It's the little stuff that makes a difference

The plants I transplanted from my old house all have new green or flowers - looks like we didn't lose anything!

The new stereo (ok, "home theater system") is connected and working and sounds wonderful! We had a dance party to celebrate -- cranked up some Willie Colon, "The Big Break", and danced salsa with Chas; hey it beats just randomly carrying her around in an attept to comfort her in her combined cold and teething misery. And as soon as Von and Chanel get home from the store, we're going to watch Shrek with full home theater sound. What I really need to do now is get some better speaker wire, get the optional wireless module for the rear speakers (hey, just another $150, tain't nuthin'), and get the speakers mounted on the walls. I'm guessing that will be a summer project and they'll just stay stuck in their less than optimal locations for now. Bottom line is that I have the sound I wanted, it fit my budget, I have a 3" high unit in my cabinet instead of a combined 18" or so for tuner/cd/dvd, and I'm happy with it.

Speaking of teething, cranky babies with colds, another little good thing is that this one fell asleep seriously slumped over in her high chair as I was preparing her crib so that I could take her out and try to get her to lie down, since she was clearly WAAAAY overtired. And there was just no way I was going to move her which would have mean instant wake-up-and-wail (which sounds something similar to "jump, jive and wail" being played by an elementary school band, but with less of a beat to it), so I just ever so carefully propped her up. Even her nose is staying unwiped until she's gotten a bit of sleep, which she seriously needs (so do I but she's going home tonight so we'll get ours then).



What you can't tell from the pic is that for some reason she keeps wiggling her fingers like she's playing the piano. Cute.

It's finally starting

I talked to HVAC Guy who answered the rest of my questions. I talked to Electrician Guy who is going to make room in the panel for the HVAC (not hard considering the 10 breakers currently dedicated to baseboard electric heaters and the 6 breakers dedicated to plugs for window AC units) and run the wire to the new systems. We're all going to meet here next Tuesday to walk through what needs to be done and so that they can talk about coordinating what they each need to do. I'll have a deposit check for HVAC guy, and he'll have a starting date for me, "Very soon" he said, since he wants to have this done before the vacation season starts since he is apparently very popular among the weekenders with big fancy houses who all have him scheduled up to a year in advance to come in and do annual maintenance on their systems, put in a new one if it needs it, etc. He said he no longer can do any new installations during the spring and summer, his business has gotten so busy just with basic high-end-summer-house maintenance. He said it will likely take two weeks for them to do the work on my house, which puts the cost in perspective.

Oh! Speaking of cost!! I need to see who won the "guess the cost" contest and post the winner and decide on possible prizes!

He also warned me that "with old houses, you have to understand that sometimes you don't know exactly what you're going to find or what's going to happen until you get into it." I had to chuckle. Except for 6 years with a "retro" (60's) house, which had its own quirks, that's for sure, I've only owned old houses, so this I know.

Of course, with our luck we'll have a totally unseasonable cold snap sometime between when they disconnect all the baseboard heat and get the new system in place. Hell, watch it snow. HA!
I had thought that we could wait and take out the baseboard panels at our leisure but most of the vents are going where panels are installed -- floor or base of the wall, under a window. I told Electrician Guy that we'll take out the actual units, if he can just disconnect them completely from the panels and mark the wire (I'm not going to bother pulling it out), then we can take out the units, mark and hide the wires on that end, and save us a few bucks. I thought for a while about doing some of the other electric - I'm perfectly capable of freeing up space in the box, disconnecting the heater wires, moving the AC plugs to the same circuit for the rest of the plugs in that room, etc. But he can do it easier and faster and hey as long as we're spending this much money, whats a few hundred more, right?!? ::gasppantwheeze:: I did talk him into giving me a small discount for paying by check, equivalent to the fee he'd pay if I used credit card. Hey, it will pay for the electrician.

And a quick note on something totally unrelated, I just got a very special email and I'm dancing on the ceiling with excitement that a very dear friend who I hadn't heard from (or contacted, to be fair) in a couple of years will be in the mid-Atlantic area soon, and will hopefully be coming to visit me for a few days. This is good incentive to finally get all the windows cleaned, since she usually assigns herself that task if she visits and I want to just relax and play and catch up! Oh, this makes me a very happy girl.

An Accidental Bird Bath for all the Cool Birds In Town

We started yesterday to set up a system to pipe the water from our sump pump even further away from the house (contractor only took it to the foundation wall at our request). We plan on burying and sloping the first pipe which goes out about 10', then connecting that to a slitted pipe which will be buried on top of a 12" trench of gravel, to distribute the water over a larger area.

