Critters In My Yard

Once again, I had the best of intentions to stay on top of back yard maintenance over the winter, and once again, I did not. As a result, I have a hideous oxalis problem. This stuff only grows int he rainy season, but if you turn your back on it, it will grow several feet tall before you know it. The worst part is that letting it grow helps it feed the bulbs that will produce next year's crop. Three winters of neglect have given this weed a hefty head start.

Two weekends ago I made a trip to the garden center after weeding the veggie bed area. I worked on it for a few hours and barely made a dent in the problem. I thought I might need to call in the big guns (read: chemicals) to tackle the rest of the yard. I don't like using chemicals, but clearly the pulling isn't working since the one area I've really worked on controlling over the past three spring seasons is still having problems.

The gal at Wegman's (I swear they are the BEST garden center around) told me that my best bet is to pull the weeds EVERY day and the earlier I catch them, the less chance they have to produce and feed more bulbs. Maybe after a few years the problem might be under control. My response was, "Um, I have a job. And a life. What are my other options?" Next in line is a technique called sheet mulching. this is where you mow it all down as short as your mower will go. Then you lay sheets of cardboard or lots of layers of newspaper down on the ground and make sure it is overlapping well so that there are no cracks through which this stuff can grow. Then you spread 1" of compost and another 1-2" of mulch. the idea is that it totally smothers the sprouts and if it can't grow leaves that can conduct photosynthesis, it can't produce and feed baby bulbs. After several months, you come back and roto-till the whole yard and--voila! perfectly fertile, weed free soil. The only catch is that in severe infestations it may need to be repeated.

I pondered this and thought that maybe I will pass on that effort this season and start the sheet mulching in the fall when this icky stuff would be starting to grow again. Meanwhile, I kept pulling the weeds. In so doing, I discovered that my yard is not only home to several types of salamanders (I have seen and identified Arboreal and California Slender), but to a toad/frog as well:
Since I had disrupted his home in the patch of oxalis, I built a little toad house out of flower pot (turned it on its side and stuffed a bunch of leaves and such into and over it). i hope he intends to stay and start a family.

I also noticed that I now have a healthy worm population. The past two seasons I've thought my worm population was deficient and contemplated adding some to my veggie bed to help improve the soil condition. Nice to know that is not needed this season.

In any event, these three data points reminded me that avoiding the widespread use of chemicals is the right choice. The herbicides might have an unintentional negative impact on the ecosystem supporting my beneficial creatures, so I'll stick to weed pulling for now. The jury is still out on whether or not to do the sheet mulching now, or wait until the fall.

I'm Not Completely Slacking...

Forgive me, dear readers, it's been 8.5 months since my last posting. The later half of 2009 was filled with even more challenges than the first half, and though progress at The Dump continued, blogging did not. I will quickly bring you up to speed.

Garden:
My crops got off to a good start, but took a hit due to a prolonged absence in August. An automated sprinkler system is on the agenda for this year, even though that makes it difficult to utilize my rain barrels (which, BTW, are already full for this season). Hmmm. I'll need to ponder a solution for that. However, I did learn that zucchini and yellow squash are abundant producers, even with minimal attention, tomatoes are not so forgiving of inconsistent watering, I needed about five sugar snap pea plants instead of one, cucumbers and melons are not something I will try again and corn is not worth the space it takes when I can get big juicy ears from the farmer's market (my six stalks produced three ears, all of which were about 4" long).

Painting:
Well, I got the front finished, and a bit of each side (the bits that are visible form the street!), and that's about it. Definitely need to pick up the pace this coming summer.

Kitchen:
There has been A LOT of progress in the kitchen, which of course pleases me to no end. after all, the kitchen is the proverbial heart of the home, and as most of you know, I do like to spend my free time cooking and baking.

Along the way in The Dump's history, someone thought peel and stick vinyl floor tile would make a good backsplash behind the sink. You can sort of see it in the first photo of this post. That was a lazy attempt to avoid installing new window casing trim after pulling out what I suspect was some funky 50's tile backsplash. Well, those damn vinly tiles kept popping off, so finally, in a fit of irritation, I started to yank them off. However, that revealed that the self adhesive was not enough and so the installer used some construction adhesive, leaving a gooey mess that could not be removed, even with the strongest solvents. Unable to decide what to do with that, I just lived with it. For a year. I finally decided that some beadboard paneling would work nicely:

You can see some of the adhesive on the side walls because I couldn't (still haven't) figured out how to tackle getting the paneling to play nicely with the irregular gap between the counter and the wall. I decided not to paint it blue (little color swatch at lower left of window), and instead painted it the bright white of the trim and what will eventually be on the cabinets. Please note the lovely new trim on the window. Yes, I can rock the miter box.

