Turning the last corner?

It's been a while since we posted, but we are still working! Chipping away at the basement. Besides the unglamorous task of finding old barn boards and finishing boxing in the soffits with them, we began the last decent-sized construction project on the house this week. The last corner of Room #16 (if you count hallways as rooms, which we do). Wow, it has been a long road.

Coincidentally, we happen to be working on TWO cellars this week - part of the reason we have been so slow on the Bungalow is that we bought another 'bungalow' of sorts - a log cabin. (Check it out here). Having hired help on that cellar - and needing to be out of the way! - gave us time to work on the Bungalow cellar.

So, we took down the stapled-up fabric that was hiding the last un-finished nook in the basement living room/kitchen, including a radiator that needs covering. And we put up this, a start at framing and boxing out the area.

Our goal was to use all leftovers from our "trim farm" to finish it out. So far, so good! We need to prime & paint the trim tomorrow, but I think it will look good! The only things we had to buy were some framing nails and a sheet of decorative metal grille (that stuff is pricey, though!). We used up the absolute last pieces of bamboo click flooring on the little bit of a wall. The seat will be made from some of the barn board we've been collecting (maybe this weekend we can finish?).

Glamour shots

We have been busting ass to get the basement kitchen ready for occupancy by friends (family of 4) who came to visit last week. Before they got here, we got the sink plumbed (thank you Ken), rest of the cabinets and counters done, some trim slapped up (but not painted), hid the radiator/last unbuilt area with a curtain, and yanked out all the furniture we've been collecting to make it look like functional rooms. So, without further ado, some nicer photos of the basement, in its functional yet not quite done state. (Bathroom is 90% done, bedroom 95% done, living room about 70% and kitchen maybe 70% excluding the stairway, which is only about half done).

This is what the kitchen area looked like 12 days before guest arrival. Eek - nothing like a deadline!

Bathroom - lookin' good!

Bathroom/laundry area, looking toward bedroom.

Toward bedroom, again.

Bedroom (which contains my favorite bed ever, a Danish modern piece from the '80s that we got for $11 at a yard sale around the corner, which we found when a friend stopped over to show us her new car. We ended up stuffing this bed in the car on the test drive!)

Still bedroom, looking back toward bath).

Bedroom.

Bedroom, looking into living room.

Kitchen area, complete except for some trim work.

Kitchen again. Love this view. The microwave & toaster oven are on the stud wall shown in the first photo, way up above. Deadline, schmeadline.

Kitchen, looking toward living room.

I re-wired this just last week - it was a gift (leftover?) from Ken's parents. Ugly and fabulous, now it sports a brand new LED bulb and works great on the vintage Saarinen-style tulip table.

Yeah, I love this table! We just got it when on a camping trip - I saw it on craigslist for $15 (i am not lying) and the seller agreed to hang on to it until we were in the area. Then we just jammed it in our tiny camper at the end of our trip and took it home. Love! Love it. Chairs have since been reupholstered with sassy green & teal retro fabric. They are 2 of 6 I got at the ReStore. Also love them.

More of our collected furniture. We had basically a houseful of mid-century stuff since I'm in love with it all. We have been selling off the extras since there was just too much accumulated.

Living room back toward kitchen and stairs. We now have a small railing up top and I ordered the connectors and such to make an industrial-style pipe railing for the bottom (deadline: Mom & Aunt visit in mid-September. Will we make it?).

We are checking this off

The screen door is fixed, refinished, and installed! I got to use epoxy filler for the first time (there was one pretty rotten part). Ken used his handy doweling jig to add a piece to the bottom since the door was a couple of inches short. We're freakin' done! Onward.

The only trouble is it lets in so much light we keep spazzing out when we walk by, thinking the door is open and cats/dog are going to escape!

So close I could screen!

Not a typo. So, the whole point of the rear overhang-porch thingy (see below) was not to:

1. Avoid creating the "deathtrap ice stairs", as a dear friend calls them;
2. Keep the rain off our heads while fumbling for keys with armloads of groceries; or, 
3. Keep squirrels from chewing through the jammed-in foam pieces to take up residence in the attic. 

No, the real reason we tore off the old rickety overhang and went to all this trouble is to install a $15 screen door we nabbed at an auction a couple of summers ago.

See, when we moved in, there was an aluminum storm door (blech) that was cut down to about 5'8" and a board was screwed to the jamb above, because the old overhang didn't allow a full-height door to open. We got rid of that door and replaced it with a wooden one (yard sale) that we also cut down. We installed a rubber stair tread where that board was, because at least it would flap instead of whack Ken in the head.

This is before. After removing the aluminum door, but before any other work. Yuck, yuck.

Then the $5 yard sale door disintegrated. And we cut the overhang off. And there everything sat. No opening the back door to get a breeze, or to holler to the other person in the yard about anything, or to let the cats sit and meditate about the back yard.

During deck-building. Bye, bye, overhang!

Fast forward to today. The overhang is almost done. We have to caulk a bit and touch up paint, and wait for a piece of replacement vintage-style gutter, but she's together, complete with loads of trim traced from the old rafter tails to make the overhang look organic to the house.

And now we have to fix the auction screen door (it wasn't perfect, you know, but it did come with both a glass pane and a screen pane, and it was once a super-nice door).

Perhaps by the end of the week we can have that summer breeze...

p.s., I just found an old photo of the way, way before - like when we moved in. Geez, that back side of the house was hideous! Some days I can't believe we even bought this place in that condition.

Just in time

We got the overhang's structure re-styled (it needed some bungalow deliciousness, photos to follow when it looks a little more finished), and Ken put on some shingles we got on clearance. They are close enough, since we will need to re-shingle the whole roof next year.

Just minutes after we got off the ladders and cleaned up, it thundered and started pouring. Here's the view of the successful new roof from the upstairs bathroom! A thing of beauty, mis-matched shingles and all.

And on a different topic...

For, like three years we've had a gnarly cut-off little roof thing over the back door, and when it rains, it pours down your neck. We pulled the old porch roof off because it was ugly, falling down, and just plain wrong. Plus you couldn't have a screen door because there wasn't enough clearance - annoying.

The plan was to make a prettier overhang that goes with the house, allows the screen door (we bought at auction for $15!) to open, and is more symmetrical with respect to the door.

Obviously, we've been putting this job off. It didn't sound real exciting and it sucks to cut into a roof. So we decided to actually hire help - a local guy who had good references, was willing to have us help, and was really nice to work with. He also totally appreciated the mid-morning iced coffee & donuts, so we like that.

It's amazing what you can get done with hired help! A total jump start...he's done here, having only billed us for a few hours, and we will finish the rest out all bungalow-y. Maybe we can get off our arses and get it done-ish this weekend?

OK, so no pictures today. Tomorrow!

Did get a bunch of miscellaneous trim installed...