And just like that...

Summer is creeping up on us. And I'm ready. Yesterday, I came home to another great summer surprise:


Yep. Our porch swing that we got a year ago is finally up... Normally, I think swings should face the rest of the porch, but in our case, we use the side entrance to the porch a lot and didn't want to block it.

Now we have perfect push-off abilities with the porch ledge. It swings slightly off center, since we had to stagger the hooks up top (hanging it on an incline), but I don't really care. It's perfect.

Adam also wanted to try out the new compressor, so he fixed the front door. Since the DAY we closed on the house and we changed the locks, it has looked like this:

See there on the left? We had to pull that piece of trim off to change part of the lock. Well. As of yesterday? It looks like this:



I can't tell you how much it changes the entire room. Obviously still needs caulking and all the inside trim needs to be painted this spring when I can open the windows and confine the cats in the laundry room for a while. We want to wait until the base shoe is there so I can blend it in a bit more seamlessly. If you recall, we had to buy baseshoe quite a bit larger than regular quarter round because of the way the house has settled combined with that assy job the POs did sheetrocking AROUND the trim, rather than removing the trim, sheetrocking, and THEN reinstalling the trim. Grrrr.... Anyway. All in the past. No need to get worked up over it again.

As for the pup, he tried to dig the floor last night again-- 2nd time now that he's tried to dig when there's no thunderstorm, both times have been since taking the meds. I'm going to try the melatonin this week. Though, honestly, he may just want out-- the weather's been perfect and he's barely wanted to come inside at all...

So yeah. Things are chugging along at the ol' bungalow.

Success...I think

As foggy as I am with these allergies, I'm not sure I would know the difference between success and failure. I'm reduced to staring at small shiny objects and snuffling all the snot in my head.

So I won't do a lot of talky wordy business this morning. I will, however, show some pictures.

The main thing that got done this weekend was the porch ceiling. I stuffed the cracks with backer rod and caulked and painted, and we installed the new ceiling fan. It had some god-awful ugly "weathered oak" faux-wood faux-grained blades, so I also spray-painted those black. And we bought the crown for the kitchen and primed it, and bought oak to trim out the countertops.

We're on a roll. Here's some pictures of the finished porch ceiling. Some before shots can be found here and here. Now we just need to screen...




That business on the left isn't as bad as it looks here-- the wide-angle lens is distorting, and a fresh coat of paint behind it will do wonders. It's one of the many things we simply couldn't fix without tearing out a huge portion of ceiling, all for something cosmetic.

Slowly, slowly

Slowly, but surely, things are getting done around here. It's not major steps-- the weather's been too beautiful; on the other hand, we bitch and moan when it's bad and CAN'T work, so...there you have it.

Anyway, the porch ceiling got a little attention. Remember, it looked like this:


I primed the ceiling and we got the crown installed:


You can see I misjudged how far the primer needed to go along the edge, and there's a lot of caulking that needs doing before we finally paint. And boy is it dirty up there!

Still, it's a step closer.

Real work!

We actually made a little progress this weekend. Saturday brought the usual catch-up of cleaning, laundry, etc. But on Sunday, we drove over to Harbor Freight, armed with the 15% off coupon we got through One Project Closer and found the pneumatic stapler that we needed-- a 2-in-1 18 ga stapler/nailer for $29. We got to the counter, where the girl thought our coupon was a fake; it wasn't. Apparently there had been a rash of counterfeit HF coupons. Anyway, she scanned the coupon and gave us the grand total of... $18. Not only was the coupon awesome, the stapler was on sale for $19.99. Perfect. And it did the job splendidly. AND it was fun to use.



Then we went to Home Depot to get fake beadboard for the porch ceiling. Unfortunately, they hadn't restocked in the last 6 weeks, so there wasn't enough of the lightweight stuff; the MDF is just too heavy for the ceiling; the cheapo panels are made of composite fiber, so not exactly water-resistant; and the real wood is too expensive. We ended up with water-resistant ultra thin luaun.

And then we discovered that the panels didn't exactly fit into the vehicle we brought. So we went through an exceptionally long fiasco of buying straps and tying it to the roof.