However, the biggest improvement in the kitchen to date is the new floor I installed during my five weeks of furlough in Nov/Dec:

I ultimately want to salvage the hardwood under the two layers of hideous 70's vinyl tile and rocking 50's sheet lino (see below for the detailed photo of the layers), but I couldn't handle removing both layers at this time, unsure if the HW is even salvageable. But I just COULD NOT take any more of the ugly yellow and brown-ness, so I opted for some cheap and cheerful faux stone vinyl tile, adhered right to the 50's sheet.

OTHER:
I did some super-badass reglazing of some windows that were in bad shape, but that doesn't have much visible wow factor, so I have no photos. Suffice to say that I did feel very proud of myself for accomplishing that project and will be attempting further window repairs in the spring.

While handing out candy on Halloween, I met some neighbors for the first time (Jana, husband whose name I cannot recall, and their A-dorable little boy, Joe). They live across the street and a few houses down in a super-cute house with a very tidy yard. Jana made my day by telling me "Your garden always looks so nice with all the flowers you have, and your tulips last spring were spectacular." Little do they realize I am plotting to overthrow them for the "cutest house on the block" award. However, since this is what my next door neighbor's front yard looks like, I don't think I'll have much competition:

Big Summer Project Has Begun

A few weeks ago, I had the thought that perhaps I should paint the exterior of The Dump before the next rainy season as there are some areas where the paint has failed and bare wood is exposed. I wondered how long it would take me to do this by myself as asking mom to help would be far different than asking for her help on an interior painting project.

Imagine my surprise when she pulled into the driveway mere days after I'd had that crazy notion and the first thing she said was, "We should paint your house this summer." I wasted no time on taking her up on that offer! We pulled paint chips that very day and narrowed it down to what I thought was a good color. Samples proved otherwise, so the color selection process continued.

Since I have a series of 3-day weekends coming up (Memorial Day, 4th of July, and a bunch of random Fridays we now have off as a token remuneration of our recent pay cut), I decided to get moving. Here are some progress pics from this past weekend:

Saturday - Scraping (not much since I have lead paint under there), patching and attempted gutter removal. Discovered the gutters will not come off AFTER we had demolished the downspouts int he removal process (oops!). No photos of this since it looked even uglier than before. Color was still uncertain at this time.

Sunday - Everything is primed and ready to go. Color rapidly selected and paint purchased (since the paint store would be closed on Monday). You know it was bad when a passing neighbor is totally impressed by the primer coat:
Monday - Eaves, rafter tails, fascia board and gutters painted white (with the "help" of my new power painter. Very messy, but good for getting into all the nooks and crannies of the eaves. I could not have done it without the help of a crew consisting of Mom, Uncle Tom and my beau, AT--thanks everyone!), window and garage door trim painted green so I could get the padlock back on the garage door:
Tuesday night (wanted to snap a pic before I ran out of daylight) - Yellow done on front wall so that I could unmask the front door:
Wednesday morning - All cleaned up, unmasked and looking perky in the morning light:
Obviously, there is still a lot left to do, and this is only the first side of the house! However, it's a massive change and I think it will go a long way in boosting The Dump's curb appeal.

Once again, I'm reminded of the transformative power of paint. I heart you, paint!

Yard work

So, it's been a while since I last posted, and I've been really busy in that time.

I painted and laid a new vinyl tile floor in the laundry room but I don't seem to have any real photos of that. I know I took some with my phone, but they aren't blog quality, so you'll just have to wait.

The weekends of the past month have been focused on the yard (aside from the weekend I lost to a business trip). Namely, I was keen to get my veggie bed going so that I will have some chance of having something edible before the season ends. I spent a weekend pulling weeds and working the soil and then planted the following weekend.

