My Fellow Amar’kuns . . .
Today, January 29, marks our first month’s anniversary of closing on the house. I won’t go into any summaries as to what we’ve done up to this point, as you can scroll down and read for yourself (if you’re THAT much of a glutton for punishment). But I do need to catch you up with what has been happening this last week.
It’s been a busy week in Lake Snow-Be-Gone. To begin with, this past week was the first for our contractors. They got started on Monday, mainly just delivering tools and supplies, setting up shop, etc. Tuesday, they rolled up their sleeves. As we have a bit of a deadline looming with the kitchen, that’s the room they started with first. They got started adding the electrical: about one million outlets and switches, with tons of wiring for the garbage disposal and dishwasher.
They also saw that the lead pipe for the kitchen sink was badly held together with clamps that weren’t the right size to begin with. They completely replaced the old lead with new plastic plumbing.
Each light in the kitchen will have its own switch. We have a main light and two pendants. One pendant will hang behind the china hutch and that will be the light we leave on at night and when we’re gone. The other pendant hovers directly over the sink. We found a great web site ("Progress Lighting") and ordered some really cool lights for the kitchen. (One interesting aside – the contractors discovered the old gas pipes for the lights in the house were still in place.)
In the meantime, our stalwart renovation heroes –Rob and I--had plenty of work orders to fill. I finished stripping the kitchen side of the china hutch early in the week, so I wouldn’t worry about getting the new floor messed up. Rob insulated the bathroom window, and I put the final coat of paint on the pantry trim.
Tuesday night was exciting: We took out the old claw-foot bathtub. Rob’s cousin had expressed interest in it, and that’s all it took for us to just GIVE it to him. Still, we wanted to get the bathroom – the "desperately ugly" bathroom, as Brother Rob called it – ready for the contractors. It was unimaginably heavy. As my sister-in-law remarked, "Imagine that full of water, someone in it, and on the second floor!" We managed to scoot it out on old towels and place it close to the front door. I had no idea that the legs on those old tubs just slide into a bracket-like thingy. That’s all that holding them in place! Amazing.
Wednesday night was truly memorable. There was one more thing left to take out of the Desperately Ugly bathroom. You guessed it. We saved the "best" for last. Rob went to unbolt it from the floor, twisted the wrench around a couple of times, and the bolt just came up in his hands. It was completely rusted out. That – ahem – "fixture" was just setting there, not bolted to anything! Winter’s early cloak of darkness was a mercy, this time, when we carried that – ahem – "fixture" out to the backyard.
Our contractors suggested that we take out the aluminum and clapboard siding on the east wall of the laundry room, make a box out of 2X6’s to go around the breaker boxes, and go back with sheet rock over the whole wall. Slap a door on that box, and the garish breakers are hidden away. That’ll neaten up that wall immensely. Rob devoted one evening to taking off the siding.
Up until last Friday, if I wasn’t stripping, I was staining. All the woodwork for the guest bedroom has been completely stripped, and I managed to get some pieces stained. The closet door, in particular, turned out especially nice. The "Special Walnut" stain is a tad bit darker than what we had originally planned, but we sure like it a lot. It evens everything out and gives it a very deep glow.
Now, I’m not one for product endorsements (especially if they aren’t paying me), but, for you strippers out there, if you’re like me and get frustrated with that final bit of residue that refuses to come off, then you need . . . sound cue . . . CITRISTRIP! Yes, CITRISTRIP will take off that pesky gunk from the surface of the wood, leaving behind bar-nekkid wood. Honestly, this stuff is good. The only trouble is, it’s pricey. I’ve managed to find some stores that sell it cheaper than others, though. At any rate, I just dab some on to a finishing pad and then rub away at the surface until I see that it has removed the old gunk. Then – and they don’t tell you to do this, either – I just take a rag and wipe off what’s left. It comes out looking clean, clean, CLEAN. And the smell won’t send you fleeing into the streets and forgetting your first name, either.
That was your first tip for the day. Here’s another tip: Never, NEVER sneeze while wearing a respirator.
