Anniversary present

Today marks our one month anniversary of double home ownership. We celebrated by taking out the master bathroom side of the plumbing wall, most of the 'mud' from the floor of the upstairs bathroom, and about 50% of the linoleum in the kitchen and mudroom. Grandpa T did the bathroom and then we both worked on the wall while the Mr. walked through with the estimator working on specs for the electrical and plumbing bids. Then the guys went home and I worked on the linoleum. Grandpa hung around long enough to see what I was uncovering - by golly, it's pine!

After an hour of scraping and after most of the functionality of my right arm was gone, this is what I ended up with. I think it's beautiful but it is very soft. I have no idea how old it is, as the linoleum from 1975 just had a pad underneath it. I haven't gotten into the mudroom yet but I'm assuming that it runs to the back door. Tonight I will be googling for ideas on what to do with it. Paint? Poly? Waterlox? 

In psychology when we're talking about families and why people don't expose their helpless infants on the hillside, we talk about something called 'attachment promoting behaviors'. This is basically what your baby does to convince you that it is lovable, adorable, and worth all of your sleepless nights, your freedom, your money and your body. Cooing, smiling, snuggling, etc. I feel like this house has got this down. When things are looking super hopeless and overwhelming and frustrating, the house manages to turn up something unexpected and promising. I realize wood floors in the House of 1000 Woods isn't that surprising, but I really wasn't expecting them. We've been joking that these people must have owned a lumberyard. The listing agent told us that the original builders actually owned a furniture store, but close enough, I guess. 

The mason is hard at work, which pleases the Mr. greatly. As the mason and the Mr. were walking around pointing at stuff the mason's wife, who works as his assistant, commented "they're a perfect match. Picky, picky, picky." Indeed, they are a pair made in OCD heaven. Works out fine for me, since I'm going to have a beautiful house when they're done. 

Downtime

We've reached a point where we just don't have the strength or the energy to push through, so we've had a few days off from the house. It feels awful to not be making progress, but it also feels awful to push yourself farther than you have the means to go. It's a holiday weekend and we have a lot to celebrate, but I had to spend one full day on the couch last week from exhaustion/allergen overload and the Mr. jacked up his arm after his fight with the laundry chute and it still isn't right. So we're trying to rest up and relax so that we can make a big push next week. We also need a little time for our heads to catch up with our hands, and make a lot of decisions about what comes next and how our priorities play out.

All that being said, we actually made a lot of progress this week:

• Dining room side of the plumbing wall down
• Laundry chute gone
• All the carpet, tack strips and staples gone from the ground floor and stairs (only the landing upstairs still has carpet pad and tacks/staples)
• Mold remediation complete!
• Porch swing (HUZZAH!!!)
• Mason has delivered replacement bricks and will be hard at work this week
• Surveyors staked out property lines

We did not accomplish this by ourselves, of course, but the point is that we don't personally have to be working every single moment for progress to be made. This job is too big for that, and if we tried it that way we'd be even more busted up than we are now. Also, we have a small child and a large dog and the Mr. works full time and I'm studying for my big test (and I got a job offer this week too - hallelujah!) so it's good to step back and refocus a little bit. We have a family friend who is an amazing helper, and he has accomplished a lot of this week's progress for us while we put out other fires. We are so grateful to have his help and his free time and his good right arm. ;)

We have a few bids for the plumbing (completely replacing) and electrical (also completely replacing) and we don't feel like we have enough of the right information to pick someone and get started. Every bid is a little different, and we want to make sure that our priorities are reflected in their bids and that we're comparing apples to apples. So our estimator from way back in the day will be dropping back by in the next few days to help us write up specs for the bids. We'll take that back to our existing bidders and maybe call in a few others. It seems like it should be simple - look up Angie's List, call companies, walk them through the house, decide, move forward - and on a certain level it is. It's also a multitude of interpretations of what are probably two $10,000 jobs that will affect every other job in the house for the next thirty years... no pressure. So we're going to take our time and feel good about moving forward when we're ready to move forward. We have no offer on our existing house, so we aren't homeless and we can afford to take the time.

