No guts, no glory

All right, sports fans, another big project has begun. Kiss those filler blog posts about punch list items good bye - we're off on another renovation bender. Drum roll...the CELLAR. Soon to be a fabulous guest suite/apartment/non-creepy gross place.

When we bought the house, the basement had a bathroom (3/4), bedroom, and large front room. All in paneling and with brown carpeting. It appeared to have been pimped-out as a Greg Brady-like teen boys' residence. And then it promptly flooded (sump pump issue). So we tore out most of the paneling and all the icky carpeting. And proceeded to fix the rest of the house.

We're back now - it's time to fix up the cellar. So, this past weekend we completed the tear-out. It will be a big, varied, and action-packed project. And CHEAP. We've been saving up parts for a while and will be doing this whole project for as little cash as possible.

Here are some highlights from the before and after demo reel:

The shower: it's great that it had one, especially when the other shower was torn out, but it was creepy. I called it the "Dr. Who Shower" due to its phone-booth-esque quality.

Bathroom ceiling. The ceiling in the bathroom was pegboard, painted white. And, when we removed that, there were all sorts of electrical naughtinesses right over the shower. Bad.

The toilet, which was kind of a neat, Art-decoish one. Granted, the pink seat was a bit over the top, but the commode was cool. But it constantly ran (despite many attempts to fix it), it was a big water guzzler, and the door hit it when you opened the door. Awkward.

And here's the toilet, out. We would have donated it to the ReStore but it refused to come out without severe breakage. Perhaps the only phrase grosser than "cellar bathroom" is "draining the toilet in the shower". Do you have the creepy crawlies now? I do.

The sink. Nothing overly insulting about its appearance, but it did not drain anymore and the porcelain was all cracking. Time to go. Note the obligatory razor blade collection - all stuck to the insulation - behind the former medicine cabinet - 3 types! It's like the American Razor Blade Museum back there. Note that some jackass had insulated all the interior walls of the bathroom, and even worse, put the vapor barrier exactly the wrong way so all the moisture was trapped inside the bathroom. Super-duper!

Backing up, this is what the bathroom looked like from outside (note unneccessarily angled wall, which made the door hit the toilet. But why?)

And here it is by Monday morning, a gorgeous blank canvas:


There are three other rooms to be (re?)constructed down there, though the bathroom will be probably the most time consuming:

A bedroom in this corner,

A living room will arise from this mess,

And a kitchenette will be at the other end of the living room.

And we're off...

Tea and company (well, we were!)

We snuck off for the holidays - literally. We surprised my parents at their winter abode in sunny Arizona, after paying a nice visit to Ken's sister, brother in law, and visiting parents in Colorado. Only someone from Maine would consider Colorado to be "on the way" to Arizona, right? But once we head south on the highway, we might as well go everywhere.

We went to one of the fabulous tea shops in Boulder and I picked up some lovely Oolong (magnolia type - it's softer than regular oolong). I was out of oolong altogether, and I'm obsessed with drinking it on rainy days. Don't know why. Anyways, I then thought that I'd like to see about some neat tea canisters because all my various teas are in a mis-matched mess of jars and tins, one with (gasp!) just plastic wrap for a lid, and some in bags. Perish the thought!

At any rate, the cool, stackable, tidy, classic, space-saving tea canister search turned up nothing (there are cool tins at $15 each!!, or too-big square containers, or simple tins from industrial suppliers with ridiculous shipping), so we went to the old standby: jar lids screwed to a board. Seriously. Cheap and it actually looks and works just fine.


While in AZ we also visited some great spots of architectural and historic note - we will fill you in later. Still adjusting to the time change and the whole going-back-to-work thing. Too...lazy...to...blog....

Winter: window-mania!

Still thinking about the basement. In the meantime, we've realized that we've been overlooking a pretty major project that spans many upstairs rooms: finishing all the windows. Ugh.

As we've done a variety of rooms, we've called many of them done when we still had one last project left - usually stripping the window sashes, and doing miscellaneous window-repair tasks. A pile of window stops found during the last cellar cleaning reminded us, then when we realized we can't put the interior storms in without the stops around our bedroom windows, it suddenly became fairly important to get some work done on this front.

So, I'm declaring this the Winter Project of 2010-2011. I've begun stripping the stops for our bedroom. Hopefully we can get them back in by the end of the weekend. Snow on the ground is a good motivator for getting drafts sealed up...then I'll chip away at the rest of them all winter, and leave the stinky painting and staining for spring. The stripping really is the worst part.

I need checklists for morale, so here's the one that will live on the fridge till I'm done.
What's bad for morale is remembering that each sash above is really a pair of sashes, so I have twice as much work to do as it looks like. Let's repress that thought for a while.

Here we go...

So this is how the other half lives?

Ken very kindly helped a friend do some electrical work on his cabin. In exchange, the guy wanted to do something for us - so we jumped at the chance to have some 'free' help.

