August 31, 2004
August 30, 2004
Ride 'em Cowboyhouse
I uploaded all the "Before" pictures last night. The "Afters" will have to wait, because our house is currently a disaster area, and what's the point of taking pictures that are supposed to convey the beauty and success of your redecorating, if the rooms are full of half-emptied cardboard boxes, stacks of sweaters and furniture left behind by your previous tenants?
Sigh.
I am so farking ready to only live in one place. I'm down to living in two places rather than three, which is a huge bonus. However, we've still got the bedroom and laundry at Paul's old house, but all the kitchen and entertainment stuff at the new place, which makes it difficult to really get settled in.
I've been feeling really unsettled lately. For those of you who know me well, you will understand how much of my mental stability is bound up in having a "home base"; a place to center and feel nested and secure. I haven't had a space like that in about two months. Heck, I don't even have a drawer for my clothes right now. I have more of a compost pile on the floor of the bedroom, in which the dirty clothes get put on the bottom, the clean ones on top, and every ten days or so we turn it over with a pitchfork and put the whole thing in the wash.
I mean, we're supposed to be officially Living In Sin now, but it we spend so little time actually around each other, between my frequent trips back to Ann Arbor, and all the housework, and dividing our time between the two places. Technically, we won't be cohabbing until we sell Paul's house. We have my house, and his... so we're still theoretically in two separate places.
Anyhow.
Work went well this weekend. I had to go to a wedding on Saturday and Paul had a caricaturing gig, so nothing got done. On Sunday, though, we pulled out all the stops, and did a ton of shopping, dumping another $300 at Lowe's, and laying the new floor in the master bath.
I know I should be shopping at the local hardware store, Hoekstra's. I know this. Hoekstra's rocks, and the people there are un-be-lieveably helpful and nice and knowledgeable. I kick Hoekstra's my business whenever I can. However, they're not open on Sundays, and when that's the only day for three weeks that we could actually spare four hours to go do shopping and planning and work -- that's just how it worked out. I really do have an unholy love of Lowe's. They're soooooo much better than Home De$pot, and they really do have everything, all at once. But I really am trying to support local businesses. Really I am.
Really.
I felt even more guilty about registering with two major chains for the bridal registry. But for sake of ease, it was the way I had to go. What I really wanted was to register with Novica.com but they're not doing online registries yet, durnit. I'm still planning on buying all my drapes and rugs from them, and my duvet cover from the Tamarind Store. Fair trade rocks.
Um.
I had a point here, somewhere.
Oh, yeah. The title of this whole entry... "Ride 'em, Cowboyhouse!"
This gets back to the whole theory of me not having a place to call Home yet. It's hard on me. I'm really tired and verging on Cranky much of the time now. I have to keep holding on to what my buddy Virus says.
Virus is an Aquarius, the flightiest of the zodiac signs. Give him a backpack and a pair of hiking boots and he's at home anywhere he goes. Not so with Taurus me, (literal polar opposite to the Aquarius) who must have a nest to be truly happy. It doesn't really matter where or what the space is, so long as it's mine, and is stable.
Matthew gave this perfect analogy: A Taurus and an Aquarius are in a house during an earthquake. The Taurus begins freaking out, running around, taping windows, saving the china as it falls, and generally panicking because of the violent change. The Aquarius, on the other hand, is on the roof, waving his hat and yelling, "I've never been in an actual earthquake before! This is great! Ride 'em, Cowboyhouse!"
So yeah. Ride 'em, Cowboyhouse.
August 27, 2004
August 26, 2004
Shower
The shower, for the record, was lovely.
Susan completely knocked herself out with the preparations and did a fantastic job with the food, which included some of the most delicious little tartlets I've ever eaten, and bribeworthy potatoes-au-gratin.
No games were played (thank goodness) nor were ribbon hats worn, but Susan and her girls did perform a little poem for Paul and I comprised of household products we'd need. :)
People were unbelieveably generous, and Paul and I were each able to pitch our set of cracked, chipped, glued and scorchmarked dishes we owned in favor of shiny new dishes. Mit silverware, even. Hooray!