I had a brainfart and only bought one pipe yesterday so we just have it going out from the foundation on top of the ground and ending in a stand of trees and brush and dumping the water off at the surface. I was going to get the second one and complete the project tomorrow.

But in just one day, the water coming out there has apparently become the place to see and be seen for the neighborhood birds, as a little bathing and drinking pool!! There were at least seven types of birds there in just the five minutes I was watching. If they weren't so easily startled, I'd take a pic; I'll wait until I have the time to be really really still for a long while.

Part of me is really tempted to not bother burying this drain pipe or putting in the slitted pipe, and instead just put up some feeders in the area and keep it as a surface pool. I don't think the water could get stagnant enough to be a mosquito breeding ground, because it would drain into the ground too quickly... could it?

Edited to add: Right now there is a HUGE robin with very vivid coloring (extra-long bright yellow beak and very vivid red breast, both of which I'm sure makes him very popular with the ladies) who has claimed the mini-pond as HIS, and is very aggressively chasing the other birds away if they try to come close. I guess spring has his testosterone pumped up a little high and turned him into a bird version of a macho jerk!!

Would an on-the-cheap kitchen upgrade be worth it?

Many of you have heard me complain about my kitchen before -- too tiny, sawdust-backed cabinets (Lowes' unfinished el-cheapest), no room to put in a dishwasher. I feel better now that we at least have nicer lighting and decent hardware on there, but the functional issues still bug me and I still dream of something dramatically different to make it much more comfortable to use -- different floorplans, etc. However, major kitchen renos just don't happen in the same decade or so as major HVAC installs, so I'm looking at my options.

I'm looking for honest opinions as to whether this idea - adding even more cheapo-junko cabinets - is a wise investment of time & money. Here's the deal.

First, backstory: One of the things that drives me crazy is that the pantry closet is around the corner in the dining room, because they had to leave a blank wall in the kichen for an electric baseboard heater.

The side wall from the kitchen currently looks like this:



It's the wall where the phone is hanging, and basically we can't put anything there that's functional. Plus the way the pantry is laid out, it's less functional than I'd like - I'm putting in more shelves to help improve that, but it's still not the greatest. That wall is also the left side wall of the pantry - not shown in this pic but shown in the diagram below, the doors to the pantry are just to the right of where you see the fire extinguisher in this pic.

(and fyi - this was a pic from when we were looking at the house, so it shows the original lighting and hardware. And no, Von's shoes aren't nuclear powered, they were just highly reflective with the camera flash!!)

So here's my idea and I want to know if it's quite foolish or quite sensible, or if you have an even better idea.

To the right of the small cabinet that's already to the right of the stove, I would install a matching (i.e. cheapo unfinished oak front, sawdust back) 18" wide tall pantry cupboard. It would go where the red block is in this diagram, opening into the kitchen:



I already know from having a tall pantry cupboard that size in my previous house that it's the perfect size for keeping the number of canned/pantry goods I like to keep on hand. Cabinet runs $180 (I got this idea from seeing last night that they had them at Lowes), I estimate getting some pull-out shelves/drawers in there will run me another $100 and let's add another $100 for misc. stuff to get it installed and finished.

I'd actually just keep the closet as-is, which would make it a strange but still very usable cabinet for lesser used cookware and serving ware. The interior of the closet would actually be L-shaped; the left 2' would be around 14-15" deep -- I'd just slap some plywood on the side of the pantry cabinet and use it as the backing to hang some shelves for pots & pans, etc.. Then 16" on the right side would be 34" deep, and I'd probably just put shelves going all the way back for things like my wok and cupcake pans that I use every couple of years or so.

So... would upgrading a cheap-cabineted kitchen with more cheap sawdust-backed cabinets be foolish? Or is this a potentially sensible under-$500 upgrade that could definitely improve the usability of the little bit of kitchen space that I have? Or am I missing something else that would make more sense for no more or not much more?

And FYI,what I'd REALLY like to do is take a cabinet making class, then basically one at a time replace the cabinets in there with something made of better quality materials and in a simple design I'd like much better. Problem is finding the cabinet making class or someone to teach me... But, that's another $$ dream.

Can you hear me now?

I've decided (rather compulsively, I'll note) to switch from LiveJournal to Blogger for my house blog. My original plan was to migrate over to my own domain and do all kinds of fancy cool things from there, but that requires time and skills, or time plus extra time to learn those skills, and time is just something I don't have in excess at this point. Yet there were some things that I wanted to be able to do that LiveJournal just wasn't allowing, so Blogger was the easy solution.

