I'm due!

Today is the baby's due date, which he obviously doesn't realize, since he's showing no signs of wanting to vacate.  Oh well.  Nobody's been pregnant forever, right?

I think we've managed to accomplish more in the past 9 months than in any other year since we've been in the house.  It's amazing what a real deadline can do for people who are procrastinators.  And we're nothing if not professional procrastinators!  Here's a quick recap of what we've managed to get done:

1. Purchased a "new" dining room set and removed most of the clutter from that room
2. Rearranged living room furniture and installed new fabric blinds
3. Finished sanding the staircase and stained handrail, spindles, and treads
4. Framed over the hall closet opening into the office
5. Made a new, wider opening into the original office closet
6. Recreated the wall that was originally between the master bedroom and office closets.  The PPOs had removed it for God-alone-knows what reason
7. Removed the knob-and-tube wiring from the office and installed bracing and wiring for a ceiling fan
8. Removed non-original built-in bookshelf thing from master bedroom, framed over opening, removed remaining lath and plaster (boo-hoo), and drywalled
9. Skimcoated the office, office closet, and master bedroom closet walls, fading in the drywall patches
10. Primed and painted both closets, the new wall in the master bedroom, and the office
11. Installed closet organizers into both "new" closets
12. Began transforming hall closet into a linen closet and not a "junk drawer"
13. Made the nursery into a nursery, aquiring all of the big-ticket items secondhand
14. Amassed over a year's worth of baby clothes without spending a dime
15. Planted a small garden and harvested lots of broccoli, a few peppers, and over 10 lbs of tomatoes
16. Put up lots of fresh produce, including peaches, blueberries, corn, beans, broccoli, peppers, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, 3 kinds of jam, and basil pesto
17. Paid off 2 student loans and a credit card
18. Overflowed the bathroom toilet, ruining the ceiling in the kitchen
19. Removed the jungle from the "garden" on the side of the garage and mulched until we can put patio pavers in
20. Grew a baby!

It's annoying to me that none of the rooms upstairs are finished.  We really wanted to have the floors refinished, but ran out of time due to a 1 month delay because of a flaky electrician.  Still.  We're way ahead of where we were, and every room is at least functional.

Over the winter and into the spring, we'll be gearing up for the floor refinishing, trim re-installation, and, by summer, a bathroom remodel.  Well, at least that's the plan.  Who knows how it'll work out with a new baby...  But that'll be the best project of all!

Chilly!

It's currently 49°F here at the Prairie Box, and I'm freezing my buns off.  I'm at that lovely stage of pregnancy (the end!!) where nothing fits, not even my maternity clothes.  Since I didn't get big enough to wear maternity stuff until summer, I have NO cool weather clothing that even comes close to fitting.  I need to go steal a sweatshirt from Shayne.  Even some of those are too small.  How's that for a self-esteem boost?  I swear I'm going to have a 15 lb baby...

Last night we went to Lowes and bought a closet organizer for "my" closet in the office.  It's a modular system from Rubbermaid that should almost double the hanging space available in my 63" wide closet.  It's also supposed to be easy to install.  We'll see how that works out.  I haven't opened the package yet, but the instructions I saw on the website made it seem straightforward.  Everything hangs from a top rail so that you only have to drill 1 set of holes into the studs.  We'll install it this afternoon and see what happens.

Also at Lowes, we found pine "door jamb" planks that are the exact width of our door and window trim.  It's stain-grade pine, the edges are already routed, and they're returnable if they don't work out.  Our walls are thicker than those of new homes, so we'll have to find something wider to frame in the door jambs themselves, but these should work perfectly as trim.  That's also on the agenda for this afternoon.

