Fa La La La La

Just worth acknowledging that there was this perfect Sunday afternoon where I sat at home in front of a fire for 8 hours.

It was glorious. 

Playing with knives

This is what it looks like our our dining room window. The street sweeper actually came earlier that day. Talk about a thankless job.

It's officially fall here in Southern Oregon. Most of the trees' leaves have started changing color, late afternoons are chilly and nights even chillier, my office is crowded with potted plants that will be spending the winter indoors and we fired up the fireplace last night for the first time while we watched the Ducks wipe the floor with USC.

This afternoon I began work on fixing my office window. You might remember that it is falling apart...the glazing is cracked and old and the panes are dangerously close to just falling out. Naturally, I used a few how-tos from This Old House, located here and somewhere else I can't find. I scraped old paint and knocked off dry putty for an hour and a half or so, then cut myself with the very sharp knife I was using. I had it coming, though, and I've gotten pretty good at reacting quickly and calmly to accidental self-inflicted injury. Anyway, after that, the light was starting to fade and I was feeling pretty irritated, so I called it a day. Hopefully Trevor will be able to come and work on it sometime this week, while the weather's still sunny.

Last night, I worked on building a shoe rack for our "laundry room" (in theory it should be, but since we are still minus one washer and dryer, it gets quotes). I think it came out rather well, and it will definitely provide some much-needed relief from the shoe pileup. Cost: $7, not counting 2 hours labor.And another view...

Having Trevor's giant fancy new chop saw making it all but impossible to walk around the laundry room: not really priceless, but I'm glad he lead me borrow it.

Reasons why I love the fireplace

Todd and I got hit with a nasty cold a few days ago, and it reminded me why I don't normally get sick. (Because it sucks.) I've been having trouble forming coherent sentences, so I bought stuff (which requires little verbal aptitude, only the understanding of credit card usage) and got in Trevor's way instead of blogging. And sat by the fire while I attempted to work. I'm telling you, there's very little, if anything, that beats this when it is raining, snowing, or some combination of the two.

On Tuesday, the two pieces of furniture we've been waiting for arrived. We ordered them on Christmas Eve from Garrison's in Medford (which I love. I'm a big fan of good customer service, and they are the greatest. Even their delivery guys were polite and friendly.) One piece was a matching end table (its other half was has been lonely) and the other is this amazing teak console that I was enchanted by from the moment I read the little story that accompanied the floor model in the store. Apparently, India is redoing its rail system, and some enterprising individual has purchased all of the old teak railroad ties and is making furniture out of them. Cool, huh? (I know it's a little gimmicky, but it's still a beautiful piece.) It's behind the couch in this picture, with my nickel lamp on it. Just as a refresher, here's what it looked like before.

On the note of bathroom progress, the floor is down and grouted as of this morning, the walls are primed, the tile in the shower is sealed (apparently you have to spray a sealer on the grout so water doesn't soak in), and Mack of McKenzie's Creations installed our gorgeous 35" vanity yesterday. This is one knockoff that's worlds better than the original. The green on the walls was supposed to turn out a lot more sage-y than it did, and we're going to switch to a light blue. It'll be somewhere in the spectrum between ice blue and sky blue, and it should look great with the marble. And it won't make the whole bathroom glow green, like it does at the moment.  I can't believe that I'm going to get to use it every day, and I'm utterly stunned that it used to be a cramped, icky little room. So different! When it's all done, I'll post a comparison.

Trevor took the hunk of marble for the vanity top to cut it to size, cut the sink hole in it, and hone the top of it. I have hopes that a honed (matte finish) vanity and a polished (shiny) floor won't look too weird together. Then we just have to have Eric come back to finish up the plumbing, and our buddies from Precision Electric come hook up the electricity, and we'll be in business. Oh, and put the toilet back. Minor detail.  

I was going to post a bunch of bathroom pictures, but blogger is not cooperating and won't upload anything at the moment.  Stay tuned, I guess.

Weekly update, AND, fun alternative uses for your SUV (don't watch, Dad)

Although we went to Eugene on Saturday to see Randi, who was in the state, and Tim, who lives there, we still managed to cover a lot of ground this week. Here's what's new around here, as of this evening.


I'm still going to hang curtains in the kitchen (finally got sick of being on display for everyone who drives past, and who knew mini-blinds were so complicated?! Seriously.) but that's all for this week.

We are loving having the log lighter in the fireplace. It's glorious, not having to mess with kindling and newspaper and all that. Having a stove that works is nice, too. It was very nice to look at, but I don't really go in for stainless steel art.

In other news, as mentioned in the video, we had another failed attempt at hanging our front door. We are going to have to take this up with the guys at Pacific Door and Sash, because again, while it's really nice to look at in my living room, I didn't buy it to sit there. Kind of. The problem is that our old door is 36" exactly. The new six-panel steel door is 35.75" so it obviously leaves a gap. The shims they gave us to theoretically make it work didn't work, so...yeah. Back to the drawing board, for them, that is.

Also as mentioned in the video, we did some work outside today (after having a very irritating experience with the blinds that were supposed to go in the kitchen.) Here's me, ripping a dead rhododendron out of the ground:

After we finished that, we tackled a really hideous bushy shrubby thing that I have been waiting to get rid of since we bought the place. There are two segments of this. You'll see why.



After a trip to Bimart, here's what happened. I'm pretty sure that I'm now an Oregonian, after this display. My drivers license may have indicated that for over a year now, but this is proof.



I know that stupid plant doesn't look that big, but the root base that we managed to yank out was a little more than two feet in diameter, and there's still stuff left in the ground. And the rope pictured was around 3/4" thick.