Thank you so much to everyone who came, and shared such a nice day with me. Thank you for your generosity, and your friendship, and your well wishes.
(And now, back to writing the Thankyou cards!)
August 25, 2004
Catch and Release
Whew! What a weekend.
We had the Hail-Mary-Move-Every-Last-Scrap-Out-of-Ann-Arbor day on Saturday, in which our heroes Jane and her brother Tom wedged all the big furniture into the back of Tom's mighty cow-chasin' truck. Tom affirmed that we had just enough room on top for Ma Clampett's rocking chair.
I also introduced Tom to the practice of Catch-and-Release Furniture. Initially, he was horrified as I released my nearly-perfect couch on the curb (a wee bit of cat damage, and one faded arm: the perfect Porch, Basement or Dorm couch). Observe, I told him, as I walked to the trash pile on the next curb and extracted two perfect wooden folding chairs and a set of folding bookshelves. "There're three teevees out in the dumpster of the house, if you want any of 'em." Ah, Ann Arbor: That's one thing I'll miss dearly about you. You have the bestest curb-fishing of anywhere in the world. Rich students + Overpaid Yuppies == Good waters.
So we loaded up the truck and we moved to Kal'mazoo.
Tom went 'round our house with a flashlight and found all the things that would either blow up our house or burn it down, fixed what he could and gave us pointers on the rest. You think I'm kiddin'? How about two uncapped gas lines? If anyone had twisted the gas handle, even enough to cause a small leak, and let it go unnoticed, we could easily have come home to a gigantic crater where our house used to be. Not to mention the old knob-and-tube wiring in the basement and attic, with the cloth-taped live ends. Mmmm... smells like burnination!
Mom and I tackled the kitchen, unwrapping Paul's and my dishes, sorting them for the curb, and putting the keepers away. We then mopped the kitchen and dining room and flattened the rest of the boxes.
While I was in Chelsea, Paul had painted the entire library! It looks great. Grapeity purple, with bright white trim.
The bedroom's also painted now, and is a lighter shade of purple. I swear, I didn't pick it! Paul wanted a purple bedroom! No, really! I am not making this up.
The hardwood floor guy comes next Tuesday, and as soon as the urethane is dry, we finally get to move the bedroom stuff in. Huzzah!
MOre on the shower soon....
And pictures soon....
August 24, 2004
Quote of the day
Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. — Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
Source: Gilbert, G.M. Nuremberg Diary; New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947
August 19, 2004
August 17, 2004
Snort
How to make the Reverend Kathy Neufeld Dunn snort juice out her nose:
"Jane, you guys didn't have to pay me for marrying you. You're friends."
"Baloney. I know how much ministers make. Besides, you only cost as much as one musician."
Film at eleven.
Yes, the wall is down. Yes, we have video. No, I ain't gonna put it up yet. I have to work in Ann Arbor today, and then drive another load of crap home tonight. Wednesday and Thursday are two more high-gear painting days, one at my house and one at Becky's, to help her finish her office and say thanks for helping me vanquish the bathroom of Evil. Friday and Saturdaymorning are the last big push from my apartment in A2, and then Saturday day is the Amish Barn-Raising at the new house, wherein my family converges and helps us with all things electrical, as well as Moving Really Heavy Things, like the washer/dryer.
What we found when we took down the wall:
The secondary bathroom was ...
... not all that evil, surprisingly.
Sure, it's full of man-funk, and the same quarter-inch-thick Ring of Funk(thick as in extending out into the bowl) we saw when we first toured the house in April is still in the toilet, but we've seen worse. Waaaaaaaaaay worse.
The secondary kitchen is remarkably clean, considering that in April, the tenant had a box of pop cans the size of a small refrigerator in there, and had lined every bit of doorjamb with empty Pabst 40-oz bottles.
So far, Paul has torn up all the remaining carpet, we fixed the dangerously wobbly ceiling fan in the master bedroom, washed the walls in the master bedroom, finished the trim in the dining room and living room, Alllllllllmost finished the former Bathroom of Evil, finished the downstairs bathroom, and started moving rudimetary furniture in.