As for this morning, I'm continuing my "from-the-bottom-up" cleaning and organizing blitz.  Thanks to my mom's help, the storage section of the basement is now much-improved, and we started on the dining room.  Since I've been doing some shuffling of the furniture, quite a few odds and ends have ended up homeless...  I just need to rehome or trash them, then vacuum and dust the living room.  I feel like I'm doing Apartment Therapy's "Complete Cure" in 2 days.  Thankfully I already reorganized the kitchen and bathroom, so I just need to do some cleaning in those rooms.  Wish me luck!

Down to the wire

In the final push to get the upstairs habitable (and CLEAN!) before the baby arrives, my mom is coming over today to paint the trim in the office. Tony put up the sheetrock in our bedroom, so as soon as he tapes and muds, that room will be ready for some fresh paint as well. I hate painting this close to the baby's arrival, but maybe we can get some VOC-free paint to assuage my conscience. Or we'll just keep the windows open (which we already do anyways).

After the trim is painted, we'll start moving office stuff into the office. I want the nursery set up by tomorrow. Yes, I'm a slave-driver. I already put the bedding in the crib a few weeks ago; I was dying to see what it looked like. All we really need to do is hang the curtains, arrange the furniture, and bring in the glider. Oh, and get the pile of baby shower gifts out of the living room. Not so bad.

And then, maybe, I can relax. Cause right now my impending due date feels like the day the world will end. At least in terms of accomplishing anything house-related, including cleaning. There's all this pressure to get EVERYTHING done in the next week. I'm sure I'm driving Shayne nuts, but he's been extremely tolerant. I'd have never thought he could be so patient. I'm probably good practice for raising a toddler...

More later...

Office photos

We finally got some paint of the walls...  The first photo shows the color more accurately.  It's a subdued greenish-blue, which is kind of funny since it's sort of close to the original color of the walls in this room.  We weren't aiming for that detailed of a restoration, but that's how it worked out.

This second photo is of the new-and-improved closet opening.  This is where the closet was originally, before the PPOs decided to sabotage the linen closet into a partial bedroom closet.  We did double the width of the original doorway, but the closet dimensions have been returned to what they should be.  The hall closet is again a hall closet (or will be once we have hanging rods and such in the "new" closet and move our clothes back where they belong).

The trim is going to stay white but will get a fresh coat of paint, probably this weekend.  I'll also be sorting through the salvaged trim in the garage to recreate the missing pieces on two walls.

Office progress: Ready for paint!

As of Friday evening the office is officially ready for paint.  It is nearly primed (Shayne just needs to cut in around the trim), and my mom is coming over tomorrow to help with the "real" painting.  Then we'll paint the trim (don't worry, it was already painted!), and it will be as finished as it's going to get for now.  Floor sanding and refinishing is going to wait until spring, since I don't want any residual fumes in the house when baby arrives.  Plus, we're just about out of time, and I'd rather concentrate on other things. 

I can't believe I'm due in 4 weeks!!  Yeek!

By Tuesday we should have all the office crap out of the nursery and into the office.  It'll be so fun to finally get to set up the nursery!  Not that the baby's going to sleep in there for the first few months, but still...  I'm especially anxious to bring up the glider I bought as a surprise for Shayne (he already knows, don't worry).  Babies R Us was having a floor model sale at the same time as gliders were 20% off, so I managed to snag the reclining glider Shayne really wanted for 40% of the original $400 price.  And with all the gift cards we had received, I only had to pay $50 out of pocket.  BRU cleaned up the cushions for me, and aside from one little stain on one side of the seat cushion, you can't tell it from new.  Yay for bargain shopping!

In the master bedroom, the Pepto-Bismol pink plaster was removed completely, and we're down to the studs.  It was a difficult decision for me, since I really prefer to keep the original materials when possible.  Sadly, part of my concern was time; it takes much longer to patch in drywall, skimcoat, and feather in the differing materials.  I really want this done and painted before the baby gets here.  Another issue was the plaster itself.  It wasn't in terrible shape, but by the time we removed the parts that were crumbling, there wouldn't be enough left to make the work worth it (IMO).  I'd have felt differently if it was the living room or dining room, I think, since we're really trying to keep as much original as possible in the main areas of the house.  But since the bedrooms have already been butchered...  I obviously feel guilty about my decision, since I'm trying so hard to justify it.  Oh well.