This is basically just a test post to see if I show up in Houseblogs.net. If I do, please stop in and say hi!

Welcome to my house blog!

Hi! This is Leslie from Georgetown House .

I originally kept my house blog at http://georgetownhouse.livejournal.com, but since the LiveJournal platform gave me far less flexibility than Blogger, I'm migrating my house journal to here.

If you're reading back in this blog to learn more about us, our house, and our "retrovation" journey, you can click here to go to the first post in my old LiveJournal blog, and start at the very beginning - from finding the house listed for sale, through everything we did until now.

Thanks for stopping by!!

2008 To-Do List

Subset of "Long Term To-Do List" with stuff I hope to get done this year.

Big projects for this year:

• Remodel upstairs bathroom: New tub and toilet, tile around tub and walls, put in modified old dresser as sink base, refinish wood floor or put in new floor. Maybe a sun-tube or regular skylight, but that might wait until next year.
• Get dining room floor refinished.
  
• Scrape, paint garage

Smaller projects:

• Finish organizing garage
• Finish organizing 3rd floor
• Scrape, paint porch floor
• Finish and install rainbarrels.
• Better organize garden and yard
• Move a bunch of plants around
  

Completed To-Do List

Here's where I'll move things over from my current to-do list just in case anyone wants to accuse me of never accomplishing anything:

Completed tasks 12/16/07-1/31/08 (most recently completed first):

1. Install exhaust fan/light in upstairs bathroom. Man, what a pain in the ass that was!
   
2. Hack back the privet. I started to do just enough to keep low-hanging branches from smacking us in the face if we had snow or ice, and ending up taking out a lot of aggression on them.
   
3. Get wood flooring from the old house. We got enough for the one area that has none, plus plenty for patches throughout the house!
   
4. Install new kitchen faucet. Von did this 1/6. It looks great!
   
5. Install new pantry shelf. Done 1/5
   
6. Buy new kitchen faucet, shower head, and door-mounted pantry shelf unit, install new shower head, and get Delta to send an extra part since it doesn't fit right. Plus mail more packages.Done 1/3. Yes, another one added after the fact, just so I can have a record of what I've done and when.
7. Get the new shelves put up in the linen closet and organize stuff in there. Done 1/2. WHY do I make the same damn stupid mistakes every single time I install wire shelving?!?
   
8. Mail long overdue package to friend plus books to folks who bought them off ebay/amazon. Done 1/2.
   
9. Install under-cabinet pan and lid organizer. Done 1/1. Took care of at least half of that disaster of a cabinet, now I need something for the other side.
   
10. Complete homework for online class. Done 12/31. I've finished 9 chapters out of 15, and the other 6 will have to wait until I get the specific assignments from the instructor. Microsoft Office totally sucks.
    
11. Go to house that's about to be torn down and take out as much as we could possibly reuse in this house: Doors, trim, wood flooring to patch places in dining room. Well, I got two doors with 9-pane glass windows that I hope to be able to use, and Bill is going over to saw the flooring up for me. Not as much as I'd hoped (someone else had already taken several doors), but at least it was something. The trim was going to be too hard to get off - walls mush behind them so nothing to use for leverage and yet they were still solidly nailed into place.
12. Return library books, mail books, pick up Rx, call 500 daycares, install Office 2007 which totally freakin' sucks, do exercises in first chapter of new Office book, do 4 loads of laundry. Done 12/26. Hey, I had to see stuff done even if it wasn't on the list and isn't house related.
13. Get rid of all the recycling stuff Done 12/23 but I forgot the library books, dammit.
14. Get textbooks listed for sale. Done 12/23. Yes, I add things to my "completed" list that weren't on my "to do" list if they should have been there.
15. Organize the pantry cupboard (it's scary; we have no idea what might be lurking under the layers of plastic grocery bags and reusable TJ's bags. Done 12/22, even with my granddaughter -- on her 19m birthday -- trying very hard to "help."
16. Sharpen all my knives Done 12/22, this one with baby granddaughter safely at home!
17. Go back through the attic, pull out things that can be recycled (boxes for stuff we've had past its warranty, for example), convince V to get rid of some of the crap that we do NOT need to be keeping, and add it to the shelter run pile. Done! 12/16: Boxes broken down and ready for the recycle run, we're getting rid of three of the extra chairs (two dining room, one office) that were stashed in the attic, and I listed a buttload of stuff on freecycle this weekend.
18. Identify two dressers that we can get rid of, and get rid of them (DV shelter again). Actually we ended up finding a use for both of them - one now helps keep my office organized, the other is going to hold extra blankets.
19. Get the 3rd floor better organized once there's room created by disappearing the empty unused dressers. Spent several hours yesterday (12/16) getting the 3rd floor a LOT better organized even with the dressers there. Put shelves in one of the closets to take some of the overflow from the attic. Went through the last of the moving boxes. Listed a bunch of stuff on Freeycycle. Got my sewing room much better organized - I'd call it 90% done, now! Found the parts (with one still missing - can I improvise? we'll see) needed to reassemble the futon couch.
20. Paint the bottom part of the old enamel-topped table and bring it to the dining room with some baskets/bins for mail sorting. Not completed, but we decided not to do this.

