Before and After Photos for Christmas!

 OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS (ALMOST) IN THE NEW HOUSE 



At least I put up a tree...



And an outside view after an early snowfall...



My Grandmother's tacky Bubble Lights...wouldn't be Christmas without them!

 NOW,  Here's a few "Before and After" shots of the Dining Room and the Station Agent's Office, a.k.a. second bedroom:

      Dining Room...closet on left is gone, now an open hallway.  I used the shelving from the closet for baseboard around the tiled floor!  We will be moving the "Star Trek" light from our living room at the  current house to this dining room.  I don't think Joyce realized that these were Southern Pacific Railroad colors when she chose them!

                

  And the Station Agent's Room,  sans the pink carpet and pending the chair-rail between the two tone green...Erie RR Colors...walls.  The train will run above the doorway and through the display case over the window.   Hmmm...Grandma had a '57 Fairlane the same colors!

However,   wouldn't it be nice to have a working bathroom?  The hold up...at least upstairs...is what-to-do with the bathroom ceiling which is mostly "bare" sheetrock since the paper and a coat of glossy white paint chipped off.  A tin ceiling would be great but we're fresh out of money and enthusiasm...soooo.....any suggestions?

Just in case I don't update the blog in the next two weeks....Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Deano

Deadlines...

DEADLINE... isn't that a strange word?  According to Answers.Com, it originated from a Civil War prison guard who made a line in the dirt and informed p.o.w.'s that they would be shot dead if they crossed it.  Ouch.

We set a Deadline to move the week after Christmas as we are both off from work that week.  I don't know how we're going to make it, but we're going to try.  Needless to say,  we won't be taking either Thanksgiving nor Christmas very seriously this year!  (i.e.,  don't expect any gifts).

This is how I feel at the moment:  (The guy on the bottom...well, at least he is more handsome than the other one!)

Then there's Joyce,  up to her eyeballs in spackle...which is mysteriously similar to joint compound;

I have, however, managed to install the new kitchen counter and connect the kitchen sink:  

A  neighbor built the black slate formica countertops and the sink is from a salvage place....we have two...Building Value in Northside and The Habitat for Humanity Restore in Bond Hill.  I haven't been so happy with purchases from Craigslist though... so far we've had to re-list and sell the stove, the dishwasher and half of the cabinets.  BTW...we have to get rid of  lots of stuff including books on every conceivable subject...any suggestions?

Meanwhile,  the stack of things to be returned to Lowe's keeps growing.... 

    

And here's the second floor back bedroom sans pink carpet and with two used display cases for my Lionel trains:

Plus,  the downstairs bathroom finally WITH walls...unfinished, but walls still.

Fine Cabinetry Department:   See how I've recreated the original doorpost moulding in the dining room with a new bullseye on top...made from two partial old ones...(patting myself on back).

And then...a narcissistic view of myself coming out of the closet...

Finally for today:  the official backyard plan for next year,  done on the back of a Frisch's Big Boy placemat with resident crayons:

 

Deadline? What deadline? 


Later!

We put this festive Autumn scene...complete with election signs... in the front yard so people would actually think that some LIVES there in the old house!

I also purchased two display cases for my trains...from an estate...again jumping the "before it's needed" gun.

Out back,  I'm staking the path of the driveway and 18 by 18 garage that we hope to build next year.  Before freezing, I hope to dig up some dirt with a Bobcat and lay some gravel at least!

 Inside the back door,  in what was once a closet,  we found a neat lamp at the Habitat for Humanity Restore...

Meanwhile, upstairs,  the boys have begun tiling the new shower, and since we got use of a big tile cutter for free...we'll do the downstairs as well next week.

Finally,  the laundry room closet on the second floor has walls...not sure about the floor drain just yet...

And last, but not least,  a late Petunia bids us adieu to the old house that we have been working on now for ten months...

But we still expect a Thanksgiving move-in date...and that's something to be thankful for indeed!

What I hate about Paige Davis...

On Trading Spaces,  Paige Davis suggests that we design around an object;  a painting, a photograph, a knick-knack, SOMETHING.

So,  Joyce bought three painted ceramic mushrooms at a garage sale...kind of a turquoise, taupe, and lime green.  YUK, I thought. 

In theory,  Paige's suggestion works great; in reality, it may not.  NOTHING looks good in turquoise or lime green, especially together.  After multiple trips to Lowes, and Home Depot and who knows where else, Joyce gave up in frustration and wasn't at all upset when I dropped the damned thing somewhere around aisle 13 and smashed it inot pieces. 