Staying busy

Sorry I'm late on the update. That was prompt, wasn't it. Here it is:



This past weekend, Eric started the plumbing for the tub, toilet and sink. It was especially easy for him, because Trevor cut this convenient hole in the sub-floor:
We also discovered -- hold onto your hat for this one -- more asbestos tape.  I realize the true weight of this reference might be lost on you...we had an exceptionally, overzealously dedicated duct cleaner tell us that because of the small quantity of asbestos tape on some of our ductwork, we'd have to get the entire system redone, and, for some reason we still haven't figured out, move the newly installed furnace to the attic.  This was to the tune of $15,000, in his pocket, naturally.  We now joke about asbestos all the time, and provide charcoal respirators to all guests.  HA.

You may also notice in the shot above that the bathtub, the 600-pound-plus cast-iron tub, is gone. Boy, was that a beast to get rid of. It's sitting in the southeasterly quadrant of the picture to the right, after we kind of tipped it out the back door.

Our vanity is under construction right now, and I am extremely excited to see how it turns out.  I also picked up lighting for over the vanity yesterday, from -- shocker -- Lowe's.  (I usually have terrible experiences there, but I was desperate to not special-order our bath bar because our electrician is coming tomorrow.  Consequences of poor planning...)  Ours is a three-light, but (not surprisingly) Lowe's doesn't have that on their website.  Chrome is apparently "going out of style" so it's really hard to find. 

I'm also in the process of painting the green dresser. It's primed, and it's going to be Ralph Lauren's Great Hall Cream, which is also one of the dining room colors. It'll be my first try with this color, and I'm soooo excited to see how it looks. Since it's a metallic (!!) it doesn't exactly translate well onscreen. But it's a warmish champagne, minus the mid-80s Buick associations. It's going in the blue bedroom, and it is high priority to get done so that I can start moving some of my clothes out of the bookcase they've been living in for the past seven months.

Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that we gave the fireplace a first run on Friday.  To honor the legacy of the fireplace, we burned a cardboard box first.  Since the only wood we have at the moment is the green stuff I chopped down a few weeks ago, things didn't exactly go well after the cardboard flamed out.  It looked nice, though:

Yes, we do still have the Christmas tree up. It is bone dry, decidedly a fire hazard, but the room always looks so sad when it gets dumped. This is my first time having my own Christmas tree, and since it always depressed me to get rid of it, I'll do it when I'm good and ready. Or when Todd makes me.

January 11 update

Here's a little recap on what we've accomplished this week.  It was a pretty productive week, especially the last three days of it.

Today I also cleaned out the fireplace, which was a delightful task.  I sucked out half a shop vac's worth of old brick, leaves, ash, rocks, and (proving that the old codger did burn his garbage as the neighbors alleged) some plastic-y foil wrappers.  Then I noticed the hole in the back of the fireplace, and, putting two and two together, went outside and opened the little door at the base of the chimney.  I dug somewhere between five and eight gallons of ash and cinders out of the tunnel between the fireplace and the door.  It just kept coming.  Gary (the chimney guy) and I agreed that it was a minor miracle that this place hadn't burned down, given the old man's negligence.

Demolition Barbie: Sledgehammer and Crowbar Included!

Remember how I mentioned a few days ago that we were going to redo the bathroom? Well, it's underway. Here's a little video of what it looked like before (that's right, there's a....um...next step. Not an after. Yet.)



Sorry that it's sideways. I couldn't really get the right angle landscape...It's totally good for you to bend your neck like that. Ask any chiropractor....

Later that afternoon, my hands were throbbing from holding a hammer for so long and kept pinching together like crabs with muscle spasms. And this is what I'd accomplished:

Basically, I eat 2x4s and plaster for lunch. Cat, be sure to mention to your chauvinist friend that I am rather handy with a sledge hammer.

While I was at work smashing the bathroom to bits and throwing it out the window, Trevor the Great was in the next room over, ripping out the old sliding glass door that closed crooked and was so dirty it wouldn't get clean. (That's a special kind of dirty, for those who don't know. Specifically, this kind of dirty doesn't respond to any cleaning efforts, regardless of the quantity or variety of chemicals used.)

Before:




Again, sorry for the rotation. I kind of suck at this. Be sure to notice Trevor making a war-face as he attacks the frame of the door. We discovered flashing on the door (and by "we" I mean "he," because my understanding of flashing has little to do with siding and whatnot) and he had to use his Sawzall (excellent tool, by the way) to saw around the frame of the door. He was less than pleased about the situation. But nevertheless, the door was gone before lunchtime. And before dinner, this is how it looked:

I put the deadbolt and the knob on today, and it's not trimmed out in the picture either.  I'll take another shot tomorrow.  It's kind of dark out now.  I'm not wildly in love with how it looks, but it's definitely an improvement over the semi-translucent door that was there.  This has actual light shining through.

While I was installing the deadbolt (tricky thing, and the directions were just pictures.  Not helpful, Kwikset!) Todd and Adam worked on cleaning the gutters and getting rid of the satellite dishes (two...who needs two?) on the roof.  We took the plastic covering off the fireplace (which was up while Gary was banging around in the chimney.  We didn't really want a bunch of ash in the living room) and I vacuumed out the firebox, opened the little door on the outside of the chimney, and shoveled out another four gallons or so of ash.

Fast forward to a few hours later, and you find me, sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace.  Now, I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it kind of is.  This is the first time I've sat around and done something other than scheme for the next project or make a list of stuff to get from Home Depot.  It's starting to become home!

I'll sign off tonight with one more video.  This is a definitely outdated tour of the inside of the house, before the floors were even done.  I'll post a more current one soon, but here's a "before":