Time Out

Jeez, moving has really taken the wind out of my sails. It is all I have been able to keep up with for the last week. That, and I have had to go back to the store and request a third clothes dryer. First one would dry for 1 minute, then throw an error code and stop. Second one looks like it was tipped over and dragged to the delivery truck. Third one will be delivered in a couple days, and had better be functioning and looking good.

Things are starting to come together and look somewhat organized. It will get there. Then I can get back on the Renovation Bus.

The Worst Bathroom in Blacksburg

These are pictures of the half bath off the foyer area. It is blah, boring, ugly, and very blah, not to mention cramped and laid out in a very ridiculous arrangement. The door doesn't even open all the way; it actually bumps into the sink. Who does something like that . . . . and then leaves it that way for decades? They weren't always old, so that can't be the excuse. The linoleum is the same horrid stuff that was in the laundry room. And the walls and fixtures give beige a bad name. This sort of decor is the reason beige fell out of favor a few decades ago and is only now being rediscovered . I can't wait to rip this whole room apart. Not yet sure what the floor tile will be, but I think i have decided on the wall tile and fixtures. the wall behind sink and toilet will be the marble slivers shown in this picture:

And the sink and toilet will be these or something similar:

What is it about things that are square that I like so much???? The sink can be situated more toward the right so that the existing door can open unobstructed, but we will probably end up having a pocket door put in so that it won't be so cramped.

The Kitchen Time Forgot

The kitchen in this house was probably fabulous in 1978.

In 2007 . . . . not so much. The word "outdated" is inadequate to describe the cabinets, and the sink is. . . . . well, the divided sink must have been on the cutting edge in 1978, but this orange is horrific. The appliances appear to be functional. The stove and dishwasher, that is; there is no refrigerator right now. And what is going on with the "island"? The countertop there, and along the wall, are both designed for children, not adults. So everything here is going to GO. Some of the cabinets will end up in the garage, where they will be perfect. The island can go into the laundry room until we do something more with that. So they will all be used in one place or another, just not in the kitchen. The tile floor is too boring, so that has to go also. I have been working with a guy at a local cabinet company and he has put together a great plan. The cabinets will be a very light and smooth maple, mostly drawers, with a few steel doors with frosted glass inset doors for accent. the island will be sort of triangular, with a gas range inset, and bar stools on the opposite side. The far wall will have a bar sink and beverage center, and the microwave will be in that wall also. If i can get a sketch of the arrangement, i will add it to this page. Floor = wide plank maple in a natural finish. Stainless steel appliances, including a 2-drawer dishwasher. Cabinet-depth refrigerator, and i hope it will be a freezer-on-the-bottom/french-door-fridge configuration. Grey quartz countertops. The walls are painted gray right now (Granite Boulder from Behr Paint at Home Depot). I am searching for some cool tile for the backsplash. Thought I had found it when i ordered a sample of marble mosaic with grey and gold, but the sample did not have anything i would have called gold. So I am still seeking the right tile. I think i want something with small tiles in a mosaic, glass or marble, square or "pencil" shaped tiles.

I Love This Light Fixture!!

I need to put this somewhere in my house - - - maybe in the stairwell. I found it online at the Hampton Bay website: http://www.hamptonbayinfo.com/Product.aspx?pid=a909b95c-06a3-4adb-8d7e-873c9aac01d7&cid=1051488 There is a 3-light version, too, along with pendants and ceiling globe things, but this one is the best. It would go nicely with stainless steel, brushed nickel, grey things, gold things, slate tile, all very nice things. But it will mean I need to take down the old fixture. What do you think? Will this one look better?

You can get a glimpse of the kitchen in this picture, but it is just a glimpse. I will show you more of this next time i log in. It requires a fresh attitude to do it justice.

Can This Deck Be Saved?

The power washer is doing something amazing to that crappy-looking old deck! All I can say is Wow! It is going to look fantastic when it is stained/sealed. Also, I started moving some of my outdoor plants to the house, and they look beautiful against the newly clean wood.

Starting to Move In

Omigod, we go so much done today. My sister kicks so much moving ass. And my mom unpacked and organized the kitchen. it is so a may zing. all the artwork, all the kitchenshit, all kinds o' miscellaneous crapola is all moved in and unpacked IN ONE DAY. If you, American Home Owner, wish you could move quickly, you wish you had my sister as YOUR sister. And my mom as your mom. Other than the furniture, we have already moved, in one day, with a bunch of boxes and tubs. I love these people. And - my husband. who has no interest in home ownership, bought an electric powerwasher, burned it out, and returned it and graduated a gas-powered powerwasher all in one day. I can't wait to post the before and after pictures!!!!

Help Is On The Way

I had a stroke of genius - - - - we need to bust a move and get our stuff packed and into the new house. It is down to making a decision about hiring people to help pack or we will never get there. Then I realized I should buy my mom and sister airline tickets to fly here and help me instead. It is probably even cheaper than hiring help because I got such a good deal on last-minute fares, and these two are workhorses. When I had a garage sale before moving to Blacksburg, they drove down to help me set it up and do the sale. My sister should win the Garage Saleswoman of the Year Award for Excellence. We took in over $1,100.00 in US Dollars from that sale and it was all because of the way she was passing out bags and encouraging people to go ahead and buy stuff. And 90% of it was little crap we sold for $5 or less.