All weekend, Rob got walls ready – i.e., sanding, taping, etc. – while I followed him with a paintbrush. The pantry now has a pleasant, citrusy look to it, and those poor walls of the guest bedroom finally have a little color to them. It’s amazing what a bucket of paint and a brush will do.
One of the charms about living in a house this old is that you’re surrounded by real wood – no particleboard here. Also, one of the frustrations about living in an old house is that you’re surrounded by REAL WOOD. This is only frustrating when you have to put it back where it came from. Rob found this out firsthand, when he went to reinstall the trim around the windows. Even drilling a hole didn’t help. That wood put up quite a fight, when he tried to hammer those nails back in. By the second window, he discovered that by drilling a little deeper, that seemed to take some of the fight out of it.
When you’re deep into home renovation, like we are, you manage to derive entertainment from the most unlikely of sources. For example, I don’t know how many evenings we’ve spent just looking at LIGHT FIXTURES online. I’m not kidding! Rob happened upon a phenomenal web site for ordering lights: Direct Lighting. Now, this isn’t a product endorsement, mind you; but we’ve never found a better source for the kind of light fixtures we need. They literally have thousands of lights to choose from, in all different price ranges. We spent an hour, one evening, just going through their online catalogue – and we didn’t even get through HALF of it! Anyway, that was your other tip for the day.
. . . So, in conclusion, my Fellow Amar’kuns . . . we’re making progress. Oh, it’s hard work, but we’re doin’ a heck of a job. In spite of the tedium of winter (who would have thought January would be so downright nasty?), we’ve managed to always get something accomplished. Maybe we’re not quite as far along as we had originally envisioned, but, being the easy-going Deciders that we are, we’ve managed to flow with the punches.
And that’s this week’s news . . . where the nails are strong, the paint is good looking, and the refinishing is above average.
Today, January 29, marks our first month’s anniversary of closing on the house. I won’t go into any summaries as to what we’ve done up to this point, as you can scroll down and read for yourself (if you’re THAT much of a glutton for punishment). But I do need to catch you up with what has been happening this last week.
It’s been a busy week in Lake Snow-Be-Gone. To begin with, this past week was the first for our contractors. They got started on Monday, mainly just delivering tools and supplies, setting up shop, etc. Tuesday, they rolled up their sleeves. As we have a bit of a deadline looming with the kitchen, that’s the room they started with first. They got started adding the electrical: about one million outlets and switches, with tons of wiring for the garbage disposal and dishwasher.
They also saw that the lead pipe for the kitchen sink was badly held together with clamps that weren’t the right size to begin with. They completely replaced the old lead with new plastic plumbing.
Each light in the kitchen will have its own switch. We have a main light and two pendants. One pendant will hang behind the china hutch and that will be the light we leave on at night and when we’re gone. The other pendant hovers directly over the sink. We found a great web site ("Progress Lighting") and ordered some really cool lights for the kitchen. (One interesting aside – the contractors discovered the old gas pipes for the lights in the house were still in place.)
Their electrical work took a couple of days. By Thursday, they had started putting up the sheet rock on the ceiling. We had also asked them to install a light in the pantry (it never had one!). They finished the sheet rock on Friday, in addition to doing the electrical for the washer and dryer.
In the meantime, our stalwart renovation heroes –Rob and I--had plenty of work orders to fill. I finished stripping the kitchen side of the china hutch early in the week, so I wouldn’t worry about getting the new floor messed up. Rob insulated the bathroom window, and I put the final coat of paint on the pantry trim.
Tuesday night was exciting: We took out the old claw-foot bathtub. Rob’s cousin had expressed interest in it, and that’s all it took for us to just GIVE it to him. Still, we wanted to get the bathroom – the "desperately ugly" bathroom, as Brother Rob called it – ready for the contractors. It was unimaginably heavy. As my sister-in-law remarked, "Imagine that full of water, someone in it, and on the second floor!" We managed to scoot it out on old towels and place it close to the front door. I had no idea that the legs on those old tubs just slide into a bracket-like thingy. That’s all that holding them in place! Amazing.
