Smithers' & Oso's Old House

2011-06-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Range Hood Install

So, we're trying to install our new range hood. The instructions are not so easy to follow. Since, we rearranged our appliances, we need to put in new ducting through the attic. Of course, there is a joist running right in the middle of where the duct is to go into the ceiling. Creativity and confidence will come in handy on this one.

2011-06-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Kitchen is Progressing Nicely

I painted the cabinets with Benjamin Moore Waterborne Impervo in Simply White. The interior back of the existing cabinets are painted with Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter.

I didn't think painting the cabinets would be that big of a deal. I wanted to brush paint the new cabinets so they'd match the old cabinets. It was much more frustrating that I expected. I used Impervo as recommended by a cabinet guy. I chose the Waterborne over the Oil because the paint gal said it wouldn't yellow and is easier cleanup. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't use Impervo. I had to do three coats over primer to get good coverage. I still don't think it's quite solid looking enough, but I'm not going to do another coat. Also, when I was doing the third coat, the paint was going on goopy. I did some research and finally decided to thin it a tiny bit with water like it said on the can. It went on much better then. So now that it's done, I've accepted the outcome and am moving on. I just hope the paint is as scrubbable as it claims. At least it'll be easy to touch up.

The general process for paint the cabinet boxes:

Prep- lightly sand and wipe down
Tape
Prime
Remove Tape
Wait min. 2 hours
Sand primer
Tape
Paint first coat
Remove Tape
Wait min. 8 hours
Sand the goops and dust bits out and wipe down
Tape
Paint second coat
Remove Tape
Wait min. 8 hours
Sand the goops and dust bits out and wipe down
Tape
Paint a third coat
Remove Tape
Cross my fingers

To paint the cabinet doors, I removed and numbered all the hinges and hinge holes on the doors. I primed both sides, then did 2 coats on the backs. Once the backs had cured for a couple days, I flipped them and did 3 coats on the fronts.

I painted the walls Benjamin Moore's Green Tea.

I still need to strip, sand and paint the old upper cabinet doors.

Progress has been slow as we've been gardening, went to a Mariner's game, and have been catching up on other chores.

However, after much research and debate, we did purchase our refrigerator, range, dishwasher, and hood this past weekend. It'll be 2-3 weeks before they are all here. Now we need to figure out what cabinet hardware and countertops to get.

We thought about wood countertops, but the very affordable ones from Ikea are unavailable for an undetermined length of time, the affordable ones from Lumber Liquidators are unavailable until end of July. I feel so-so about using granite, but I like the patterns ... Terry thinks granite is too "busy". All the quotes we got for quartz and concrete were really high. We'd hate to spend $1800 to $2000 for countertops. So, maybe we can find a dealer with remnants. We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, this project still doesn't feel too inconvenient, expect for dishwashing in the tub. We have gone through a lot of paper plates though.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming sunny weekend! Enjoy!

2011-05-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Cabinet Install

Before install, we added a little graffiti to hide behind the cabinets for someone to discover next time the cabinets are replaced.

Cabinets are by Erichsen Cabinet Shop. They built us unfinished paint grade maple flush cabinets with shaker doors to match the original ones. The drawer fronts are plain slabs. We had the interiors pre-finished, so we only have to paint the exteriors. They fit the character the house. We are super happy with their shop & service. It is local, family owned and operated.

Our kitchen is very awkward due to all the doorways, so the only cabinet that is a normal 24" depth is the sink cabinet and a really narrow one by the stove. All the others are shallower than normal. I'm very excited to finally see the spot that the dishwasher will go.

This is the awkward area by the old chimney. Instead of a normal height upper cabinet we had a shorter designed, so we could put in a small TV and hang stuff on the wall. The counter is shallow there, so I also didn't want to hit my head on the upper while prepping food. I didn't catch that the cabinet guy had written it down as a normal height one until it showed up. What was awesome was that they took it back, cut it down, made new doors, and had it back in a couple of hours. That is awesome service, which is why I chose a local family owned & operated shop.

We managed to get a narrow cabinet between the stove and refrigerator. The cabinet maker made them pull outs.

Big upper spice rack.

A nice touch- this adorable step stool arrived with our cabinets. Every good customer gets one.

I can't wait to prep, prime & paint the cabinets. That'll keep me busy next week!

2011-05-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

More Kitchen Progress- drywall & paint

Patching the old vent hole

After picking out dozens of paint chips- I tried out some samples. This one is "Artichoke Hearts" by Benjamin Moore. It's greenish goldish.

Testing paint color for inside of cabinet

I decided to go bold, but neutral. Walls = Green Tea, Benjamin Moore

Inside Back of Cabinet = Revere Pewter, Benjamin Moore

I still need to paint the rest of the cabinet.

White Ceiling (I hate painting ceilings). I've never been so glad to have a small kitchen.

I went with brown paint because it matched the curtains & window seat cushion in the blue dining room. Plus we have so many colors in the house, I had to find something that wouldn't clash with the adjacent rooms.

The room beyond the kitchen is painted "Evening Glow" by Behr. It really does glow, especially when the morning sun comes in the windows.

Break time in the garden.

Last night, when heating up dinner, the microwave died. It was at least 10 years old. When we were planning the remodel we debated whether to replace it. Sometimes decisions are made for you.

Today I need to apply one more coat of wall paint, put a coat of paint on the cabinets, and get the room cleaned up for cabinet install tomorrow. Time to go get some coffee!

2011-04-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Progress

I got the outside of the old upper cabinet boxes stripped with a heat gun and sanded.

I'm hoping the nasty old red paint on the interior of the boxes is solid enough to prime and paint over. I really don't want to strip it.

Drywall is up and ready to tape.

We hope we can be ready for cabinets by early next week. I guess I better get off the computer and get going on it.

2011-04-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Progress

Me + Dust Mask + Heat Gun + Scraper + Sander + Shop Vac = two very long days going on three.

Trying hard to finish stripping the old large upper cabinet boxes before the weekend. Two are definitely original- solid wood, three to four layers of paint. The third was added in the 1950s- plywood shelves, different hinges, two layers of paint.

2011-04-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

ARGH..... waiting for the City Electrical Inspector....

So, I have things I need to get done today away from the house. My electrician said the inspector would be here between 9 and 2. It's 1:00. In this day and age of cell phones, one would think that the inspector could give his customer, me, a call with a decent estimated time of arrival.

Maybe my electrician forgot to schedule of inspection.

On a positive note, the electrician installed a dimmer switch on my dining room light, so we can now have mood lighting with our meals.

Also good, I called the cabinet guy and he said the cabinets are built and at the finishers getting the interiors finished. They should be ready next week. Of course, I'm totally not ready. I haven't been very motivated this week. I have a very painful canker sore on my tongue (too much coffee & acidic food lately- I think.) So, I couldn't drink any coffee and it hurt to eat, I had a constant headache from the pain and caffeine withdrawal. I want coffee so bad, but I don't want it to flare up before it's healed. Crap.

It's going to be a busy weekend- plumbing & sheetrock.

Next week, the gas line for the range will be moved and I need to finish stripping & sanding the old upper cabinets.

In unrelated news, I stopped by the humane society yesterday and there was lots of potential additions to our family there. One dog in particular reminds me so much of Smithers, our rott mix. I don't know if I want another dog with that much attitude. I'd really love to find a super submissive sweet dog. One dog fit that bill, but was huge and drooled- a Saint Bernard mix. I may just have to take Terry down there this Saturday to have a look see.

2011-04-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

TV in Kitchen?

So I've been debating whether to put a little TV or just a radio in the kitchen above my prep area. Since the electricians are here and they said it was time to install a cable jack or not, I got the jack installed. Still don't know if I'll put the TV in. We don't watch a lot of TV, but there are times when I'm cooking or cleaning when I'd like a little entertainment. Terry hasn't been enthusiastic about the idea, but he also hasn't said, "no TV". So, we'll see what happens in a few weeks.

Yesterday, the electricians stubbed in the boxes for the pendant lights. They were supposed to be centered on the windows, but there was a joist in the way, so they are 1/2 inch off center. Little things like that would typically drive us crazy, but once again we'll call it "character."

2011-04-13T11:33:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Update- Lighting on a Budget

So, we got nothing done over the weekend on the kitchen due to nice gardening weather. However, I did take Terry to see the light fixtures I was considering at the lighting store. Like his usual self, he was very nit-picky about the fixtures, but said, it was up to me to make the decision. Bleh.

Anything is going to better than what we have now, so as long as we keep to our budget and don't buy anything totally unfit style wise, I'll be happy.

I'm definitely going to go with a couple of simple (meaning budget conscious) mini-pendant lights in front of the windows to replace the ugly old fluorescent light. I would love to buy some lights from Rejuvenation, but we have to sacrifice somewhere. We're also keeping our vintage ceiling fixure in the middle of the room to save some money.

For under cabinet lighting, I'm considering a couple MaxLite Self Driven LED Lightbar sections. Since the LED display at the lighting store was less than ideal, I have no idea if the lightbars will provide the light we'll need, but we've lived without under cabinet lights thus far, so something will be better than nothing. We like that the LEDs don't get hot like Halogen and even Xenon. They'll a bit expensive, but use little energy. So, they'll be a good light to use when we want to leave a light on in the evening.

When considering the cost of lighting, I had to take note that the electrician's labor adds a lot to the cost.

Electrical is one thing we're happy to pay someone else to do. Today, the electricians are here to do rough in. It's so nice to hear the sound of progress.

2011-04-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Covering up the old chimney

The chimney in the kitchen presented a design challenge for laying out the cabinets and appliances in a functional manner. Every cabinet estimator took one look and said, "have you thought about removing it?" Well we had thought about it, but the boiler exhaust is piped through it and we just didn't feel like going to the trouble of taking the chimney out or paying someone to take it out. We also have lived in a less than ideal kitchen for so long, we've gotten used to functioning in it. So, the chimney stays.

We added some extra framing around it and then sheetrock. A section near the top of the chimney bulges out, so rather than cutting it off, we framed it so that the sheetrock there does stick out an inch or two further of the rest of the chimney. We weren't sure if it would look weird, but like every other odd thing in this house, we call it "character."