I went a bit crazy at the garden center:
6 types of tomatoes
a 6-pack of corn
a 6-pack of basil
Parsley
1 Cucumber
1 Zucchini
1 Crooked neck squash
1 sugar snap pea
1 watermelon
a 6-pack of lettuce

I'm pleased to say that I made it all fit:


Also a few weeks ago, I discovered buds on scraggly rose that I had pruned in January 2008, but had largely ignored since then. This weekend I got a pretty trellis and tied it up to the end of the front porch:

Cute, non?

And to round out this yard-loving post, my CA wildflowers are late to bloom, and not as well synchronized as I had hoped, but pretty nonetheless (I had wanted an explosion of blue lupine and orange poppies together, but the lupine is almost finished and the poppies are just beginning to open):

It Pays to Have a Friend Who is an Artist

I know with absolute certainty the shade of green I want to paint the kitchen in the final remodeled version with white cabinets, dark hardwood floors and my lovely "Cashmere White" granite I picked last February. Alas, with the economy as it is, that is off the books until some time in the uncertain diststant future. The kitchen desperately needed a paint job to be less dumpy and more tolerable until the remodel finally happens.

Picking a color has not been an easy task. The reason for this is that there is a complex set of variables to influence this decision. In one corner, I have the new white cabinets with honey colored beech butcherblock counterop. In the other corner, I have the dingy old cabinets with a cheap blue formica counterop. Underfoot is a hideous yellow/brown/olive linoleum tile that I plan to replace with a pretty stone-like linoleum tile when I can afford it (see previos post about recent pay cut coupled with some emergency expenses). The adjoining living room is a muted yellow that sometimes looks olive.

Back in October, I found what I thought was a pretty blue for the living room. It was way too cold for that room since it gets very little light. I slapped up some swatches in the kitchen, and while it blended with the formica quite nicely, I was certain it would be positively FROSTY in there if I did the whole room.

I'd pull a few paint chips on every trip to the hardware store, and amassed quite a stack of them. I have been staring at those chips for the kitchen for at least 3 months with nothing really standing out as the obvious choice. All the greens I picked seemed to clash with the blue, all the tan/taupe/brown/beige looked sickly next to the butcherblock, and nothing was going to make the hideous lino look any better.

This weekend I finally had two full days to commit to the project and got started with priming ceiling and walls, then painted the ceiling, all without having a clue what color to pick. I had somewhat resigned myself to the fact that it likely needed to be blue, and was leaning toward a really pretty, saturated, bold blue that was not dark (basically, as warm a a BLUE can be, which is not very)

Then I called my friend Billy (the artist) and asked him for a consult. I brought with me my stack of paint chips, a sample chip of the formica that I picked up at Home Depot, the chip of my living room color, the four contenders of replacement floor tile, and pried up a loose tile of the current linoleum (we used the hardwood floor at his house to approximate the butcherblock).

Billy, Kat and I looked at color combos for probably an hour. Amazingly, Billy was able to find not one good choice, but THREE amazing choices. All green, all lovely next to the blue, existing lino, and future lino (helps to have that decision made now too!). We identified them as "bright and perky," "tranquil and safe" and "potentially dark and moody."

I dashed home and taped them all to the wall that is visible from the living room. I looked at them for 10 seconds and made up my mind. The "bright and perky" choice (appropriately named "Gleeful Green") seemed like it might be TOO perky for my little space, so I chose the "tranquil and safe."

Not only did Billy give me the cheery green kitchen I had been hoping for, but he also paired each green with a suitable blue that I can use on the wall behind the formica counter to tie it all together and add some interest. Amazing!

After all that description, here are a few pictures of it after the first coat:



OK, time to go start the second coat!

Unplanned Improvement

Last Tuesday night I went through the laundry room to go out the side door and thought, "Wow, it's really warm and humid in here." That was quickly followed by, "I'm not running laundry" and an inspection of the water heater. Sure enough, it was leaking. Fortunately, it had a drip pan under it, so I had not flooded the inside of my house. I promptly hopped in the shower to 1) shower and 2) use up all the hot water in the tank before I turned it off.

I booked several plumbers to come out on Wednesday to give me quotes and the one I booked could not make it out until Friday to do the installation. Even without hot water, I decided to wait for him anyway because he was great. He listened to my concerns of conventional vs tankless now (Cha-ching! 3x the cost of conventional at a time when $$$ is already tight due to a recent pay cut) vs wasting the money and a perfectly good water heater when I finally get around to the big remodel. His opinion was don't do it twice, and do the installation of the tankless in a place that will be compatible with future remodeling. I was sold.