They will be here tomorrow afternoon, and then we will plow into it. Movers will move the big stuff on the following Saturday and then we let the dust settle. Can't wait to walk out onto that deck with my morning coffee!

Colors

I found this gorgeous rug at Bed, Bath & Beyond and fell in love with the color palette. They also have dupione drapery panels in a color they call "platinum" that looks stunning with this rug. The living room, dining area, and kitchen of my house are all one big slightly-shallow-L-shaped room, so it makes sense to have a unified color scheme throughout this area. This open floor plan is yet another reason why I wanted this house. A room like this was way ahead of its time in 1978. I don't think there was even a name for it, such that it is. Who came up with "great room", anyway? What a clumsy phrase for such flowing space. Another word in the same category is "grunt". But my "great room" is not exactly flowing right now the way it should. Stagnant would be a better description. Here is a picture of the living room end of the room. The best I can say about it is that it is a blank canvas. And, okay, the two walls on either side of this view are floor to ceiling windows. There are some truly heinous aspects of the room (skillfully not shown in this picture), but i will save those for another session. Today is about color choices. The direction I was headed was the path of black, platinum, grey, and beige, and I was also stoked about the square/rectangular geometry of the rug, too. Lots of design fodder here.

But then we were at some friends' new house, and saw the color that was on their walls and I knew I had to have it. It was a warm gold that did not drift too near orange or yellow. I think Golden Camel would be a decent name for it. And Friend 1 said it was similar to a Behr paint color called "Gobi Desert". I am pretty sure they have camels in the Gobi Desert, so this all makes evolutionary sense. Camels could blend in very nicely there. I was thinking kitchen walls for this one. This was actually the subject of much debate and required numerous trips to Home Depot to get paint chips and more paint chips. We actually settled on Pebble Path rather than Gobi Desert, mostly because Pebble Path looked more like the color I remembered from being at their house the day before. Then we picked out a nice gray called Granite Boulder. I was looking for a beige as my third color for the living area, when Dr. I-Won't-Do-Any-Renovation-Work found the Ralph Lauren texture and metallic paints. After much debate, we bought a gold metallic paint for the dining area.

But when we got them to the house, we had another round of debate, and decided that Granite Boulder would be best as the background for the new kitchen cabinets we are going to put in, and Pebble Path would be better in the living area. Wen we started putting Pebble Path on the LR walls, it was one of those sweet and juicy moments of epiphany. I can't even express how perfect it looks, and the pictures just don't do the color justice. Also I am a convert on the gold metallic in the DR area. My only gripe is that it isn't a big contrast with the LR (but maybe that is okay). And to top it all off, Granite Boulder is perfect for the kitchen walls. Perfect. So that paint is now up, and i will deal with the baseboards and window frames next week. The rest of this week will be devoted to tile, getting the washer and dryer in, and starting to move small stuff. Our apartment is only a few blocks away, so we will move a lot of little stuff over the next week.

Why?

You might be wondering why someone (me) might want to bother buying a house and gutting it. If I don't like anything in the house, why not buy a house I like? The answer is that this place is situated on a kickass lot. The trees - hickory, oak, maples, elms, buckeyes, evergreens -are so tall it makes you dizzy looking up at the tops of them. The gardens are full of shade-loving plants: hostas, ferns, rhododendrons, azaleas. I can't wait to see what comes up in the spring. There is hardly any grass to mow; just beds and beds of perennials surrounded by a big thick hedge that looks like hemlock. Here is a picture of my new back yard: Sitting outside on the deck is so relaxing it is like being off in some remote vacation spot.

Can't wait to get my bird feeders set up and see who comes to visit.

Back On the Inside

The other reason I wanted this house is that it is very well-built and sturdy. The construction seems to have been above average, especially for that era when cost-cutting and use of cheap materials began to be wide-spread. The windows are all custom made, and every room has huge windows facing out into the back yard. It is built into a slope and the rear windows are facing the south, so it is very energy-efficient, despite the ginormous windows. Here is an example:

This much window space or more

is in every single room,

and every room looks out at this view.

I knew I wanted this house the first time

I went inside. It just took a while to get my

husband to agree. He has really good taste when

it comes to decor and style, picking out colors, etc., but

he has absolutely no interest in being Mr. Fix-It,

doesn't want any power tools, and has never ever

puttered about in the garage a day in his life. He spends all his time working. He (we) founded a biotech start-up about 9 years ago, and it consumes the major portion of every day. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, he's just paying his rent everyday in the Tower of Science. I am a molecular biologist, too - in fact, we met in graduate school - but I have broken free of my chains and no longer do research. So I am the one who has time, not mention interest, in this Big Project. Consequently, he agreed to buy the house if I would do so with no expectation that he is going to do any of the renovation work. If I can't do it, I will find someone who can. He is willing to pay for the work as long as it fits into the budget. Heheheheh. So we bought it.

