Another work weekend has come and gone; we worked hard and it paid off – the chimney is ready for painting, the kitchen ceiling is framed in, the french doors are spar varnished, and the inner walls are fully insulated. But I bet you guys are about as sick of the boring home improvement stories as I am, so here’s a better one…

Yesterday was one of those days where little things kept going wrong, and they were starting to weigh on our patience. To top things off, the basement access door literally fell apart when Teague opened it. Frustrated, he started grabbing at materials looking for something to fix it with. He picked up a giant piece of plexiglass and proceeded to shove the sharp tip of it UP HIS NOSE, giving himself a wicked nose bleed.

Yet another battle scar courtesy of our lovely home ;)

Teri from Charmed and Hammer brought to my attention their great little site, which specializes in women’s safety gear.

If you’re into the pink lady look, you can get your work on in a pink hardhat, pink toolbelt, and pink safety glasses. Just visit their pink page.

Personally, I’m digging these boots – but I’ll stick to my old beat up sneakers and buy a new light fixture with that $100!

You know the type of projects that start out as a “quick temporary fix” and quickly snowball into a weekend-long event? Ah yes, well, I stumbled into another one this weekend.

I’m not what you’d call handy with a trowel, so Teague thought it better if I didn’t skim coat the chimney with him. But I wasn’t off the hook, because we’ve got more unfinished projects than you can shake a stick at. I chose to wash and paint the porch floor. The paint was flaking off very badly, and we thought we better repaint it before big piles of snow sat on the bare wood all winter.

This being my first experience with our power washer (a 1750 PSI given to us by my father), I had NO IDEA how much paint was going to come flying off. Giant paint chips were blasted off the boards, sent whooshing across the floor and into our flower beds. Bare, mildew-ridden wood were brightened to a shiny gold color! I am totally impressed with the power of this machine. If it weren’t for the big mess, I’d use it for all my cleaning needs.

However, I got a little out of control with it and started to blast the railings too. Bad idea, because that paint came off in even bigger flecks (though it had previously looked just fine).

So, after power washing I had to paint the floor AND the railings, which of course doubled the timeline. It does look three million times better though, so it was worth it. I’d post pictures, but our camera battery is dead again.

Yesterday we had more fun with electricity. Did I mention how cranky electrical work makes us? After a full day’s work we have two totally new circuits, two new outdoor lights, 1 new outdoor outlet, 3 new light switches, and wire ready and waiting for the three new light fixtures we’ll be putting in the kitchen addition. And I only got zapped once by the old hanging knob and tube. Phew.

I work in Syracuse, NY, and lived in and around the city for a few years before we bought our house. It’s not the hippest or most prosperous city, but it has it’s charms. Walking around the University area is a favorite pastime of mine; it’s filled with beautiful historic homes. Many are owned by professors and university employees, and remain very unique and well kept.

If you’re a house voyeur like me, and live in the area, this is your lucky day. They’re giving tours!!

The details:

The Preservation Association of Central New York, the South East
University Neighborhood Association (SEUNA) and the Westcott
Community Center are pleased to present the 2005 University East
Historic House Tour.

The event will take place on Sunday, October 2 from 10 a.m.
until 4 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 on the day of the
Tour and $6 for students with their I.D. Tours will begin from
the tent at 101 Berkeley Drive.

You may purchase tickets at the Schine Box Office (at Syracuse University) starting
today! Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about the rich
history of the university east neighborhood.

When I got home from work tonight, Teague was out spreading mortar on the chimney. I changed into my play clothes (like all good fixer-uppers do) and grabbed a trowel. It’s kinda like building a sand castle, only messier.

The verdict? I’m pretty sucky at masonry work. But, I didn’t have much time to practice because it was nearly dusk when I started…….. I’m sure I will improve with time.

Teague, on the other hand, is excellent at making nice smooth surfaces. How can he be good at EVERYTHING he tries?? I can still kick his butt in Scrabble though. All is not lost. ;)

The first layer of mortar is done, and we’ll be doing a second layer followed by red chimney paint. Has anyone used chimney paint? Any pointers or warnings?

Whew – it’s good to be back! My week away, spent partially in Southern Maine and partially at a design conference in Boston, was fabulous. I was inspired, energized, educated and de-stressed. I got to spend quality time with my parents and the ocean. Minus missing my husband and my pups, it was the perfect retreat.

Teague got no such vacation time – he was hard at work repairing and painting the exterior of a sweet bungalow owned by two fellow house enthusiasts. When he wasn’t busy with his day job, he was busy working on OUR house. Specifically, the crumbly chimney the insurance peeps wince at.

While I was jogging on the beach and rescuing land-locked crabs, Teague and his father were busy manhandling the chimney bricks to get all the loose debris off. They power washed it and used 9″ strips of masonry mesh to reinforce the corners. The mesh was hammered to the brick with cement nails, which Teague says take about 50 good knocks to get in.