Anyway, when they came out to do the installation, they pondered how they were going to get the old unit out with the utility sink in the way. I told them I'm not at all attached to the sink and use it only because my washing machine drains into it. They could remove it to make it easier to get the old tank out, IF they would help me set up a standpipe for draining the washer. They paused and said, "We don't usually do that since we do just water heaters, but since it will make it easier on us, we'll do it for you," and then told me what supplies I'd need to get.

It took all day, but the added bonus is that my laundry room is suddenly VERY spacious. I'm gearing up to paint it and the kitchen in the coming weeks and then will install some cupboards/shelves in the nook where the old water heater was and will suddenly have a massive amount of storage for pantry and cleaning supplies. I can't wait!

Sometimes I even impress myself

As I have mentioned several times, The Dump suffers from a lack of gutters on two sides. This leads to a lot of water hitting the ground and sitting there right next to the foundation. This means it makes its way into the crawlspace, which has been the source of much stress and frustration. It REALLY stressed me out last year, and this year I was trying to tell myself I was prepared for the inevitable cycle of rain and pumping.

Back in late summer, I thought to install gutters before the rains started, but didn't because it seemed very likely I'd do my foundation work (including a super powerful system to remove water from the property) and a new roof. Alas, the economy tanked way more than expected and I decided I needed to keep that cash in my pocket.

After the doozie of a storm we had last weekend and the out-of-control stress I felt this week with all the pumping it required, I decided I needed to get some gutters up before the next storm rolled in. So, I downloaded some how-to info from ThisOldHouse.com, went shopping for supplies Friday night and skipped my run Saturday morning to get an early start on what I suspected would be a long project.

I have to admit, I consider most of my home improvement projects thus far to be pretty entry level and was a bit concerned about my ability to execute on this one. But execute I most certainly did. Because I was racing against mother nature, and my doubt about taking on a project of this magnitude, I opted for the slightly more expensive vinyl gutter system that snaps together with rubber gaskets at the joins instead of cementing with metal or plastic adhesive. So easy!

I got about 40' of gutters hung without too much cussing and without falling off the ladder. I ran out of gas and did not finish the task (have a 12' and a 7' section left), but am really pleased with what I accomplished.

Sure enough, it started to rain while we were out to dinner and I could not wait to get home to see how they were holding up. Instead of a waterfall off the roof, I heard water gushing down the downspout and out the end of the 12' diverter tube that takes it away fromt he foundation. Yippee!!!!!

It rained most of the night and a good chunk of today and my crawlspace is NOT full of water as I was expecting it to be. Maybe we didn't have enough rain to create saturated conditions (though he soil was still saturated from the last storm, even with 4 dry days in between) , but maybe the gutters are a big chunk of the solution to my water problem. Not bad for $150 in supplies and 6 hours of work.

And because I am THAT much of a geek, here's a photo:
On tap for next weekend: painting the kitchen.

Rainy day progress

As I type this, Redwood City is approaching 2" of rain in a 24 hour period. I'm not joking when I say it has been raining ALL day. I know our nearly-empty reservoirs desperately need it, and for that I am grateful for it to be raining.

Alas, also as I type this, I have a pump running because my crawlspace is once again full of water. This is partly (mostly) due to The Dump's lack of adequate drainage, and also partly because Redwood City is relatively low, so when there is a lot of water in a short period, it isn't able to drain away very quickly. I am MUCH less stressed about this than I was last winter. It helps that my neighbor's crawl space is full too (yep, I stuck my head in there to satisfy my curiosity!) and he has sufficient gutters.

Truth be told, I was really hoping to hold out on the pumping because my rain barrels are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Since we're perilously close to a drought, I wanted to be a good citizen and attempt to collect as much rainwater as possible for the rest of the rainy season to use in my garden when the inevitable water rationing starts (or at least be a good citizen even if there is no rationing) and pumping the crawlspace into a barrel seemed like a good way to start.

In any event, I've been indoors all day and spent most of that day scraping the 50-some odd years of wax buildup from the hall floor. This has been ongoing for about 6 months, but it's a mind-numbingly boring task, slow on visible progress, and hard on the hands, so it's always at the bottom of the to-do list. I'd tackled the hardware on the kitchen cabinets last night, so there was nothing else that seemed like a reasonable one-day project, and the wet weather meant painting was out since it would take ages to dry, so a-scraping I went.

