I am thrilled to report that this giant gaping hole in the wall – that the previous owners had covered with a manilla folder and taped down with brown packing tape – is GONE!!!

Before:

After:

Teague did all of the plasterwork, and I did the sanding, priming and painting. Oh, and we replaced the old light switch cover as well. Looks pretty darn good, doesn’t it?

I am thrilled to report that this giant gaping hole in the wall – that the previous owners had covered with a manilla folder and taped down with brown packing tape – is GONE!!!

Before:

After:

Teague did all of the plasterwork, and I did the sanding, priming and painting. Oh, and we replaced the old light switch cover as well. Looks pretty darn good, doesn’t it?

It’s time to pick out a new wall calendar, something I truly love to do. Last year I settled for a weird magnet-poem thing that was on sale for half off, then spent the whole year picking magnet words off the floor. Very disappointing. Since I’m completely Victorian-obsessed right now, this year I opted for one that features William Morris wallpaper prints.

Calendar.com is also selling some Art Deco wallpaper calendars and a This Old House page-a-day, for those still looking for the perfect calendar for ’05.

Poor, poor Teague. We’re both sick with hacking coughs and runny noses, but that didn’t stop my hardworking guy from getting up on the roof in the freezing rain to do some chimney repair. (Consequently, making himself sicker….)

The chimney is crumbling – especially at the top, where it has lost large chunks and entire bricks. In an effort to get homeowners insurance approval the second time around, we’re trying to clean up the glaring problems on the outside of the house (so maybe they won’t bother to come in!) MetLife noted the chimney on our rejection notice, so this moved to the top of our long list of projects.

Here’s what it looked like before repairs:

Teague took loads of mortar cement (we purchased two 80lb bags) up two ladders, where he mixed it with water (also carried up two ladders) and put new bricks in. Then he wrapped everything with a fiberglass mesh and put a thin layer of cement over it, like so:

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As you can tell by the fading sunlight in the photos, this took him a LONG time. He spread the work over two partial days and has a bit to finish up, but it’s looking much more stable now. Hopefully this is the last of the outdoor repairs this winter. It has been unseasonably warm and snow-free in NY, but I’m pretty sure that’s about to end.

The kitchen updates have been an ongoing, slow-moving process. Christmas preparations pretty much stalled our progress, but now that things have died down I have a renewed energy for fixes.

So, our cupboard doors are FINALLY back on the hinges. They’ve been leaning up along the walls for about a month now, and staring at my cluttered cupboard contents was really starting to annoy me. Last night, in a fit of fixer-upper madness, I screwed all of the hinges onto the doors before realizing I’d screwed them on BACKWARDS. So had to unscrew them, flip them over, and try it again. The second time was much more successful, and the hanging went fairly smoothly. However, there are no handles (we bought porcelain knobs at Home Depot the other day, but need to drill new holes to install them) – we’re working on that.

I also found black curtain rods for my homemade valance and cafe curtain the other night, so that’s up as well:

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We’re going with a black/white/green color scheme. That top valance took up WAY more fabric than I imagined, and was a huge pain to put together. But it looks ok now that it’s up, so all is forgiven.

We got some great gifts for Christmas this year, including some perfect picks for our house. I’m dying to take a trip out to Historic House Supply to use our gift certificates from Teague’s parents. I’ve been stalking this store for months, and now we actually get to buy something there. Yeehaw!

My new pride and joy, a 20gb Apple iPod from my parents, is great for keeping me happy while working on house projects. I listened to The Shins yesterday while wandering around Home Depot, and The Postal Service while intalling curtain rods in the kitchen. It beats the radio any day, and it doesn’t get in my way while I’m working. Now, if I get aroung to buying House in Progress’ “Old House Music” playlist, I’ll be all set!

My brother gave us Dance Dance Revolution for Playstation, so our coffee table has been replaced by two big dance pads. This game is the best stress-buster EVER. Santa also brought us a fire-safe box to put our mortgage documents in. I painted Teague a polyurethane ceiling medallion for the dining room, and he made me the most amazing pen & ink drawing of our house. It was a house-centric holiday, and we loved every minute of it.