Long-Term To-Do List

This is where I plan to list projects that I plan to get to eventually, but that simply aren't on the immediate horizon (aka the Current To-Do List).

I'm going to organize the list by room/area.

Whole House

• Floors refinished
• Baseboards (aka 1x6 stained building lumber) and window/door trim (big-box store's el-cheapest) replaced with something that looks a LOT more period appropriate. Start with 3rd floor to get practice where my screw-ups won't be so noticeable, then 1st floor, then 2nd.
• Plastic fake grain cheapo interior doors replaced with real wood doors, salvaged if possible.
• Honeycomb/cellular shades throughout

Kitchen

• Paint
• Half-curtains out of some cute colorful retro fabric once we know for sure about the paint color
• Tile backsplash behind stove, somehow incorporating two tiles salvaged from my Granny's original kitchen.
• Put extra shelves in cabinets that hold cups and glasses, to optimize those spaces
• Put pull-out organizers in the one big cabinet where all of the pots & pans get dumped.
• Install pantry cupboard that faces into kitchen in place of poorly sized/laid out pantry closet that's around the corner in the dining room; leave reduced-size closet in place as either extra pantry for rarely used pans and such, or maybe a coat closet.
• Figure out a way to install a dishwasher, since my current one constantly forgets to wear glasses that are much-needed in order to see if schmutz is still on dishes.
• Do something with the space to the left of the fridge.

Dining Room

• Get floor repaired then finished
• Fix basement door frame
• Replace ceiling fan with ??

Living Room

• Replace ceiling fan with ??
• New sofas

Office

• Patch walls and PAINT
• Fix drywall seam near old water leak, and paint ceiling.
• Take down ugly wall cabinet
• There has to be a better way to organize this room...

Bathroom - 1st Floor

• Finish paint touch-ups
• New light fixture
• Install Triple-switch to give separate controls for light and exhaust fan (wiring already in place)
• Figure out some way to box in the big pipe in the corner.
• Long term: Replace El Cheapo shower stall with something that looks much nicer, install a window (frosted glass? high transom?) and get rid of that absurd partial wall.

Mudroom

• Find the perfect storage bench for just inside the door.
• Paint
• Find replacement tile for the broken tiles.

Basement

• Clean up old mold
• Replace old insulation with new
• Put a freezer down there

Stairway

• Refinish newel post
• Refinish old railings that were given to us and use to replace current railings (will need new balusters though)
• Panel wainscoting along wall to hide damage done by previous owners.
• Repair damaged steps and refinish.

Bedroom #1

• Paint needs touchups
• Find a way to fix closet door that won't shut because closet it a teensy bit too narrow
• Corner TV cabinet with doors that can be closed so that TV isn't visible at all times, and interior shelves so that DVR and DVD recorder don't need to be bungied on top of the tv to keep them from falling off.

Bedroom #2

• Paint, but only after Granddaughter #1 is over her Pink Phase (but hopefully before she decides to go Goth and wants it black)

Bedroom #3

• Paint, sometime before Granddaughter #2 is old enough to form opinions on paint color

Bathroom - 2nd floor

• Refinish then retrofit old dresser to use as a sink base, then get it installed with new counter, sink and fixture
• New hardware - towel bar(s), tp holder
• New old mirror behind sink
• Recessed medicine cabinet to left of sink
• New lighting
• Move outlets from on wall behind sink to left wall to side of sink, even though the drywalling alone is going to be a royal PITA, just because it's in a horrible spot
• Replace exhaust fan; change to a triple switch if the wiring is in place
• New flooring
• Recessed shelves or tall cabinet to left of toilet
• Long term: new soaking bathtub, install a window