We chose...the rocks! We got another (last!) pallet of rocks back in May, and laid them out to complete the stepping stone path around the front and side yards. We then dug in about 10 of them. Then summer got a hold of us and we were involved in loads of other projects. So most of the rocks have been sitting on top of the ground - perfectly positioned - since then. The good news is that they killed the grass underneath, which makes the soil infinitely easier to dig out.

The better news is that the friend thought that digging in our rocks would be a great trade for Ken's help. So he's been here several days on and off setting them down in the ground. He's got almost all of the largest section done - and it's looking fantastic. It's super-cool to come home and find someone doing your project for you! Very weird, and such a nice treat.

So, here they are - hopefully the oil delivery guy won't spend all winter tripping on them now.

Ta-dah!

Chairs are done. Here's an enhanced view of the label from the other day:

And here they are in progress (the one on the right is post-refinishing):

And after:


This time I took the easy way out and used and antique furniture refinisher - just cleaned up the chairs, lightly sanded off the paint and other goo, and then applied. Then, beeswax. For the chair that didn't need all the new parts made, I'd say it was only about an hour's worth of work - super cinch! It seems to be perfect for projects like this - when the original finish is pretty good but there are some imperfections, and it would just look a little better brightened up. Two thumbs up!

Crawford chairs, part I

Today I'm working on a bunch of projects that have been languishing in the cellar or garage. This is part of the ongoing project: Cleaning up the Cellar and Garage So We Can Eventually Start Fixing Them Up 2010.

I got this pair of oak, unpainted chairs at an antique store last year for $20 (for BOTH, thank you!) I thought I'd quickly tidy them up and reupholster, and have a nice study pair of chairs that we can put - somewhere. I don't know where. I have this strange chair addiction and I just can't control myself - so we'll find a corner in which to shove them when done.

Last night I started assessing them. One is in very good condition. There are a few places where some A-hole apparently bumped them with a roller full of white paint (what, could you not move them out of the room you were painting, lazy ass?). And the upholstery is just so tacky. Easy fixes, both. A few dings give it nice character. And I think someone once replaced one stretcher - even though they appear to have maybe used maple, they did a nice job so I'm not messing around with it.

Note that the UNDERSIDE of the seat frame is made from gorgeous 5/4 quartersawn oak. Damn, they had nice scraps back then!

The other one is in not so great shape, but it's not terrible.

Someone screwed right into the face of 3 of the 4 legs to 'fix' it.

Also, there's no seat. And, it's missing a stretcher.

And missing a seat support.

But look at the back:

Overall, not such hard things to fix. But a bit more work.

This second chair still had much of its label, which indicates it's from the Crawford Chair Company. Here's more info on that company (thanks, Internet!). So I think these are actually some decent chairs with interesting history.

The label - what's left of it - says: "Crawford Chair...Grand Ledge...High Grade...".
And did I mention they're sturdy as hell? I love oak!

Step on it, Batman!

Now that we're thinking about some new projects, a good garage cleaning was way overdue. So, we spent part of Monday (well, Ken spent it all - I had meetings all morning) diving in and clearing it out. He emptied absolutely everything from the very, very cluttered garage/workshop.

I got home to a driveway that was completely packed with more stuff than we imagined. So we put together a very large pile of scrap wood for Freecycle (gone as of this evening!) and re-arranged and re-organized the keeper tools and materials.

I'm pleased to say it was a big success - you'd hardly even recognize the space, and you can actually move around in there. We really had let it go - like we always do - toward the end of the trailer project.

Tuesday, I had the day off for real. So, at the end of Monday, I left myself a few piles in the driveway, promising to deal with them on Tuesday. One: Shed Step. Two: Bat Houses. Yes, I said bat houses. Three: Sort out all the fasteners/hardware.

I won't bore you with #3, but I'm just about done. Finally. Sorting. Zillions. Of. Screws. And. Nails. Yikes.

#1 - Shed Step: Since we had stupidly fashioned a quick, temporary step after building the shed, the step dropped way down the list. Key mistake: don't make a temporary fix if you really want to do a permanent fix sometime in the near future. It took us, oh, about 40 minutes - 18 months later! - to build the 'real' shed step: 4 or 5 chopsaw cuts on the treads, 3 skilsaw cuts to make the supports and then angle cuts for the decorative edge, and then about 5 minutes of nailing. Ridiculous. But - I LOVE the step! It's so much nicer than the wobbly, non-cedar temporary fix.

#2 - Bat houses. For some reason, once we realized (again, last year) that we had a bunch of leftover cedar from the deck and shed projects, I became obsessed with the idea that we should use it to build bat houses. We do have a bat that flies around the house at dusk in summer, and I dislike mosquitos intensely, so supporting the bat would be cool. So I plowed through the cedar pile and put together all the parts for a Bat House design I found from Mammoth Caves. I ended up with five 'kits', then after a quick bike ride to the hardware store for $1.50 of screen and $1.00 of galvanized nails, had them all together. I felt a bit like I was doing a shop class or girl scout project - it was a bit silly.



Now, We just have to give away a few bat houses - I really only wanted one!