I wish I could say a full day of work led to a miraculous transformation, but they went from bad to worse before starting to look better.

The wax was really thick and grimy at the edges, but that's where it has scraped up more readily. After making progress with the 12" on either side, I covered it with a runner and ignored it for a while since the visible parts were quite nice looking. :)

The central traffic area was smooth and most resistant to scraping off, but quite discolored compared to the exposed perimeter. After a few hours of scraping, I decided to give the chemical wax stripper a go. Not the smartest thing on a day when I can't open all the windows of the house to ventilate, but I had a one track mind about the floor. I'm less than impressed with the results, even after going at it with steel wool with plenty of the solvent.

After letting them dry, I used Johnson One Step Floor Wax which is supposed to clean and wax in one step (duh) with no buffing required. It claims to be able to remove wax too, but I knew it was no match for the amount of buildup on my floors. The label said it wound dry shiny and if it did not, that meant there was wax buildup that needed to be removed. My floors are not shiny, so there is more scraping/scubbing in my future. I think I'm going to see if I can find a brillo-type pad to attach to the sander to save my hands a bit.

Since I don't have a photo-worthy hall floor, I'll leave you with a photo of the new kitchen cabinets complete with hardware and butcher block top:
More progress to come, eventually. Painting the kitchen is near the top of the to-do list when we get a dry spell.

Kitchen updates

I've been holding off on posting about my progress over the holidays because I have not finished the kitchen project. I had a few technical hurdles and a business trip get in the way.

In December I decided that Ol' Betty (the 1950's stove) had to go. I was tired of not being able to bake to my heart's content, and she really was big for the tiny kitchen. In addition to being 34.5" wide, she stuck out into the room a good 6" due to the location of the gas inlet. Too big, too big, too big.

I demolished the existing cabinet to the right of Betty (the drawers were falling apart) and assembled two base units from Ikea to go on either side of the new stove. Alas, the gas inlet is problematic with the new stove too, so I decided not to do countertops and final positioning until I got that resolved. After some exploratory cuts int he dryway, I decided rerouting the gas line is a task best left to a professional. He's coming tomorrow to do that, and the rest of the day will be spent installing the countertop and drawer hardware.

Here's the current situation:
I'm hopeful that I'll be posting completion by the end of the weekend. It does involve using a new power tool (circular saw), so there could be some unexpected challenges.

Finished with the storage unit

I moved out of the storage unit Thanksgiving weekend, and let me tell you, does it ever feel good! I was pleasantly surprised that I am not overrun with boxes. Excess furniture is in the back room until I decide whether or not it has a permanent home here, and 95% of the boxes went into the garagey shed with just enough room for bikes, chipper-shredder and gardening equipment.

The other 5% of boxes are in the back bedroom and contain clothing that I have obviously lived without for well over a year. I will be reviewing the contents of those boxes and hopefully making a huge Goodwill run later this week.

I've completely emptied several kitchen boxes that had previously been partially emptied as I looked for the most basic kitchen essentials. I also had a number of empty boxes in the garagey-shed that I'd hung onto because I figured I'd move out for construction "any day now." Getting rid of those cleared up a lot of shelf space in the garage and I was able to do quite a bit of rearranging in there.

That's good news since all my Christmas decor bins are stacked in the back room. They are OK in there for now and I plan to have cleared more room in the garagey-shed by the time I'm taking down the tree.

I'm also contemplating removing some of the cabinets in my kitchen and replacing them with some IKEA cabinets to improve the storage situation (and also because some of the existing cabinets are falling apart) so that I can unpack more kitchen boxes. I've designed the kitchen with the IKEA kitchen design software and it's quite exciting to see the space more efficiently used. I'll post photos for sure if I tackle that project during my time off this month.

With care, any paint challenge can be overcome

So, last weekend I thought I had met my match when it comes to painting and that all the challenges I faced while priming would resurface when actually painting. It was looking especially grim after my pep talk with the fellow in the paint department at OSH.

I think allowing a good drying interval after priming may have helped. I moved very slowly with the paint and kept a super light pressure and had nary a peeling paint issue. I saw a couple areas bubble up after the first coat, so I turned a fan on in front of them and let them dry for a good long while before starting the second coat.

I was using paint leftover from the condo and it was dated prior to my purchase of the house, but they had never been opened, so other than a really extensive stirring, it worked out fine (and free).