After quite a bit of futzing and fussing and trimming and false starts, we got the plywood up. A little recap: here's how it looked right around move-in:


And here's after we replaced the plywood; you can see that the seams are pretty uneven.
And now, with the luaun:

There will always be a bit of a bow in the ceiling, but it's a vast improvement. The ceiling beams are not parallel, but run at various angles from house to outer edge, so there's not beams for the seams to run along. What we did was run 3 4-foot panels, plus a another foot off a fourth panel, from one end of the porch, then did the same with the luaun, but starting from the other direction. In other words, this means that the luaun seams were staggered in the middle of the plydoow underneath. Does that even make sense? It's 2 layers of wood, but run from opposite ends.

Anyway, by the time we'd hit this point in the project, it was 6pm and all our energy had been spent on tying the damn stuff to the car.

We called it done. We'll add crown next week and I can caulk and then paint everything white; the consistency of color should mask the undulations.

And then...

We screen.

Summertime, Southern style

As in, on the front porch. We got our patio furniture put together and arranged on the screen porch in time to have coffee and the Sunday paper out there this morning. Granted, no screen or ceiling fan, yet, but soon enough.



And yes, these were taken with the new wide-angle Nikon. I love it. This is basically on auto, with minor brightness/contrast adjustments. It's picking up some pretty bad hotspots at this setting, but I'm just glad the shots are in focus-- it's a major improvement. It does soooo many things, and I need to learn how to find and use them all. I'm having a great time playing with my new toy.

The first pic shows our new fancy furniture-- from Wal-Mart, of all places. It went down so much in price that I couldn't say no. The second shot shows our tragic little pea green couch that was "destroyed" in the storm; it had previously been "destroyed" by the cats, and "destroyed" by a lot of flopping down on it. But cover it with some old sheets, and it's perfect for this space.

Porch swing also came in--



Once we get it hung up, it's going to be great. Ugh. Note to self. Save down the pictures from 8 Mp before loading into Blogger-- they take forever! The old camera maxed out at 4 Mp, so I'll have to remember to do some adjusting.

We've done some more unpacking and cleaning this weekend, and finally reinstalled the French doors between office and living room. They look great, but I'm not going to post anymore about them right now; I'm actually on the front porch, where it is, no lie, 105º, and any more time on this computer will heat up my lap too far beyond the boiling point.

So more tomorrow. Time now to lay back and enjoy this fragment of a breeze.

It's hot

Me? I like it. As long as I can sit in the shade and be generally motionless.

Pretty much everyone else I know hates it. And to be fair, it was well over 100º this weekend. The humidity was pretty easily in the very high percentages. Adam and his boss worked on making sides to a trailer Saturday while the boss's girlfriend and I grazed on Pringles and watched, raising helpful concerns such as, "Ummm, how do you plan on bracing those walls again?" I had a good time, but didn't get much in the way of progress done.

Last night, I broke the garage door track. That should count as progress, I suppose-- we have to demo that door soon, anyway, in order to salvage the wood and make new ones! I'm just looking long term. Doing my share.

We also got some good old fashioned scrubbing-type cleaning done on kitchen and bath-- like with heavy-duty cleaners, not just a cursory wipe. The dog got a bath. And promptly got dirty again. The grass, did not get mowed.

So, you see? Not much in the way of visible progress. So for today's eye-candy, I give you: the screened-in porch furniture I'm going to buy this evening, assuming it's still in stock now that it's gone on sale.


It's the kind of thing I hate buying-- but it's gone down in price to cost really next to nothing. And I do have a couple of chairs that I'm upholstering for the porch. We just have so much outdoor space-- and we've got so little to work with!

And for the kitchen light...what do you think?
I'm still trying to find it on clearance. I know the metal is different than the other finish in the room, but I think it's otherwise pretty awesome.

Oh yeah. That's the other thing I did this weekend...

Internet window shopping.

We're Bona Fide!

