kitchen:

And the first floor had received the initial treatment of spray foam rigid insulation, so our walls and the interior of our house look like something out of a low-budget science fiction film! Do you feel like you're inside the alien? But we can believe that stuff is going to block out any drafts as it gets in all the nooks and crannies and it's rather solid. The team carefully tarped off all of our new windows, exposed brick, electric boxes, etc to prevent them from getting foam-filled:

We imagine today they'll tackle the cathedral ceiling that's "up" in that last photo. One of our architects, Steve, dropped by to check on progress and gave us the thumbs up on everything he witnessed. Then Eric and I went to work getting the fridge out of the house. Since it measured 34" and our widest door maxed out at 32", the masterful Mr. Martineau broke out the ratchet set and removed the doors....giving us about a 30" fridge. From there we had to actually get it our the door shimmying it left then right (it weighed an obnoxious amount), down the porch steps, across the yard and into the van. Why not just pull the van to the porch and save ourselves the trouble? We have placed a moratorium on bringing the van into the yard as Eric JUST (like today) replaced the SECOND tire that met its demise due to a roofing nail stuck in the sidewall (hence, irreparable). We can't figure out where else we'd be picking up roofing nails other than our own project and those Euro-van tires run from $150-225 (depending on where you're buying we discovered) and we can't have them further increasing our renovation cost. Mission accomplished, we "dumped" the fridge behind a friend's garage who intends to use it as storage (passing the ironic "Nail a Dumper" sign just a few hundred yards down the alley). I think I failed to mention what a completely disgusting mess the fridge is. Aside from the mountain of crap that was on top of it from the demolition (that rained on E's head as we tried to take it down the back stairs), it has been unplugged for more than six months and has spawned an impressive collection of mold and mildew. Oh, and I think we may have discovered the LAST mouse carcass that was caught in the coiling under the fridge that was left in the yard...EWWW! After dropping it in said friend's alley, we hastened to promise that we will return TOMORROW to give it a thorough cleaning and make it a storage-worthy vessel...or haul it away if we fail to accomplish that.

Sensational Insulation

We have had inordinate luck with picking contractors who (mostly) show up exactly when they say they are going to and get the job done in the manner promised. Let's take the insulation, for instance. YESTERDAY Eric faxed them the contract saying we were ready to start and TODAY we have an insulated master bedroom. It was interesting because it was quieter than it has ever been since the batting absorbs all of the extra noise! Check out our ceiling:
A ceiling fan/light will one day be where the white circle is poking out. And our "loft" space is visible on the right portion of the photo. The perspective makes it look like a flat wall, but there's at least 4 feet (width) of space up there! We also have an insulated master bathroom (bear with us, it's hard to see, but trust us, it's done)!

So inspired were we by the fast progress being made by the insulation guys that it occurred to Eric that we still have (had) some drywall that needed to be removed on the steps to the basement. After all, if they're going to town insulating the house, let's make sure they insulate the WHOLE HOUSE! So Eric knocked out the rest of the drywall as you see here:

Those lovely wires indicate that we have working electricity to light up this stairwell....To the left of that wall would be where the old vinyl siding was on the house's exterior. And where our framing crew found an old (and rotted) door that was original to the house. This stairwell was originally a wrap-around porch and the access to the basement was steps in the closet of what will be our guest bedroom (we're not quite taking reservations yet!)

Lights, inspection, action!

Brandon (one of our electric contractors) worked diligently over the weekend (he was even there on Saturday while we were painting) and we've got LIGHTS throughout the house. Mind you, these are merely bulbs stuck into sockets, nothing fancy, but they give out ILLUMINATION! Meaning we can now be in the house after dark and SEE what we're doing (inside at least)! Most impressive is the basement (formerly referred to as the cave). Each of the 3 rooms now has two rectangular fluorescent fixtures that set the basement aglow like it's broad daylight. And they can be turned on by switches BEFORE you enter the room (instead of fumbling in the dark for a pull cord). Eric and I took advantage of this by doing a little basement cleaning tonight....there's still miles to go on this, but a little debris is gone.

Also of note: today was our structural inspection and with the exception of two minor details (1- a rafter needed shimming - done- and 2-safety glass on one second story window)...we PASSED! So Eric faxed the insulation contract back and they are starting TOMORROW!

And our EMTEK Arts & Crafts mortise locksets came today (http://www.knobs-etc.com/arts-mortise.htm). We stopped by M&M Doors and dropped them off so they can be installed in the doors that are being custom made for the house....and we got a sneak peek at them, they look great! Brad (from M&M) estimates they'll be ready in jusst a couple weeks!

1000 little steps

Status Report!