Strangely enough, what was a really blah non-color in the condo (with it's soaring ceilings and bright southern exposure), is a lovely warm, creamy beige in this room. I rolled out the oriental rug on the hardwood floors and it looks quite nice...as long as you don't look closely at the windows where there are cracked panes of glass and some others that are popping out of the sashes. Oh well.

I'm still wrangling with finding some suitable insulated window coverings to try to trap some heat in the room, but I've already moved half of my storage unit into it (hence, no photos). I'm on track to be out of storage by the end of this month, and let me tell you, that's $202 I'll be glad to have back every month, even if it does mean a mountain of boxes in the guest bedroom/office/craft room.

Roasty toasty

My fireplace insert was installed yesterday. I love it already.


I played with programming it last night, and sure enough, it went on at 6am today. I opened my bedroom door to a balmy 68° and did not have to race to the bathroom to turn on that heater and the hot water to take the chill off the air. Ahhh.... the simple pleasures of life.

I should have a similar experience when I get home tonight and can't wait to sit on the couch in front of it.

I need to get a little doorway fan to push the warm air through the kitchen to the rest of the house, but that's a minor issue at this stage.

A paint job is only as good as the paint beneath it

Such was the sage wisdom I received from the kind fellow in the paint department at OSH this afternoon. This weekend's project was painting the back bedroom in preparation for moving the rest of my stuff out of storage this month. It will be the guest bedroom via an air mattress whenever the need arises.

In any event, I had not tackled this room for a very good reason--it was the dumpiest aspect of The Dump. Peeling paint, cracked glass in the windows, popped up floor boards, etc. It was also the first interior item on the list when it came to big remodel plans, so I just kept the door closed all the time.

Anyway, after a ton of paint scraping, spackling and sanding, I deemed it as good as it gets for a fresh coat of paint. I could tell the last paint job painted over chipped/peeling paint, so this is not a new problem for this tragic room, but I was determined to make the best of it and move along at a good clip.

Wrong.

Apparently when paint that doesn't want to stick to the layer beneath it gets wet with a fresh coat (primer in this case), it bubbles away from the wall and peels off on the wet paint roller. Yuk!

After scraping away of some wet bubbles of peeling paint and rollering very slowly and carefully, I decided it was finished and was hopeful that the primer would form some sort of flexible "glue" that would hold it all together when the real paint does on. I had to run to OSH for a few other items, so I decided to have a chat with Mr. Paint. I told him the situation and he grimaced and actually said, "Yuk," before dropping his bomb of a pearl of wisdom. No matter how well I prime that mess, it's still going to peel off.

I decided I will wait until next weekend to deal with the real paint. I'll keep an eye on it during the week and will remove any other bubbles or cracks/peels that develop. Ceiling and trim are all painted and ready to go. The wall color is leftover from the condo (two gallons never even opened), and is ultra-boring cream. Whatever--I'm using it up instead of sending it to hazardous waste, and I didn't have to buy paint (the mis-mix bin was not going to help in this case since the room is big enough to require more than one gallon).

In a more successful turn of events, Arturo came out to run the gas line to the fireplace and also removed the nasty old wall heater in the living room. He patched the wall, so I primed and painted it and am amazed at how much space I just reclaimed in my living room:

I can actually use that corner now! There is a little gap in the floor and baseboard, but I'm not going to bother fixing it at this juncture since that is where I plan to put my wine cabinet. I'm thrilled since that is one less piece of furniture being stashed in the "guest bedroom."

Looking back, I don't seem to have posted a good photo that includes the heater, so here you go:

Oh, you can also see the major improvement in the soot-covered bricks. Simple Green, a scrub brush and a bucket of warm water were highly effective in removing the soot buildup in preparation for the fireplace insert coming next week. After that is installed, I'll finally get around to painting the mantle.

Super Cute - Version 2.0

Almost exactly a year ago, I posted the first major transformation of The Dump--my super cute pink bedroom, which was the cheery retreat when the rest of the dumpiness got to be too much. I eventually had to give the twin bed back to the Blancos and hauled my queen sized mattress out of storage, and boy, was it ever nice to have it back.

This weekend I hauled the rest of the bed out of storage and set up my bed with it's true vintage-inspired bedding.