In the mean time, I'm going to look into renting a floor sander and working on the upstairs hardwoods. I have refinished floors once before, in a large commercial space. It isn't a very complicated job and I want to do it right, but I can also throw down a rug if it goes horribly awry. I've also been googling ideas for next year's garden, as our garden at our old house is in glorious full bloom... because we're leaving, of course. Our roses are the best they've been in the decade we've lived here. C'est la vie. 

Hobos, Guys, Stairs and Swings

We continue to work on demo, and we ordered dumpster #4 on Monday. For those of you playing along at home, that's 80 cubic yards of debris that we have already hauled, carried, tossed and dragged out of this house. Our new dumpster is a 20 yard, the same size as dumpster #1 so we're aiming for a project total of 100 yards. That does not include ripping out the wheelchair ramp, although it could happen. Who knows. The new dumpster may even be dumpster #1, except it didn't smell like spam last time. Or maybe it's urine. Hobos? Food? Who can say. What adventures are dumpsters having while they're off duty?

The mold remediation is finished except for a little clean up. The entire basement has been scrubbed, sprayed with mold killing chemicals and then sprayed with Kilz. Ceiling, walls, floors, everything. It's taking a long time to dry since we keep having thunderstorms, and the air conditioning isn't turned on because everything is wrapped in plastic. But it's nice to know that the mold is (almost entirely) gone, and it was super nice to have guys working in the house. It's like we're not doing this alone! (We're not, but it often feels that way, round about 4pm and/or 12 am). I was telling the mold guys this and they said, "makes you feel like there's someone else pulling the rope?" Which is almost exactly the case. The surveyors finished staking out the property lines today in anticipation of fence building, and our replacement bricks have come in and the mason is waiting for a dry day to climb up on the roof and rebuild our chimney. So things are happening. We are going to make some final decisions on plumbing and electrical, since that's holding up just about everything else at this point, and get something going on the door replacement and gutter fronts asap. We've had a lot of gutter quotes, but so far no one seems to think that our copper gutters can be repaired. Tragic, but not entirely implausible. I have yet to see gutters offered in a patina green shade. Phooey. 

So in preparation for guys of the plumbing and electrical varieties, I took off the dining room side of the nasty wall today. I'm not going to lie, when the Mr. asked me my plans for the day and I very seriously said, "oh, I think I'll take out the wall" - I felt like a bada$$. The lath was in bad shape and the joists need to be cleaned and possibly Kilzed as well so it was a very dirty job. If a toilet drain had exploded all over you and then been left to sit for an indeterminate number of years, you would probably be in bad shape too. Even so, it was nice to see the sun shining into the dining room. The Mr. took off the kitchen side of the wall at the end of last week, and fought valiantly to remove the laundry chute. It seemed like an impossible task from that side, and he also realized once the wall was down that the plumbing was flat against the dining room side of the wall, so we would have to take it down to remove the pipes. Which sounds crappy, but we always wanted to open up this wall in the first place, and our plumbing/electrical situation is just making that a reality sooner rather than later. The laundry chute (on the right) is actually soldered to a piece of metal that we discovered underneath the middle section of remaining lath, which explains why the Mr. wasn't getting anywhere trying to rip it out from the other side of the wall. The other chute is a heating duct that runs right up to the bathroom, and opens up at the top of the tub. So every time they got out of the tub or bent over to wash their hair or whatever, water was running straight down the chute. We will take it out/move it someplace more convenient, so we should be able to push this wall back at least past the heating duct. That will bring a lot more light and communication into our kitchen/dining room, even if it takes us some time to get the cabinets and peninsula put in place according to the plan. 

Communicating with the ghosts of plaster past. 

In other news, the tack strips and staples are gone from the living room and the stairs. The stairs are actually really beautiful, if now completely full of holes and scratches. I hate that amber red carpet more every day. 

From a few steps back, you can almost see how awesome they're going to look when they're all fixed up. Don't be scurred by the boarded up window. It's fine, we covered it up to protect it (and us) during demo.

Have I ever shown you my awesome mirrored door? It's awesome. 