Electrical & Plumbing rough-in are complete and inspections have occured (and passed!). The crew from Lumbee Electric is still on-site running the basement lights and a few other elements. One of the small details I love is moving the electric service point from the center of the back side of the house to the side. The house looks much cleaner without the service chase running down the back side and the yard looks more open. A small thing, but I like it. (You can see the shadow of where the service line and meter were located... just a bit of cleaning and it will be gone).

Below, our new service panel. No, it just looks like it could service Nationwide Arena.

Next, we will call in our structural inspection and if approved we will move on to insulation and drywall. We also are hoping to have the porch deck/columns rebuilt in the near future, but the bids will determine when that will happen.

The framing crew has framed in the soffits for the duct work. We also ordered an iron rail from Fortin Ironworks for our back porch. It should be installed in the next 4 weeks or so.

Painting continues. The photo above shows some more of the trim completed, but still quite a ways to go.

We obtained quotes for new glass-block windows for the basement. As there is not a single pane of glass in any of our basement windows (all boarded-up), having some natural light down there will be nice.

It's all in the details!

One of the charming things about this house (and what attracted us to it in the first place) is all of the little exterior details. From the stunning brick and the precisely arched windows to the decorative wood molding (previously monochrome and covered in white gutters) that begged to receive a little more attention. So we went to Sherwin Williams and selected a couple of colors from their myriad options (I think these are from the Arts & Crafts or maybe the Victorian Collection) that would work with the existing brick color. Here's the result of tonight's labor:When we get the new doors and the porch finished the house will be perfect (from the outside...notice you haven't seen many interior pics lately?) Here's me at work on the corbels. Both E and I have concluded that painting over your head, well, basically sucks! We both have sore arms, stiff necks and achey backs .

This was Monday night's progress. We finished the new siding and trim with two coats and it's ready! (Remember the icky old white aluminum siding? You know, the stuff that matched the gutters!) Don't look at the dormer as we obviously have some work to do there...but...Yay! It's got siding and trim! And someday all of the upper molding on these eaves will have the gold accent too...

With our brushes still wet on Monday night, we put them to use on the back of the house, at least on the parts that we could easily reach without the aid of ladders.

Another quality find..or "why we love craigslist!"

First, some updated photos of the house. Mary got to the peak while Eric played soccer last Wednesday and painted the new siding and trim. We're thinking of highlighting the finish molding on all of the eaves with the gold (as shown in the very top rear peak). What do you think? And adding some gold highlighting to the corbels (those decorative things on the front) to balance out the colors.
I found some old wrought iron fencing under the "materials" listing on craigslist on Friday. I called "Paul" and he seemed surprised to hear that we are from Columbus since he's in Dayton. "Oh, my son listed that for me, I thought he was only advertising it in the Dayton area!" We made arrangements to check it out on Sunday after our busy weekend (Scoot-A-Que AND the Microbrew Festival). We stopped at the Springfield Antiques Extravaganza along the way, but found nothing we "needed." We got to Paul's house in Beavercreek and were delighted that he was home and still had the fencing (he was a little hard to contact). We took a good look at it and decided both that we liked the look of it (we have a penchant for fleur-de-lis) and that it was a good deal at $450 for 33 feet of it. So we paid the kind man and loaded it into the euro van for the trip back to Columbus.

Here's a more detailed look at the finials. Paul said he'd received a call from a guy in Marion who asked him if there were any lines on the fencing (which would indicate that it's newer molded stuff). There are none and it is nicely evenly pitted (which I gather is also good from reading up on it on other sites). Now we need fence posts and gates. Keep your eyes peeled!

Craigslist tally: numerous farmhouse doors, french doors, big old mantle and wrought iron fencing.

Kitten update...

So I put the neighbors we know on "high alert" in search of the missing mama cat and her kittens. Bob called this morning with news (mews?) of a "kitten sighting" at his next door neighbor's house (across the back alley and about 5 houses down). I had an appointment with a contractor anyways, so I went over to the house and left a note on their door about the cats. Oh, and I peeked through their back fence and called for mama cat. She came out from under their deck and let me pet her through the fence. The kittens must have heard me as they tumbled out from under the deck and watched from 20 feet away. Lori (of Ryan and Lori) called me that afternoon. Apparently she and Ryan had been feeding "Boots" (as they have nicknamed her) for a few months when she up and disappeared one day to have her kittens. They had been frantic about her since they knew she was pregnant. Then one day this week she just reappeared under their deck with her litter. So everyone is safe and now she has 2 families lookig for homes for her and her progeny!

As of yesterday...

And then there were none...

