Archive for the 'House stuff' Category

February 11th 2008

The living room is clean

Not that the job being down is in itself a reason to blog, but it left me wondering a few things.

How can we get so much stuff *in* there?
Why does all the dirt then collect itself on me?
Why don’t I do it more often?

Oh yeah, it’s exhausting, dusty (I’m allergic), makes me feel like crap, and gets me cranky.

But at least this time my abdomen did not hurt and I wanted to clean up. Maybe I’m finally “better”.

I’m sure there’s another point I wanted to make when I started this post, but I’ve since forgotten it. Meanwhile, the study - the room next to the living room - is an absolute disaster area. Since it’s holding the stuff that doesn’t belong in the lviing room. Oh yeah, now I remember! Does it strike anyone else that a large part of cleaning up is just shuffling items from one end of the house to the other?

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January 30th 2008

How to have a happy home

This time last year, we bought this house. See how sad it was?

my new house in winter

All cold and empty and neglected. :( Poor house. So we bought it - rescued it really, loving it and now fixing it up. Admittedly, we haven’t got very far yet and there’s still boxes everywhere. But look at it now.

Huddled house

Doesn’t it look happer? I mean, even despite the better lighting and the still-falling-apart-ness.

I love you house. It’s okay, we’ll have you all better as soon as we can. Starting when the mountain of snow melts. (We’ve made lists. Lots of them.)

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January 19th 2008

Now we can really settle in

Boy, I got pretty darn cheesy and sentimental in that last one. At any rate, our brains are now free of thinking of the last house and we can move forward with this one, and all the other plans in my head. I mean, I don’t want to be looking back too wistfully so I can’t enjoy what’s in front of me now.

Sunset and fog on the lake

I mean, we did pick this house in this spot for some pretty good reasons. I’m uploading more pictures, so be sure to click on through to Flickr and check them out.

Ron and I are running errands today - in and out of the house, up and down the highway. He stopped in to the hardware store earlier to pick up a load of pellets. While there, he asked about window prices. We have a whole lot of them - 19 or 21 are all the same size, all original, all pretty darn cold what with the single pane of wavy glass. They are 2 feet by 5 feet. Large. They all need to be replaced. But the hardware store has a decent price for one, a lot less than we thought - about $300. That was the good news for today. (There’s 39 windows & exterior doors in total - most, if not all, will be replaced.)

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January 18th 2008

The green house has been sold

We were at the lawyer’s office before 9 this morning, signing a pile of papers. This is closing day. Our keys are turned in, the sold sign has been up for a couple of weeks.

I hadn’t mentioned anything sooner, because it has been a whirldwind of emotions and roller-caster action, and a whole mounting pile of stress and debt, with details that somtiems changed daily and made my head spin. In the end though, I am not sure how I feel overall. I’m glad to be done with it. Glad the Sword of Damocles is no longer hanging overhead. The expenses were a killer (like I said), the dramas dealing with buyers were ulcer-inducing. And even I, who usually sleeps just fine, had trouble sleeping over it at some point.

But we lived in it for six years. Made it a home. Loved it and fixed it up. Made the house happy, I think.

There are so many things I want to say to the new home owner, stuff she needs to know. At least to me, woman of the house to new woman of the house.

Clean the kitchen counter with bleach every so often - the pots will mark it up. Keep the attic door closed in winter and open in summer. Wash the original hardwood with water only. That cabinet door sticks. Keep this window locked - oh, and you can flip them down to clean, see? But the windows facing the road dust up horrible in summer from all the traffic. It’s almost a losing battle to try and keep them white. Polish the woodwork with Orange Glo.

Did you find the secret cupboard by the window seat? That glass sign was there when we moved in. We left it for you to find. Same with the extra tiles in the attic. I know the only place they are is on the hearth. There’s a couple loose tiles around the edges. Don’t vacuum them up by accident.

When the snow melts you’ll see the garden. Did you see pictures of it beforehand? There’s a stargazer lily off by itself. It comes up after the other daylillies. My friend Sylvia gave it to me. (I must call her.) Oh, there’s a stray purple pansy that comes up by the walkway, near the chives. It keeps coming back year after year. We planted the chives, the irises, and the daylillies. The delphiniums were there when we got there. We planted the pear tree and all those strawberries too, when we cleaned up the yard.

When you’re there, wave over the fence to Rose. She’s nice. And she makes great strawberry jam. Behind you are the other neighbours - Pauline and Jake - you can count on them in a pinch. They’ll be driving by often. Across the way is Agnes, who is a sweetheart, but if you can spare a minute for her, make sure it’s at least 30. She’ll talk your ear off.