 It was an accident...or was it?

Anyway,  here's the floor tile we finally procured...neither turquoise, nor lime green, nor taupe.

More sorta "Ohio River on a bad day"

Well, that's the news from 656 Arlington this week...who thought that it would be Fall...and we'd still be working on stuff?

Deano

Excuses and Philosophical Observations!

 Wow...has it been a month already? No excuses here...except for working some overtime and my carpenter having a tornado in his backyard and having to do my helper's sheetrock "mudding" over and I'll think of more if you give me a minute.

                                                                                     

We're getting there  Gary the Carpenter, Ron the Plumber and me...that's about all I can say. Here's some shots of the new laundry room in progress in the upstairs hallway...we cut the wall out of one end of the roof eaves and our "retired" plumber Ron did some complicated roughing in of the pipes.

 

In their spare time,  the boys hung the kitchen cabinets;

A LOT less cabinet space then we have right now!!. The indentation on the right of the second photo is for a spice rack...and Joyce wants Concrete Countertops!

Concrete countertops???????

Meanwhile,  I took on what I thought was) an easier task: turning the back door around so there is better access to the kitchen. What I didn't know was that the jam was cockeyed and the door had been cut to fit the cockeyedness....so in turning it around...it was now doubly cockeyed!  (but it works...big gap on both ends...but it works.)

 
OUCH! =>>>>      

We also added a coat closet to the downstairs "right" parlor (as opposed to the "left" parlor)...and found folding doors for it at the Habitat Restore;

BUT NOW I GET PHILOSOPHICAL.....   

The Mystery of the Dying Rhododendron

You will recall this plant from an earlier blog entry in April.  We planted it in the front yard,  under the big trees, with the appropriate acid-rich soil and treated it with the proper, expensive fertilizer...and it was fun in April and May but began to fade about July and by the end of August was dead and returned to the garden center.  Gary, the carpenter, suggested that trimming of the trees out front had changed the environment from shade to partial shade and had killed it.  Others said the summer was too dry, even though it was watered regularly.  A third suggestion was that misery loves company so we should have planted several of them at once.  The best suggestion of all:  shit happens. 

The thing that bothers me...about the dead plant...is that I prayed about it and over it;  stopping short of anointing it with holy water.  It was not a big prayer;  it was not for world peace or to find a cure for cancer or even for the Cincinnati Reds to win the pennant this year.  I guess it has something to do with natural law;  you violate it...even if you don't know what you did...and you receive the consequences.  SOMETIMES,  there is divine intervention when you pray, and sometimes, even if you don't.  Those times are called Miracles and they do happen but not in Arlington Heights,  not in our front yard, at least not this time.

Maybe the Reds will have better luck. 

The old house is shaping up...next week, I start the flooring in the kitchen and dining room and the boys pour a base for the shower upstairs and finish the downstairs bathroom.  I promise to be more responsible in reporting what is going on in the Old House.  

Tanks for your patience!   Deano

Remuddling

"Remuddling" is a term coined by The Old House Journal to describe Remodeling that destroys the character or original details of an historic building. Our old house has been a casualty of remuddling...most notably the removal of a large arched window on the second floor.

But sometimes, one is lucky enough just to have historic details covered over with aluminum or vinyl siding. I hate aluminum siding; it's ugly and causes the wood underneath to deteriorate...but at least it doesn't melt if the barbecue grill gets too close.

I removed the aluminum foil from the rear door and sidelights (that's the small windows and trim on each side of the door) today and found this peeking through:




You might also notice that the adjacent door on the back porch to the kitchen has been removed...we suspect it was not original anyway AND allows place in the kitchen for a stove inside...which is always nice.

Inside the wall, studs, insulation and wiring are IN and the hallway wall and ceiling recently removed due to an altercation with pull-chain light fixture...an "ex" pull chain light now.

Opposite, the former pantry is having a broom closet built opposite the space for the "counter wide" refrigerator (which the wife is insisting on in order to preserve the view of the neighbor's collection of used car parts.)

You probably didn't notice the small bench in the bottom of the second photo on this page...I noticed this item on the way to work the other day, sticking out between two mattresses in the garbage in front of an apartment building. "I wonder what that is?" I said and threw the bench in the back of my truck. Turns out that this is an oak artist bench (I am not an artist...it's all my grandfather's fault...but that's another story). the left side of the bench folds up to 45 degree angle and an artist' mast (missing) attaches to a grove underneath. One sits on the bench and paints or draws away.