Let the demolition begin!

Baby Steps

Before we move in there are some things that have to be renovated first. Primary among these is the laundry room. . . . . . not moving in without a washer and dryer. . . . . not gonna put a new washer and dryer on that nastynastynasty ripped-up 30-years-old linoleum. So that was ripped out and the floor was cleaned up. Well, cleaned up enough. It was kinda damp and yucky underneath the linoleum along the exterior wall, where there was a crack in the concrete, so I figured that is where the moisture is coming up out of the ground and keeping the yucky linoleum damp. Sounded simple - just patch the crack and lay the tile.

I know you wish you could have this linoleum I ripped out.
I am so sorry that this picture does not do the colors justice.

It is truly putrid.

But anyone who has worked on an old house (and this one is not even very old) knows that no job is ever as simple as it appears it will be. When i came back the day after cleaning up the floor with the adhesive-removing solvent stuff, I see this ominous wet spot around the floor drain. Great. So I take the drain cover off and . . . . . . .aack, whuthuf*#k???? This is supposed to be a drain, as in emergency washer-overflow drain so the damned basement doesn't flood, right? Thank God for the home warranty. So a repair guy came, uncapped it and cleaned out the drain. And between the two of us, we soon came to realize that there is a reason it is capped. When a "lot" of water goes down the washer or utility sink drain, you can see that the water in this floor drain rises. Oh, shit. Repair Dude says it is a lousy design flaw - the drain should have been out in the middle of the room instead of so close to the other drains. That would have given it a little more pipe length, and the sudden influx of water drainage would have more space to accomodate the waste water. I can see that this may end up being a problem when we get our washer running. Will deal with that later. For now, I just need to get this resolved and get the floor tiled.

When i go back that night to start tiling there is a pool of water coming out from under the wall!!!! What in the Hell!!!! Finally I realize that Repair Dude did not turn off the cold water faucet when he flushed the drain, and it has been dripping and now the drywall under the washer water faucets is now saturated with water. What Next?




I let it all dry.

Painted the room.

Laid the tile.

Grouted it.

It looks fabulous.

Things are better.


I decide I should tile a backsplash around the utility tub.

So, I pull off the ugly woodwork around the little recessed area where the washer water faucets are, and here is What Next: The drywall has absolutely rotted away. This dripping thing has obviously been occuring now and then for a long time, and the wall has rotted away. So I will now allow that Repair Dude didn't cause the damage, just hung the sign out and made me see it. And, really, this is just one more reason why this area should be tiled. That way it will be sealed and this shouldn't happen again.

When I chip a bit of the wet drywall away, I can see that it is - Bonus! - all mildewy and moldy behind there, too! When my husband decides to check it out, he starts excavating and the next thing i know, the hole is freakin' huge.

This was not in my plan. And I am not a carpenter. And, I have not yet told you one of the soul-selling promises I made when he agreed to buy the house, which was that I would not ask him to do Anything when it comes to renovations. More on that later. Curent problem is that i need this fixed. Now. Washer and dryer will be delivered in 6 days, and tiling takes a minimum of 3 days. I wanted to have it done so they could be installed and not need to be moved to do this kind of stuff.

The next day we went to a Labor Day cook-out at some friends' new house (which is completely finished and looks fabulous, not to mention the wall color is positively inspirational) and am crying in my beer about needing to get the wall back together. My new best friend says he will come over and fix it (I did offer to tile a bathroom for him at his new condo), and 2 days later he and my other new best friend who is a DRYWALL CONTRACTOR! show up and fix it!! Halleluia! Check this out:




It grew a bit, but that was so these two studly dudes could nail it to the next stud. So tonight i put another coat of the joint compound on it, and tomorrow I should be able to paint/tile it. Yeah, I might not get the grout on it before the washer and dryer are delivered, but i can deal with it. Baby steps.

launch

Photo albums are over and you can't pay me enough to "scrapbook" (as though "scrapbook" is a verb) so let the blogging commence - as though "blogging" is a verb, but never mind. The first rule of blogging is that there are no rules.

My blog is all about my new home renovation project. I have successfully persuaded my husband to agree that we should buy a house that is a relic of the Disco Era. It has those great bones that everyone seeks - just needs some updates, she said. heheheh.

But, really - this place was crying out for someone, anyone, to take on the charge of dragging it into the 21st century. It was custom-designed and built in 1978 by people who loved it exactly the way it was built AND NEVER CHANGED A THING. So it is time. This will be my record of choice for figuring out exactly what I do with it, along with the why and how, before and after, blood, sweat and tears included. Here is a picture of the front of the house. It doesn't look like much, but that is because the landscaping is so dense and overgrown that you can barely see the house. This place is all about the landscaping and trees. Huge trees, naturalized plantings. Almost heaven. I am going to love it here. The house is incidental compared to the lot, but I am going to love the renovation process. It is going to be huge, so I will show you the plans bit by bit on the old Need-to-Know basis. And pretend it is all under control.