So, here I give you my super cute bedroom version 2.0:



The bed is much too big for the room , but it will have to do until I get the back bedroom painted and the windows repaired (found a great how-to article in This Old House that has fully empowered me to tackle that project).

the other major improvement of the weekend is that I scrubbed the heck out of the brick facade of the fireplace to prepare for the gas insert I ordered on Saturday. It's an amazing change. If I had known that Simple Green and some elbow grease would remove the soot so easily, I would have tacked it a long time ago!

Anyway, back to that insert...The wall heater in the wall between the kitchen and living room does not work, and a ton of heat escapes through my damper-less chimney. I was planning to cover the opening to seal in the warm air, but then decided I would take the plunge and get the fireplace insert now, which will act as the primary heat source for the living room and kitchen for as long as I live in the is house (eliminating the need for a forced air furnace). It comes with a programmable thermostat no less!

I need to book a chimney sweep ASAP and a plumber to run the gas line through the masonry and expect to be sitting in front of my fireplace all toasty warm by Thanksgiving. Now, THAT is what I call progress.

Semi-after photo

Well, I was not as productive last night as I had hoped I would be. I needed to run a few errands after work, and as such, only got the front curtain hung. So, I'm calling this the "semi-after" photo. Or maybe it's the "mostly-after" photo.

As I mentioned in my last post, I still need to work on the mantle this weekend. I used the power sander, but it has many layers of peeling paint that are resisting removal/smoothing.

I will swap out the switches and outlets, but that will require waiting until there is some daylight since I plan to turn off every switch at my electric panel. They are not labeled, and outlets seem to be linked in the darnedst fashion (as evidenced by what goes off when I trip one).

I'm also planning on painting the front door and closet door white, but will wait until a dry day to do that. Possibly this weekend.

Miss Kitty seems to be out of sorts since I removed her favorite chair (it was in front of the window thinking she might like to look outside like a normal cat). She'd stopped sitting on it several weeks ago and had resumed her bad habit of sitting on the back of the couch (it took me MONTHS to convince her that the chair is a better place for her). Soooo, I decided to reconfigure the TV placement to make it feel less cramped and didn't move the second white chair back into the living room. Anyway, when I left for work this morning, she was curled up on the floor even though there is a kitty pi (that she has similarly ignored, adored and eventually rejected) on the couch and another cat bed on the white chair. She's weird.

Painting is the new quad workout

I am sore. I am so sore that I groan every time I have to stand up. Apparently going up and down a ladder a gazillion times to spackle, sand, paint the ceiling (2 coats), cut in wall color at the ceiling line and then also roller on the upper portions of the wall (two coats for that too) is a mean workout for the quads to take for two days straight. I also have a sore right shoulder from the Painting Workout.

I know you were really hoping for some "after" photos today, but it's not 100% ready for the reveal. I need to get new curtain rods so I can hang them outside the window casing instead of on the window casing, and I'm also going to swap out the nasty, grimy light switches, outlets and related covers with some freshy-fresh white ones. Furthermore, the mantle was a bigger mess than I expected and needs a lot more sanding before it will be ready for paint. I will post a photo sometime this week, but you'll have to close your eyes to the incomplete mantle since I won't get to that until next weekend.

However, as a reminder, here is the "before" and the "way before." And for grins and giggles, here is what it has looked like for the past year (minus the holiday cheer--I'm just talking about the condition, furnishings and etc).

Oh yeah, I made cookies this weekend too. They offset the paint smell and also provided a good snack along the way. yum!

Ambitious this weekend

After being away the past 4 weekends, I'm REALLY excited about the opportunity to be home this weekend to tackle some projects!

Here's what's at the top of my list:
1) Fall gardening--I bought some bulbs while in Amsterdam and I want to get them into the ground. Also, all my summer bedding plants in the front are looking weedy, so it's time to pull them out. The same goes for the tomato patch in the back yard.

2) Paint the living room--I found a delicious golden beige in the the mis-mix bin at OSH earlier this week (more info about that fantastic resource in an earlier post). I painted some test squares all around the room and it's really quite wonderful--warm, tinted enough to look more than benign cream, picks up the golden tones in my curtains, throw pillows and persian rug, and only $4 for the gallon, which will be enough for my little living room. With white trim and the dark hardwood floors, I think it will look GREAT.

3) Repair some windows--After reading a how-to article in This Old House Magazine, I'm thinking I can replace some cracked panes, and reset some loose ones, which would make the back bedroom a bit more draft-free.

