But at least 1 step is completely finished: the wallpaper in the living room is gone. We now have large expanses of concrete-colored plaster just waiting to be skimcoated and painted. We just need to get our schedule in sync with Shayne's friend the skimcoater, and maybe we'll have some paint on the walls by Easter.
The ceiling is also ready for the next step. All of the furring strips are gone, and the ceiling actually stayed up without them (I had my doubts). There are only 3 or 4 places that can be considered bad. the rest is just little cracks. The plaster washers arrived in the mail weeks ago, but we're waiting on the expert opinion of the skimcoater before we touch anything.
We did put a Christmas tree up, which I think is kind of funny considering how bad the room looks overall. My friend AJ described it as "a train wreck", but after living with it for a few months, it actually seems somewhat cozy. I guess when you compare it to having carpet halfway removed, wallpaper falling off the walls, and ceiling tiles stacked everywhere having a "naked" (but clean!!) room is wonderful.
The next step is to remove the wallpaper going up the stairs and into the upstairs hallway and start stripping the trim. The trim will most likely wait on some slightly warmer weather, though, since it's about 4°F right now. Not the kind of weather I want to be out in the garage in.
We realized with the cold weather that the back porch is a major source of coldness. The bathroom out there is absoloutely frigid, but the metal door doesn't help. As a temporary solution, I put a curtain up in the doorway between the kitchen and the porch. Not the classiest solution, but it definitely works. There's about a 15° temperature difference between the porch and the house now. The bathroom is even colder, but we never use it, so it's not a huge deal.
All is going well with the rest of the house. No major disasters happened as a result of winter, which made me happy. The heat bill wasn't even as high as I'd feared. The washing machine did break today, though, so Shayne will have to take a look at it tonight or tomorrow. Honestly, though, I wouldn't mind an excuse to get a new one...
12/01/2005
Real-life home restoration
I'd like to say that I haven't been writing because I've been so busy working on the house that I just didn't have time. Unfortunately, that's not true. Our life has been so busy that housework is still on hold. You gotta love shows like "trading Spaces" where they bring in an armada of people and completely transform 3 rooms of your house in 6.35 hours, but real house work just isn't like that. First of all, there's only 2 of us. Second, we don't have a clue what we're doing!! Third, we have lives. Busy ones. I had to work 16 hours on Thanksgiving, and Shayne's been working side jobs. Plus, I have DRT (Detention Response Team. Basically the jail's version of a SWAT team, only non-lethal. Here's a brocure of the latest class our team attended down in Hamilton County. The guys with "DRT" on their shirts are us. You can also see them in the group picture [2nd and 3rd row, starting with the guy in the boonie hat and over to the dude in the baseball cap]. I'll be going to SERT class in the spring, along with the other newer folks on the team.) Being on DRT means that I'm on-call 24/7, and one of my days off last week got eaten up by a team activation. We also have training every other week, in addition to my regular work schedule.
When you thnk about it, it's amazing we're getting anything done.
I'm off for the next 3 days (plus today), so I'll definitely be working on stuff around here. I also have training for work for the next 2 weeks (starting Monday), and I'll be on a regular 8-to-5 schedule, which will give me evenings to work on the house. I'll probably run out of wallpaper before then and start working on stripping the trim.
When you thnk about it, it's amazing we're getting anything done.
I'm off for the next 3 days (plus today), so I'll definitely be working on stuff around here. I also have training for work for the next 2 weeks (starting Monday), and I'll be on a regular 8-to-5 schedule, which will give me evenings to work on the house. I'll probably run out of wallpaper before then and start working on stripping the trim.
11/23/2005
A "Lack of Progress" report
House work has still been at a minimum this week... Shayne got all of the furring blocks off of the ceiling, though, and the drywall guy is coming tomorrow. No, we're not going to drywall the living room...! He's going to skimcoat the ceiling and walls for us. Tomorrow is just a "let's see what we have here" day, since the plaster washers haven't arrived yet.
I stripped a little wallpaper this evening, but I'm taking it slow, since I don't want to anger my shoulder. It's still a little achy. I was planning on doing more work today, but got interrupted by being called into work. I'm on the Detention Response Team (basically the jail's SWAT team), and we're on-call 24 hours a day. I got 4 hours of overtime out of it, though, so I really can't complain. I have tomorrow off too, so hopefully I'll have some more progress to report.
I stripped a little wallpaper this evening, but I'm taking it slow, since I don't want to anger my shoulder. It's still a little achy. I was planning on doing more work today, but got interrupted by being called into work. I'm on the Detention Response Team (basically the jail's SWAT team), and we're on-call 24 hours a day. I got 4 hours of overtime out of it, though, so I really can't complain. I have tomorrow off too, so hopefully I'll have some more progress to report.
11/17/2005
It's cold!!
According to the Weather Channel, it is currently 22°F (feels like 7°F with wind chill factored in). Now that it's this cold, you can really tell: this house is drafty! Many of the windows have weather stripping already, but it's from the 80s (at best). The front and back doors leak really badly. No wonder I'm chilly!