Also in the master bedroom, the closet opening is going to be reframed to better match the scale of the house.  It's currently 84" tall, making it a little taller than our bedroom doorway.  If we were to add matching woodwork to an opening that size, it would look odd.  So it will be shrinking to a more reasonable 72" to match every other closet door in the house.  Tony thought I was crazy to want make the openings so short, since we'll probably have to order custom doors (or find salvaged ones), but I'm convinced we should match the other closets as closely as possible.  We might be taking the width of the opening down as well, but I'll have to go up and measure to see. 

I'm not sure when we'll get woodwork for the closets to match the rest of the doors.  I have some bits and pieces out in the garage that may work.

Paint in the master bedroom should happen within 2 weeks, barring any catastrophes.  Talk about cutting it close!!

Office electrical finished!!

Finally!  Our electrician (and her electrician boyfriend) showed up last night as planned and knocked out the rest of the electrical work in the office.  We now have a reinforced box for the ceiling fan, and the knob and tube was replaced with romex and re-routed.  Also, she fixed the two outlets in the living room that had stopped working after we removed them to refinish the woodwork.  The only downside is that she knocked out a decent chunk of virgin plaster from inside the closet.  If it had been on the bedroom side, I'd be pissed.  As it is I'm just kind of miffed.  Lesson learned: if your tradespeople aren't historically minded, watch them closely and ask them to discuss with you before cutting into walls or otherwise altering anything.  Sounds like a "duh", but obviously I wasn't really thinking about it...

The best part is that we can start moving forward on the closets now.  Since we're done working inside the walls, our skimcoat guy can now finish fixing the walls (yay!!).  He'll be here tomorrow, and we'll have a better time table then, but our tentative plan is to rent the floor sander this weekend or maybe a few days after.  Even if the walls aren't completely done, we can use canvas dropcloths to protect the floor until we're ready to shellac it.  I guess we'll just see how it goes, but at least we're getting to the homestretch.

Office progress photos

There's been about a two week time-lapse since these were taken, but I figured I'd post them anyways.  This first one is a view into the master bedroom/office closet now that the paneling has been removed.  You can see the office in the background.

Next is the gaping hole where the non-original built-in bookshelf used to be.  You can see the knob and tube wiring that I'm guessing used to feed a closet light, but now leads to our bedroom light and fan.  The framing is between the soon-to-be office closet and the office.

And all the demo debris...  We ended up tossing a lot of it out the window (classy, huh?) to avoid tracking dirt all over the house.  The plaster bits we loaded into paper bags and carried out like normal human beings.

Currently, all of the patches are covered over and 3 of the walls and the ceiling are ready to be primed.  As of yesterday, the ceiling was textured to match the rest of the house.  We probably could have gone with smooth, since Tony did a great job on repairs, but we thought it would be odd to have 1 bedroom smooth and the rest of the house with a "crowsfoot" texture. 

We had some scheduling conflicts with the electrician, so the the knob-and-tube is still in service.  Once that is removed, Tony can repair the last little bit of the last wall, and we can frame in the new closet opening.  Right now the old wiring is in the way...

I was really hoping to be done by this coming weekend, but I don't think it's gonne happen.  We're still pretty close, though.  At least we're done with the really messy stuff.

Hurry up and wait

Because he has a family and two "real" jobs, Tony the Drywall Guy hasn't been able to come over very often or for very long.  Next week, his family obligations are cleared up, and he said he'll stay until we kick him out!  I can't wait, since I'm a little tired of living and sleeping in a construction zone.  I'm hoping things go as planned and he can completely finish the job within 2 weeks.  I've got my fingers crossed...