And most awesomely, an AMAZING housewarming gift arrived this week. It is so sweet. Recycled plastic that can be washed after every cloud of demo dust or sidewalk chalk or sticky popsicle or spilled beer and will look beautiful for as long as we live here. Our breaks are a lot more restful and relaxing, especially when we get a little afternoon rain and the windows are open. It helps - physically and mentally - to sit and swing and think about when this project will be mostly finished and we can have lazy weekend mornings or afternoons with the Kid or glasses of wine with friends on the porch. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Smell ya later, things I threw away today

I am very close to winning my battle against shag carpeting. The only carpet left in the entire house after today is a thin strip between the dining room and the office (accidental) and a little lip to protect the threshold on the landing outside the upstairs bathroom (purposeful). There are a few spots where I left the carpet pad down as we continue demo in other areas, but that is easily removed and not nearly as filthy as the carpet itself.

I would like to state for the record that while ripping out carpet sounds like an easy job, it actually isn't. This carpet has soaked up decades of spills, urine and lord knows what other fluids, in addition to the baking soda/carpet fresheners that were used over the past 40 years. It is also wool, which makes me break out in hives. It is also every bit as crazy stapled and nailed as the pine paneling was in the basement. In short, it is a beast.

Why use a handful of staples and nails when you can use an entire box?

Much as I disliked the party carpet, the orange shag ('amber red' was written in marker on the back of one piece) has earned a special place in my hall of shame. Not only is it stupid heavy, it is also so matted that I end up cutting it twice - once to cut the backing, and once to cut the glued mat of shag in the middle. It is a paste held together with that most pungent of liquids - cat urine. 

It is well known that cats and I have decided to live our lives separately, for the benefit of both parties. One of the most important factors in that decision is the reek of their urine, the worst smell that I have ever encountered - and I have spent the last few years in hospitals. If I had a time machine, I would use it for one purpose. I would go back in time, and I would strangle the cat that marked this house. I don't know how long ago that was, but I do know that the ghost of his urine lives on: in the carpet, in the blackened, reeking tack strips, and in the discolored trim. The landing of the stairs was a place of special honor, where this ancient cat entwined his excrement with the fate of this house for generations to come. I was nearly overwhelmed as I wrestled with the infuriatingly secure carpet, but I couldn't decide whether I was going to throw up or pass out so I just checked Facebook on the porch until I could breathe through my nose again.  

All cats are hereby banned from this house. FOREVER. Again. 

After I triumphed over the cat urine, I was exposed to some other exciting aromas when the recycling company showed up to take away the nasty old refrigerator. We had to unscrew the hardware on the front doors to get it out, after we removed the doors from the fridge altogether. Apparently they are going to send me a check for $30 for the privilege of scrapping that monstrosity. 

Hork. 

Once the fridge was gone and I swept up it wasn't so bad. In fact, the kitchen is so much more open and full of light that I might not replace it. (Ha! Decorating joke.) I like to think that the house is smelling better all the time, since I keep taking out these disgusting things. But then I start to think about what's inside my washing machine, and I kind of want to hurl again. It's not that I haven't seen houses in much worse condition (because I have, undoubtedly I have) it's that since I walked through those houses, I have taken microbiology and learned sterile technique. Also, I never planned to live in those houses.

I try to tell myself that it's getting cleaner all the time. And it is. I just have to live with taking a fair amount of it home in the interim. 

Please excuse the through-window shot. 

The white box on the lower left is actually a cabinet sitting on the porch. 

Ding dong the pine is dead!

So proud of the Mr, who won his battle with the knotty pine paneling yesterday. We have officially eradicated all the paneling from the basement and the stairwell, which totaled somewhere between 40 and 50 cubic yards of dumpster. We found my new favorite wallpaper under the pine on the basement stairs, which naturally wasn't salvageable. We kept a piece for my little collection.

This is actually even cleaner now that I took all the tools and stuff upstairs. Note the bathroom is completely gone except for the tile floor on the right. Looking east. It is actually painted pink, that is not a lighting trick.

Trash mountain is completely gone, and the mold guys started work today. Hooray!! Progress!! They did chemicals and scrubbing today and are running an 'air scrubber' overnight. They will start painting tomorrow and should be finished by the middle of next week. 

This was once two utility rooms. And a kitchen. 

Kitchen cabinets are all gone. That white pipe was the drain for the sink. 