Shayne and I have been looking for arts and crafts style area rugs. We've found several that we really like (one even with a ginkgo design that looks really authentic), but they're all at least $2500, and some are as much as $4500. I don't have a problem paying for quality, but I think that's a bit excessive for a rug. I really don't want to spend more than $1000. Maybe I'm being unrealisitic in my expectations, but I just can't see paying as much for a rug as our bathroom renovation!
Shayne and I have been looking for arts and crafts style area rugs. We've found several that we really like (one even with a ginkgo design that looks really authentic), but they're all at least $2500, and some are as much as $4500. I don't have a problem paying for quality, but I think that's a bit excessive for a rug. I really don't want to spend more than $1000. Maybe I'm being unrealisitic in my expectations, but I just can't see paying as much for a rug as our bathroom renovation!
Winter comes to Michiana
No, that's not a typo. Our little area of Indiana, as well as nearby Michigan, is collectively called "Michiana." It's used on the news, weather, radio and TV ads... After a while, it even starts to sound normal. And, it's even pretty accurate, since I could see Michigan, if I were to climb up on my roof. They don't even bother putting up "Michigan" signs when you enter Michigan, except on maybe 2 roads, so you can unexpectedly find yourself in another state.
But anyways...
Progress on the house has come to something of a standstill. I haven't been able to strip wallpaper, because my shoulder is acting up. I injured it playing basketball in the 7th grade, but it just hasn't been the same since. Shayne's been working a lot of part-time hours, so he's been too busy or tired to do anything with the ceiling. His friend Phil, who does drywall work, will be coming over next week to take a look at the ceiling to see what it would cost to skim-coat it. We'd be helping, but we thought it would be a good idea to have someone along who knows what the heck they're doing.
I've been thinking a lot about the bathroom again. I think we're at a concensus that it will be our next project. Both of us love baths, and we're really starting to feel the lack of a real bathtub. The one we have is maybe 6" deep. When I fill it to the overflow and sit in it, it doesn't even completely cover my thighs. And I'm not big at all!! So, in order to have a bathroom that will accomodate both a big, clawfoot or pedestal tub and a stand-up stall shower, we're thinking of expanding the bathroom into the hall closet, which has a lot of wasted space, due to the strangeness of its design. Here is the floor plan as it is now:
The hall closet is situated between the bathroom and office, and has doors opening into the hall and the bedroom. Not shown in the picture are the shelving unit at the back (on the bathoom wall) and the clothes rods (on the bedroom wall). There is also another hanging rod directly inside the hall door. The shelves are really not being used, since the clothes rods block them from both doors. So... we were thinking of taking up the wasted space taken up by the shelves and using it as a bathtub alcove, like in the plan below.
We could still use 18" or so of the space as a closet, plus, since we will be replacing the wall between the office and master bedroom closet, we could add a second closet in that area. The current master bedroom closet has about 4 or 5 feet of space that is all but inaccessable, due to the placement of the doors, so the new closet would utilize that space.
The purist in me is rebelling against adding/removing/changing walls. The logical side (as well as the part of me that wants a nice, big bathroom) is reminding me that 3 of these 5 walls were added to begin with and have nothing to do with the original plan of the house. And, we'd reuse the current original closet door in one of the new closets, so we wouldn't be losing character.
It's definitely worth thinking on.
But anyways...
Progress on the house has come to something of a standstill. I haven't been able to strip wallpaper, because my shoulder is acting up. I injured it playing basketball in the 7th grade, but it just hasn't been the same since. Shayne's been working a lot of part-time hours, so he's been too busy or tired to do anything with the ceiling. His friend Phil, who does drywall work, will be coming over next week to take a look at the ceiling to see what it would cost to skim-coat it. We'd be helping, but we thought it would be a good idea to have someone along who knows what the heck they're doing.
I've been thinking a lot about the bathroom again. I think we're at a concensus that it will be our next project. Both of us love baths, and we're really starting to feel the lack of a real bathtub. The one we have is maybe 6" deep. When I fill it to the overflow and sit in it, it doesn't even completely cover my thighs. And I'm not big at all!! So, in order to have a bathroom that will accomodate both a big, clawfoot or pedestal tub and a stand-up stall shower, we're thinking of expanding the bathroom into the hall closet, which has a lot of wasted space, due to the strangeness of its design. Here is the floor plan as it is now:
The hall closet is situated between the bathroom and office, and has doors opening into the hall and the bedroom. Not shown in the picture are the shelving unit at the back (on the bathoom wall) and the clothes rods (on the bedroom wall). There is also another hanging rod directly inside the hall door. The shelves are really not being used, since the clothes rods block them from both doors. So... we were thinking of taking up the wasted space taken up by the shelves and using it as a bathtub alcove, like in the plan below.
We could still use 18" or so of the space as a closet, plus, since we will be replacing the wall between the office and master bedroom closet, we could add a second closet in that area. The current master bedroom closet has about 4 or 5 feet of space that is all but inaccessable, due to the placement of the doors, so the new closet would utilize that space.The purist in me is rebelling against adding/removing/changing walls. The logical side (as well as the part of me that wants a nice, big bathroom) is reminding me that 3 of these 5 walls were added to begin with and have nothing to do with the original plan of the house. And, we'd reuse the current original closet door in one of the new closets, so we wouldn't be losing character.
It's definitely worth thinking on.
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