So here's the progress report:
Kitchen -- finished but durty
Downstairs 1/2 bath -- Finished and clean
Dining room: Finished
Living room: Finished
Media room: Finished
Laundry room: As finished as it's gonna be
Entryway/Vestibule: Needs touch coat
Upstairs floors: Estimate on Wednesday
Library:Prepped for painting
Upstairs hall: Gonna stay funky for now, until we can decide what to do with it
Paul's studio: mostly done, needs touch coat
Master bedroom: Prepped for painting
Bathroom of Evil: finished but durty- needs mopping and one more trim touch coat
Master Bath: Still full of funk
Jane's studio: not started
Yeah, like I said, big dang house. That hasn't even begun to touch the outside, the attic, or the basement, that's gonna need to be de-mildewed and Dryloked before winter.
So.
Off to work with me, more news later this week, and possible pictures, once I can find the stupid cable to my camera. It's around here.... somewhere....
August 13, 2004
Veekends I Vurk!
Tonight and over the weekend, we have to tackle the upstairs:
1) Take up the carpet in the rest of the hallway and master bedroom
2) Sanitize the second bathroom and kitchen (probably another 8 hours. erk.)
3) Wash bedroom, bathroom and kitchen walls in preparation for painting
4) Remove kitchen appliances and rearrange cupboards for my new studio
5) Finish painting the downstairs entryway and laundryroom
6) Possibly start painting in the upstairs
And after all that gets accomplished, and the floors are done, we can finally start moving in. All our crap's currently in the basement. I will be so glad to finally have access to my stuff again. Very frustrating to feel so cut off from all the important physical things in my life -- a calming studio space, books, images I love, knowing where all my clothes are.
More soon!
Upstairs, Downstairs
Paul's parents are so great. They really did a ton of work yesterday, and are at the house again today. Yesterday Marcia put a coat of yellow-green paint on the downstairs entryway, and a coat of yellow in the laundryroom. (We took the daffodil-yellow, migrane-inducing paint from the bthroom, mixed a little white with it, and used it for the Laundry room. It's lovely.)
The upstairs bathroom (formerly Bathroom of Evil) is positively beautiful now. I touched up the robin's-egg-blue wallpaint and Paul did the trim... it's just gorgeous, if I may say so, especially considering how it looked before. I'll probably put the towelbars up tonight and take measurements for the mirror -- I want to buy a nice picture frame to put it in, rather than having the naked mirror just hanging on the wall. (I worked in a framing shop about eight years ago, and still have my point-gun. Yay me!) Paul's insisting that we rechristen it as something else, and I agree. I wonder what we can break the champagne bottle against?
The kitchen got a final touchup coat, and I also re-coated the stripes on the downstairs bathroom (you'll have to see it to really understand). We'd originally tried for a white stripe on the top, and a dark blue stripe on the bottom using leftover paint from the dining room, but it really didn't look that great to me, so I changed it to two white stripes. Kilz is my bestest friend right now. We've got no less than seven layers of paint on that bathroom since we moved in. Yow!
We've also phoned for a couple guys to come out and give us estimates for the hardwood floors upstairs. It'll be really expensive (we're budgeting around $2000 -- $2500) to have done, because the floors are pretty skaggy. Actually, the wood is beautiful, it's just under 100 years of bad varnish and carpet glue and dirt. Last week, I tried cleaning off a 1' section, and it was like that scene in Aliens: "Oh, look. I've made a clean spot." It took 20 minutes to get it clean, so I said, "You know, the floor guys are going to come in here with a circular sander, and that'll get up the funk much faster than a scrub brush, anyway." So I left it. It'll be a lot of money to lay out all at once, but then a) we won't have to dink around with moving furniture to have it done, b) it'll substantially increase the value of the house and c) we won't have to worry about getting staples or rogue carpet tacks in our feet anymore.
We bought a house that was below what we could both afford, so that we'd be able to do stuff like this. It's fun, and much more enjoyable than having bought a dump in Ann Arbor for twice (or three times) as much and then not being ablt to do anything to it for years because we were too house poor. I am well aware of the effects of inertia, and I am very eager to get all this stuff settled while our bodies are still in motion. Once I settle in, I ain't doin' nothing for the whole rest of the winter 'cept working on the new V book. And Paul and I have both passed a 2-year moratorium on painting once we've got all this taken care of.