We've been demolishing through a couple of rain storms with the sump pump disconnected and this is the only part of the entire basement that is getting water, and its only on the wall. The dark spot under the ceiling is actually the original coal chute, which is open to the elements. We'd like to replace it with an egress window so we can use this room (once two separate work rooms) as guest rooms or offices once the plumbing and electrical have been taken care of. The back corner (north east) is an area where we have epic gutter failures, which we hope to have fixed soon. Once those two things are taken care of we are hopeful that all water problems will have been resolved. The perimeter drainage tile seems to be working just fine. 

When the mold guys came in this morning they took a look around and said, "Wow, you guys must be done wore out."

Yes, yes we are.

More Basement Demolition Photos

These images are already inaccurate as they were taken in the middle of last week, but it will make my next post that much more impressive. I hope.  

This is our basement trash mountain. To match the one upstairs. 

Looking north, through the great room. 

Already the closets are gone and the hallway is at least twice as wide. Looking east. 

Much of the bathroom was demolished by our good friend Mr. Coffee (or so I was told.)

Party Dumpster

The party carpet is no more. Hallelujah! Despite the protests of a vocal minority I feel 100% better now that its out of the house. Given the water stains on the underside, I'm a little concerned about the floors. They are still under the carpet pad to protect them while we do some demo in the upstairs bathroom and open up the wall between the kitchen and dining room. So I haven't seen them yet. Carpet removal is my favorite demo project because it makes the house look better immediately. The floors still need work of course, but it is super gratifying to pull out the nasty, smelly, filthy carpet and reveal the hardwoods. It's like opening a present! A present that gives me hives when I unwrap it. Alas.

Demo is surprisingly difficult to photograph because there is so much dust in the air. See also, covered in filth and disgusting and exhausted. I took the camera today but only got these two shots on my phone because of the aforementioned factors. 

The Mr rented a jackhammer for the weekend. He busted out the floor and the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom today. The ceiling is still in pending the whole house re-wire which is now a certainty. But the basement is very near completion and we are on dumpster #3, so we are making good progress all around. Which is good because we can only take another few days of this manual labor before we seriously start falling apart. I am so tired that I am walking into walls and tonight I caught my heel in the screen door and have a 2" gash down the back of my heel. Hives and Crocs with a cap and gown is a classic look for graduation, right?

Thursday night the Mr and I loaded dumpster #2 until nearly midnight in a driving rain. Not the kind of romantic evenings I envisioned spending in this house, but it won't last too much longer. I will be overseeing some contractors next week, getting a few more bids and continuing to work on floors and walls. I may have found two excellent candidates for the living room paint color, which will be used in different ways throughout the house. Hopefully I will get to put some samples up soon, because the paint really keeps me motivated. Whatever it takes, right? 

This lovely robins egg blue was lurking under the cabinet on the wall between the living and dining room. Makes me feel like I'm really tuned into the history of the house with all my plans for aqua. This is the wall that will be opened up so of course it can't stay.

Tile time

So our budget for tile in the bathroom is... minimal. At best. Which is unfortunate because a) tile is crazy expensive and b) apparently a crucial opportunity to show everyone how much money you have. I'm more broken up about the first part because hello, I have a small child and I'm looking for something that can handle a wide range of bodily fluids. Also, conspicuous consumption is not my bag. I want it to look nice but not like we spent anyone's college tuition on it. (I'm spending that tuition on eradicating knob and tube, thanks very much.) Judging from the reactions of tile sales people this makes me an unusual tile customer. I guess most of their customers aren't walking in and asking for the cheapest tile in the store, maybe? At any rate, I'm tired of being looked down upon by snooty sales people. Thankfully there are still a variety of options in our price range thanks to the good folks at ye olde depot de home. 

Option 1: octagon and dot floor tile with a 3x6 subway tile on the wall. It's a classic for a reason. (Hex tile runs more than twice the cost of the octagon and dot. Sorry, hex tile.)

Option 2: a 6x8 wall tile gives a more modern feel

Option 3: 6x6 tiles could be a modern look that still plays nicely with our historic home in a diamond pattern

Option 4: 4x4s are very budget friendly and can be brick or diamond patterned. Our dearly departed homeowner loved her some 4x4 tile, which biases me against it, I think. I pulled too much of it out of my cleavage.