Now that the chimney is covered up, there will be no dust drifting down it from the attic.

2011-04-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Demo Day

Moving the appliances out

"Is the kitchen done yet?"

"Hmmm... should we take the plaster down?"

Bye bye plaster!

Very messy process

Maybe we should have covered the floors better

"Are we done yet?"

We found the water pipes that would have been hooked up to the old hot water tank that would have been a part of the original wood burning range.

Bye Bye plastic tile! Note: bead board underneath.

Bye Bye lower cabinet

Hello friend

"PROGRESS US" Yup, us making some progress here.

Note: original pipes went up the walls for a wall mounted faucet.

Bye Bye drippy faucet! After three years, no more drip drip drip!

I don't know what he's trying to say here.

Note: The cast iron drainboard sink was extremely heavy. We're planning to keep it with the house... in the basement somewhere... maybe utility sink.

Smithers asks, "when the heck are you two going to be done with the house?"

Bye Bye icky well-built cabinets.

You can see where the original lower cabinets were... where there is no fir floor or vinyl. I bet there was an apron sink with wall mounted faucet originally. The sink and lower cabinets that we tore out must have been installed in the 1950s. We also notice that the upper cabinet on the left has 1950's hinges and doesn't have the bead board backing like the other two. We're thinking that that one may been added in the 1950s, but made to match the original upper ones.

2011-04-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

The time has finally come to remodel the Kitchen!

I dug through the photo archives to find evidence of what we've lived with over the past 6 1/2 years.

Kitchen as it was when we first toured the house- 2004

Vintage double drainboard sink

Vintage vinyl

After we moved in we tore out this upper cabinet to move the refrigerator to that wall

We discovered where a wood burning range would have been connected to the chimney

We painted the cabinets that first year to cover up the yellow paint

Without much counter space, we made do with a rolling cart

The pull out bread board has been very handy for extra workspace

I think this was the last time we made pie- 2007

Hand washing dishes- 2004 to 2011. This photo was taken in 2007

Scraped up the vinyl floor- 2008

Refinished floors- 2008

Note: Backsplash is ugly vintage plastic tile. Countertop is laminate with metal edge banding.

Note: Awesome vintage bottle opener in lower right corner of photo. Has been very handy over the years. We're keeping it.

Notice our ugly Ikea plastic bag holder to the left of the back door. Very handy, but very ugly. Also, we boarded up the doggie door after the floors were refinished. Poor doggies.

Notice- for 6 years we've lived with the exposed chimney. Dust falls down it from the attic. It's gross.

The refrigerator is too deep for the room.

The gas range has been great, but it's feels crammed in there because of the refrigerator. Also, we've been living with no vent hood. So, there's not much light to cook by at the range.

After much planning and saving, we finally started remodeling a couple weeks ago. Stay posted to follow our progress.

2010-04-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Upstairs- Before and Afters!

Little Room Before

Little Room with unfinished floors

Little Room- Refinished Fir Floors

Big Room- Before

Big Room- Refinished Fir Floors- Pretty!

After 5 long years of debating how and when we'd restore the upstairs- we're done. Terry fixed the sheetrock, electricians did the lights, a local crew did the floors, we painted the walls, I restored the windows, hardware, doors, and trim. The most annoying part of the project was clearing the space of all our old stuff. It's all squirreled away. Now I need to go through it and decide what no longer has a place in our home.

2009-08-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

Picking Peaches

We harvested 28 peaches yesterday off our Frost Peach tree. Many were mature, but not quite ripe, so we've set them out in the house to soften for a couple of days. Mature fruit have developed the sugars in the fruit, so there are sweet but still firm. Ripe fruit have developed all their sugars and are soft. We picked the fruit at the mature stage rather than the ripe stage because we've had problems in the past of ripe fruit falling off the tree on windy days and the dogs eating them before we can. We've also had problems with the peaches splitting near the stem and earwigs getting in them and eating out the pit. Last year, there would be 10 earwigs in each large peach. This year, I put Tanglefoot traps along the trunk of the tree to trap earwigs as they climb up, but a few got past and into one of the peaches. Also, peaches don't all ripen at the same time, so there are still 15 or so still on the tree.

2009-08-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

First attempt at video editing with iMovie...

2009-07-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

Parking Strip Veggie Garden

Sunflowers

Scallop Summer Squash

Armenian Cucumber

Baby Watermelon

Acorn Squash

Zucchini- we planted way too many (8). In three weeks we harvest about 28 large zucchinis. Given away 18. Made 6 loaves of bread. Grilled two. Made stir fry. Shredded and froze 15 cups worth. We bought a freezer for the garage to house our harvest.

Buttercup Squash

Blue Hubbard Squash

A bee doing its thing- early morning is the best time to view them in action

Sunflower and corn

Winter squash covering the dead grass

Terry inspecting his crops

2009-07-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

Harvest Time

The garden has grown tremendously since our last post and we've been trying our best to keep up with harvesting and eating, freezing, and giving our bounty away.

After reading some other garden blogs, I decided to start keeping track of how much we harvest. I weighed what we harvested yesterday and I made a guesstimate of how much we've harvested so far this season.

Here's the tally:

7/9:

Beets- 13 oz. (5 beets)

Sugar Snap Peas- 14 oz.

Shelling Peas- 1 lb. (shelled)

Mixed Berries- 1 lb. 8 oz. (Strawberries, Raspberries, Blueberries, Blackberries)

Guesstimate for season so far:

Beets- 3 lb. 13 oz.

Sugar Snap Peas- 1 lbs. 4 oz.

Shelling Peas- 1 lbs. 4 oz.

Baby Bok Choy- 2 lbs.

Green Cabbage- 2 heads

Leaf Lettuce- 3 lbs.

Romaine Lettuce- 5 lbs.

Onions- 1 lbs.

Broccoli- 12 oz.

Mixed Berries- 4 lbs

Mixed Greens- 2 lbs (Kale, Collards, Chard, Spinach)

Tomatoes- 3 tiny ones so far

We've also been using dill, thyme, parsley, rosemary and oregano from the garden.

2009-06-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

Garden Photos: June 11, 2009

Beautiful Peonies from my parents' garden.

I had a half-way Martha Stewart moment...

I cleaned off most of my table to get these photos!

So pretty and elegant, I can deal with the ants that keep crawling out of them!

Smells really nice too!

I'm wondering why I didn't plant any in my garden.

Beets- yummy!

Our first sugar snap pea is coming on!

Broccoli is ready to harvest!

Our corn and squash is growing well in our sod bed.

We built a second sod bed. We used sod from the spot where the bed is. Additional sod came from edging the sidewalk. We had never edged it and it had grown over the sidewalk about a foot. We're going to plant edamame, okra, and more squash.

It won't be long before we get raspberries.

mmmm.... Blueberries ......

2009-06-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

Garden Flower Photos: May 23- June 2, 2009

Our garden is very colorful this time of year- lots of purple, orange, and pink!

Ninebark 'Diabolo' in foreground

Rosa mutabilis in background

Helianthemum 'Bed Ledi' (my personal favorite)

Sambuscus 'Black Beauty'

Lavendar 'James Compton'

Salvia nemerosa 'Amethyst'

Lilac

Salvia 'May Night'

Honeysuckle: Lonicera 'Dropmore Scarlet'

Euphorbia 'Dixter'

Azalea 'Mandarin Lights'

Rhododendron 'Amber Touch'

I never thought I'd buy a rhododendron, but I had a spot that needed one and this variety was so pretty.

The flower reminds me of a Hawaiian vacation.

The foliage is lush and healthy.

Close-up of Rhododendron 'Amber Touch'

2009-06-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Garden- Progress and Pests

Photos from May 23 - June 2, 2009

The garden is growing so quickly these days, I can't believe how much has changed since we last posted some photos. I'm playing catch up, so here's some pics from a couple weeks ago.

The above photo is of our little greenhouse with some warm weather starts- cucumbers, watermelon, eggplant, peppers, some flowers, and a couple more tomatoes.

I decided it would fun to document some of the pests and diseases we've been encountering this year as well. The leaf curl on this nectarine leaf is a fungal disease. We've been pulling off the affected leaves as we see them. We treated the trees in the winter with a dormant spray to kill the spores, but a few survived.

The holes in this broccoli leaf are from cabbage moth larva. Those pretty little white moths that fly around mid-day will land on typically the back of the leaves and deposit eggs which hatch out a little green caterpillar. We had been squishing the eggs as we'd see them, but it's gotten out of control. There are holes all through our broccoli, cabbage, bok choy and kale.

We set out coddling moth traps in our apple trees because our apples were so full of worms last year it was disgusting. We've caught 4 or 5 moths so far. The pheromone in the trap attracts the males and they get stuck. We're hoping they got trapped before mating with the females.

Beet leaf miner attacks beet leaves, chard and spinach which are all related. The adult is a little fly that lays white eggs on the backs of the leaves which hatch larva that bore into the leaf. The larva eventually falls out and buries into the soil. Supposedly it is only going to be bad in May and June. We're going to try and plant beets as a fall crop to avoid this time period next time.

I also set out apple maggot traps. The apple maggot fly is attracted to red balls that looks like apples. I also bought the lures that emit an apple scent. Instead of spreading the sticky goo directly on the ball, I covered the ball with a ziplock bags first for easy cleaning. We've caught a number of flies, but I'm not sure if they are apple maggot flies.

Here's our baby bean plants. A pesky young cat was getting in there and pooping at night, so we laid sticks all around the bare spots to keep him out.

Romaine Lettuce- so much we've been giving it away.

Dill- smells so good!

Baby nectarines

Baby apples

Baby Tomatoes

Yummy strawberries- with the recent warm weather- we've been getting a little bowlful almost everyday.

Tree onions a.k.a Egyptian walking onions

Bunching onions from last year that are blooming this year

2009-05-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's May 23rd, 2009...I can't believe it's already May. I'm not complaining as it is about durned time we got some consistently sunny warm weather. It's about 70 degrees during the sunny days now but still getting down into the mid 40's at night. Man, I'm ready for like 90 degrees and maybe 70 at night. That's watermelon weather.

Anyhoo, here's what our little urban farm is looking like these days...

This is our bush peas/potato raised bed. In the background are bush peas. In the foreground are several kinds of potatoes (white, red, and gold) planted using our in-the-pot method. Using this method for growing potatoes is great because when it comes time to harvest, just dump the pot upside down into the raised bed and there they all are. Very little digging needed. In the mid ground would be our russet and purple potato bed (between the potted potatoes and the bush peas). Using this method for growing potatoes, we just stuck potatoes in a trench and as they grow, we fill the trench in with dirt. This is an experiment for us this year. We wanna know which method yields more potatoes and which method is easier for me, the farmer.

Here's our sugar pole peas. They are having trouble because rollie pollies (pill bugs) had been devouring them since they emerged from the soil about a month ago. I never knew rollie pollies ate garden plantings but I saw it with my own eyes. Little buggers! I got even though and now my peas are doing real good. To get rid of rollie pollies, squash them between your fingers. Also, putting out Sluggo does the trick, too. The rest of this bed we planted carrots and some radishes, which haven't really come up yet (we just planted them).

This bed has onions around the outside, collards on the left half, a single kale on the right and then some chard on the right in the back. These greens will be real good. Just gotta watch out for that dadgum cabbage moth... he keeps layin' eggs on the collards and kale, which turn into little green caterpillars that eat holes into the crop. We go smush the eggs off the leaves about every 2 or 3 days or so. It's working pretty well so far.

Upper left under the row cover is spinach. My spinach kept getting chomped by something. Wouldn't you know, it was damn birds! I couldn't catch 'em, so I put on this row cover. Never used it before but it should let water and light through to the spinach and protect them from these spinach killers. The birds pretty much only eat the spinach....though they pulled out some of my walla walla onion starts about a month ago. Little buggers. Anyway, we've got 3 cabbages in the upper right, a line of dill down the center, and romaine lettuce on the bottom half of this bed. I guarantee this lettuce is real good. We've eaten some already.

Garlic and onions! We've been eating the onions and they're real good.

The back of this bed has a couple old-growth collards from last year. We are still eating from these two plants, mostly adding it to stir fry stuff. The rest of the bed is corn and beans. I just planted this bed a few days ago, so things really haven't popped up yet. Well, the beans are just poking through. They'll be real good when they're ready.

This is our raised bed out in the parking strip. We built this raised bed out of old sod. We planted several types of squash and a couple types of corn...and sunflowers. It should not only look cool, but it'll all taste real good, too. We planted this raised bed about 3 weeks ago.

Shallots and bulb onions are doing real well.

Bush peas. Hurry up and grow you little buggers!

Some broccoli and onions. These broccoli got off to a bit of a slow start but they can take their time 'cause they'll be real good when they're ready.

These broccoli were planted several weeks earlier and will be ready to eat first. They're just putting on their first flower now. They're right beside the green leaf lettuce.

Bok Choy on the left and the rest of the bed is planted with beets. Michele makes a real mean plate of beets.

This is an old horse watering trough with herbs and mixed lettuce/spinach, etc. The spinach in this trough has gotten huge. We have already eaten most of it but we replanted more seeds so more is on the way. It was real good. We should be able to enjoy lots of greens all summer and fall. We'll probably freeze some for winter, too.

A second watering trough with more greens. We eat a lot of greens. Don't curl your lip at these greens, they're real good.

New starts for our summer crops. I took them outside to soak up some sun. They like it! Represented here are various kinds of cucumber, zuchini, a squash, a runt tomato (which probably won't make it), WATER MELON!, canteloupe, three kinds of peppers, basil, and OKRA!!! I can't wait to devour a platter of homemade fried chicken, biscuits, fried okra, and water melon. There's no better meal.

Our greenhouse with tomato and eggplant inside. It's real warm and nice in there.

Baby peaches! I don't have a picture because I forgot to take one, but we also have baby nectarines!

Baby apples!

Baby strawberries!

Strawberry bed.

Another strawberry bed. Don't let the small bed size fool ya, they produce way more than we can eat! They're real good. We give extras to our neighbors. Last year we ate so many strawberries that we were feeling all strawberried out. But by November, we were real glad that we had frozen a few gallons of them for winter. Having homegrown berries during the winter is pretty cool.

Blueberries in the foreground, blackberries and raspberries in the background. They're all on their way to producing a lot of berries come summer time. Saying these plants produce more than we can eat is a under-statement. We practically beg the birds to eat more. We pick as much as we can but cannot get to them all because there are so many. We ate and ate and ate them during the summer last year and then also froze a couple gallons of berries for the winter. This year, we'll try to do a better job picking them to freeze for winter. These berries are real good.

This might look like a small blueberry patch, but it's real productive and boy are these things tasty! We put up a little fence to keep the dogs out of them until the plants are taller. This spring the plants are loaded with blooms. Hopefully they become loaded with blueberries.

2009-05-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

Spring Snowshoeing at Paradise, Mt. Rainier

(Be sure to click on the photos to see them full size)

Thanks to Les for taking some great photos!

The snow was icy, so it was easy to walk on top of.

We're not alone.

Check out the teams of climbers roped together in the background.

"The mountain is this way!"

Waiting for the clouds to clear.

Mountain with clouds

Michelle, Terry, and Michele

"I'm over here!"

Terry in a cloud- so heavenly!

The clouds finally broke a little for us to see the mountain!

2009-04-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

What to do with old Sod...

The sod in our backyard didn't thrive even after 3 years. We suspect that it was because the sod had so much clay in it. The clay made it difficult to water deeply. Also, with the doggie traffic it compacted and made a hard crust. We decided to dig it up and try growing grass from seed on nice sandy loam soil.

Smithers is wondering why we're taking his lawn away.

The best way we found to remove the sod is to cut squares with a half moon edger and then use a potato fork to pry the pieces up. Most of it came up relatively easy because it wasn't rooted down very well.

It took us several hours to remove it all. The dogs love the bare dirt.

We intended to take the sod to the dump, but our city dump considers sod "garbage" and charges to dump it by weight. Sod is very very heavy. It would have taken 3 or 4 trips in my light pickup truck to get rid of it all. I thought about composting it in our parking strip, but then we remembered a house several blocks away that used sod to build a raised bed.

We wanted more space to grow veggies, so we decided to make a raised bed. The square sod pieces stacked nicely. We made a bed about 5 feet by 16 feet.

It took us about 2 to 3 hours to haul all the sod from the back yard down to the parking strip.

The following weekend we made a couple trips to the city TAGRO station to pick up TAGRO potting soil to fill the bed. TAGRO is Tacoma's way of recycling sewage waste into a useable product. It took 1 yard and $30 to fill it up. Later that day we saw a TAGRO delivery truck stop by our bed and the driver got out and said he had to take a pic because customers often ask him what to do with old sod.

Terry's making rows.

We decided to plant large and sprawling veggies out in the parking strip bed. Two types of Corn and 5 types of squash. The corn varieties we planted were Peaches and Cream and Early Sunglow. The types of squash we're trying are Blue Hubbard, Butternut, Patty Pan Squashes, Buttercup and mystery squashes that sprouted in our compost bin (most likely pumpkin or acorn). We've never grown squash here so we're excited to see what happens.

What's also great about a sod bed is that when we're all done with it, it can just compost away.

2009-04-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

Planting Seeds and Sets!!!

We planted our early spring crops on Sunday March 29th. For the Puget Sound area that included Lettuce, Bok Choy, Chard, Kale, Cabbage, Broccoli, Spinach, Carrots, Radishes, Mache, Parsley, Green Onions, Beets, Peas, Potatoes, and Onion Sets.

Here's the seeds we planted.

The big onions in the photo are Tree Onions or Egyptian Walking Onions that we transplanted from last year. They are perennial and form bulbs at the top of their stalks. When the tops get too heavy they fall over and the bulbs root down and form new stalks.

Here's a Red Wethersfield onion set.

These are Yellow Rock onion sets.

A big old worm came out to see what was going on.

These are Elephant Garlic Cloves.

Here's Michele planting the Elephant Garlics.

Here's all our babies that we started indoors. Starbucks cups make great seed starting pots. Just poke a hole in the bottom.

A great way to use old coffee cups before recycling them.

Planting our baby Broccoli.

We turned clear Dixie cups over our babies to keep them safe from cold nights. We poked a couple holes in the top of the cup for ventilation.

We also planted potatoes. Red, Yukon Golds, White, and Russets. We basically took grocery store potatoes and stuck them in the cupboard for several weeks to get them to sprout.

Smithers is excited about planting potatoes.

Good looking sprouts.

We cut them up so each piece that at least two eyes.

We planted some of the potatoes in large nursery pots (10 gal+). We put just enough soil in the bottom to plant them and cover them with about two inches of soil. When the tops pop through, we'll add a couple more inches of soil. We'll keep doing this until the pot is full.

Planting veggies is hard work. Old Oso had to take a nap afterwards.

2009-03-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Garden Build: March 13-22, 2009 a.k.a Terry's vacation

Some people like to go somewhere warm and sunny and relax during their vacation. We like to tackle a big project. This year it was expanding our veggie garden from 70 square feet to 290 square feet, building dog fencing, pouring concrete paths, refreshing the beauty bark on the dog trails, and installing drain pipes to our front downspouts.

Throughout our 4 1/2 years of remodeling our home, we've had the aggravating pattern of doing things twice. So naturally this would eventually include the landscape we installed 3 years ago.

Terry's original vision of a lush swath of lawn on the south side of house to play with the dogs had become a swath of mud and grass clumps over the winter. We were never happy with the quality of the sod from Emerald Turfgrass we originally installed. It was clay-based which never meshed well with our sandy soil.

Over the Fall and Winter, we put our heads together to create a new vision for the area. We wanted more space for vegetables, but needed to design beds and paths that would be dog proof.

After considering a couple different options for raised beds we found the most economical way to build dog-proof beds was to fence the entire kitchen garden off from the dogs, so we could have easy access to our veggies without worrying about dogs peeing on them or digging them up.

Here are the new beds and gravel paths. We used 2x12's of untreated lumber to build the beds.

I didn't take many photos of the build process due to the fact we were working in rain, snow mixed with rain, hail, mud, clouds, and cold.

Oso uses the weed barrier like a big blanket.

The beds are 12 inches deep. We put a layer of the broken up sod in the bottom to get rid of the sod and fill some of the volume. Then we put in a layer of 3-way mix topsoil. We topped off the beds with TAGRO potting soil. We'll mix the top two layers really well when we get ready to plant.

Another area that got really muddy was our entry. We created large concrete stepping stones to make the transition from the entry walkway to the side- yards.

We used 24 sacks of concrete to pour six - 4 ft x 31 in stones.

There's me in the background bundled up from the cold. And I was still freezing.

Terry is building the fence panels to the new garden.

We can't wait to finish a few more details and then plant our seeds!!!

2009-03-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's nice to get away!

In late February we went snowshoeing at Paradise, Mt. Rainier. The conditions were perfect.

The views were beautiful. The snow was fluffy. And there was no wind.

Yay! No paint fumes here!

Snowshoeing makes Terry hungry.

Beef Jerky- yum!

Putting our feet up and enjoying the view.

2009-01-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

Stairway Project (cont'd)

Michele's doing a pretty good job up there, don'tcha think?

This is a lot of hard work.

But Michele's got her official house remodeling jeans on.

Our spirits are high! Or is that the paint fumes???

Terry's painting himself into a corner. :)

I'm ready for supper, dammit!

Michele does real good work.

It's looking pretty good. Note the bedroom at the end of the hall is done. Yay!!!

2009-01-06T19:37:00.000-08:00

Stairwell Project

The steep stairway had a weird gap at the bottom with pipes coming through it to a defunct condensation tank. There were also gaps between the plaster and the stairway trim.

Terry cut out the pipes and started framing a wall to close the gap.

It's level!

The sheetrock is on and finished.

2009-01-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas decor

I had a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas this year. This was the first year the house felt done enough to decorate. We even hosted Christmas Dinner this year.

Dining Room Chandelier with greens and ornaments

To dress up a blank wall I cut out paper snowflakes, trees and Mt. Rainier

Christmas mouse, rabbit, and snowman by Jennifer Murphy

The Mantle is all dressed up

O Tannenbaum

Christmas video

2008-12-23T10:33:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

2008-12-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

More Snow!!!

2008-12-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

Snow Day!!!

Oso wins the race!

What do you get when you add a husband, good dogs, an orange sled, a sloping alley and snow...

fun little videos!

Smithers's wild ride

Oso's wild ride

Oso and Terry take a spill

Oso bails on Michele

Time for Hot Cocoa!

2008-11-25T23:22:00.000-08:00

Noble Knob Hike after the first snow 2007

I found these photos from our wonderful hike last year.

This is my favorite photo of Oso surveying the hills

Oso Bear!

The Fall colors were still visible through the dusting of snow

The way the light hit the snow on the moss draped tree was beautiful.

2008-11-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

Tackling the Beast...

Below is a photo of the big upstairs room when we bought the house

It became my storage space to put all the boxes of crap I've been hauling around since college and before. Every time I needed something I opened up boxes and strew the contents around. I never quite got around to sorting through and throwing out things.

This Fall we decided to tackle the upstairs windows, which was going well until it got too cold to work on them outside. Then I decided to work on them in the nook while that room was being remodeled. Now that the nook is finally becoming our office, I decided to make space to work on the windows upstairs.

Well... that forced me to tackle the BEAST. All the stuff, clutter, papers, misc. crap. In the spirit of Change We Can Believe In, I decided this was Our Time to make Big Progress, Big Change.

The below pic is midway in the process. I wish a had taken a pic of the real state of the space before I had started. Initially I was going to just condense things down a bit to make a window work space. That turned into a weeklong effort to condense everything down to totally clear the room out, so we could paint it. That involved condensing all the stuff stored in the other upstairs room too. One thing always leads to another.

Mid-way through condensing. ARGH!

The small upstairs room post-condensing.

I discovered my childhood pencil collection in the belly of beast.

I admit that I couldn't quite force myself to throw all of them away. But I tossed the box.

My childhood eraser collection- now lives in a landfill. Why did I move these things around all these years?

Going through the de-cluttering process was just like on those TV shows. I had to keep telling myself it was okay to just let go. Put the crap in a bag and don't look back.

I managed to take about 10 large bags of things to goodwill, recycle many cardboards boxes and several bags full of paper, and throw away several big bags of garbage. There's still more to get rid of, but I made a great start. It only took me three years to get in the mood to tackle this project.

Terry starts demo while I finish clearing the room.

Terry tearing out the shelves while trying not to hit his head on the ceiling.

Terry installing our newly refinished windows.

New paint! A few more days and we'll be done!!! Life is Good!

2008-11-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more pics of our re-siding and our re-painting adventure. :)

Watch out for that natural gas line, Terry!

The house still needs TLC.

Nothing but the best cedar shakes for Smithers and Oso's old house!

No, really.

Side view.

The dogs liked that we worked into the night. They love the house, too.

Getting ready to primer the new shakes.

Are we done yet?

Gettin' hungry here.

Almost ready to primer.

No, really we are.

Gotta paint while the skies are still blue up here in western Washington!

Done painting. BARACK OBAMA!!!!

The dogs wanna get out and run the neighborhood.

Sweet!

Snap!

Can't believe it is still sunny this time of year. Not complaining.

Now the dogs want out the back gate.

Fall Ginko leaves in front of the breakfast nook window overlooking the back patio. Very cool.

2008-10-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Fall Potato Harvest

This was the first year we decided to grow potatoes. We got a late start on planting (mid-July), so we weren't sure how well they'd produce. Due to lack of space in our raised veggie beds, we planted them in large plastic pots. This made it really easy to harvest.

Oso inspects and gives his nose-stamp of approval.

Sexy, huh?

Reds and Yukon golds

Pretty!

Baby spuds? or Large Farmer Hands?

Our other Fall crop- green tomatoes!

2008-10-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

The Latest Change... New Paint Color on the House!

We got the paint blown on right in the nick of time. It rained the next morning!

Now we just have to finish the detail work= trim and windows.

Helpful hint: Rent Scaffolding- it's not that expensive and pretty easy to set up. Beats moving the extension ladder around while getting tangled in the paint gun hose.

2008-09-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

What we did with our Summer Berries...

Angel food cake, old-fashioned vanilla ice cream and berries.

Terry savoring every bite.

OMG!! I can't stop eating these delicious berries!!!

2008-09-24T22:19:00.000-07:00

Hide and seek with the dogs earlier this Summer.

I got this great rustic pot for my birthday to put in our garden.

Terry and Oso had their own idea of what to do with my birthday gift.

Smithers isn't amused in the least bit.

This isn't what I had in mind to plant in this pot.

2008-09-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

Window Restoration

When we decided to become the new stewards of an old house, we were really excited by the original features the house has retained since 1920. This includes the wood windows. Over the past 4 years, we've scoffed at all suggestions from friends and relatives with modern homes to replace them with "Energy-Efficient" vinyl windows.

This year, we've finally started tackling the window restoration project (actually 28 projects if you count the individual windows). The 3 initial windows were done as a joint project... now the rest have become Michele's project. Michele's "get this done before thinking of having a baby" project.

So far the six casement windows in the breakfast nook/office are DONE!!!

My work space. Notice dogs sleeping away... unaware of all the work that needs to be done.

Tip: Heat Gun is great for loosening old screws.

Window that has been stripped, sanded, and primed.

Each window takes about 2 1/2 weeks to complete. So it will only take me a year to get it all done. ARGH!!!

2008-09-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

How we spent the last two months of summer 2008...

Deep in our blog (3 years ago or so) we spent much of our summer prepping and painting the exterior of our oh-so-charming house.

We had hoped the paint would last awhile.

The shingles were so deteriorated on the South and West sides the paint started to peel.

After much research, Terry decided to tear the offending shingles off and start fresh.

A good website Terry recommends is http://www.cedarbureau.org/installation/wall-manual.htm

He worked day and night for five weekends.

Here's a pic of Terry nauseous from a flu-like bug on a ladder on a hot sunny day. What a trooper!

Now, we just need one more weekend of nice weather to prime and paint. Be sure to check our blog in a couple weeks to see the new color.

Oh, and in the midst of all this we had our 1st Wedding Anniversary! Our gift to each other was talking about taking a break from the house and going away... far away... later this Winter.

2008-08-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Berries- Yum!

We've had a good crop of berries this year and we were much better about making the effort to pick them.

We've frozen about 4 gallons to enjoy over the Winter.

We'll keep getting strawberries until frost, but the Raspberries and Blackberries are past their peak.

The birds also recently discovered our blueberry patch. They are very happy.

We've discovered the best way to process our veggie harvest is to clean it outside. It keeps the slugs and earwigs out of the kitchen sink.

2008-07-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Our 1920 fir floors have been refinished!!!

We always knew they had an inner beauty waiting to be revealed.

This was one project where we decided to call in the experts.

I'm glad we did because after scraping the old linoleum and tar off over several weeks in the kitchen and nook and dealing with packing and moving everything, it was nice to just get away for a week.

The contractor recommended covering it all with new hard oak, but we refused- wanting enjoy the old soft fir for as long as possible. I love the rustic look of the old water stains, worn patches, filler, and various deep scars. These floors have out-lived the craftsman who put them in and the feet that wore them down long ago. It's our turn now to wear the pattern of our lives into their fibers.

Kitchen and Nook floor before.

Nook floor- turquoise linoleum underneath the orange linoleum- what a treat.

Me not happy with sore wrists, hands, and knees.

Terry finds white linoleum tile under the orange kitchen linoleum.

Slowly making progress. Tried soaking the tough tar spots with wet towels. Kind of helped.

Kitchen floor with linoleum scraped off.

Overall, the old floor was splintery, had virtually no finish left on it, had nail heads poking up and very big gaps where filler was flaking out of it.

Shiny!!!

After being away for a week- the floors look fantastic! The contractor did a fabulous job.

Kitchen!!!

Nook: this floor turned out the best, lots of honey yellows and pinks coming through. When the morning sun shines on it- it glows.

Kitchen Before and After

I can finally walk around barefoot without being afraid of getting splinters!!!

Terry can finally keep his socks clean! (Well, maybe)

2008-07-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

"Look What We Did!"

The project we are most proud of in our D.I.Y. home remodel adventure is our bathroom remodel. Here is an overview:

The before: A sea of sea-foam green formica and fixtures. Tiny toilet cubby where your knees hit the radiator. Moldy aluminum window.

Tearing it up.

Demo-day is a happy day!

Rub-a-Dub-Dub 3 boys in the new cast-iron tub.

It's snowing drywall dust.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub, I get to tile the tub...

... and the floor.

Say cheese, mr. toilet drain.

Water!!!

New Vanity.

Finished tub and tile floor.

New toilet!

We love our new bathroom!!! No more sea foam green!!!

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value.

www.StartRightStartHere.com

"Look What I Did!" Contest

2008-06-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Spring Garden Photos

South Wall Garden

Our Kitchen Garden is growing!

We've planted greens, lettuce, celery, onions, parsley, carrots, peas, beans, collards, broccoli, radishes, eggplant and tomatoes.

We're going to eat our way out of the recession!

Me, Smithers, and Collard Greens

Photo taken last December

Baby peach

Winter pruning back in February

Blueberry flowers

Raspberry Patch in May

Raspberry Patch in February

Fresh-picked Radishes

Salvia 'May Night' with Lime Thyme

Azalea 'Arneson's Little Gem'

Saxifrage

2008-04-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Breakfast Nook - Part II

Windows: We've refinished window frames and installed glass. We're now glazing windows.
Windowframes: We've sanded and primered, now we're painting.
Floors: All the old linoleum has been removed.

Detailed post with pics to come soon...

2008-03-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Breakfast Nook

So we've been wanting to start the breakfast nook for a while now, but after the bathroom remodel.... well, let's just say sometimes during a house remodel, particularly when you are LIVING IN the house during the remodel, you just want to take a long break. Those that read this and have done or are doing this will understanding what I'm saying. And kudos to us all!!!

So after a few months "off", we move the sawhorses, extension cords, power tools, putty knives, screw drivers and so forth back to breakfast nook. What do we need to do in the nook, you ask? Well, let's try out the bullet function on this blog because our list of things to do is as follows:

Sheetrock in old doorway
Install new baseboard in sheetrocked area
Patch old dryer vent and unused electrical box holes in the walls with sheetrock patches
Paint walls
Paint trim
Remove all 6 windows and completely refinish them (replace broken panes in 2 windows)
Remove door and completely refinish it
Refinish all metal hardware on door and windows
Install new casement stays on windows (5 of the 6 didn't have them)
Repaint hot water radiator (that's our fantastic heat source--they're great!!!)
Remove 2 layers of old linoleum and tile flooring to expose fir floors
Repaint light fixture

I think that covers it, but the list makes it look easy....it's not. Here's how its going so far:

The key to getting things done quickly and safely is having an uncluttered and organized work area. Here we appear to be getting off to a cluttered an unorganized start.

Once I uncluttered the work area, I sheetrocked in the old unused doorway. The doorway connected the nook to a bedroom. The other side of the bedroom has a doorway to the hallway. We did not see the need for this nook/bedroom doorway, so we closed it up. I am getting a lot of sheetrock finishing practice on this house. I'm actually starting to like it, or at least not hate it.

Here's the finished wall after sheetrocking in the doorway. Look, no more doorway! Note the new baseboard I'm installing. I'm using wood putty to try and match the new baseboard section up to the adjacent baseboard. Also note that the clutter is starting to rear its ugly head again!

Here are the two layers of flooring that we need to remove. Fir flooring is underneath. We haven't officially starting removing this flooring yet. But our dog, Smithers, unexpectedly began the flooring removal process for us when he was a puppy. Thank GOD he's over that stage--he's now a good dog.

Michele is having a fantastic time. Can't you tell? Ahhh yes, there is nothing more fun in old-house remodeling than removing old linoleum from a fir floor, while trying not to damage the fir floor. And where is Michele's enthusiastic and loving husband while she slaves away working on the floor??? Taking the pictures and bringing her tasty dill pickles and corn chips, course. These are the joys of married life...

Those of you that have been through this can appreciate what is going on here. Note the awkward posture. This static picture looks very similar to a moving video of the activity....it is a slow, tedious process...she hardly looks like she's moving at all! C'mon, Michele! This is the last of 2 layers of linoleum. The house was built in 1920, which is when the fir flooring was installed. It appears the first layer of linoleum was installed in the 1940's or 50's. The upper layer of linoleum was probably installed in the 1960's or 1970's.

Our method is using a fancy putty knife and a hammer. To get remaining black tar off the wood, I put down a towl and pour boiling water on it. Let this wet towel sit for a while. How long is a while? That depends... Sometimes a 20 minute soak loosens up the tar, sometimes it takes an overnight soak. If the tar is thick, it may take multiple soaks. But it does lift it off the fir flooring. A tedious process. If you have a whole house of old linoleum and plan to remove it all yourself, go ahead and make your reservations at the local mental institution.

Here the windows have been removed, I've removed the old paint on the window frames using a heat gun and a putty knife (an excellent method that is very effective). Then I sanded with a profile sander down to wood (profile sander works PERFECTLY for this), now I'm primering with an oil-based primer. I wish it was summer. On this March day (note the winter clothing) it was about 45 degrees and windy. This is a job for summer weather for sure. By the way, oil based primer doesn't like to dry when its 45 degrees.

Remodelers must keep their sense of humor or insanity will set in.

An outside view of what I'm doing. Don't tell OSHA how I'm using this ladder. The ladder is at a wierd angle and I've intentionaly cut the bottom of this picture off so you can't see what the feet of the ladder are resting on. My ladder placement method was crude, but effective.

Oso stayed close most of the day to offer his moral support. He's such a great dog!

More to come soon.....

2007-12-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

Why no new postings for so long now?

Well, Michele and I were real busy with something much more important than the house remodel. I know, I know... what on Earth could be more important than this?

Michele and I got married on September 2nd, 2007! It was truly a wonderful day for both of us. After our honeymoon, we focused on sending out thank-you cards, cleaning up the house, relaxing, getting back into our groove, etc.

But since we've gotten back from the honeymoon, we (I) have been working on the house. I finished the hallway (trimming, painting, door and wall hardware installation, etc.) I also have been working on the front bedroom and the bathroom. I'll put up some posts soon about these "little projects". But in the meantime, we're busy with Christmas and New Years.

So.... I'll be back with more house remodel blogging in 2008. I'll try to be better at keeping this blog more up to date. Also, it looks like the site now allows placement of video on the blog. I'll try to incorporate some video. We'll see how that goes...should be fun!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Terry, Michele, Smithers and Oso

2007-07-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

7/14/07: The new concrete patio is DONE!!!

It took 4 weekends, 760 100lb. sacks of concrete mixed by hand in 120 degree heat, carrying it up a steep hill one small bucket at a time.... ooops, I'm getting carried away with the story here. Well, it did take 4 weekends, 216 80lb. sacks of concrete, using a concrete mixer rented from Home Depot, it was about 80 degrees, and no hills or buckets to worry about. It was fun. Here's how it went:

Smithers relaxes on the first completed piece of the patio, while Oso scratches fleas on the dirt.

A few more squares done.

Bird's eye view of work in progress.

The patio was designed to match the Craftsman windows in the house. See the resemblance?

Hey, we're almost done. At least the concrete work is done!

To get the job done, ya need someone with a strong back and a weak mind. So there's me, unloading sod in the background, while Smithers (center square) and Oso (back) wonder when I'm gonna finish.

Oso is ready for the new sod to be installed.

Whew!!! Lots of hard work, but it's done!

Smithers and his little friend, the stuffed cow, like the new backyard patio and yard.

Glorious!!!

Now we're ready for a BBQ! (When you enlarge this pic, look at the lower right square where the red potted tree is sitting. We just had to do it. Michele and I put our handprints and Smithers and Oso put their paw prints into this square.)

2007-06-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

June 2007: Building the patio...

We knew all along that we wanted some kind of patio in the backyard. And since winter is finally over, now's the time! Michele wanted an intricate "paver patio". It's actually a series of concrete pads with 4 inch spaces in between. Within the space, we'll be putting sand and planting ground covering thyme. It should look really cool when it's done. Anyhoo...

I'm finishing up the framing of the concrete forms. In this pic, I'm lightly tamping sand that I've placed in the space between the concrete forms so concrete doesn't seep into this space during the concrete pour. Gotta save space for the thyme!

This probably doesn't look like much, but it was a lot of work getting these forms put together. More than just the forms, I had a lot of digging to do. My buddy Mark helped me with some of the digging. C'mon back, Mark....the concrete pour is next weekend!

We had to take out some sod at the bottom of the pic. We'll bring in some topsoil and sod to redo this area once the concrete work is done.

View from the back porch. Looks like Hollywood Squares! Each square is about 6.5 feet by 6.5 feet.

Mmmmm.... BBQ'd pork ribs, collard greens and cous-cous. Well, all that patio-building makes a guy hungry!!!

Stay tuned for the final patio pics once the concrete work is all done... :)

2007-05-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

May 2007 Garden Photos
One year after our major landscape project: The plants are filling in!!!

Front entry: Euphorbia 'Despina' (Green flowers), Lavender 'James Compton', Erigeron karvinskianus (White flowers), Euphorbia 'Dixter' (Orange flowers), Pennisetum 'Hameln (fountain grass)

Side Wall Garden

Side Wall Garden

Honeysuckle Vine

South Slope Garden

The bees are happy on Salvia 'May Night'

Lavender 'James Compton' a.k.a. 'Fairy Wings'

Physocarpus 'Summer Wine'

Rosa mutabilis

My favoriate sun rose: Helianthemum 'Ben Ledi'

Helianthemum 'Ben Ledi' with Lime Thyme

2007-03-24T01:04:00.000-07:00

More bathroom pics from January and February. Sorry about the formatting wierdness. The text isn't staying where it's supposed to. I must have done something wrong, but I don't really know what. Such is life...

Pretty snow picture of the garage.

Painting in progress.

Refinishing the door.

Stress management...

Toilet drain.

Toilet drain, say cheese!

Don't sit down on 'er quite yet, Michele!

The tank is fillin' up.

Glorious!

The paint color is minced ginger from Behr. Boy, that Terry sure does a good job with his handy trim work! :)

This window is better than the old disease-ridden moldy aluminum framed one.

2007-01-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

Bathroom remodel (days ?? - ?? who's counting anymore)

Tiling the floor

Terry and I first installed the hardibacker over the old hardwood floor

I mortared on the tile. Very messy.

Terry's very un-ergonomic tile cutting setup is hurting Oso's back.

Lots of snow!

The tile is down.

Grouting the tile. We used a light gray color.

All done and ready to seal. This tiling process only took 10 days. We made time to go to work, eat graham crackers, go sledding and play in the snow.

Oso had a friend over to spend the day.

Smithers needed a nap with his friends.

2007-01-12T14:10:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Well, we didn't finish our bathroom remodel by the New Year, but we did get the shower working in time to take our first showers for New Year's Day.

For Christmas Terry got dry sockets and a fiance. (No, dry sockets are not new tools...Terry had his wisdom teeth removed two days before Christmas... and was in horrible pain for about 10 days.) For Christmas I got a fiance with dry sockets.

(Note: Terry has puffy cheeks due to his dry sockets)

Santa brought the dogs a squeaky tennis ball (Oso's favorite), a Jolly Ball, beef bones, a monkey that screams, and a cow that moos. Oso was so excited about his new ball that that evening he pranced around with it and then that night after we went to bed he laid down with it in the hallway and every so often he'd push on it with his nose to make it squeak. It took a few days for the dogs to figure out what to do with the stuffed animals. We showed them how they work, and now when they're playing the room is filled with moos and monkey cackles.

Last weekend, we installed our new vanity and sink.

Oso inspecting the progress.

Water!!!

Sanding drywall is one of the messier steps in the remodel.

This week we got hit by 7" of snow Wednesday night. It was beautiful. All the neighborhood kids (young and old) were out. We got the dogs to pull me on our sled down the road. We also took the sled down our little hill in the back alley. The dogs loved chasing us down the hill. We also got Oso to sit in the sled with Terry and go down. I wish I had photos of it, it was hilarious.

2006-12-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Remodel... Days ummmm.... 17-23

Days 17-20 (No measurable progress on the bathroom.) I worked on my final project for class every night while Terry did some work on the sheetrock.

Day 21: (Friday Dec. 8) My last day of class- afterwards I took a nap all afternoon. Terry fixed the leaky pipes to the tub for the 2nd time. He also worked on the sheetrock. I taped the hardibacker that was up already.

Day 22: On Saturday Terry got the hole cut for the toilet drain and also ran the drain lines for the toilet and sink. Later we got the last piece of hardibacker up in the tub alcove and also put up the rest of the greenboard. I was able to tape the hardibacker and add the caulk between it and the tub. Terry also put another coat of mud on the sheetrock. It's starting to even out really nicely.

Day 23: Finally- we started to put up the tile around the tub. I consulted the tiling book and did a bunch of calculations to figure out where to start. I was very confident in my numbers. I wanted the tiles to be spaced out perfectly.

It started out really well... then I realized my calculations were off and I took solace in our favorite saying... "if all else fails...lower your standards."

Despite my error, it still looks pretty darn good.

2006-12-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Bathroom remodel Days 14-16

Friday (day 14) Terry got all cleaned up for his first day at his new job. When he got home we got yummy drinks at Starbucks (Peppermint Mocha for me). That evening we went to Home Depot and got some more plumbing parts. I worked on taping sheetrock and did some research on how to install a toilet.

Saturday morning we took the dogs to the DP (Dog Park). They were very content for the rest of the day. Most of Saturday afternoon was spent picking up more parts and pieces. We picked up the vanity, mirror and countertop we ordered. Terry also got the water hooked up for the bathtub while I continued to tape the sheetrock.

WATER!!!

On Sunday (Day 16), Terry got the line stubbed in for the toilet and also fixed the leaks in the tub lines. I spent more time on the sheetrock. In the evening we hit the YMCA for showers to get cleaned up for going to work on Monday. It won't be too much longer before we can shower at home.

I'm getting holes cut into the hardibacker for the tub faucet.

2006-12-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Remodel- Days 12 and 13
"Oh, changing all the water pipes should only take a day..."

The streets still being icy, Terry took me to work then went to tackling replacing the water pipes. He shut the water off at the street and proceeded to demo the old galvanized pipes. We had partially replaced the pipes when we first moved into the house and in preparation for the bath remodel, Terry had ran some of the copper pipes, so he could just hook them up when the time was ready.

Well, I called him to come pick me up from work at 5:00pm. He was not very happy when he picked me up. He didn't have a very good day. We proceeded to work on the pipes until midnight and gave up when we started making stupid mistakes. Terry burnt his lip trying to bend the solder with his teeth when it was still a little too hot. We still didn't have any water hooked up, so we used bottled water to wash our hands and brush our teeth.

I called in to work on Day 13, so I could help Terry finish hooking the water up. We went to gym to take shower (it had been about 4 days). We also went out to breakfast which was really good. It took us about 6 more hours to finish the piping to a point where we could cap off the loose ends and turn on the water. It worked!!! Only a couple small weeps, but we're letting that go for now. We were only without water for 2 days, but we celebrated by putting on clean clothes and going out to dinner. We even bought a couple of those fancy holiday drinks at Starbucks afterwards. We sat in those comfy chairs and relaxed in the festive dust-free atmosphere.

2006-11-30T16:26:00.000-08:00

Day 11 Bathroom Remodel- Terry vs. The Tub part Three

Snow Day!!! I stayed home from work today to help out on the bathroom.

Terry had to redo part of the wall where the tub piping will be because it was too far from the tub and the shims were too thick. He had to add a 1/4" layer along the edge of the 2x8's to bring them closer to the tub. This was done so that when we attach the hardibacker and the tile they will come over the lip of the tub a little. This was very tedious to get level and such- much like everything else.

We also went to Home Depot for supplies. I bought a bunch of stuff for the tile work. I agonized over what type of thinset to buy and sealer and grout color. I talked to the sales lady and bought what she recommended despite my reservations. We also bought a larger fan cover and looked for more radiator paint. They didn't have our color paint at the Depot, so we went to Lowes. Lowes didn't have any either, so I went to check out what tile grout colors they had. Then I decided I didn't like any of them and I didn't like what I had bought at the Depot, so we stopped and had lunch. We then went to the tile store and bought some light gray grout called Silverado- very pretty. The tile experts there didn't think the sealer I bought at Home Depot was a good idea and recommended something else. So after wasting the whole morning we finally made it back home to do some work.

These are the tiles we'll be using. The Subway tiles for around the tub and the Hex tiles for the floor.

When we got home we tried out the new fan cover and it was a tad too tall to fit.

Terry focused on trying to get the tub drain installed. He didn't have the right coupler to attach the tub drain kit to the drain pipe in the basement, so it was back to Home Depot. After he got the right fitting, things went smoothly.

I focused on the radiator. I spent quite a bit of time scrapping off the loose paint and cleaning the dust out of the middle of it. We used the Anonized Bronze color from Rust-oleum.

Oso is inspecting the progress again.

2006-11-27T23:50:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Remodel- Day 10

Terry vs. the Tub (Part 2)

The previous night was spent leveling the tub. Today Terry added some 2x8's to bridge the existing wall to the end of the tub with the faucet. He also shimmed around the tub because the walls are so uneven.

He took the dogs to the Dog Park for well-earned quality playtime.

After I got home from work we tried to add a waterproof membrane to the walls that would go under the hardibacker. Things never go like in the guidebooks... so we did things a little differently (I won't go into detail about this). Then we put up the hardibacker on the walls that were ready. This took much longer than expected also. I really wish we would have removed all the plaster from side and end walls. It takes so long to try to even out an uneven surface. I'm just hoping that the tiles stay on the walls (if I ever get to the point of putting them up) and the whole buisness doesn't come crashing down in a couple weeks.

Cuddle Time

Snack Time

2006-11-26T22:42:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Remodel Day 8 and 9

Making Progress... slowly...

Terry got the new exhaust fan in... again this took much longer than expected... the old fan was difficult to remove... the new fan was too thick for the wall (it was designed for ceilings)... so we went and bought a new fan... it fit, but the cover plate was too small for the hole... so we left it as is...for now.

I tried my hand at taping sheetrock... it's an old house, so it's okay if it looks a little rustic...

We finally got our new cast iron tub (Kohler Villager) and it's not turquoise! We found the tub at Home Depot. The local store only had a scratched up one, so they sent us to the south Tacoma store. The one on the floor was missing a large chunk of enamel, so the clerk got one down from the top rack. After passing our inspection we told the clerk (Scott) that we wanted to pay for it and pick it up on Sunday. He had it on the forklift so he said we could go pay for it and he'd put it in the back storeroom. So we paid for it and left. Cast iron is very heavy (330 lbs.), so we arranged for my Dad and my cousin come help us pick it up and load it into the house. We met at the Depot and went to customer service with our receipt. Apparently we were supposed to have "will call" paperwork. The clerk didn't set us up with any paperwork, but we had paid for it. We told the service gal that the guy put it in the back. She called back there and sent someone to hunt for it. Ken found it, but it had a "Paid" slip with someone else's name on it. But it was the tub we had picked out- the one with no scratches. Ken offered to get another one off the top shelf for us. We told him Scott f-ed up and we were going home with that tub and he could put that "paid" slip on the other tub on the top shelf. He was nice and helped us load our tub.

Getting the tub into the house was a bit of a challenge, but with the extra help we got it in and set into the space. After going out to lunch, we proceeded to spent 6 hours trying to figure out how to level the tub when the floor was very uneven and all the walls were uneven. Our floor was so sloped that with the tub level there was an 1 1/4" gap between one corner and the floor. We had to make a call to Terry's Dad in Alabama for help. He suggested we cut down into the hardwood floor to make slots for the feet and the side. Terry and I wrestled with the tub to get it up not just one time to make these slots, but three times because our cuts were slightly off and we had to not only widen slots, but add shims to a couple feet.

Who knew it was so difficult to set in a bath tub? (This is only the start...)

Rub-a-Dub-Dub-Three guys in the tub

2006-11-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Remodel- Days 5 thru 7

Painfully slow going... Thank god the YMCA has showers to use.

Day 5- Framing the new walls

Day 6- Turkey Day (a wonderful break from the project)- We had a great dinner at my parent's house.

Smithers doesn't understand why we're not out snowshoeing.
He showed his dismay by peeing on our dropcloth.

Day 7- Hanging the sheetrock- This was tedious because in some areas we kept the old plaster, in other areas we stripped down to lath and in some areas we went down to the studs. We also had to patch in areas where the plaster was damaged in the walls and ceiling.

Terry got the great new window in and framed in around the new sewer vent pipe.

Having a snack

The dogs are happy to be a part of the project.

2006-11-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Remodel- Day 3 and 4 (Plumbing 101)

Day 3 was devoted to figuring out where and how all the drain and vent pipes would go. DETAILS, DETAILS AND MORE DETAILS. This took a very long time... it also required additional demo. Terry was not very enthusiastic when I got home from work.

We got the main vent pipe up. Terry was very happy to have this done. After a couple trips to Home Depot, we actually had all the parts we needed.

Smithers is all smiles. He's happy to have the vent pipe up too.

The dogs can't wait to have the bathroom done.

Day 4- Oso (the building inspector) is checking out the progress. The sink vent got installed. The holes in the floor and ceiling got patched up. The new window got picked up.

Improvisation- the key to getting things done. (Yes, that is roofing material)

I may not know what I'm doing, but I sure look like I'm getting something accomplished.

Finally- framing begins... Enthusiasm is back...

The old doorway got framed in- the new space is starting to take shape.

2006-11-19T22:24:00.000-08:00

48 Hour Bathroom Demo!!!

Before pic looking through the bathroom door into the bathroom. Note, I got ancy and removed the disease-ridden moldy aluminum window last week. By the way, Michele cautioned that I should tape the glass so it would not break and fall everywhere. Aww, c'mon Michele...don't bog me down in details! .....so, I did not listen to her. And yes, I shattered the glass all over the bathroom floor. Ooops. :) I sustained an injury later from this. But I'll let Michele tell you all about it if she feels so inclined...

This toilet sucks and I can't wait to break it with the sledgehammer!

Michele is rippin' it up! I just know she had a tear of joy in her eye as she got rid of all that turquoise formica.

Michele: 1, Turquoise Formica: 0

Rippin' it up

No need to be serious when you have hokey live knob and tube wiring at the tips of your fingers! We roasted weenies on the wiring for lunch.

Breakin' out the wall behind the tub

No caption needed.

Touche.

If I were a witch, I could just hop on that broom and fly away from all this mess!

Gawd! I should have listened to Mom.

I'm gettin' the better of this drain vent if it kills me!

Is this normal?

I think I do this better than Terry. Where did he go, anyway???

Terry: 2, Sewer Vent Pipe: 1

Stay tuned....

2006-11-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

Snowy Veteran's Day hike at Crystal Mt. Ski Area

The dogs trailblazing ahead.

Me and my boys

Terry burying Smithers in snow

2006-10-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

Our hike to Bullion Basin by Crystal Mt. Ski Area on Oct. 28

When you're remodeling an old house- sometimes you just got to take a break and head out into the mountains.

Taking a water break by a creek (Can you see the bear in the background?)

After a two mile climb through the woods you enter Bullion Basin

Oso is trying to fetch the stick on the ice

Smithers would like a spot of Tea

Oso is very interested in the graham crackers

There's nothing like having green tea in an alpine meadow on a clear Fall day with your best friend!

2006-10-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hiking up at Noble Knob in mid-October

Terry shows Oso how to pick Huckleberries

Terry and our friend Michelle search for more Huckleberries

Smithers comes to eat Huckleberries

Michele and Michelle

Terry and pals: Oso, Maggie, and Smithers

2006-10-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

New photos

2006-10-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

New Roof!!!

The crew from Abel Roofing tore off 86 years of roofing material and installed a new one that should last the next 30 years or so. Next week we'll have brand new gutters to match. I never thought I'd ever get excited over new shingles and gutters! The crew did a fantastic job and the dogs put up with the noise and being cooped up in the house pretty well.

2006-09-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

Harvest from our Summer crops

Anaheim peppers, Yellow Pear Tomatoes and Roma Tomatoes

2006-09-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

Planting our first Fall Crops

This past weekend we planted our first crops in our new vegetable beds. We planted: Green Leaf Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, Kale, Collard Greens, Broccoli, C-C Cucumber (a small Asian variety), Radishes and Parsley. Some of the veggies should be ready to harvest by Thanksgiving and the rest by mid-December.

Terry amended the soil with compost

Michele is checking out the planting instructions...

Making rows...

Time to water the seeds in...

These yellow daisies are taller than me!

These daisies are some of the few plants that we kept from the old garden.

2006-09-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

Landscape photos

Our garden is starting to fill in. It's hard to believe we only started planting 4 or 5 months ago. The plants seem to be holding up well, despite the dogs and a long hot, dry Summer. The main exception would be several Salal, they ended up on a pee path. We lost a few others plants to severe spider mites and possibly neglect (shame on us). Our two Rosa mutabis had aphids pretty bad, but they've thrived despite it.

The best part of the process has been strolling around the garden most evenings with our cups of tea watching the plants grow. We also have enjoyed the nice comments from neighbors who have watched the garden come together. Three hummingbirds have been regular visitors. They especially like the honeysuckle vines, crocosmia and phygelius.

Over labor day weekend, Terry built the new cedar vegetable beds on the south slope. They look incredible. We look forward to growing some crops this Fall.

Front garden bed: Oakleaf Hydrangea, Hydrangea 'Tardiva', Crape Myrtle, Phygelius, Phormium 'Maori Sunrise', Cryptomeria 'Elegans Compacta', Hebe 'Patty's Purple', Carex 'Frosty Curls'

Honeysuckle 'Dropmore Scarlet'

South Border: Miscanthus gracillimus, Sambuscus 'Black Beauty', Phygelius, Verbena bonariensis, Arbutus unedo, Coreopsis 'Creme Brulee', Gaura, Calluna 'Firefly'

Verbena bonariensis, Miscanthus gracilimus, Coreopsis 'Creme Brulee'

Our new Vegetable Beds

Our wire fence (the dogs love people watching!)
Salvia greggii, Erigeron karvinskianus, Honeysuckle

Pennisetum 'Hameln', Hebe 'Midsummer Beauty', Euphorbia 'Despina'

2006-08-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

Garage Project- August 2006

The garage is in the process of getting an updated look. Our goal is to tranform it into a landscape feature- possibly a garden shed/cottage.

What the garage looked like in 2004.

Volunteers!

Who is that in the window?

Patching holes

Painting.

Another volunteer!

The doors are in!

Burning the scraps!

Almost done.

2006-07-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

Florabundance!

Over the past few months we've been collecting plants... watering them... putting them in the ground... watering them... moving them around... watering them... trying to protect them from the dogs... watering them.

Here's a few pics

2006-05-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

Terry and Michele's Landscaping Marathon (April 1-9, 2006)

March was spent planning for our highly-anticipated yard demo. We did some preliminary work. Terry tore down the shed that was attached to the garage. We cut up the concrete sidewalk along the south side of the house into 2'x2' stepping stones.

The first week of April was our big project. The challenge was to demo the site, prep the soil, install the sod, and get the fence back up in a week by ourselves and on a tight budget. (It involved a 20 yard dumpster, 15 yards of Tagro compost, 5 yards of topsoil, 30 yards of bark, 10 yards of gravel, 32 fence posts, 30+ bags of concrete, 1100 sq. ft. of sod, a backhoe/front end loader, a bob cat, a hydraulic rototiller, 3 large pizzas, teriyaki, a large pot of spagetti, and lots of sweat and coffee.) A big thank you to my parents for babysittings the dogs. We met most of our goals. Since then we've been plant shopping and building a sturdier fence section by section. We have a ways to go to finish the landscaping off, but the change has been dramatic so far. Here's a few of photos. We'll post more as we get plants put in.

Before

Before (June 2005)

Before

Before (June 2004)- what it looked like when Terry moved in

Starting to Demo

South side yard before- 2ft wide concrete sidewalk

Cut concrete sidewalk into square pavers

During- graded soil after tilling

Laid out pavers

After Sod intall

Terry showing the dogs our handywork

Lots of bark!

Demo of back yard- I finally get to run the backhoe

Shed Before

During

Dogs trying to help me with the weed cloth

Flinging Gravel

Back Before (bare dirt- thanks to dogs)

After

The dogs love the new grass!

2006-01-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! December was a pretty exciting month. Our early Christmas gift to ourselves was a new furnace boiler. After spending a week in a cold house, it was wonderful having heat again. We spent the month focusing on the living room. We were hoping to complete it by Christmas, but it didn't quite happen. We were off to a great start, but then we had trouble with the ceiling paint. We ended up having to do about 6 coats of paint to get it to look even. After that we got the crown molding installed pretty quickly and then got to work on designing the fireplace mantel.

We wanted an old brick look for the hearth and a painted wood surround for the mantel. After a couple of unsuccessful trips to Mutual Materials we finally managed to get there when they were open for business. We needed thin bricks to use as a veneer over the existing painted bricks. They didn't sell bricks that thin, so we bought "Newcastle used" bricks to cut and make our own 1/3" thick tiles. We also bought the mortar and a sheet of metal lath.

We rented a brick saw and had a "great" time cutting both sides off of sixty bricks in the cold and rain. This took much longer than expected and was very messy. We tried drilling the metal lath to the existing bricks using our normal drill and realized that it wouldn't quite cut the mustard. So we got to buy a new tool, a hammerdrill. It worked fabulous. After the lath was attached and a bunch of bricks were cut we laid out our pattern and marked which additional cuts needed to be made. Once we were ready, Terry got the mortar mixed and we started to slather it onto the lath. We started pressing on the bricks. We discovered that the mortar was drying faster than we expected and it was difficult to get the bricks to stay in place. Our spacing ended up being a bit irregular. Good thing we were going for the "rustic" look anyway. After all the bricks were placed we cleaned off the excess mortar. We got this far before Christmas.
Christmas Eve was spent with my family and Christmas day was spent at the dog park. The pups were really happy. Oso swam in the river, but Smithers must have thought the water was too cold because he took one dip and that was it.

The day after Christmas we went to work on the wood surround. We got all the wood up and tried out a couple different patterns for the trim work. We kept it simple to match the trim in the dining room. After this we left to enjoy a few days on the Oregon Coast. It was very stormy. We toured the Sea Lion Caves which was a bizarre experience. We took an elevator down a couple hundred feet to the bottom of a cliff to see hundreds of sea lions barking in a dark, smelly, and loud cave. The powerful ocean waves crashed in and groups of sea lions bobbed and barked in the swirling current. The creatures weren't as cute as the stuffed animals in the gift shop. It just didn't seem right that we could have that kind of access to their home.

To celebrate the New Year we spent the first week of January painting the mantel, putting the finishing coats on the trim, putting the tools away and cleaning up the mess. Finally, we can enjoy our living and dining room. At least until we get to refinishing the windows this summer and make a big mess again. This month I get to take a break from the dirty stuff and shop for some new furniture. Yay!!!

2005-12-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

BRRRRR.....

Another joy of home ownership... the furnace has gone out on the first snow day of the winter. Terry woke up to a chilly house. The furnace guy came out this afternoon. Apparently, the furnace hadn't been properly maintained. The burners are rusty and the exhaust for the boiler is plugged up. The carbon monoxide exhaust was being spewed into the basement. Thank God the basement was drafty enough to let it escape. We could have all died. Also, the furnace didn't have the proper backflow preventer valve to keep the water from the boiler from backing up into our drinking water. So, the furnace guy is working on an estimate for the installation of what Terry calls "anti-savings account devices", a.k.a, new burners, a backflow preventer valve, a water temperature control valve, a water level control valve, and a good cleaning of the whole system. Good thing we chopped all that firewood last Fall. Terry insisted we have a firewood savings account which we now are using. Hopefully we'll be able to get the furnace fixed soon.

2005-11-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

We started working on the Living Room about two weeks ago. We decided to frame in the doorway to the front bedroom to make more wall space in both rooms. (The bedroom has a second door into the hallway. Terry managed to get the doorway sheetrocked and mudded in one weekend as I started working on sanding and patching the trim and walls.
By last weekend we were ready to put up the sheetrock on the ceiling. It was so easy this time because we rented a lift. Terry was able to do most of it himself in about 3 hours. In contrast, the dining room took the both of us about 12 hours. We've learned once again how important it is to have the right tool for the job. We were amazed at how easy it was with the lift. We had actually considered hiring someone to do the ceiling for us because the experience had been so bad in the dining room. Now we're much better at it and will likely do the rest of the ceilings in the house.

We chose a paint called Dry Sea Grass from Behr. The room glows now.

The day before Thanksgiving Terry had knee surgery, so that put things on hold for a little bit. He had a torn and split meniscus likely from softball this past June. He spent Turkey Day drugged up in front of the TV. He was a very good patient and only woke me up twice in the middle of the night to fix him a snack so he could take some more pills. He was doing much better on Friday.

2005-11-23T22:20:00.000-08:00

September and October were devoted to finishing The Dining Room. After a frustrating start in April we were finally back at it. We debated colors and we initially tried out a brown color with off-white trim. After living with the test colors all summer, we settled on a vintage blue with off-white trim. Terry also decided to replace the old picture hanging molding with crown molding. It was the icing on the cake. As you can see in the photos we still haven't finished the windows or the doors yet. Also, we've kept the old ceiling fan for now. It's wonderful seeing the old sea of turquoise going away.

2005-11-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our blog. We'll be writing about the highs and lows of remodeling our first home.
I'll start with a overview of the past year and a half.

June 2004- Terry decided to jump into the real estate market and buy a fixer upper. We reluctantly started looking outside of Seattle knowing that Seattle was way out of our price range. We wanted an old neighborhood experience like our beloved Wallingford and Fremont with its Craftman homes and paved sidewalks. I wanted space for a garden. Terry wanted a yard, a garage, a fireplace and a manageable commute. We discovered the beautiful neighborhoods of North Tacoma. With the advent of the Sounder Commuter Train to Seattle, we found that Tacoma had everything we were looking for.

Terry's patient and good-humored real-estate agent, Ryan, found a perfect fixer-upper opportunity. A 1920 Craftsman kit home. It was a dark drizzly evening in June and we raced down to Tacoma to see it. It was creepy, dirty, smelled of old dust, had 1950's paint inside, and had most of its windows painted shut. It was still filled with the former owners' things. They had apparantly been from the generation that never threw anything away. There was scrap wood and old fishing stuff piled up everywhere in the yard. Terry immediately thought "cool free kindling for the fireplace." I liked the corner lot that had great Southern and Western Exposure. I saw that a Wisteria vine was trained onto the front porch and thought it was a good omen (a gardener had lived here.) We recognized the charming craftsman features and its potential for restoration. Terry made an offer. In mid-July he became the proud owner of his first house. He got the keys and immediately ripped out the nasty old carpet to expose the old fir floors.

The first 6 weekends were spent making the house ready to move into. This involved removing the caulked on storm windows(according to the neighbor- they had been on for more than 30 years!!!), learning to replace copper pipes (the shower hardly had any hot water due to corrosion in the pipes), pulling carpet tack strips out of the wood floor, setting up appliances, washing down all the surfaces, painting the bedroom and bathroom, and getting the fireplace fixed.

Terry moved into the house in late August and life was never the same. No longer did we have free weekends to go play in the mountains or run around town, suddenly all our weekends were devoted to giving this old house a new life.

The paint in the house was absolutely awful. The living room, dining room, and hallway were all turquoise. This included the trim, radiators, doors, and windows. The kitchen and breakfast nook were all bright yellow including cabinetry and ceilings. One bedroom was all blue and the other was all pink (with pink curtains also). It was hideous and the old paint smelled like 50 years of dust and dander. We gradually got the bedrooms, nook, and kitchen cabinets painted.

Fall 2004- our first load of firewood (my first experience chopping and stacking), tearing down a old rickety shed extension, trapping a squirrel in the attic, laying black plastic over a bank of Hypericum (a hard to exterminate groundcover), re-painting the bedroom (Terry didn't like my choice of color), many trips to Lowes, and countless hours dreaming up ideas.

Winter 2004/2005- We got a break from the house by going to Alabama for Christmas. It was a wonderful trip- I got to meet Terry's family and we got to see the Gulf Coast and New Orleans before Katrina. After our return we started browsing the Humane Society for a dog. Terry has wanted a dog ever since he left home for college. He finally had a home and a yard. We put up a fence in the back yard in anticipation. Mid- January 2005 he met "Oso" and instantly knew he would be a good dog. He called me and we ran down that afternoon after work to pick him up. It was so exciting to load him up and bring him home (on the way we had to stop at PetSmart and buy a ton of stuff, of course). We let him scope out the house and he immediately thought the couch was his (big no no).

Suddenly the house was not such a high priority- now there was a special 4 year old in our life. I spent more time down in Tacoma to be with him (and withTerry too). Terry found Oso to be quite needy and we thought it would be good to get another dog to be his buddy. In the Spring, we took a trip to Las Vegas and after we returned we started visiting the humane society again. We wanted a medium sized dog and found a 7 month old Rotty/Lab mix. He ended up being a large dog too. So, the Spring months were spent tearing down an old fence and extending the dog fence, removing the black plastic over the Hypericum (rats were living under it), removing our compost pile and bird feeders (rats and mice were feasting), and enjoying the dogs (dogs parks and hikes).

Late April and May 2005 were spent trying to prepare for Terry's parents to visit in June. We started sheetrocking the ceiling of the dining room. That was a pain and was a real test. (We didn't know we should have rented a drywall lift.) By the end of the day I wanted to kill him. Progress was really slow and we realized that the dining room would not get finished for the visit. We needed to get the guest bedroom furnished and the house cleaned. We also needed a higher fence and a larger area for the dogs to run.

During this time Oso also fell ill. He stopped eating and drinking and was getting weaker. He had always been a bit lethargic, but we thought it was from a lack of exercise with his previous family. He was put into the Pet ER. After a few days and many tests we found that he had Addison's Disease. He was put on the correct meds and was better than ever. His illness put life into perspective. We decided not to kill ourselves over the house. We bought him fancy food. For a couple months we fed him the raw food diet. Terry would saute ground buffalo meat to add to his high protein kibble. I put in my notice at my job that May. I knew that I was ready to move into the house and also my brother/roomate was moving out into his first house in June also. I spent June preparing for the move and we also got some of the fence posts dug in. Terry also got his first lawnmower. The weeds were a foot high and going to seed.

Terry's parents came in late June and we had a great time showing them around. They had lots of wise advice for us and even helped Terry put up a the larger dog fence. They also were here to help us harvest our Blackberries.
The Summer went by very quickly. We abandoned the dining room project to take advantage of the nice weather to tackle cleaning out the shed and painting the exterior. The shed project was pretty gross. Racoons had been using it for their bathroom for years. A lot of the kindling was encrusted in coon crap. We had to dispose of two-thirds of it.

The exterior painting project was quite the marathon. We spent many weeks (most of July and early August) preparing for it. There was so much scrapping and sanding to do. I experimented with paint strippers (very messy). We replaced a couple sections of broken shakes. In August, the weather was starting to change and the big push happened. We got the paint and spent a very long day priming and painting the house. The day started with the rented sprayer malfunctioning and shooting paint about 20 feet across the backyard; splattering the dogs and the picnic table (The dogs were spotted for a couple weeks until we cut out the paint). We had to run back to the store and get another one. (Nothing ever goes smoothly- despite our best intentions.) We spent the next several days working on the trim painting. It was a huge relief to get it done. We kept going across the street to enjoy it.

We did take some time to relax during the Summer, we went camping with the dogs near Leavenworth- they loved it as much as we did. They really liked sleeping in the tent with us. Also, in late August my brother got married.

In September, I cleaned up the front beds and finally got to put some of my plants in the ground. We also got back to working on the dining room. My next entry will pick it up there.