Last weekend he and I found some cement/mortar tint in a red hue that looked promising. Ever the optimists, we picked it up. Since we can’t afford brick, red tint seemed like the next best thing. Teague mixed up a batch of mortar and tint with his father, and was very pleased with the color. However – filling in the chimney took more mortar than he’d been planning for, and it became apparent that mixing up a zillion batches of red mortar was going to be problematic. The first two batches had color differences, despite careful measuring, so it’s safe to guess that the rest would have slight variations too. So, unless we want a striped chimney, I guess red tint is out of the question.

Here’s a great illustrative photo featuring the red mortar, plain brick with mesh corner, and then the grey mortar:

ANYWAY…….. they gave up on red for the time being, but kept moving on the project. To reach the top, they built some impressive homemade scaffolding (it costs about $175 a week to rent) out of extra lumber we had lying around. You have to see it to fully appreciate, so here are the glamour shots:

Front

Side

I’m checking in from a laptop in my parents’ RV in Saco, Maine. I’ve been here since Sunday, and am staying until Thursday when I leave for the AIGA conference in Boston. Any of you house bloggers going to be there? Teague is home working on the chimney, and I’m out here walking the beaches – pretty unfair, isn’t it? He’s too busy with construction jobs to take a break, so he’ll be taking his vacation once crummy weather rolls in. He will definitely have earned it by then.

Today the ‘rents and I traveled to Portland, a city I spent a summer in about five years ago (a lovely summer internship at an animation studio whose offie window overlooked the harbor). I fell in love with it then, and love to come back. Portland has a beautiful historic district, with brick paved streets and incredible old homes. Our destination was the Victoria Mansion, a pre-Civil War italianate built by a hotelier named Ruggles Morris. (His name sounds so unassuming, doesn’t it??) The house was owned by only two families and is nearly untouched, down the furnishings and even the family’s china. It was amazing. Gustave Herter (of Herter Brothers fame) was responsible for the interior design and much of the furniture. Every room had a theme, carried out in lavish wall/ceiling paintings, plasterwork and art.

My favorite feature of the house was the smoking room, which looked like a Turkish opium den. It was a small room with a single couch and an elaborate gas chandelier. The chandelier pulled down to allow the men to light cigars off of it. The room had pocket doors which closed ever-so-tightly to keep the smoke from escaping and bothering the delicate ladies of the house. Apparently, this was also the reason for smoking jackets – I’d never thought of that!

There were tons of other neat details – I could go on all night, but it’s hard to do justice to them with just a few words. So, definitely stop for a tour if you come through southern Maine.

I’m taking tons of photos – I love the New England style architecture – so I’ll have lots to post when I get back into town. Stay tuned!

Our holiday weekend was jam-packed. We spent alot of time with family, stopped by the New York State Fair , and still managed to squeeze in a full day at the house. God bless the 3-day weekend.

After doing some research and cost estimates for the proposed deck, we decided it could wait. There are too many necessary projects that require our money/energy/attention right now. So, we cleaned up the back lawn the best we could (chipping away at clay soil piles that turned into rock hard SCULPTURES!). It’ll be under 3 feet of snow in a few months, anyway.

The kitchen addition has a full floor now, which makes it look less scary. We don’t have to worry about anyone falling into the dirt pit, and it’ll probably cut down on the mud we track through the house. We ran a few electrical lines, and Teague showed me how to level out the pantry floor. NOT the easiest project I could have picked, it turns out. To make the current floor meet with the new floor, it needs to be raised up about 2″ on one end. But of course, it’s not 2″ all the way across – some points are lower than others. So, I took 5 different measurements and made 5 different shims – each starts at a different height and tapers down, so that when a piece of plywood lays over all of them it’ll be (somewhat) level.

Here’s a photo of the first three so you can see what I’m talking about:

Next, I’ll go in and run stringers in the opposite direction. Then we’ll top it with a fresh sheet of plywood. Ahhh, what a pretty pantry it will be one day.

While watching tv last night, the reality of Katrina finally started to sink in for me. The complete and total devastation, the lives lost, the homes flattened……. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose everything, including your most cherished possessions and quite possibly your loved ones as well. To see your city buried under 20 feet of water, with no hope of a rapid recovery.

It certainly puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

If you’re looking for a way to help, The Red Cross and the Salvation Army are two of the larger organizations collecting monetary donations. The Humane Society of Northwest Lousiana is helping to rescue displaced pets, and is also accepting donations.

There is also a Katrina Help wiki, with tons of additional information listed.

With the kitchen exterior. Can you believe it? It felt like this day would never come. It was no small project!

One door still needs flashing in, and there’s a bit of touch up painting left to do, but after a very long weekend of painting and putting up trim, we’re calling it done.

Teague did a great job replicating the trim so that the addition looks like it’s been there all along. Here’s a close-up of the side door and window (door to be repainted soon):

And here’s the original front door trim, for comparison:

I spent many hours perfecting my painting techniques; I developed a steadier hand, but never enough patience. I could often be seen swearing wildly while carrying 3 different paint colors up a 40-ft ladder, touching up my touch-ups.

Next up: The chimney, the kitchen interior, and perhaps a deck to hide the mess we made digging up the foundation. Crazy? Always.