Go up in the trees behind the house - the shade is wonderful in summer. Watch out for the starlings in spring, they’ll buzz you. By the big maple tree is a rock with a name carved in it. That’s my boy. You may find at the base of a few trees some small bits that look like fairy houses. That’s my girls.

The hedge grows like a weed. The shade garden in the corner there is all whites and purples. The roses out front along the porch is also our doing. The light pink ones need extra care. We found them at the corner of the yard, half-buried in road debris, so we cleaned them up and replanted half of it. The other half is technically on the neighbour’s side. Frank knows a lot about the neighbourhood - talk to him.

Oh, and the street cleaners and plows put a lot of dirt and crap on the first six feet of lawn along the main road. I wouldn’t plant anything nice there. The french lilac bush out front should be nice this spring. It flowered last year for the first time.

There’s a framed picture in the living room that we left. It’s an arial shot. You’ll find the house near the bottom - it’s white and the yard is nothing but lawn. Well, it was taken over thirty years ago. We bought it at an auction when another neighbour died. She was in the little green house on the corner. We felt the picture should at least stay in the neighbourhood.

It’s just a house, but we loved it, despite its flaws. We hope you’ll love it too.

Goodbye Green House.

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January 6th 2008

The Bedroom Shuffle

We did it again, we rearranged bedrooms. At least this time only one got moved. Ron and I had originally set up camp in one of the bigger bedrooms, the one with the floral wallpaper.

It’s also on the northwest corner. You can imagine what it’s been like, especially on the brutally cold night with strong winds.  At one point, we pulled the bed away from the walls because it was too chilly. So , we decided it would be better to move to the small “baby” room at the top of the stairs.

But first we had to clean it up, as it had some boxes stored in there, some tools and it was the room we had ripped the floor up in to find wiring.

Last night we just had the bed and alarm clock in there, so today I’ll be moving in the dresser and the clothes. It has a smaller closet, no rod and no shelves, just hooks. Ron will put up some shelving for his things, as he uses the huge wardrobe in the green bathroom for his dress clothes for work.

At any rate, the floral bedroom closet was cavernous and dark, also without rod, but with huge deep shelves and no light. It would make a great soundbooth for podcasts though *cough* Sage *cough*. (bundle up, and we’ll knock before we flush the toilet on the other side of the wall). We’ll keep the door to that room closed, and even after an hour we noticed a difference.

So the little nursey we’re in will probably work out fine for us, especially once I get the two huge east-facing windows covered in dark fabric. It was a little bright when the sun rose.

It was warmer though.

***

Go visit Jay. She wrote some nice things about one of my pictures.

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December 5th 2007

Some discoveries are good

Sometimes, when we are working on the house, we find that shock us (not literally thankfully), bewilder us, and confuse us. Other times, sadly not so often, we find things that bring a smile, a little slice of the past poking in to say hi.

While running wires again last night, we figured out a couple things. The holes in the joists where the wires ran through were made with a hand drill. This was evidenced by all the chunks of wood chips which were half circles and slightly angular. This also explained why the holes were not quite level. Made it hard to pull on the wires. :)

Drilled

So I was comforted a little, that eighty-some-odd years ago, some guy in overalls had to contort himself across the floor, just like we were. Except we were undoing all his hard work and replacing it.

Inside the floor, between the joists, is the aforementioned wood chips, some dust & dirt, some plaster chunks and the occasional bit of interest, like that tag we found. This time, I found a neat square of plaster face down almost under the wall. Must be from when they cut the first hole for the first lightswitch, I thought. I flipped it over and noted there was a bit of brown paper, or wallpaper backing, obscuring what was underneath. I gently pulled it away.

Wallapaper & plaster, art deco

Original wallpaper. Faintly art deco. The only down side is the piece is so small.

At least it’s better than what I found in the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom which is a DIY bad dream. The tileboard is installed sideways in there, and yes, you can tell. The floral sprays every other tile are certainly sideways. In one spot, since it goes up the wall halfway, I can pull on the edge a bit to reveal the wall underneath.

I kinda wished I hadn’t, for there was the wallpaper of the renovation before that. Brace yourself, it was probably from the late eighties, early nineties. It is hunter green and cream plaid.

I think we’ll leave that room for a while.

***

We will be off to Aunt Boo’s for the afternoon, so here’s hoping Uncle Leroy will give us lots of blog fodder. Or tomorrow I could tell the story of Grandma Betty. She’s not our grandma and her name’s not Betty, but there you have it.

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