I've already ruled out option 5, but you can take a peek anyway:

Marble patterning on the floor tile gives visual interest and is a budget friendly alternative to real stone. I like the matte finish of the octagon and dot tile better so that is why it got ruled out.

Personally, I'm kind of leaning towards option 2, but I have a few days to make up my mind. 

If you want to check this out for yourself just go to Home Depot and ask for the Daltile. (American Olean is the equivalent brand at Lowe's.) It's a nicer way of saying 'I want the cheapest possible option, thanks'. 

Demolition Progress

We're mostly demolished, both in terms of the house and in terms of our physical status. The Mr. is putting in yet another late night loading up a dumpster (we filled the 20 yard ridiculously fast, I expect the 30 yard will be full tonight, and we still haven't taken out any first floor carpets). He's taking some updated pictures for you all, but in the meantime here are a few pictures of the upstairs bathroom from mid afternoon on Saturday:

Down to the studs (laundry chute door has been removed since)

Charming. Historic! We found many pieces of concrete with newspaper attached to them. Most of the newspapers dated from 1947. 

One million razor blades. I have since been told by a classmate that old time medicine cabinets included a slot to 'dispose' of your razors. Pretty sure the 1970's cabinet we removed didn't include this, but who knows. Maybe they thought it was a gift they could leave for future renovators. 

Pathetic dumpster. It could have been completely filled before lunch. We seriously underestimated how overbuilt the basement was. 

Huge thanks go out to all of our volunteers this weekend! We were able to get pretty darn close to our goals for the weekend and would have been closer still if we'd had another dumpster. We are very grateful for the skilled and enthusiastic help with taking out the bathroom (Andrew, Laura and Katelin!) and ripping out the basement (Kyle, Mike, Terry, Bruce and Andrew!) Those are two different but equally awesome guys named Andrew, and my apologies if I've forgotten anyone. It was a pretty long day and we are thrilled that no one was injured. (Mostly. We got out with a few cuts and scrapes.)

We are very tired and I am personally relieved to have been 'clean' since Saturday night, although I managed this feat by hanging out with the massively tantrum-ing, possibly sick Kid. Saturday afternoon we were ready to pack it in and had collected him from an awesome day playing at the neighbor's house with their 5 and 7 year old kids (for which we are so grateful!) when some friends pulled up ready and eager to help. So we turned back around and went back to it, setting the Kid up with the iPhone and his Legos on the porch. The Mr. was surprised when the neighbor kindly returned him to us, as he had wandered back to their house to talk about Legos. Whoops. So we have been keeping a tighter rein on him. He clearly loves the new neighborhood and is becoming quite the local celebrity, since he is perfectly willing to talk to everyone and knock on people's doors if they don't come out to hear his thoughts on light sabers, Death Stars, and battle reenactments. We are having lots of talks about boundaries and what is street and what is park. 

We're at the stage where it feels like the life we envision for our family gets farther and farther away with every hectic fast food dinner and bungled house showing, while the layers of dust and grime (and shattered tile collecting in my decolletage) seem like 'the new normal'. It's always darkest before the dawn, it gets worse before it gets better, etc. etc. We could use a long nap and a good meal. I've discovered that my optimism about this project has a direct relationship with my blood sugar. I'm consuming a lot of sugar as a result. I would really love to see just one project coming together at this point. Soon and very soon. 

This week I'm finishing up the last few days of my second bachelor's degree, and we'll be taking the weekend to celebrate graduation. My personal next project is most likely floor refinishing, which shouldn't be too big a deal but may be complicated by the knob and tube wiring we discovered in the bathroom. It's not throughout the whole house and we were hoping it had been completely updated, but alas, no. So there may be a lot more holes in walls coming up. Fun times!

Basement Befores

Most of this no longer exists: 

This post is equivalent to 7,088 words

Saddest face of sad. Why can't this stay? Why? 

I mean, I know why. But still. Does anyone know of a screaming deal on hex tile? 

In more positive news, this: 

This: 

This: 

And this: 

Equals this: 

We may need a bigger dumpster. 

(We've started calling the bedrooms by their carpet colors now. So from the top, that's the 'green room', the 'red room', the 'blue room' which is not the master but the future master bath, and the master closet.)

P.S. I hate you adjustable shelving. You suck.