While I'm waiting, I've been trying to organize all the hand-me-down baby items I've acquired.  My sister-in-law and cousins have been very generous, and a co-worker's wife has also offered all of her baby clothes, plus another friend is sending me some.  Yipes!  This kid isn't even born yet and already has more clothes than me!  I've got clothes from newborn all the way up to 3T.  Onesies, sleepers, blankets, socks, hats, coats, shoes, shirts...  I could probably open a store with all the baby clothes I have.  And I haven't even had my shower yet!  If anyone I know reads this, please don't get me any clothes!!

Our little garden is also slowly starting to grow.  We're going to have a ton of broccoli, and just the right amount of tomatoes and peppers to not be overwhelmed.  Now if the berries would just show up at the farmers market I could start making my jam...  We're also just about out of our freezer stash of veggies.  I think all I have left is some freezer-burnt broccoli (we still use it in stir-fry) and a few bags of corn.  I'm trying to be patient, but fresh fruit and veggies just sound SO good...

Office progress (Or: holy shit, what did we do?!)

Holy. Crap. I know we're on the way to making things better, but as of right now, they just seem so much worse!! Last night, Shayne and I partially gutted the former master bedroom closet. This is going to be put back the way it was originally and separated into 2 closets: one for the master bedroom, one for the office. So our prep work consisted of tearing down all the paneling the that PPOs installed over the plaster, removing a scabbed-on heat duct from the main duct, tearing out a non-original built-in bookshelf that faced out into the master bedroom, tearing down part of a wall for the new closet opening, and removing the sections of plaster and lath that were too far gone to save.

And I thought the upstairs was in chaos before... We now have a gaping hole in our bedroom wall, through which you can see all the way through the closet and out the office window. To say it looks like a crack house is an understatement. it was actually kind of scary sleeping up there last night. Even though it was dark, I could just feel that big opening that doesn't belong there. Yeek.

I took pictures, but since the computer and all associated cables are packed away at the moment... I'll try to dig out the camera cord this evening and at least load the pics from the laptop.

The good news is that we didn't find any surprises. At this point in the game, surprises are bad. We're still trying to handle the last surprise of knob and tube wiring.

More good news is that Tony is coming over this afternoon to help fix our chaos. I think he'll still be working on the office ceiling, but by Thursday he should be able to start on the closet. A few more weeks, and hopefully our rooms will be back the way they should be...

A little bit of everything...

This week I finally got my garden planted.  Shayne built me a raised bed from some ancient lumber my mom had up in her garage rafters, and we filled it with organic soil and compost (total cost = $20).  I bought some broccoli and two types of tomato plants from the greenhouse, plus started my own broccoli, carrot, and tomato seeds.  The carrots didn't make it, but everything else is in the ground and starting to grow.  When the seedlings are a little bigger I should mulch to help keep the moisture in, but I'm happy for now.

Since I plan to continue to grow my produce or buy it in-season from the farmer's market, I've had to learn new and different ways of storing food.  Last year was something of an experiment; I had never frozen or canned a fruit or veggie in my life.  I had mixed success with the freezing.  The broccoli turned soggy, and the carrots were kind of... spongy.  The corn, peas, and beans were great.  After talking to people who know much more than me, I learned what I had probably done wrong.  First, the veggies weren't dry when I bagged and froze them.  Second, since I just sucked the air out of the baggies with a straw, they got freezer burn. 

A vacuum sealer was recommended to me to keep my frozen produce from getting freezer burn.  Since I don't yet know if it will really work and I don't have a lot of spare money to spend, I picked up a Reynolds HandiVac.  Using special zip-top baggies, this little contraption sucks all the air out of the bag and supposedly keeps food fresher, longer.  I used it to suck the air out of bags of sausages and peppers, then tossed them in the freezer.  After a week, both packages looked fine.  There didn't appear to be any leaks, which was the main complaint on the reviews.  When I pulled out the peppers to use them, I did notice a bit of frost on the areas where the bag hadn't been sucked in enough to touch the food.  The places were there were no air pockets (98% of the whole), looked fine.  The peppers are still in there, 3 weeks later, and there is no freezer burn on them at all.  I intentionally ran my trial in the upstairs freezer, since it seems to burn food faster than the one downstairs, possibly because it's opened more often...?  So, for a $10 investment, I'm pretty happy!  It might not be as powerful or versatile as a "real" vacuum sealer, but it seems to do what I need it to do.