We stopped by the house this morning to check on the kittens. There was only one in the crawl space, the chubby little light grey one. We feared Momma cat was tired of the ruckus and fearful of one of the contractor's Jack Russell terrier, Dotty, with whom she scrapped (and won) the day before and decided to move her babies to more peaceful territory. We left the little one for the morning, but by mid-afternoon she was gone and we assume her mother came back for her. I walked up and down the alley calling for her, but there's no sign of her. We hope she and the tiny ones are OK and found another safe space to live.

Painting painting painting

We had a full house today. Rick the HVAC guy had a couple of helpers. Larry, Felix and Sean returned to trim the newly installed windows, add more siding and complete some finish trim on the eaves. The Pella crew returned to continue framing out the installed windows and add the decorative arched aluminum tops. Two guys from "All About Roofs" worked on the flat roof (which also leaked on Saturday). And since it was my day off and the guys had lots of scaffolding conveniently set up, I came over to paint. Mom (and maybe Dad) stop reading here and skip past the 1st photo. Trek one was up this "interesting" scaffolding. It consisted of two ladders and an 18" board between them. Yours truly scaled it and painted the green eaves you see peeking out. Alas, Sean needed to install the siding and it doesn't look like it's built for 2, so I moved on to firmer footing around the corner (on a ladder nailed to the roof).
My afternoon consisted of standing on the roof and/or hanging from various places (like a chimney) to paint the upper eaves. Oh, and lots of caulking...given the moisture in the basement, I want the upper level to be airtight! Eric came by after work and did the "rewarding painting"or at least the most noticable stuff that everyone sees...that is, the front of the house and decorative corbels to match the new windows.

And now, the "money shot!" Look at this image and then scroll up to the one of the house when we bought it (upper right hand column). It's looking like a new house (at least from the outside)!

Take note: new windows, no bad and really obvious white gutters, matching windows on front porch, new roof on house, new second floor peaking out with just a hint of eyebrow window (we've got 3 total), new dormer with window overlooking the park, roof over front porch and, of course, the freshly painted eaves in a color that would not be called "flesh" in a box of crayolas! Stay tuned, one day that plywood will be covered with siding and painted too! And we'll get a "real"porch (vs. the remainder of the bad old deck).

Meet the kittens!

There are 3 of them. We are guessing they are 5-6 weeks old (if you have a better guess based on your experience, we're all ears!) I attempted to determine if they were male or female and am still stumped, so I'm thinking they are all girls (remember this in a month when they are more developed and turn out to be all boys). This is the mightiest (and tiniest)!

Only slightly larger and otherwise almost exactly the same as little mighty...

And the light grey one obviously never misses a meal.

Momma cat was out gallavanting this afternoon, so I took the kittens on a "field trip" to the front yard one at a time to get their photos taken.

It doesn't look like much....

But this patch of dirt may retain my husband's sanity. It POURED down rain last night. We didn't freak out because we've got new gutters and they should be alleviating those pesky problems of old- water spouting everywhere and eventually ending up in our basement. Sunday morning we peeked in to see how they fared....and ended up hauling 10 buckets of water out of the basement (gotta love the ShopVac!) Which indicates SOMETHING still isn't quite right. So on Sunday Via Colori (chalk painting festival) was cancelled due to rain (Mary was supposed to work all day). Late enough in the afternoon (3PM) the rain ceased and Eric decided to channel all of the water from the gutters on the east side of the house into a pipe and off the hill at the front of the house.

Look above at the white PVC pipes attached to the gutters and into the ground. Now envision a 30 foot long, 8 inch deep trench running from the pipe back by the fence all the way out to the front hill of the yard (out of the photo). The lovely patch of dirt used to be grass-ish stuff. We spent the afternoon, early evening, dusk and just after dark (8:40) digging a trench, running 4" PVC piping the length of it and attached to the downspouts, running to Lowe's for properly fitting fixtures (who KNEW there's thin wall and thick wall PVC pipes - each with their OWN accompanying attachments - not us and we started off with the wrong ones!), glueing the various components together and shovelling as much dirt as possible back on top! Along the way we encountered lots of roots, old chain link fence post stakes (2) and a massive block of concrete with the sawed off end of a fence pole that were in our way! We removed everything but the stubborn concrete and pole. Although we persevered with a sledge hammer and managed to removed about 8 inches of the concrete, we still could not get the pole to budge, much less come out. So Eric smacked it to one side and we routed around it! Now we cross our fingers that the next rain we have a dry basement....pretty please?!

The bonus of Via Colori was the remainder of a keg of CBC beer awaiting return. We iced it down on the way back from Lowe's and shared with our new neighbors. Billy & Michelle thought it was the best housewarming gift yet! And Bogart got to play with their dog Trevor. Much ridiculous puppy fun was had.