Maybe a new career for me? But for now, it's a bench.

More next time,

Deano

Shocking News!

Actually.... we did stuff this week to PREVENT shocks! Here's a subtle before and after shot...you may have to look in previous posts on this Blog to find out what was changed this week! (the ladder doesn't count).

BEFORE:




















AFTER:


Inside: I have wired the outlet boxes for the kitchen (the close-up is so my brother-in-law can tell me I did it all wrong!). Not sure it's to code but the town council can't find the code anyway...so not to worry.















What you've been waiting for: the Answer to the before and after question...

1. The electrical cable in the gutter is gone! (what were they thinking?). It went from the electrical box, out a hole in the foundation, around the side of the house, up behind the corner of the vinyl siding, across the gutter and into the bathroom. The new cable stays inside, through the basement ceiling and up the pantry wall. Unfortunately... the 48" bathroom vanity top got destroyed in the process of attempting to move it out from the wall!

2. You have to look at the far right of the first photo for this one. Gary, who loves to make more work for himself, insisted on taking out an old stove pipe (for a wood stove) out of the kitchen wall as it would stick out of the sheetrock about an eighth of an inch. I thought it would be behind a cabinet anyway, so who cares? Gary won, but then lost, because when he went to repair the hole in the roof over the kitchen window (notice missing chimney cap), ALL of the black shingles fell off and he ended up replacing the entire roof on the little "butt out" in the kitchen...in 90 plus degree temperatures.

Next week: the kitchen door is removed and a wall put up in it's place.

Thanks for reading! Deano

The Visitor

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New Mailbox!

Gary, the carpenter was working alone in the bathroom when he sensed a presence in the adjacent room...he turned to view this fearsome creature staring back at him from the shadows...a dog...a very large dog and one that did not bark! Just as suddenly as he came, the dog turned and ran off...but we found him later in the day. Right now, he's living on our deck until we can find his owner!
Things still progress slowly at the old house...

The subfloor is finished in the kitchen, pantry and dining room, finally... but then we decided to gut the rest of the kitchen as there was no insulation, nor wiring. Joyce is thinking about vinyl flooring, faux stone, with some copper and earth tones.

In the bathroom, we are installing the new bath tub, purchased on Craig's List. Going to be a tight fit for the toilet!

A September move sure doesn't look promising though!

Outside, we've planted some flowers.........................................................................

We tried to approximate the two landscape features of our next door neighbors which gives the illusion of a grand entrance...the lower photo is on the right of the house and has a Japanese maple we bought at a garage sale...doesn't show up too well in the photo, with some ornamental grass and a solar light.

Hope to have the first floor done before we move in and then we'll work on the second...have quite a pile of junk in the backyard, could use a dumpster!

More next time...thanks for reading! Deano

A Thousand Pardons...

...But I have been too busy to update the blog for a couple of weeks!

OK, the REAL reason is that there has been a lot of work going on at the old house, but nothing very glamourous...or photogenic at least, unless you like looking at floor beams. The carpenter spent a lot of time the last two weeks cutting out old structural "repairs" that just were not done properly...thank God for Sawzalls, is all I have to say. The floors, at least where the kitchen, dining room and hallway come together, is now solid and level and the subfloor is in the process of being installed.

Our No. 1 MISTAKE with this project has been buying things we were not ready to install and then having to store them; move them and move them again. The kitchen cabinets and stove we bought on Craig's List months ago have done little but get in the way of progress so far...but the may be in place in the next week or two.

We also purchased a bathtub on Craig's List which will go into the first floor bathroom. Joyce has chosen this tile pattern:

It's called "Subway Tile" and I plan on putting "IRT" in n black letters in the middle, in front of the Bathtub...but no one here in Cincinnati will understand that.

We have decided on a faux stone linoleum for the kitchen and dining room...and need to find an installer this coming week.

I wonder about the wisdom of taking on such a project...six months later...the neighborhood is seriously devalued and houses are being snapped up by landlords who do a cheap repair and then try to rent them as Section 8 housing. On the other hand, there is a renewed interest in cleaning up the area and in "civic" kind of stuff which includes a bluegrass concert in September.

Hopefully, you'll see MAJOR progress in the next installment! Thanks for your patience!

Deano