The second tenant has to be out by midnight tonight, and then we're taking down the wall. With sledgehammers. There will be video.
August 11, 2004
Painting as a way of life
Paul's folks came over last night, and helped out an amazing amount. His dad helped him pack and move several vanloads of stuff, and his mom washed the walls in the kitchen and laundry room, and first-coated the kitchen.
After work, I helped second-coat the kitchen and first-coat the Bathroom of Evil, which is looking decidedly less evil, finally. Tomorrow we tackle the laundry room, finish the BoE and hopefully get started on the Library and the downstairs entryway/stairwell.
All that's left to do in the three adjoining downstairs rooms is touch up the ceilings and do the archway trim, which should take less than an hour.
I did some searching online and found that it's very easy to fix broken sashweight cords. This makes me very happy, because all our windows are sashweighted (yay!) but about half of them are broken (boo!). Remember the movie Amelie, where they talk about everyone's childlike loves? One of my favorite things in the world are sashweighted windows. I love the rattle of the weights inside, and how they stay in place when you raise them. So I will be Ms. Sashweight Doctor after we get all the painting done.
As soon as we get the downstairs done, and the bathroom of Evil entirely done, I will take some short videos of the place and post them here.
More soon!
Janer
August 9, 2004
New House Week Two: No rest for the weary
Let's see:
Tired, tired tired tired, tiredtired, tired.
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Paul and I kicked a bunch of painting butt this weekend. We worked for a couple hours on Friday, and then went off to Ribfest to eat tons of great barbecue and listen to Loverboy. Oy, that takes me back. I only knew two of their songs -- which was just as well, because the rest of them were completely forgettable -- "Turn me loose" and "Workin' for the Weekend". Twenty-five years since those songs first came out -- God, do I feel old.
Saturday we did an all-day workshop with Jim O, and Shaun Bieri at the Ann Arbor Library and had a blast. Eva and Erin and the crew were awesome as always.
Sunday we attacked the house again, and got a second coat of paint on the downstairs bath, the living room, did the living room trim and touchup on the dining room, primed the upstairs bath, washed the walls on the library and finished Paul's studio.
Man, that's a lot of work. None of the rooms are completely finished yet, which is kind of a downer, but we're definitely getting there. By the end of this week we hope to have the downstairs done, with the exception of the entranceway/hallway, which we've decided can wait, 'cause it's big.
And then....
... we take down the wall.
August 6, 2004
New House, days three, four and five: Overcome by a Paintin' Frenzy
Paul rocks. Our neighbor Becky rocks.
They've been a couple of paintin' fools while I've been at work. We have one downstairs room completely done and two more primed and first-coated. The downstairs bathroom is theoretically done, but once we got it all painted the bright daffodil yellow, we decided it was too bright. You shut the door, and the walls fairly vibrate. I mean, it's a nice yellow, but it was a bit like being trapped inside a lemon. Instead of just being bright and cheery, it feels oppressively bright, like a Disney version of cheer. "Undt now ju vill be happi!"
There's no way we can tone it down without doing a bunch of ridiculous stuff to it, so we are probably either going to re-paint it the same blue as the kitchen or use the green we chose for the upstairs bathroom.
It was also with great triumph that I primed the Bathroom of Evil last night.
We also had a couple friends of Paul's come through and take a good hard look at the place. One of the friends, also named Jane, is a builder and a rental property owner. She's really cool, and gave us some excellent contacts and information about the hardwood floors, and also about what we can and cannot do with the house under the neighborhood's Historical Association. *&%$%restrictions.
The other friend is a great older guy named Jackie, who's been a builder all his life. He's got an amazing horse sense about him, and the work he's done on Paul's house was nothing short of masterful. He was astonished by our house, pronouncing it to be in the finest condition of any house its age he'd ever seen. He said that all the wood floors are oak, and that the vast majority is original.