As for the work on the house...  It's still coming along.  I can't decide if it's nice or frustrating to have someone else doing the work for us.  On one hand, I can just sit back and watch it all happen.  On the other hand, I'm relying on other people and working around their schedules.  Although...  Considering the speed at which we normally operate (S-L-O-W), this is probably an improvement!  Currently, the office walls are pretty much done and just need to be sanded.  The ceiling is in the process of being patched.  We're almost there...!

The electrician showed up and found that the knob-and-tube is live and powers half of the upstairs, including the ceiling fan in our bedroom.  The good news is that she didn't think it would be all that difficult to run a new line up from the breaker.  She's coming back tomorrow to get started on that, as well as installing the wiring for a ceiling fan.

I'm thinking that within 2 weeks, we'll be tearing apart the master bedroom closet to install drywall and frame the "new" divider between it and the office closet.  As quickly as Tony works when it's just taping and hanging, it'll probably only be another week after that before we're ready to paint and refinish the floors.

Which is good, since I'll be giving birth in about 3 and a half months...  Yeek!

Wow, I really can keep a secret!

But today I decided it's been long enough...  As of this week, I am 20 weeks pregnant!! 

That's one of the reasons I went on a posting hiatus at the beginning of the year.  I felt awful for the first 15 weeks.  Morning sickness doesn't even begin to describe it.  Thankfully after about 12 weeks, I started getting some energy back, but the nausea didn't stop for another month or so.  Still, during that time we were busy squirrelling away baby bargains that we found secondhand.  So far we've managed to find a crib/changing table/dresser combo, bassinet, swing, bouncer, a Pottery Barn bedding set, a small dresser, a rocking chair, and a Jeep jogging stroller.  And I think our grand total is still under $500.  I'm so cheap.  Er, I mean "frugal".

Now that I feel better, we're working on the house a little more.  Tony the Drywall Guy has been dilligently working on the office walls, and he's finished the skimcoating.  This week, he's going to install the 4.5' by 8' "patch"  where the PPOs made a closet opening.

Tony also helped us find out that the knob and tube we found is indeed live.  Yay...  Fortunately, he also knows trustworthy electricians, and he's acting as a GC to get one here and working.  Tony is our new hero.  We're going to have the electrician remove the k&t as well as install wiring for a ceiling fan.  I might also have him look at the two outlets in the living room that suddenly stopped working...

The next stage of our project will be rebuilding the two closets between the bedrooms.  Considering the small space and the amount of damage done, I think we're just going to gut and drywall.  There's just not enough plaster left to even try to save it.  Considering how small the space is and how quickly Tony works, that should be a two-day project once we get there.

Amazing.  The end is near!

Hall closet recreation begun!

I came home from work today to find that John had finished framing over the opening from the office into the hall closet.  While I still need to use it as a closet for my stuff, it is on its way to becoming a hall closet once again.  Soon it shall house only linens, blankets, laundry, and a vacuum.  I'm so excited; this is the first substantial (i.e. not just cosmetic) step we've taken in unremuddling the house.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about...  This is what the upstairs of the house looks like right now:

There are three closets, two of which are noticeably...odd.  The former hall closet became a walk-thru closet with an unusable shelving unit and rods hung every whichway.  The master bedroom closet is only about half accessible.  Pretty goofy arrangement.

This is what the upstairs should be, and what we're returning it to:

Four closets, all of them perfectly functional. Even John the handyman thought that the previous owners were nuts to "rearrange" the openings the way they did.  But now, finally, we're on our way to fixing it.