The big HOWEVER to all of the above is that it's supposed to rain this weekend and all of these projects rely on dry weather to a certain extent. Boooo! Knowing that, I'm leaning toward painting. The damp will make it slower to dry, but that's not as bad as gardening in the rain, or removing windows in the rain.

Or I may bake some cookies and sit on the couch knitting all weekend to have some chill time. Whatever I choose, I'll have some sort of progress pics on Monday, even if it is a plate of cookies and a sweater. :)

Still waiting

The Soils Analysis took 8 weeks instead of the quoted 4, and now Structural Engineering bumping up on it's quoted 4-week mark with nary a peep about progress. I had a long conversation with Architect Pete while at SFO waiting to board my flight to Amsterdam and he doesn't think the foundation work will be able to start until until the spring.

*sigh*

That means I have two options:
1) Spend another winter managing crawl space flooding with my submersible pump.
2) Invest in some drainage resolution ASAP even though it may get in the way of future foundation work.

Either way, I need to get some gutters up on the north side and definitely need to order my rain barrels pronto.

weekend project decision time

Well, it's Friday afternoon, and that means it's time to decide which project I'm going to tackle this weekend.

Given the economic downturn of the past few weeks and the continued downward trend of home prices, I'm going to be doing lots of minor improvement projects to The Dump so I can postpone the full remodel until a more fiscally prudent time. I'm still going to take care of the foundation and drainage stuff ASAP, but the big, extensive, expensive work is going to have to wait.

Since I don't know exactly when the remodel is going to happen now, I'm motivated to get my stuff out of storage since I'd like to put that $202/month to better use. Obviously, it's easier to work on the house when there is nothing around, so I'm queuing up tasks like crazy.

Here's the short list of what needs to happen so I can move out of storage and into the house:
Overall
1) Tent for termites

Back bedroom:
1) paint
2) repair popped floor planks
3) figure out some sort of insulating covers for both windows before winter since they leak like crazy
4) possibly refinish floor

Kitchen
1) Sand and repair cabinets
2) paint (walls and cabinets)
3) pull up linoleum floor tiles
4) refinish wood floor (if possible) or install new vinyl peel-and-stick-floor tiles
5) figure out some sort of back splash solution (to replace the crappy vinyl tiles used last time the kitchen was "upgraded")

Living Room:
1) paint
2) install drywall over fireplace opening since it has no damper inside
3) possibly refinish floor

Given that I am away 12 out of the first 17 days of the month and EVERY weekend in October (Boston, Amsterdam, SF-Nike marathon, and Seattle), I'm guessing I'll move out of storage over Christmas break. I hope the foundation work will be done by then. I'm going to go ahead and paint when I can and will repair cracks, touch up paint etc rather than wait to start all the superficial work.

That brings me back to what project to tackle this weekend. It needs to be something I can complete in one weekend otherwise it will likely sit unfinished for approx 1 month. I'm leaning toward starting kitchen paint prep. If I'm lucky, I'll get it all primed by the end of the weekend. Those cabinets are going to take quite a bit of work...

High tech TV and further oven experimentation

I'm resigned to the fact that I'll be spending at least another 6 months (possibly more) with The Dump as is, so I decided it's time to commit to some infrastructure. Late last week I called AT&T and signed up for home phone, DSL and wait for it... DISH TV! All bundled together gives me a pretty good discount.

Now, for those of you who know me quite well, you know that I don't watch TV. The only reason I own one is because it gets connected to the DVD player. However, there are some show that I've come to enjoy, and I'm setting up the house for winter hibernation, so I went ahead and ordered TV for the first time in 10+ years.

The friendly (and chatty!) Dish technician came out on Saturday and installed my dish and DVR. I now have 200 channels, which is somewhat overwhelming, but considering that I can record it to watch later and then fastforward through commercials, I think I can handle it. :o)

Since I had to commit to being at the house for the Dish installation sometime between 1 and 5 on Saturday, I decided to bake a cake in my newly accepted oven. Armed with an oven thermometer, the cake came out decidedly better than the cookies (the oven temp is off by about 125°). However, this experiment told me that I have a cold spot on the left side of the oven as evidenced by that half of the cake collapsing into squishy under-doneness after I pulled it out. Hopefully that is easily resolved by setting a timer to rotate all baked goods halfway through baking time.