On This Episode of Wild Kingdom....

Soooo, most of the new windows are installed, meaning that the second floor is now completely secure. And the Pella guys are replacing the old first floor windows as they take them out so there's no easy ingress and egress...Sooo HOW do we have another episode of Wild Kingdom? Well, there's been this darling little tiger-striped cat who's been in and out of the house as the various contractors come and go. She arrived at approximately the same time as the new neighbors in the duplex (along with their kitty tree on the back porch) and she's extremely friendly so we believe she belongs(ed) to someone. She only looks about a year or two old and after holding her several times I speculated she'd had kittens, maybe even recently.
Today Eric and I dropped by the house in the morning to check on the progress of the contractors. I had been looking at the new windows while Eric talked to our HVAC guy, Rick. As I came around a corner Eric says, "Rick, would you repeat to Mary what you just said to me?" Rick says, "Sure. That cat that keeps running around here is living in your crawl space with her kittens!" Huh?
Rick had torn off a piece of plywood in the first room in the basement to run an HVAC pipe through the crawl space and up to the living room. Lo and behold, there was mama cat and three kittens cozily lounging in the dirt and debris. To be fair, we'd had "signs." Eric would put a box over the open register hole in the living room (over the crawl space) and it would be mysteriously moved. And one of the contractors said he'd seen her come out of the hole, but we all assumed she'd just been poking around in the empty house. And then yesterday there were kitty pawprints on the new metal roof over the back porch (just after we'd sealed all of the previously open window spaces). So we got the flashlights and peered into the 2'x2' opening into the crawl space. It was pretty obscured by spider webs, but there appeared to be all sorts of stuff in there too. I used a piece of wood to clear the webs, then reached in and started pulling stuff out. There was lots of old trim from the house in there (so THAT'S where it went?!) Conveniently, there was also a garden rake (the space goes back about 15 feet) which I used to drag more stuff out, all while momma and babies nestled an unreachable 10' back into the space. Old Pride of Cleveland beer bottles, neat old pavers and lots of random wood pieces were dragged out.
I was already filthy by that point, found my long sleeved shirt from painting and said "the heck with it, I'm going in!" It was a treasure trove of little trim bits, old apothecary bottles (Burma Shave, Squibb, etc), and lots of indistinguishable rusty cans (and one cool old Maxwell House Coffee can). The kittens decided I was interesting company so they kept wandering over to see what I was doing. I kept counting them "one, two, three" to make sure no one was going to get squished as I handed stuff out the hole ot Eric. Then E grabbed a Budweiser box and we put the kittens into it to move to the back room for safekeeping while Rick worked on installing the new pipe. Mama cat was having none of that. By the time we'd stepped away for 2 minutes and came back, she'd already scooped up the littlest (and mightiest) guy by the scruff of the neck and returned him to the crawl space. "OK, you win! For today you can stay there" (and really, we had to get back to work). Rick managed to work around the little family. When I dropped by after work, Rick had successfully installed the new duct and the kitties were hanging out in the crawl space....in their new Budweiser box bed! Who needs a sweet little grey tiger-striped kitten? They are all very lovable and friendly!

The mightiest of all! Hear the kitten roar! Also, crawl space pre-dejunking.

Me and the three. Momma cat decided they were in good hands and took this opportunity to thoroughly investigate the hole. Crawl space after mountain of debris removed.

Mo Windows!

Yes, this is likely not NEARLY as exciting for you as it is for us, but we are THRILLED with every new window that goes into this place as it makes a HUGE difference in how it looks (from the outside, at least). Here's the new bay window on the front of the house (note: all windows still need trim inside and out).

This is the new kitchen window overlooking the backyard. The window (hole) to the right is in the bathroom. It's the one our mason, Andy CUT into the wall!

And these are the windows that will be in our study.

Another "wow!" day

The Pella crew started yesterday and made some fantastic progress. They installed all of the windows into the new framing and started on the replacement windows. Below are the French doors (or Freedom Doors as our new neighbor Billy joked) off of the master bedroom.


Below: the other windows in the master bedroom.

Below: The Pella crew after tear-out of the 2 windows in our front porch.

Below: Here we have the metal roof which forms the floor of our balcony. It had to be installed before the French doors were installed, and we cut it close. It was completed over the weekend.

Below: In other news, Mary and I spent Monday afternoon cleaning the portions of the brick walls which we intend to leave exposed. We sprayed muriatic acid and scrubbed to get the plaster and mortar off the face of the brick, sometimes more successful than others. You can see the difference and it will look great in the end.