More stove restoration and other updates

After spending last Sunday sanding and wire wheeling the rust off of old stove parts, I think I'm just about ready to start reassembly.  I should be happy about this, but I'm actually dreading it.  When I took it apart last spring, I put all the hardware into little labeled baggies and took photos of how things were put together.  Yet somehow, about a year later, none of it looks familiar.  I feel like I'm reading a map in a foreign language.  I'm sure it will come together fine, especially since I have a very detailed service manual and great directions from someone who has done this before, but I'm still feeling very intimidated.

My only two remaining tasks for the stove are to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the broiler box and Thermowell.  The Thermowell will be easy.  The broiler box has lots of moving parts.  Sigh.

If I can escape from work a little early tomorrow, I'm going to take the stovetop and handles to a plating shop to be rechromed.  I'm really excited about this part, since it will provide the most visual impact to the finished stove.  I'm a little nervouns about entrusting my precious stoveparts to a stranger, but it seems they're the only local plating shop that does a show-quality chrome finish.  I'll definitely need to see some examples of their work before I turn over my stovetop.

I also plan on shipping out my stove burner heads, drip pans, and burner grates to IPE in Missouri tomorrow.  Turnaround time is currently around 2 weeks, which gives me enough time to get the rest of the stove in order.  Hopefully.

And, last but not least, John the handyman is coming over tomorrow to frame our "new" wall.  We're closing off where the PPOs opened the hall closet into the office.  So, no more dysfunctional closet after tomorrow!  Yipee!  By the time I get home from work tomorrow afternoon, he should be finished.  How cool is that?  I still feel like I'm cheating when other people work on my house, but I'm evem more excited that the stuff is getting done.  Sometimes DIY is less important that just being finished with the stupid project already.  I'm sure that those of you who have had projects drag on (and on...  and on...) can relate.

Pictures to come!

Sticker Shock

The Stripper Guy called me on Tuesday with the news that our doors were finished.  A 5 day turnaround time, including a weekend, is awesome.  Unfortunately, he told me when I got there that the job was a lot harder than anticipated, so his estimate wasn't exactly accurate.  5 doors, fully stripped, sanded, and ready to stain, ended up costing $700. 

Ouch.

But, last time, he ended up coming in under his estimate, so I still trust that he's being fair with me.  I certainly know what a pain in the ass stripping lead paint can be, and I'd much rather have him do some of the more tedious work.  Less mess for me, and more time to work on the projects that are still piling up.  And, I have no idea when (if ever) I'd have gotten to those doors on my own.

So that left me free to work on the office today, except that I've been sadly neglecting the rest of the housework.  There are doghair tumbleweeds floating around our bedroom.  So that's taking precedence.  And then we have the memorial service tonight, and the funeral tomorrow.  So...  I'll see what I get done.  On the up-side, at leasr the doors are stripped now, even if I had nothing to do with it...  :)

Skimcoating the office walls: Prep work

Today I plan to start the prep work for skimcoating the office.  Last night, we made a trek to Lowes and bought 90 minute setting compound, a slapbrush for ceiling texture, fiberglass tape, a drywall sander, and a mixer that attaches to our drill.  I already have a Magic Trowel to smooth out the mud, and paint rollers to apply it.  Total cost = $65.

My goal for today is to remove all the woodwork, then tape the cracks.  Depending on how long that takes, I may also start to mud the cracks as well.

I feel obligated to mention that I have no idea what I'm doing.  I have NO experience working with drywall, plaster or anything other than putty to patch nail holes.  This project is an experiment to see if I can teach myself a new skill without completely messing up my house.  For what it's worth, Shayn'e not entirely sure I can do this either.  As we were walking out of Lowes last night, he was less than confident about my skimcoating skills.  I appreciate that he does trust me enough to let me give it a shot, though.  Thankfully, the walls in the office are relatively smooth, and in pretty decent shape.  Because of the doors and windows, there's also not too much wall area, so it's a good room to practice on.

