Apt. 11D

New Porch

Dan and Scottie are putting in our new front porch. They did our kitchen a couple of years ago and are great guys. Don is very proud of his mustache.

My Less Crappy House (Part Four)

Here's the old kitchen.

Here's the new kitchen and powder room.

Our contractor was amazed that we wanted to keep that brick chimney exposed. He just rolled his eyes and said "whatever you want, professor."

 

At first, the new kitchen intimidated me, but now we've grown accustomed to each other.

My Crappy, Old House (Part Three)

The entrance way of the house, after we tore it up.

And after the floor sanding.

Then we peeled off the wood paneling, sanded down the glue spots, peeled off the wallpaper and painted. We put in a new light fixture. We painted the walls a very scary yellow. That will have to get changed sometime down the road.

The neighbors up the block were tossing their door in the garbage. Their house is of a similar vintage as ours. We grabbed it up and refinished it in our basement. It took a long time.

We added some IKEA curtains, pictures, a hand-me down carpet, and a bench. The contractor put in the door and new rungs on the stairs.

The ceiling needs to get fixed. We need a better carpet and maybe an arm chair for reading in the corner. The woodwork need to be stained. Actually, all the woodwork needs refinishing. Some of boards on the staircase need to be replaced. We've got to paint the exterior trim around the door frame. Lotto, anyone?

This Old House (Part Two)

After we gutted the house of carpet, we moved in. We had to do some very boring, but expensive jobs after that. Like put on a new roof.

We also had to have the exterior of the house painted and patched. Ka-ching. There wasn't much money left. So, we bought buckets of paint and painted every room ourselves.

We couldn't do much about the old kitchen, so we ripped up the nasty linoleum and painted the floors white. We scraped off the brown, flowered wallpaper and painted the place green.

It wasn't great, but it was an improvement. Years later, we had enough money to gut the kitchen and start over.

We completed gutted the place. Went down to the studs. It was a truly frightening experience. There's nothing like going through a major renovation with two kids and two jobs. Here's an old post showing pictures of the demo job. Here's a post describing the deep exhaustion of renovation. I'll add some more pictures now.

We pulled down this wall that separated the kitchen from the pantry and bathroom. It was a load bearing wall, so the guys had to put in a beam up to support the ceiling.

 

Here are the demo guys trashing the joint. It looks like fun, no?

Drop ceilings everywhere. Why?

Here's what the room liked like sans walls and ceiling.

Then the guys rewired the place, put in lights, walls, cabinets, three windows. They put in new back steps and a backdoor. They repaired some surprising termite damage in a corner. Asshole bugs. And we ate lots of Trader Joe's waffles in the dining room for two months.

Before the guys put in the sheet rock, we made a little time capsule to stick in the walls for future renovators who will certainly mock our good taste. I sealed up a newspaper in plastic and stuck some pictures of the kids and some Happy Meal toys in a manila envelope. The contractor who was a history buff thought that was really cool.

   

What does it look like now? Well, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.

My Old House (Part One)

In 2004, after nearly a year of searching, we bought an old house.

This is a bad shot of the entrance way, but you can see the wall to wall carpet, which covered the house. Sniff that? Yes, it's cat pee in the corners. See that closet? It's covering up a window and part of the stairway. And that 50s door? Yes, it's beautiful, isn't it?

 

Here are some shots of the original kitchen. Betty Draper uses that oven in Mad Men. Totally serious.

The previous owner had favored dirty, lacy curtains and fake flowers. It all went in the trash, the minute we took possession of the house.

So, we signed the paperwork and they gave us our lovely, overpriced Money Pit. My mom and dad came over with a bottle of champagne and a thoughtful gift -- a crow bar.

 

We then brought in every sucker friend and family member that owed us a favor and put them to work pulling out carpet.

Here's dear old Dad pulling out carpeting on the stairs. I actually grew to like pulling out the tacks that covered the floors. It's sort of like extracting rotten teeth from a mouth. Not that I've ever done that. When we pulled out the closet that some idiot put in the 1950s, we found the original wallpaper from the 1910s.

This is Steve pulling down a brick wall. The brick wall had been put in behind a cast iron stove, probably part of a oil saving measure in the 1970s. The brick wall was not secured to the wall. It was just a swaying tower. You can sort of see the hole where the pipe for the cast iron stove attached to the chimney. We brought in someone to plug up the chimney hole, but we left the gaping hole in the plaster there. We have some bookshelves covering the hole right now.

This is my brother in law, Reid. Hi Reid! When we pulled up the carpet in several rooms, we found linoleum that had been tarred to the hardwood floor. In some cases, there were several layers of linoleum. In one memorable room, the linoleum that had been tarred to the floor had a wood imprint. Why?

  During all of this, we still had to deal with children. We set them up in a corner with a movie in my laptop. There was so much dust flying around that my laptop got kind of sick after that. Don't move, kids! There are nails everywhere.

 

Here's how the floors came out. Much better, right?

A Tear Down?

Via Neatorama, I learned of an interesting company that is dedicated to keeping reusable building materials out of landfills. Nice, huh? But even more amazing are the photos and video of a 36,000 square foot house that is about to be torn down. This is a tear down?

Redesigning Cities

I've been reading great stuff lately on the politics of redesigning urban areas, but mostly these have been case studies of New Orleans. I have a huge weakness for New Urbanism and their plans to redesign the city. Check out the recent article in the Atlantic about the homes going up in New Orleans. Good for Brad Pitt.

Detroit has a whole different set of problems. They are dealing with a large geographic area that is losing population. They are knocking down crumbling building and not building anything in its place.

This phenomenon prompted someone to coin the term “urban prairie” to capture the idea of vast tracts of formerly urbanized land returning to nature.

(Via Loren on Facebook)

And check out these designs for green buildings in NYC. (Via Ann P on Facebook)

How Dirty is Your House?

As part of my fall unemployment project, I'm trying to straighten out the house. We moved into a fixer-upper five years ago. We fixed some things, but most projects got put on hold. A tidy house was low priority.

Right now, I've got three guys from a window cleaning service marching through the house. Because we have old fashioned windows, it's a big job that involves ladders and the removal of storm windows and screens. I don't think the windows have been properly cleaned in this house for two decades. 

Steve Wants This Chair

My husband thinks this is the perfect chair. Thought it would be even better with a built-in beer cooler and built-in remotes. Would the snuggie ruin the effect?

Cool House

I need someone to design a house that will enable me to grade papers swiftly.
Private Library from A Space In Time on Vimeo.