Wednesday night was truly memorable. There was one more thing left to take out of the Desperately Ugly bathroom. You guessed it. We saved the "best" for last. Rob went to unbolt it from the floor, twisted the wrench around a couple of times, and the bolt just came up in his hands. It was completely rusted out. That – ahem – "fixture" was just setting there, not bolted to anything! Winter’s early cloak of darkness was a mercy, this time, when we carried that – ahem – "fixture" out to the backyard.
Our contractors suggested that we take out the aluminum and clapboard siding on the east wall of the laundry room, make a box out of 2X6’s to go around the breaker boxes, and go back with sheet rock over the whole wall. Slap a door on that box, and the garish breakers are hidden away. That’ll neaten up that wall immensely. Rob devoted one evening to taking off the siding.
Up until last Friday, if I wasn’t stripping, I was staining. All the woodwork for the guest bedroom has been completely stripped, and I managed to get some pieces stained. The closet door, in particular, turned out especially nice. The "Special Walnut" stain is a tad bit darker than what we had originally planned, but we sure like it a lot. It evens everything out and gives it a very deep glow.
Now, I’m not one for product endorsements (especially if they aren’t paying me), but, for you strippers out there, if you’re like me and get frustrated with that final bit of residue that refuses to come off, then you need . . . sound cue . . . CITRISTRIP! Yes, CITRISTRIP will take off that pesky gunk from the surface of the wood, leaving behind bar-nekkid wood. Honestly, this stuff is good. The only trouble is, it’s pricey. I’ve managed to find some stores that sell it cheaper than others, though. At any rate, I just dab some on to a finishing pad and then rub away at the surface until I see that it has removed the old gunk. Then – and they don’t tell you to do this, either – I just take a rag and wipe off what’s left. It comes out looking clean, clean, CLEAN. And the smell won’t send you fleeing into the streets and forgetting your first name, either.
That was your first tip for the day. Here’s another tip: Never, NEVER sneeze while wearing a respirator.
Our kitchen cabinets that we ordered three weeks ago finally arrived on Friday . . . late Friday morning . . .late, LATE Friday morning, to be precise. These are unfinished oak cabinets with concealed hinges (do we need a permit for that?). Anyway, I managed to sand and stain the cabinets before the sun went down, that day. Even with one coat of stain, they looked pretty. The next day, I slapped on another coat of stain in order to darken them a couple more notches. By the end of the weekend, they had two coats of stain, one coat of polyurethane, and I had the cuticles of a coal miner.
All weekend, Rob got walls ready – i.e., sanding, taping, etc. – while I followed him with a paintbrush. The pantry now has a pleasant, citrusy look to it, and those poor walls of the guest bedroom finally have a little color to them. It’s amazing what a bucket of paint and a brush will do.
One of the charms about living in a house this old is that you’re surrounded by real wood – no particleboard here. Also, one of the frustrations about living in an old house is that you’re surrounded by REAL WOOD. This is only frustrating when you have to put it back where it came from. Rob found this out firsthand, when he went to reinstall the trim around the windows. Even drilling a hole didn’t help. That wood put up quite a fight, when he tried to hammer those nails back in. By the second window, he discovered that by drilling a little deeper, that seemed to take some of the fight out of it.
When you’re deep into home renovation, like we are, you manage to derive entertainment from the most unlikely of sources. For example, I don’t know how many evenings we’ve spent just looking at LIGHT FIXTURES online. I’m not kidding! Rob happened upon a phenomenal web site for ordering lights: Direct Lighting. Now, this isn’t a product endorsement, mind you; but we’ve never found a better source for the kind of light fixtures we need. They literally have thousands of lights to choose from, in all different price ranges. We spent an hour, one evening, just going through their online catalogue – and we didn’t even get through HALF of it! Anyway, that was your other tip for the day.
. . . So, in conclusion, my Fellow Amar’kuns . . . we’re making progress. Oh, it’s hard work, but we’re doin’ a heck of a job. In spite of the tedium of winter (who would have thought January would be so downright nasty?), we’ve managed to always get something accomplished. Maybe we’re not quite as far along as we had originally envisioned, but, being the easy-going Deciders that we are, we’ve managed to flow with the punches.
And that’s this week’s news . . . where the nails are strong, the paint is good looking, and the refinishing is above average.
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