Stairway to 3rd floor

• Install new door (or modify old door) to fire escape landing that allows re-entry from landing, to make that a possible entrance (right now it's an exit-only door with one of the bar handles)

3rd floor bedrooms

• Paint
• Box in ducting

3rd floor in general

• New carpeting
• Build in some access doors to allow storage in knee-walls

Attic

• Insulate
• Pull everything out so that we can put that big ugly rug down as additional insulation on the floor, then put everything back in

House Exterior

• Powerwash siding
• Scrape/repair/repaint porch floor
• Tear out awful stuff on porch ceiling and replace with beadboard
• Get porch roof repaired
• Powerwash the foundation
• Install decorative shutters
• Add an accent color to the porch
• Install wider and more age-appropriate trim around windows
• Run all gutters farther away from house (rainbarrel on east side)
• Dig drywell for sump pump drain

Garage/shed

• Scrape, seal, paint
• Organize
• Build a better workbench
• Fix roof (nails popping on metal roof, otherwise seems in good condition)
• Repair rotted boards
• Install gutter on far side of garage, back of shed (hook all gutters to rainbarrels)
• Long term: get cement floor poured in garage (currently just gravel), run more power out there

Landscaping/gardening

• Move azalea to right of steps
• Move irises out of front bed to sunnier area
• Move perennials from temporary bed near garage to someplace that makes sense
• Annihilate as much privet as possible
• Widen path along outside of privacy fence
• Fill in dips in side and front yards where new water pipe was run
• Cut the tops off the too-tall fence posts
• Powerwash then water-seal fence
• Look into alternate hinges and lock for gate

Current To-Do List

This post will be where I keep my current to-do list: Things I'm trying to get done within the next month or two.

This current list is what I hope to get accomplished February '08. Stuff in bold is top priority.

New Stuff:

1. Finish plan for bathroom: To-do list in an appropriate order, budget.
   
• Decide on various hardware: towel bar/TP holder, shower curtain rod, sink and tub faucets/shower head.
  
• Decide on tile: Include how to incorporate grab-bar and hooks in shower.
  
• Decide on toilet and bathtub.
  
2. Pull up a corner of flooring, figure out if floor can be refinished; if not, plan/budget for other flooring.
   
3. If it's warm enough to work in the workshop, modify back/drawers of old dresser that will be our sink base to fit to plumbing, and/or strip paint.
   

Carry-Over from January:

1. Get all of the stuff we have set aside for the local domestic violence shelter delivered over there. Toss in a handful of $25 Wal-Mart gift certificates. Don't forget to include sofa, baby stuff in garage, old coats, stuff on shelf in mudroom, baby clothes on top of baby's dresser, extra dining room chairs in attic, car seats, jumper. Everything's organized and ready to go, I just need to call them for some help loading the van.
2. Organize/clear out 2nd floor cabinet stuffed with old toiletries.
3. Put away tools that are randomly piled up around the house.
   
4. Get new shelves put up in three of the kitchen cabinets. Right now the single shelf in each of the cabinets that hold classes or mugs makes for way too much crowding on the shelf and wasted space above each shelf. All 10.5" deep, 1@22.5", 2@10.5".
   
5. Write back to Floor Guys, ask them to clarify a couple of points in the bid they sent: Update number of holes they need to patch, add in the pieces of wood we discussed, and clarify exactly who pays for what if they start and decide that they really can't refinish it.
6. Call HVAC Guy, ask if he has flooring professionals, interior painter, and roofing professional he'd recommend. He's come through with great recommendations for plumber and electrician, so I'm hoping he has more gems in his rolodex.
7. Build two shelves for the cedar cabinet, and get it moved back into place and stuff put in there that belongs there. 32"x18.75" We decided to leave it where it's at, since it used to live in the nook at the end of the doggie hallway, but as much as I liked it there, it makes much more sense to keep the dog's stuff there than mid-hallway where we'll trip over it.
8. Clean off and organize my desk and associated paperwork crammed in its drawers and the filing cabinet next to it. Got as far as getting the top of my desk cleared off, though it's all just dumped in a box: I needed it cleared to create a place to put my new scanner!
9. Get hanging chain attached to stained glass piece in kitchen.
   
10. Do some garden cleanup, if we get a relatively warm day,
    
11. Sort through old computer stuff, back up and wipe clean all old hard drives, get rid of most of it and organize what I'm keeping. Mostly sorted through, just need to check and clean the hard drives.
12. Assemble futon couch on 3rd floor.

Completed tasks 2/1/08-2/29/08 (most recently completed first):