Pics to come soon...

Moving forward

Because of our personal tragedy, I have the next 6 days off of work.  And as much as feel like sitting around and feeling sorry for myself, I need to keep busy.  Hence, a "new" project.

We're planning on trying to get pregnant again once we've been cleared by the doctor, but I'd like to wait at least until after Christmas.  And there are a few things on the house that I'd like to complete so we don't feel so rushed for time the next time around.  Knowing you only have 9 months to complete some projects really makes a difference...  And, knowing the first 3 months will be hormonal agony gives only 6 months of real working time.  Eesh.  I want the upstairs, minus the bathroom (although that is a possibility as well), to be complete before I get pregnant again.

We're really going to push ahead with work on the office.  I took all the upstairs doors off the hinges last Thursday and took them to the Strip Shoppe.  He said they should be done by the middle of this week.  When I go to pick up the doors, I'll take him the office woodwork.  And, once the woodwork is off (by tomorrow afternoon, I hope), I'm going to tackle skimcoating the walls and ceiling.

I bought a Magic Trowel several months ago, thinking to try skimcoating, but talked myself out of it.  The folks at OldHouseWeb have talked me back into it.  I'll post my impressions on this "wonderful" tool once I actually work with it.

But, if all goes well, I'll have nice, new, paintable walls in the office by the end of the week!!

Surprises in the walls

Today I tackled a project I had been dreading. As part of our office renovation, we're closing off the opening the PPOs made that leads into the hall closet. We're also re-opening the doorway of the original closet, which I found when I tore down some paneling. That was a good surprise, since I had been considering putting a closet there anyways. I couldn't have been happier when I found out that was how the house had been originally. Today was a bad surprise.

In order to make the "new"-original closet more functional, we wanted to expand the doorway so that it opens on the full width of the closet. The original opening was 24" wide. To use that closet with a 24" door, we'd either have to use it as a tiny walk-in closet with the rod hanging perpendicular to the doorway na dhave a 2.5' long rod, or hang it parallel and only be able to reach half of our clothes. Neither idea sounded very good, which is how the dreaded project came about.

The plan was to knock out 3' of the wall next to the closet doorway, allowing the full width of the closet to be accessed. We'd then hang some nice frame-and-panel bifolds or two 24" pine doors that match the house. Even though the ieda of knocking out the original plaster made me cringe, I comforted myself with the idea that we'd be making the house more functional, not screwing it up like the PPOs had.

I grabbed a crowbar and spent a few minutes looking at the wall to be demolished. In the entire office, this was one of the few areas of completely good plaster. No cracks, no nail holes, no real damage of any kind. I felt terribly guilty for whacking my crowbar into it, but that's exactly what I did. I hoped that as I went, I would be able to gleefully tear down the lath and bash my crowbar into the plaster. Isn't that how most folks feel? I see all these pictures on the internet of demolition parties, and I should have been happy to finally take out some of my stress on the house.

But no, not me. I cried as I pulled down the plaster and lath, bit by careful bit. I'm glad nobody was there to see me, as I must have looked absoloutely crazy. I felt like I was butchering my house. I was taking something created almost 100 years ago and wrecking it. This plaster could never be replaced. I could cover up the hole I was making with drywall, or even hire a plasterer to replaster, but the original wavy horsehair-lime-and-sand plaster would be gone forever. Ugh.

It took me about 45 minutes to remove 18 square feet of plaster and lath. I spent about half that time in tears. Seriously. I'm all sniffly again just thinking about it. I don't know how people can stand to gut their houses. Unless my plaster was ruined beyond all repair, it woud probably kill me. Thankfully, this is the only plaster in the house we have plans to remove.

After the first few pieces of lath were off, I noticed this at the floor:

"How cool," I thought. "They left the old knob and tube in the wall when they updated the electrical." The PPOs were kind of lazy, and they'd left the old sash weights in the windows, as well as unused ductwork and other oddities.

