Some random thoughts

Thought for the day: dial-up internet stinks.  I’m looking forward to seeing our cable guy on Friday.  Then maybe I’ll write a bit more, since I won’t have to wait 10 minutes just to log into my blog.  The other bonus of having cable will be that I can host my site through Comcast instead of Blogger.  I’m not horribly proficient with HTML, but with a decent publisher, I’ll be able to make some layout and stylistic changes.  I definitely want to add an “Ideas” page, along with a “Before and After” section.  My friend AJ has an HTML “Bible” that he said I can borrow, so hopefully that will help me along.

Our housewarming party/BBQ was yesterday, and a good time was had by all.  We probably had about 30-35 people stop in.  We met our neighbors to the south, and our 2 neighbors next door to him also came by.  My cousin AM came in from Detroit, which was awesome.  I didn’t expect anyone from out-of-town.  Everyone liked the house, though, and I even got some leads on where I can find a decent plasterer.  

Now that the unpacking is complete, I’m anxious to start ripping up my office.  I haven’t done any further “peeking”under the wallpaper/carpet/ceiling tiles, but it’s only a matter of time.  New concern: The wall between the master bedroom closet and the office is made out of paneling (or some similar material…?).  I’m thinking that the original wall was somewhere in the middle of the closet, since the existing wall covers up part of the door trim in the office.  Will it be possible to move the wall 4 inches or so into the closet and still have enough room in there?  I’d like to reclaim my door trim…  And I’m fairly certain that we can handle the expense of one or two walls with skim-coat plaster.  

What lies beneath?

We're not even completely unpacked, and I already want to start tearing things apart... The mysteries of an older home are killing me! What's under the wallpaper/carpet/Pergo? Where were the walls before they added this closet? What, exactly, is this wall between the office and the master bedroom closet made out of ('cause it sure ain't plaster!)? What built-ins have been lost?

I e-mailed the previous owners hoping that they'd have some answers, but my message was returned to me. They left a phone number, though, so maybe I'll get brave and call them.

I peeked a bit under the wallpaper in the living room, and it looks like there's at least 3 layers, and possibly as many as 5, under there. I also did some peeking in the office, under the window where the wallpaper is already peeling, and this is what I found:

Clicking makes it larger...

I also looked into the bedroom closet, which is one of the few areas where you can see some plaster. This is what I saw when I looked up: Do you think that the paneling is holding up the ceiling plaster? It sure looks that way to me...!

And in the hallway by the stairs, there's a little hole where you can see under the paneling. And what do we have? More paneling. Yay.

Blogger seems to make the pictures darker than they really are, so it's had to see the paneling. But that's what's in the gap up there.

I'm seeing a lot of plaster repair in our future. On the up-side, 2 of the bedrooms and the upstairs bathroom are already done. On the down-side, that leaves the office, upstairs hallway, stairs, living room, dining room, and kitchen. And all of the ceilings of those rooms, too.

Time to start working some overtime...

Some good finds at a junque yard

My mom came over today and helped put the house together a bit more. We got a LOT accomplished. The living room is done (at least until I tear it apart when I rip up the carpet, tear down the wall paper, repair and repaint the walls, and refinish the floors...), and all of the other boxes have been moved to the rooms they belong in. It definitely looks much more homey and inviting now. I keep imagining it as it will look when it's finished, and I just can't wait to get started. It's so exciting to be able to put a house back to the way it should be. It reminds me of an old Rejuvenation ad. It said "If these walls could talk, they'd say, "Thank God you're here. The last people had terrible taste." While I know my house isn't all that bad, some of the decoration is... well, ugly.

Before the homemaking festivities, my mom and I also went up to South Haven for an art fair. In general, there isn't much at those things that I'd put in my house, but I found this awesome piece of pottery by a guy named Brad Patterson. It's a little dish shaped like a maple leaf... Very Arts & Crafts. I gave his business card to my mom, so I don't have his website, but I'll link to it when I get the address. Definitely worth checking out.


After the art fair, we headed up to an "antique" place (I use the term "antique" loosely, the place is more of an old junk yard, but we love going there). they had some archtectureal items, and I was able to find some baseboard trim that matches mine. The finish in it is damaged, but it's in excellent shape. I bought 19 feet, and I only need 11, so I'll have some extra, just in case. What a find!! I also found some over-the-dor trim that matched some that I needed, but it wasn't in very good shape. It was extremely dry and I wasn't sure that I could work with it, so I decided to hold out until I found something better. Still, one obstacle on the road to matching woodwork has been overcome.

baseboard in the living room (with more bad carpet and an awesome heat vent)

"new" trim stacked in the garage

I'm in love... :)

I love this house. It's so nice to have a big backyard, where the dog can run around and we'll have room for a water garden and a patio. We're surrounded by huge, mature trees, which I'm sure I'll dislike more once the leaves fall, but for right now, they're my favorite part of the property.

I've been pretty productive so far today. S and I went shopping and bought the stakes we need to put up the fence on the north and east property line. We still need to get some picket fence for the west (front), but we're not sure yet how much we'll need. I also cleaned the carpet in the kitchen. Why anyone would carpet the kitchen, I have no idea, but carpeted it is. It's going to be ripped up sometime around next spring, so I'm exploring period-appropriate flooring. I want to re-do the cabinet doors and counters, but I think those will have to wait a few years, since there's really nothing wrong with them. They're not even really ugly, they just aren't what I want.

Unpacking is continuing, slowly but surely. Why is it so hard to throw away things you know you don't really use?

And, in other news, we've decided to go with cable internet. At $13 for Basic cable and $43 for the internet, it's about twice as much as our DSL was, but at least we'll have some channels, should we ever decide to watch TV.    

I'm impatient!

Bleh. I'm tired. My life lately has been consumed by moving and unloading boxes... We're probably about 70% done, though. I need to go to Menard's or Lowe's or something and get a few organizers for the closets so that I can finish unpacking all of the little stuff that can go in there. We also need a few more small bookcases. I never realized how many books we had... No wonder my back hurts!

Even though we haven't even finished unpacking, I'm already impatient to begin some projects. I'd really like to see what's under the wallpaper, as scary as I'm sure it's going to be. There are places in the wall where there are some rather large "hills" that I think are bad repair jobs. Either way, I'd like to know, so we can deal with it. I plan on starting with my office, since it has the least neutral (and ugliest) paper.

Bach modeling the ugly wallpaper and carpet in my office

I'd also like to rip up the carpet in my office. It's extremely dated (read "ugly"), and there's no padding underneath it. The other 2 bedrooms upstairs have refinished pine floors, so I know there's wood under there just waiting for me to find it. Well, okay, so I already found it...

I ripped up a tiny piece in my closet, where no-one can see it, so hopefully S won't read this and know I've been destroying things before my self-imposed 6 month waiting period.

I'd really like to post more (and with more pictures) but we've been cast back into the dark ages and are forced to use dial-up internet. And, to make it worse, the fastest I've been able to connect has been 28.8 kbps. I guess that's one of the perks of living in the middle of nowhere. We're looking into cable, but it's about twice as much as our DSL was. :(