Here is the ceiling medallion:

And here’s Teague’s house drawing: (sorry for the flash glare – this pic does not come close to doing it justice.)

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At my family’s Christmas party, I learned that we have a lot of visitors I didn’t even know about. So hello to everyone who’s stopping by to keep up on our progress – and thanks for the moral support!

Nevermind coal in our stockings – we got a letter in the mail on Christmas Eve telling us our homeowners insurance policy was being canceled.

Merry Christmas to you too, Met Life.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was. They did the inspection over a month ago. No agent called with concerns, so I thought we were in the clear. Instead, they’ve let us know they’re cancelling the policy on January 22nd. The reasons they gave are as follows:

• Presence of knob and tube wiring
• Overall condition and maintenance of the house
• Crumbling chimney and foundation
• Paint peeling on back annex & broken window needs replacing

I tried to argue our case, but the rep said there is no way they will insure us until the knob and tube wiring is completely replaced. This means the whole house would need to be rewired in less than a month.

I’m working on getting a policy through a different company – even if we do get the wiring done, I don’t want to be involved with Met anymore. Teague called up an electrician friend who is coming by the house on Wednesday to give us an estimate. I don’t know if we can afford to rewire the house right now, all at once like that….. our original plan was to do it little by little as we tackled each room. Growl. One more frustrating obstacle……. but, it could be worse, right? We could have been hit by a tsunami.

I’ve been neglecting our poor little site, so you might think we’ve been slacking off on the housework, but you’d be wrong…. we’re busier than ever trying to squeeze Christmas preparation in with the house repairs.

I primed and painted the office a nice gold color, but we haven’t taken pictures yet since the room is acting as our catch-all and is a complete disaster.

Teague took the molding off the scary annex door and blocked it off completely, sealing the seams with sheetrock compound. When we moved in, it looked like this:

We opened up the door to work in the annex, so for a while it looked like this:

Now, the seams are filled and it looks like this:

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We still have to do one more round of sheetrock, then sand it all down and repaint – but it’s looking MUCH better!

While he was it it, he also started filling in the gaping hall in the foyer. The manilla folder that was holding in a pile of crumbling plaster has been removed, along with the packing tape used to keep the gusts out.

Before:

During:

(stay tuned for the afters, we haven’t gotten that far yet!)

You can always tell when we’ve been working on the house, despite our best efforts to clean ourselves up.

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Dressing the dogs up in funny hats and laughing uncontrollably while they wince in embarrasment is one of our Christmas traditions. That’s Bruiser in the Santa hat – here’s Nero in his penguin getup, lest he feel left out.

I love radiators – I grew up in a house full of them and always liked being able to cozy up next to one when I felt cold. But the dining room radiator is right in the room’s focal point, and it’s not pretty. It looks like this:

It’s half white because we were going to paint it until we realized what a mess we were making. I did a little research, and while it seems painting it won’t hurt the output too badly, a radiator cover would look ten times better and could actually improve it’s efficeincy. It would also keep people and pets from accidentally searing their flesh on the hot metal.

Something like this would be ideal, but we can’t afford to order one custom-built, so we’ll have to go a little simpler.

Wolf Radiator Enclosures makes neat ones. Their flat paneled design is my favorite. Szaki’s Woodworking’s styles are simpler still, and they also sell plans for $35.00. I don’t think I’d bother buying plans though – Easy2.com has some pretty thorough directions and an interactive tutorial to help you make your own, free of charge:

http://www.easy2.com/cm/easy/diy_ht_index.asp?page_id=35694140

The optimistic part of me thinks I could tackle this project if Teague gives me a refresher on the table saw – I haven’t used one since shop class in 8th grade. The pessimistic part of me remembers what my homemade gumball machine looked like, and fears the radiator cover might fare even worse.