Our biggest news of the weekend, in my opinion, was that our neighborhood has finally been added to the National Register of Historic Places. I never understood why this part of town wasn't already on the list. Even as a little kid, I noticed that these houses weren't so much older than others, but they were old AND well-maintained. And as I've mentioned, the street used to be brick and that gave it an even more charming, old-timey, historic feel. Nice to know that we've been made an Official Historic Neighborhood. And we can still paint the house whatever color we want. Whew!

Our other history-related discovery is house specific. We started on the plywood ceiling of the screened in porch. We've wondered at various times whether that side of the porch was original. We sort of assumed that at least the screening portion was not.

So anyway, I was spraying the rafters with bug spray-- yes, I know it's bad stuff and that I am killing bees, which are important and dying and I feel like a bad human being, trust me. But they are carpenter bees. They bore perfectly round holes in the wood and continue those holes into extensive tunnels that can render boards too weak to support whatever they are supporting. Also, I seem to be particularly allergic to wasps/yellow jacket/big bee kind of stings. Not honey bees, just the big guys. So it's me or the bees.

SO. I was spraying the rafters and beams when I noticed this:


Ok. See above the beams? There's trim. So I know that at the very least, the ceiling's been dropped. And when I climbed up to see...
That is actually the rest of the NON-screened in porch. And the white splotchiness in the back, on the right, is the old decking of the foremost gable angling in. I could also see the eave of the rear gable sticking into this space. Basically, this seems to indicate that perhaps...

...were added on. It explains a number of curious things about the house, too. First of all, it explains the weird shape of the porch roof-- totally flat, then angling down. It also explains why, when all the bungalows in this town have a doppelganger, ours doesn't. And there are quite a few porches in our neighborhood that are only partially covered, so it would make a certain amount of sense that only the right-hand side of the porch, under the gable, originally had a roof. At any rate, the bottom-heavy, in-your-face columns and expansive porch that we love were in part a savvy addition, probably in the fifties, if other renovations inside the house are any indication. I'm just so..so...Oh, I'll just say it. I'm so happy the POs did this! How often do we get to say that?!?

This has also reignited another interest. When we first bought the house, I spent a while looking through kit house plans to see if it was from one of the catalogs. I really wanted it to be, but wasn't holding my breath. However! The write-up about our neighborhood for its registry listing says that the majority of the houses appear to be kit homes. Time to visualize the place sans half a porch and see what I can find!

We spent all day Saturday picking up the kiddo from camp and visiting with family, so Saturday was a wash (re: the house) and Sunday was devoted to the porch ceiling. We replaced some 2x4s and painted the less damaged boards with rot sealer. We ended the day a few screws short and with it looking like this.


You can see that some of the boards sag a bit. That's because there's no beam to attach it to. The beams run diagonally, which means we have to anchor them where we can. I've got a few ideas for evening out the seams, and then I think we're going to cover it with faux beadboard or some other kind of thin wall covering so I can stagger the seams and make them a little less disparate.

All in all, a good weekend. Sore, aching weekend, but an exciting one nonetheless.

Another weekend over

I keep busting ass all weekend and it still doesn't seem like enough! So this is when the blog is helpful. It's a good chance to assess...I did stuff after all. Who knew?

Adam had to work aaaalll day Saturday, and the end result was a nasty sunburn. I was on my own.

First things first, I got a wild hair and busted out the scissors and garden shears. Here is the front walk right after I started

Yes, that's a coffee mug. It was about 8 am and I was perfectly happy to scoot on my butt with my coffee until it looked like this

I was pulling up toupees of grass. At any rate, lots of good clippings for the compost.

In other front of the house news, we've decided that the next item on the insurance money list is the porch-- we've got funds to redo the water-damaged ceiling.


I spent this afternoon removing the fan and tearing out the ceiling.


Next weekend we should be able to reinstall the ceiling and replace any boards that have rotted out.

Finally got our bedroom light hung...


But what was simultaneously the greatest accomplishment and biggest disappointment of the day was the kitchen cabinet doors. I got the hinges on them and got them hung. Ugh. Aside from the fact that I really don't like them, I wasn't able to get some of the stiles lined up perfectly, and they almost all hang askew. I put the same style hinges into the very same holes, but they still were crooked. And then I thought maybe I had them on upside down, but that didn't fix it. It just reminded me that the damn things were crooked when we bought the place; we took them off the cabinets a few weeks after we closed, so I had completely forgotten. Also, several screws broke off in the cabinets. If anyone has good solutions for getting those out without destroying the face, I'd love to hear it!

