8.25.2006

You Might Live In A Fixer-Upper If...

  • You have had a piece of drywall sitting in your dining room for so long that you forget it is there and assume that it is part of your decorating scheme;
  • You subscribe or watch TOH regularly and can refer to the cast members by their first names;
  • The most exciting thing about your summer vacation is that you have new electrical and have your choice of which fabulous switch or outlet to use (who needs vacations anyways??);
  • You have a playlist on your iPod called "Workin' On The House";
  • When you go to an upscale shopping center you get a headache from all the pristine, perfume laden customers and you long to be back at Lowe's or HD where you actually feel more comfortable now (and this reality is sad and a total 180 from your former, pre fixer-upper self);
  • You consider going up and down the ladder a good form of exercise;
  • Not only is the piece of drywall part of your current decor, so are ladders, hammers, extension cords, drills, etc.;
  • People have stopped asking what you did over the weekend because they now know that the answer is usually: 'Oh, you know, we worked on the house.'
  • You have a thin layer of plaster dust over everything;
  • Due to a current project your microwave is sitting on the kitchen floor and instead of finishing the project asap and returning the microwave to its home, you just use it on the floor;
  • Sipping coffee and reading the latest on houseblogs has become part of your morning routine;
  • You traded in your sport car for a truck;
  • Collecting paint chips and scrutinizing the difference between "soft pumpkin" and "pumpkin cream" have become your new passions;
  • You have accidentally ordered a "sconce" instead of a "scone" at your local Starbucks (yes, I actually did this);
  • Sometimes you lay awake at night thinking about what to write for your next home improvement blog entry.

8.14.2006

Weekend Sightings

Due to some seen and some unforseen circumstances, no work was accomplished this weekend. Not a single thing. However, we did go visit family in Tell City, Indiana which is about three hours south of Indianapolis. There is a small town next to Tell City on the Ohio River called Cannelton, Indiana. While visiting I fell in love with this old house. Chad says we have a sickness. I feel the same way about old, dilapitated buildings as I do about labrador retrievers that need to be adopted. I wish I could take them all and make them feel loved - the houses and the dogs.

Anyways, I am digressing, as per usual. For some reason I just really liked this old house. It looks as if it is starting to fall apart but it is owned by a church next door so maybe they are going to do something about it.



These two pics are of a catholic church in Cannelton. I just thought it was neat and reminiscent of some of the old churches in Europe. The whole town reminded me of a town on the east coast or in Europe because most of the buildings were built in the mid to late 1800s. It is rare to find buildings that old in the mid-west. Not a house-related post but just some things I thought were interesting.....  Posted by Picasa

8.08.2006

The Thin Line

According to B Mack, we had until August 12 to meet the deadline of posting again on this thing in under two months. Here I am, August 8! That's four days ahead of schedule. Love my time management skills. :) So I'm sure you've all heard the saying "There's a thin line between love and hate." I never really understood what it meant until this summer. However, this quip describes exactly how I feel about this house. On which side of the line I stand varies and depends on several factors: what the project is we're working on, how far away that damn light at the end of the tunnel really is, my mood, whether or not I've eaten, how sweaty I am from removing glue, how much plaster has chipped away, etc. etc. etc. The list could go on and on.

I should go ahead and put this out there. I'm not really a "do-it-yourself" type of gal. Even though I've always wanted an old house and I would never ever have a house built or live in a new house, I'm just really not into doing everything myself. Maybe I'm lazy and just don't like the work. Once the project is completed or near completion I do like being able to smile proudly and say: "Yes, it's true. We did it all ourselves. It took a long time but it was WORTH it." haha....However, during the project I'm not so friendly or happy about what is going on. When we bought the house, I mistakenly thought we would actually contract out some of these projects. I had no idea how many projects there would be. I had no idea that my husband actually likes to do every single thing himself. I had no idea how much projects cost. But I'm in it now and the only thing I can do is cringe, complain, and get to work. (I paint a pretty picture of myself, don't I?)

Anyways, I'm talking too much about me. On to the house and what the hell we've been up to and what side of the line I'm on now (uh, that's kinda still talking about me, huh?) We are actually back in the house after a month-long stay with Chad's dad and his wife. This was supposed to be a week-long stay. However, the project ended up taking longer than expected....but what can I say? It was WORTH it! During the month stay I'd have to say that I was on the "hate" side of the line. And not because I didn't enjoy staying with his dad and wife. In fact, I probably enjoyed it too much. (We can't thank them enough for letting us stay with them for so long). Their house is brand new and big. They have soft water. And cable. And a tub/shower that actually drains correctly. And a toilet that flushes correctly. And counter space in the kitchen. Hell - they have space in the kitchen. And a dishwasher. Oh and they had electricity. Which is exactly what we didn't have and why we were even staying with them.

The reason why I was on the hate side of the line is because everything in our house was/is unorganized and taking longer than expected. The house was a MESS, I was living out of my car. I almost wanted to put the damn thing up for sale. However, we're back. With new electricity. No more knob and tube. No more extension cords. No more power strips or searching for outlets. No more sparks and no more worries. Better yet, this means we're moving on. This project has sucked up over a year of our lives. Time to get to fixing those walls and ceilings so we can paint and get the floors re-finished. So right now, even though there is still about ten years worth of work to be done on this house, I'm on the love side of the line. Check back tomorrow, or in five minutes, and see where I am then.
The pic to the left is the before picture of the space where the old light switch in our bedroom used to be.









Below is the brand new switch. Nice, uh? Okay, maybe it doesn't seem like much to "normal house" people but to us this is a HUGE improvement. Are there any "normal house" people reading this anyways??





















This is an example of all the fixtures we put in the bedrooms, kitchen, and bathroom. Don't get crazy - these are totally temporary. We needed something very cheap but that would work. We are now moving on to fixing each room one by one - including ceilings, walls, etc. Once we finish that we will replace these ugly (but working!) fixtures with ceiling fans in the bedrooms. The kitchen and bath lights will stay this way until the remodel.








Below is our ceiling in the future office room. It didn't look like this two weeks ago. Actually, this part of the plaster ceiling was probably the worst in the whole house. It was loose and we knew it would come down once we got to it. However, it had different plans. We were finishing up a day's work when all of a sudden we heard a loud crash. Chad said: What was that? I looked down the hall and saw some dust flutering out of the room and said: I think it was the ceiling. It fell. It was all funny at the time. I guess since we knew it was bad, it just wasn't that big of a deal.


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