The work progressed to this:

And then this:

Oh, but do you notice something a little odd? Yep, right near the top, the old K & T is connected to a new wire that runs into the attic, servicing God-alone-knows-what.

Freaking awesome. The lazy PPOs had upgraded to a circuit breaker and a few GFCI outlets (probably not even actually grounded), but they'd obviously left at least some of the old wiring in the walls and spliced it to the new stuff. Who knows how much of this is hidden in the walls? I don't know much about electrical, but I know it's expensive, and I know that if I find something that's a code violation or safety hazard, I'm obligated to fix it. If for no other reason than if my house burns down, I want my insurance company to cover it.

Some folks find money in their walls. Other people find nifty little antiques. I find a swirling vortex of doom that magically sucks the money out of my bank account.

The Big One (and progress photos)

I think at one point our chimney was trying to escape. There's a BIG crack along the entire chimney line in the office wall, and the plaster is even pushed out about 1/4". It's not something a bunch of plaster washers can fix, since there's absoloutely no give in the wall. Our chimney just moved and took the wall with it.

The chimney movement seems to have happened pretty early in the Prairie Box's life. The lovely 1940s-ish wallpaper was covering the crack, as was the painted "liner paper" (for lack of a better term) that is in every room in the house. But, underneath the liner paper was a strip of fabric tape. Also, the walls in here were originally painted turquoise, not naked plaster like the living room and hallway.

But the good news is that I have 3.5 walls that are wallpaper-free.I'll be done this afternoon (woohoo!!). I also have an appointment with a plaster/drywall man tomorrow evening. I'll wait to talk to him before priming anything, since these walls were originally painted. But between then and now, all I have to do is take off the woodwork and drive it over to the Strip Shoppe. How wonderful not to have to do it myself!!

Then again, maybe not

So much for a backpacking trip... Flooding, 90°+ temps, and humidity down south; severe thunderstorms and tornado watches up north. I give up. Maybe God is trying to tell me to work on my house.

So, now that I have a full 4 days of shitty weather before I go back to work, I suppose I'll put them to good use working inside the house. My goal is to get rid of the office wallpaper once and for all. There's not much left, so it's not that huge of a project. Maybe 4 hours of work. I'll also take off the few pieces of woodwork and take them to the stripper. I was considering repainting it, but I think I'd rather just refinish it and be done. I wonder how long we can live without a bathroom door before we go nuts? I'm thinking we'll temporarily move the ghetto curtain (the curtain we hang between the back porch/laundry and the kitchen to prevent heat or a/c loss out the uninsulated porch). Next up will be priming the walls so that the mud will stick to them.

And I think I can do this all in 4 days.

The office is paneling-free!

After who-knows-how-long of little bits of work on the office, the walls are finally liberated of paneling. What this really means is that I have found the motivation to work on it again. It's also brought on another case of severe loathing for the previous owner who put up the paneling to begin with. These are the same folks who made 3 perfectly usable closets into 2 dysfunctional closets. And messed up the ductwork. If not for all the holes they put into the walls by putting up furring strips with 5" nails, creating closet doors where none should be, and nailing up paneling, and carving holes in the walls for the "improved" ductwork, the walls and ceilings would have only a few cracks instead of needing major cosmetic surgery. I just don't get it.

The way it looks now, we're going to need to replace most of one of the walls with drywall. We re going to put in a large drywall "patch" anyways to re-enclose the hall closet. After tearing out the paneling and looking at the crumbling plaster, I think it might just be best to remove it. There's water damage from floor to ceiling, probably from leaking around the chimney. Where they carved the doorway for the bedroom closet/hall closet combo, the plaster is just barely hanging on.

We're also going to remove some more plaster from another wall to expand the closet opening. I'm having qualms about it, but the closet will be much more functional and accessible if we do this. Otherwise, it'll essentially be a 2' deep walk-in closet. It just stinks, because that's one of the least damaged walls, and I'll be tearing it out...