Nine Years, a forgotten username and password later....

 Once upon a tine I planned on getting this thing caught back up. Then life happened, work, having kids, divorce, and becoming a single parent decided to hop along with. Not to mention immensely huge life changes of a more personal nature.

This picture sums up the state of the place and life in general.

 

 The 1870-1890s Eastlake piece is my distant past carried forward. It was in rough shape when I bought it at a neighbor's garage sale the spring after grad school. A piece between two drawers ruined by wood boring bugs, failing, poorly done refinishing job from som point, the entire thing had been completely neglected. A basket case that I completely repaired and renewed. It is survival.

The art on the wall and floor lamp are from a brighter time in my life, back in San Antonio the first of two times I lived there. They were from a peak moment in terms of friends, social life, work, and more or less everything really. Something unmatched until much more recent times. It is happiness returned.

The small table and chairs for my kids. Mom bought them when I was 4. I love my kids, no explanation needed.

The bathroom in the background for what all has happened over the last 9 years. The floorplan in this corner of the room is changed. A short hallway to the left gone, the dartboard area the previous owners penciled in when they added on to the house now half of something new and much better. It is my life and personal identity made right.

 What's not present is clutter. I am no longer married. 

I've said a few times before that I'll be back much sooner with the next post, and there is a LOT of content to cover since then! This time I'm not making any claims or promises. I want to catch this completely up but that's a bit of  challenge. When regard to future posts I make no claims but am hopeful they will come along naturally and in short order.

- Michelle

Where Have I Been?!

Sometimes you get right in the middle of things and then life comes at you fast. Last fall around the most recent update my brother died and I immediately left to go take care of things. This happened when I was finishing the outside of the front door. To sum it all up, I was dealing with that off and on until about March and I really didn't feel like starting any projects at home for a while. I wasn't in the mood to finish the ones I already started either, or really do anything much at all.

On top of that, I may have mentioned on here that a house we own in a historic neighborhood had a construction accident. There was massive damage and no one's insurance would step in and take care of their client's responsibility (there are three responsible parties). We ended up having to file a lawsuit and here we are, one year later. It looks like everyone may settle up next week so that burden will finally be lifted and we can move forward with that.

So where does that leave us now? The next project will be the corner of the house with the master bedroom, bathroom, closet and half bath off the family room. Basically, I am finishing rebuilding the 2002 addition. I have almost figured out the floorpan but there are a couple of things that I think still need improvement before I'm ready to get out the circular saw and start tearing things up. I'd also like to have a source for the vanity and design the built in hamper in the bathroom first, and have stone/tile picked out. With any luck I'll be able to get this project going in October and it will take a LOT less time to actually do because I won't have to keep stopping to go research some crazy idea one of us found and wanted to incorporate.

Immediately after this project wraps up I'm moving on to the next one, the dining room and den. This will be a little more of an adventure because I'll need to contract out some of the work. I am not an expert in putting in Terrazzo, adding doors to the back yard or rebuilding a fireplace. Since this is in the original footprint of the house we're going full MCM here. I've lifted a few cool ideas from pictures and house listings so it'll be fun to see how much can be incorporated here. To be honest I'm looking forward to this more than the bedroom/bathroom.

Stay tuned...

First Half of November

 Technically the very last day of October... the fan finally arrived and I installed it right before a Halloween party started, but I didn't take and pictures until a couple of days later. We really like it! The fan is a Haiku by Big Ass Fans. This is the only one that's still made in the US as far as we were ever able to tell anyway.

 I also came close to wrapping up the mini-project known as the front door. This is how it looked when it was installed and after windows were in. Neither of those were as easy as they sound - especially trimming the door on the long and short sides. It was probably the most difficult part of the project because after putting all of this work into it the last thing I wanted to do was cut it too small!

Since our huge project is finally wrapping up I was finally able to start cleaning up. These cabinets were intended to be used at a rental but that didn't work out. I donated them to Habitat along with a ton of other stuff we removed from the house. It was great to finally get the den back!

It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better.

October

In the month of October I worked only on doors. The remaining ones that I had to install went up, all the stuff for the front door arrived and it was time to figure out how to make it and put it all together. It actually wasn't that hard. Given known dimensions of a standard front door I was able to take measurements from a picture and use those to figure out how large and where the windows should be. Then all there was to do was cut them out and finish the door.

To do that I needed a router and a guide. The best guide for this sort of thing that I could come up with was to clamp dimensional lumber and run the router against that. It gave straight, repeatable cuts every time. I took out only 1/4" of material at a time so this took a while. Once I had actual window sizes I was able to take those to a local glass company to have windows made. While waiting I stained and finished the wood. All of this made a huge mess with tons of sawdust flying around everywhere. Of course I did all of this in the dining room so there was a lot of cleaning to do.

Second Half of September

The second half of September was spent mostly with me wrapping up electrical odds and ends. The doors for all rooms adjacent to the family room arrived from Baird Brothers and I also started the finishing process and installed the first one of those. It was nice to FINALLY have a door to the master bedroom!

I also ordered everything we would need for the front door. No small undertaking since I wound up trying to match up finishes between parts that were new and others that were over 50 years old.

The last project was to make the refrigerator surround. The plan calls for a Subzero but since we have a heavily damaged rental house and unresponsive insurance companies to deal with it seemed best to use the refrigerator we have for the time being.

First half of September

A backsplash looks better once it’s grouted.

I also found the time to get the car back on the road again. It was great moving it out of the garage but it still has issues.

The projects at home keep getting smaller as we push towards the end. I ordered slate from a small company in Vermont that was recommended by Retro Renovation and it turned out perfectly. We wanted something that fit both the new and old parts of the house, but at the same time looks like it’s been there since the place was new. It was an easy weekend project.

The interior doors arrived and I installed one per evening. It’s great having something there again and the next step is to finish them, paint the jamb and order/install hardware. I'll post pictures once they're worth looking at.

One month past the roofing accident at the other house, and the supplier’s insurance company has completely failed to do anything. Their local adjuster promised that they would be done by Labor Day but they did not deliver. In the mean time the city wants the building to be stabilized (insurance on the other hand, suggested without stating that they did not want that to happen and that it would be unnecessary). A tarp over a house with no roof, or even rafters will only last for so long and it finally gave out. Let’s just say it’s not pretty. Maybe I should do some before/afters.

Second half of August

I’m not one to waste time, so while everyone’s insurance is (supposedly) doing what they should be doing I get back to work at home. I have a car that’s been parked in the garage since around November that there hasn't been time to deal with, and we need a backsplash. I put tiles on order and within a couple of afternoons this was up.

Backsplashes are quick and easy to do, but they take a lot of planning. It was tough to figure out how to get the outlets to line up with this row of tile. It's glass instead of something opaque so cuts were a lot more time consuming. I couldn't just flip it over and cut from behind because the blade marks would show.

Maybe I'll be able to get done this year...