My main complaint is how yellow they are. We could take them apart and sand them and put them back together so that they're square, and rehang them so that they're not crooked, but that's far more time than I want to spend on something that I hate. I hate the design. It's just too, too MUCH for the rest of the kitchen with all the other clean straight lines-- in the counter, in the backsplash, in the floor.

Ugh. I almost don't want to show the pics.


It's so hard to tell how anything looks without the countertop trim, the crown, and the baseboards-- not to mention with the green window-- don't worry; it'll be white and the trim will be caulked. I'm also not sure whether natural wood will be ok for the doors. The sanded red oak is pinkish. The poly makes it a little yellower, but not like they are now. Remember this?


Do we think that finishing new doors like the top one above will help out the yellow insanity? The company said they could choose the wood for red undertones (like that red strip on the door above)...If it doesn't, can we stain dark? And if we can't stain dark, I guess we'll repaint the walls...

U.G.H.

The one thing making me a very VERY happy camper is the fact that we are getting new doors. It's decided. We just don't know when. That's one reason we put the old doors back on; the other reason? We didn't know how badly we wanted new ones until we saw the old one. Soon enough. I can be patient. I love the counters and dishwasher enough to make up for anything else that's wrong with that kitchen. And I still have high hopes for it once the trim work is finished.

I just need about 720 more weekends to get there...

It's your fault!

I blame it on all of you out there getting new kitchen cabinets. I've been obsessing over them. When I realized that we aren't in a position to buy new doors right this minute, I thought maybe some sanding and a clear coat of poly would tide me over for a couple of years. So I sanded the back of one door to see. And I really liked it-- or, at least, it was an improvement in my humble opinion:



The top one was partially sanded and given a coat of clear water-based poly. It highlights all the variations in the wood. But then I tried to sand the front of the door. Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated. Lots of beveling and curved surfaces. It was just going to take too long. Not to mention, the doors are in much worse shape than I remember. I ended up cleaning them all with some 409, taking off the old hinges, and hammering lose stiles back into place. We're going to put these back for now-- just to hide the clutter-- and price building them ourselves. Then we can decide if the money saved is worth doing it ourselves. I may get those custom doors I wanted after all...

I don't think I'd have been able to stand it if that's all I got done this weekend. Luckily, I managed to clean the front porch and then use one of those Lowe's coupons to get some Adirondack chairs.


And the most time consuming project was that baker's rack I mentioned the other day. I picked it up from my mom's and it was in worse shape than I expected.




A couple hours with a wire brush, some steel wool and a spray of water, plus a good coat of primer did the trick, though.



The final product, after a coat of satin wine red--

Ta da!



I like it. We may move it around. At least I got something done! Now I can feel accomplished.

Progress!!

After staying out far too late with good friends on Friday, I had a bit of a slow start getting to the house Saturday morning. I think I've mentioned before that we currently live about an hour away, and so we have very little idea of what's happening in the house during the week. And when we're in town, we stay with my mother a few blocks away.

So it was with a big fat smile on my face that I unlocked the door to the house Saturday afternoon to see...wires! lots of em! Apparently, the electrician was able to start work on the house this week and that is the one thing holding us up, really. Lots of outlets are in the floor and so we can't very well do the floors until everything else is done; can't paint until we know where new outlets will be cut into the walls; can't close up the kitchen walls until the electrical inspector signs off on them. It's one big chain reaction, and it starts with the rewire. We're one step closer!

Then I got a little further back into the house and also saw that some changes we'd asked the CH/A installer to make were done...at least the biggest ones. It was very, very exciting.

However, without any electricity, we're a bit limited in our projects. So this weekend, we sprayed down the screened porch and finished scraping, and spent Sunday painting trim. And it's amazing how much better it looks. Who knew a good scrubbing and some white paint would make such a difference! Still no after pics yet-- have to replace some ceiling panels and rotted trim...and still need to rescreen, but you can see what we started with: