Little Things

It's so hard to put everything that's going on at the homestead into one post. It's just so nutso around here with all the projects going on and being planned.

Yesterday, Ted sanded and painted the steps leading to the attic a nice brown. We used Behr floor paint. It's looking like it's ready for a second coat and I'll probably do that today when Evelyn goes over to her friends house. The only things left for the attic are new wall to wall carpeting and insulating behind the walls. Ted will be a happy boy and get his music studio back up and running!

I focused on little things. Like screwing a clamp onto the dryer vent (where it meets the dryer). It kept coming loose and heating up the basement....which was nice....but not right. I also continued my mission of reinstalling coat hooks along the coat racks which are above the basement steps. They appeared to be slapped up at random, and I figured if I actually measured and calculated, we could probably use the space more efficiently. And then my sister Alison and her friend Jenn popped by for a quick visit. It was fun showing them the updated version of the homestead. Alison and Frank are probably the only folks aside from us who "really" saw this house at it's worst and it's so nice to hear them saying nicer things!!

Today my mission focuses on paperwork for my job, painting the second coat on the steps, and dealing with the dreaded crawl space (but only after the temperature rises above 40 degrees). And maybe giving the trash picked bookcases a blasting with the power sander in preparation for painting.

Little things do add up....maybe someday into a great house! For now, though, it remains a mess. Sigh...

Freezing Cold Bathroom

We were pretty excited to buy a house with two full bathrooms. Except both have their flaws.

The upstairs bathroom is VERY pink. So pink that I screamed loudly the first few days we lived here. Pink and blue floor tile. Pink tile on the wall with blue tile border. Pink tub, toilet, and sink. Pink vanity. There's even pink wallboard behind the pink and blue flower wallpaper. The positive of this bathroom is it's one of the warmest rooms in the house and becomes like a mightly steam room when the shower is cranked up nice and hot!

The downstairs bathroom also features pink walls, but has white fixtures. This bathroom is often referred to as the "Freezing Cold Bathroom" because it's built over a very poorly insulated crawl space. I put a thermometer in the freezing cold bathroom the other day and it tends to stay between 40-50 degrees. Thank goodness the water pipes that run through the crawl space appear insulated.

So, while I'd love to renovate the upstairs bathroom, it's clear that we need to address properly insulating the crawl space under the downstairs bathroom first. While there are contractors out there who will do this, they're all backed up this time of year and we're still waiting for two quotes to arrive in the mail. Sounds like it's time to DIY!! On the next warm day (possibly tommorow), I plan on getting under there armed with cans of spray foam insulation to zap the gaps under the bathroom. I'll also measure the space between the joists and try to figure out how much insulation would be required to tighten up the space. Gotta start somewhere....and we can't be waiting around for contractors when we're freezing!

Frank Rules!

This has been a busy week. Ted and I have been working like mad, and Evelyn has been resuming a more active homeschooled life. But the best part of it is that Frank is back!! Frank is not only a great friend, but an awesome home repairman. Since my last post, all wallpaper in our future bedroom has been painted over. And with amazing results. When I researched painting wallpaper, I had decided that it would be too complicated...and I worried about bubbling. But Frank's confidence put me at ease! So, we are not going to live with the wallpaper after all. We will soon be living with a nice beige color!

I can't wait to move our bedroom upstairs! No more pink bedroom!

Painting, Wallpaper, Good news, Bad news

Fixng up a bomb of a house is always a mixed bag isn't it?

First the good.....

My sister Alison is an expert painter. I called her on Friday night for advice on how to paint baseboards. She went through the whole process (sand, clean, 2 coats of Kilz primer, 1 coat of semigloss). I cracked up when Alison accurately identified herself as a "fussy ass painter"! Oh, how I aspire to acheive such greatness! Thanks Alison! Ted did the sanding/cleaning and we both layed down masking paper on the floor and masking tape around the trim. I did the 2 coats of Kilz yesterday and today will do the coat of white latex.

We're so close to having two of the upstairs rooms done. In our future bedroom, we're painting the baseboards and closet trim, and installing new pine quarter round. We bought the quarter round primed and we'll paint it white, which is the color of the baseboards. We're not going to mess with the walls for now as we suspect that they'll require a fair bit of plaster work. I can live with the Japanese style floral pattern. It's harder to live with the wallpaper in the closet as it's much older and getting pretty nasty. But, once the closet is filled up with clothes, will we really care?

Bedroom Wallpaper



Closet Wallpaper



In the room that will become the den/library, it's pretty much the same deal. We think we'll just clean up the baseboards and install stained pine quarter round. This room features one wall of panelling which we'll paint, and three walls of wallpaper in a shiny floral pattern.

Den/Library Wallpaper



The bad news is the plumbing. When we first moved in, our kitchen sink backed up and the garbage disposal died. Our wonderful handyman Frank took care of it. He wound up fixing the grade of some ot he pipes as he noticed they were travelling uphill at one point. He also removed the backflow preventer from the juncture of the washing machine drain which both he and the washing machine installer indicated to be the wrong size. Which brings us to our current problems. Our drain is clogged somewhere in the basement and kitchen waste is coming out of the washing machine drain. It happened last week and it was like cleaning up vomit (Ted had cleaned out the fridge the night before). But then the drain started working again and we kept a good eye on it. Fast forward to last night. I was enjoying some late night TV when Ted informed me we had water in the basement. Same deal, only the water is much cleaner this week. But, it will not drain. Draino didn't help. Our little drain snake didn't help. The plumber is coming this afternoon. Argh.

Habitat for Humanity Re-Store

Well, today worked out a little differently than I initially envisioned. Instead of trekking to the architectural salvage place in Port Richmond, we instead took a road trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Cinnaminson, NJ. I figured it was the more appropriate place to visit as we need some painting supplies to takcle the upstairs baseboards and trim.

What an awesome place! I was really surprised at how much inventory they had available, and how reasonable the prices were. I bought 4 packages of sandpaper for $1 each, and earplugs for .10 a pair. They had LOTS of paint, but it was too much sorting for my poor brain to handle. Also, didn't find brushes or paint trays. I's guess that this place is just as "hit or miss" as the thrift shop. Excellent furniture section with very reasonable prices. I was also impressed that interior and exterior doors were $20 each. So much stuff! We will definitely start frequenting this place more often!

Hey, and they accept donations as well! Now I know where to take my trash picked extras!

http://www.habitatbcnj.org/restore.html

It looks like there are ReStores all over the country to meet the needs of all you budget minded rehabbers!

Before and After Photos: Floors

Pine Floors Before



Same Room Floors After

Thump Thump Thump

My heart is thumping with excitement over our plans to visit these two places on Friday.

The Re-Store is an architectural salvage place in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia. I was there once, about two years ago, drooled at all the stuff their awesome warehouse! Now that we actually have an older home that needs old doors, it's time to begin the search!

http://www.re-store-online.com/

Found the Green Depot on the net when I was researching denim insulation. It turns out that they carry it via their Philadelphia showroom. Definitely worth a trip.

http://www.greendepot.com/contact/philadelphia_pennsylvania

Our Chopped Up American Foursquare

Here's how our homestead looked originally. Wow, a classic American Foursquare with a lovely wrap around porch....sigh. Many of the neighboring Foursquares still have their original features, though many have additions to the rear kitchen. The documentation we have says the house was built in 1940. It was previously owned for 51 years by the family we purchased it from. And before that for 16 years by another family.

The current version of our home falls into the "Classic Expanded, Chopped up, Pasted over Foursquare" category. The former owners fully enclosed the wrap around porch to create an expanded living room, office/kitchen, and bathroom. The original living room became a bedroom. All of this was rented out as a small 1 br apartment. It appears that what is now an office was used as a kitchen. The only evidence of this that remains is the old kitchen vent fan on the exterior wall of the office. Like most foursquares in town, we have rear kitchen addition. The 2nd floor still retains its original layout. The attic has been finished off.



While the whole wrap around porch action is pretty appealing and charming, I'll settle for the expanded spaces and chopped up layout. Even though all expanded spaces need a combination of insulation under their crawl spaces and cellulose blown into the walls. It's on the projects list. Brrrrrrr, drafty old house!!

I've been researching American Foursquares on the internet, but have not been able to locate plans for our house. Perhaps a trip to the town library may yield more information as to which companies were shipping houses via train cars to town.

SURPRISE!!

Please excuse the mess on the bed! This is our temporary bedroom on the first floor and until today it featured an awful grayish carpet with completely disintegrated green padding underneath. Sigh....it still has pink walls....

I came home from work around 6pm and completely freaked out when I walked into the room. It felt like being on that DIY show "While You Were Out". Thank you my dear husband for pulling up the carpet and padding and turning our blah bedroom into this raving beauty! The floor guys think these are walnut.

Only two more rooms with carpeting to go!

Free Home Furnishings!

Yes, the trash picking is amazing here. It seems every night is trash night, cause not only do different parts of our town have a different night, but the surrounding towns are on different pick up schedules as well. Sigh....I'm in h--e--a--v--e--n!

The past two nights have been the best. Drum roll please........ I found a 5 drawer dresser, small 3 drawer chest, small wooden chair, a set of 4 wooden fold up chairs with comfy seats, round beveled wall mirror, a matching coffee table/end table set (super solid wood), a painting, and a 24" bar stool. And don't even get me started rattling off the list of stuff from the past month! Hysterical. I feel like I just went on a spending spree at the thrift shop!

I'm careful about what I take. Mostly things that we can use around the house or pass on to others. Everything gets the smell test first and I'm leery about moldy basement smell. Then I examine the object to see if it's worth taking. Some things just need little repairs or painting, but mostly of what I rescue just needs a good cleaning.

While I feel really lucky to have found these things, I can't help but feel a little angst that such perfectly functional stuff just gets thrown out with the trash. With great sites/groups like freecycle, craigslist, and the local thrift shops, useful things should not be going to landfills. So if your reading this and contemplating what to do with the junk you want to quickly get rid of -- please try to offer it to friends, freecycle, local thrift shops, or the free section of craigslist first! Or even just post a curb alert so folks know to come and get it before the trash man!

But, we scored big time and I'm very pleased. When we moved, we decided that we would furnish our house via Craigslist finds. Sorry Craig.....but local trash nights are the way for us!

Floor Progress

What else have we been doing you dare ask? Dealing with the plague that is old, dirty wall to wall carpeting! Hardwood here we come!

Prepping the floors for refinishing has been a month long project. We started ripping up the 2nd and 3rd floor carpets (including stairs and landings) before Christmas and we're in the final stretch! Ted has done the majority of it on the weekends and I've been pitching in when not at work. The steps going up to the 2nd floor are oak treads with chestnut risers, the 2nd floor hallway is a lovely hardwood floor (I think the floor guy said walnut) with an inlaid border installed above pine subflooring. And alas, the bedrooms are just the pine subflooring. but in great shape and they’ll look great once their refinished and stained.

Bless my husband for rip-roaring abilities. He started with the red carpet in the attic, which had padding under it that had disintegrated into an awful black powder. Here's to wearing a respirator! From there we went room by room and ripped, hammered, scraped, and pried out layers of carpet, linoleum, and adhesive. Absolutely disgusting. Oh, but we also found some treasure under the linoleum in what will become the master bedroom. A bunch of newspaper from 1954! What a fun, fun treasure!

We finally got the floors to the state that you see in this picture. Now we're fixing loose floorboards and squeaky floors in preparation for floor refinishing, which should happen within the next two weeks. In the picture, Ted is tightening up loose and squeaky floorboards with finishing nails.



Unlike the roof, floor finishing does not have to be budget breaker. We're doing the prep work ourselves because we don't want to pay a professional to do something we're capable of. And according to the floor guy who came out for the refinishing estimate, we'll be saving quite a bit!

Love Our New Roof

When the home inspector told us the roof was in need of replacement, we contacted Sebastian Builders. Not only did they have a great website, but they were recommended by a local homeschooling mom.

http://www.sebastianbuilders.com/

The information that Sebastian provided on the day of the estimate was hard to stomach. Because there were two layers of old, crumbling asphalt shingles on top of wood shakes; the majority of the roof had to ripped down to the rafters. The biggest issue was the old wood shakes, which are a fire hazard and not up to current building codes (basically, we had no choice). To make matters worse, home homeowners insurance agencies were going to require that we replace the roof within 1 month of closing. And still worse, we had to budget twice as much as originally expected for the roof replacement. Ouch. Fortunately, we were able to negotiate with the seller who provided some monies toward the roof replacement at settlement. We were also able to tweak the amount of our down payment to make sure the roofing could be done immediately.

But, no. It did not happen immediately. We were originally hoping to have it done sometime in the 1st half of December, but the weather would not cooperate. Stephanie from Sebastian kept in good contact and apologized for the delays. What we needed were at least two days with a zero percent chance of precipitation and some warmer days after that for the roof to cure. Finally, we got our window of opportunity on January 4th and 5th.

They rolled up at 7:15am on January 4th with a large crew of guys. They quickly staked out the house, put tarps all around the perimeter of the house and began ripping off the roof. They told us we could be here during the process, and let me tell you it was WILD. The house vibrated, debris cascading off the roof like a waterfall. After the majority of the upper roof was ripped off, I ventured outside, through the war zone to take some pictures.



After almost two full days, it’s almost all done. They'll be back tomorrow morning to put the gutters and downspouts on. We are very pleased and commend Sebastian Builders for their superior work. They were the more expensive of the two estimates we had, but definitely the better company. When we were faced with the two estimates, with Sebastian coming in at almost $5000 more than the unknown company that wasn't even including gutters and downspouts, I asked myself a very important question, which was "What would Norm do"? Norm is my very wonderful father in law.....and when I asked myself that question it was clear that Sebastian Builders were our people. I broke the news to Ted and he agreed.

A gentle reminder to folks in the fixer upper boat. When you have to get major structural repairs done, go with the best, most reputable company. Even if it blows 50% of your renovation budget. Even if you have to stretch more than you thought possible. You'll be glad you did!

Roofing Picture

Here's a nifty picture looking out of the attic. This was taken after they pulled off two layers of shingles and the layer of wood shakes underneath that. They've since decked most of the roof with plywood and it's c-c-c-cold tonight. Lots of cold air blowing into the house. Thank goodness for space heaters and layers of blankets!

A New Start

First, thanks to the Live and Learn tribe for talking me through getting this blog up and running! What seemed so daunting and confusing was easy thanks to the almighty power of google.

In the past handful of months, our life has turned upside down. We sold our home in Philadelphia and bought our "new" home in Collingswood, NJ. I'm constantly amazed how happy we are here.

I lied, the house is not new. It's an expanded American Foursquare built in 1940 and is a long term work in progress. We moved in on November 15th and to date the following repairs/upgrades have been completed:

-- replaced the garbage disposal
-- had some basement plumbing fixed
-- knot and tube wiring removed/upgraded
-- rebuilt chimney
-- electrical outlet installed in the bathroom
-- light/vent fan installed in the bathroom
-- 7 other new light fixtures (including ceiling fans) throughout the house
-- ripped up the carpets on the 2nd and 3rd floors
-- preparing harwood floors for refinishing
-- caulking around interior windows
-- Installed insulation blankets on the hot water heaters
-- New roof

Also on the list as we quickly burn through our rehab budget:

-- Repair and tighten up the hardwood floors
-- Have the 2nd floor, 3rd floor harwood floor and stairs refinished.
-- Carpet the attic.
-- Eradicate as much pink from the house
-- Paint, paint, paint
-- Have the house insulated in every way possible.
-- Remove the current hot water heaters, which are at the end of their useful lives, and replace them with one larger gas hot water heater. We're also researching tankless and solar hot water, but are unsure if our budget will be able to handle these.
-- Reparge the basement
-- Replace the sewer line

And so on. We have a long way to go. Time for an ice cold beer.