He said it was really sturdy, and well-kept, and that the craftsmanship was outstanding, from the foundation to the roof. We felt very glad to hear that, because we spent way outside of our original range to get the house, and were worried that we'd bought a big ol' pig in a poke. Not so, and we are quite pleased.
That's been about all. We'll probably heading out to Ribfest tonight, to scarf down on barbecue and watch "Loverboy" perform. Yes, that Loverboy. And ten different barbecue shacks. Woo!
Friday Quote of the Day
"Hey Lois, look! The two symbols of the Republican party. An elephant and a big fat white guy who's threatened by change." - Peter Griffin, Family Guy
August 3, 2004
Ow ow ow crap ow.
My body wants to kick my brain's ass for thinking this much work all at once was a good idea.
I have newfound respect for my brothers, who work this hard on a daily basis.
Ow.
New House Day Two: No Painting for You!
Today was supposed to be the Day of Painting. Not really knowing that much about house renovations, Paul and I had both (foolishly) assumed that painting was no more complicated than a) spackling holes and b) buying a can of paint and applying it to the walls. Ohhhh, no. Not that easy.
Early in the day, we did a walkthrough with Trish, Paul's boss and world-renowned graphic designer. We went around the downstairs with some 600 paint chips and picked a color system for the entire house, focusing mostly on blues. The downstairs has so many archways and doorways that when you're in any given room, you can see no fewer than two other rooms, so we wanted everything to more-or-less work together. Trish warned us that we'd have to first clean the walls with this stuff called TSP, then rinse the walls, then prime the walls. In August heat. In an un-air-conditioned house.
Now, when you fall asleep tonight, I want you all to think one thought as your heads hit the pillow: "Thank goodness we are not as dumb as Jane and Paul." Because Jane and Paul thought it was a good idea to paint every single room in the downstairs before they moved in, plus two rooms upstairs -- while it was so hot in the house that Paul had to stop tearing up carpet for a while because, despite two bandannas on his bald head, when he bent over his glasses kept filling up with sweat. Screw Atkins, we're gonna lose thirty pounds apiece just from water loss.
So we went down to the corner mom-and-pop paint store, ordered $300 worth of paint, bought a ton of primer, and went to tackle the washing and rinsing of the walls. Now, there's nothing quite so frustrating as working in insufferable heat and humidity and not having anything to show for it. After three hours of scrubbing, the walls looked exactly the same as they had before, and we were both completely drenched in sweat. We finally gave in, got cleaned up, had dinner, then changed back into grungies to start priming the smallest of the three main downstairs room. We blew through an entire gallon of primer on that room alone, and the walls still weren't all the way covered. Damn.
Still, we finally got things to a point where we can start knocking off the rooms one at a time. If we work together, we should be able to kill one a night over the next week or so. I am personally taking it upon myself to vanquish the Bathroom of Evil.
New House, day one: Bathroom of Evil
So we finally got the new house. Or part of it, anyway. Our house is a beautiful old 1917 German/Dutch built hardwood behemoth on a shady side street in Kalamazoo, and like many big houses in Kalamazoo, it's been split up into apartments. In this case, two. One big apartment that has the entire downstairs and most of the upstairs, and then a second small "mother-in-law" apartment in the back with a separate, built-on entrance. We've currently got access to the bigger of the two apartments. The second tenant moves out of his apartment on 8/15, and then we'll be taking down the wall between the two and turning it back into one big house. Some fifty percent of houses in Kzoo are rentals, so it'll be extra nice to reclaim this one for our own.
The house itself is built to impressive levels of sturdiness and beauty -- the two are definitely not mutually exclusive! It's got beautiful oak woodwork in every room in the house, but previous owners have painted or carpeted over much of it. We're hoping to restore a lot of it as we go. I took the time to snap a bunch of "Before" pictures, and will post them here as we complete the "Afters".
The tenants in the first apartment were a couple of guys. We were really impressed when we got in there because the downstairs was very clean and spartan. The bathrooms, on the other hand -- well, we never opened the shower stall door... until today.
The bathroom was ugly to begin with. They'd spongepainted blobs of black and grey (?) onto the white walls, and then ran a weird teal-black-and-grey faux-grecian wallpaper border around the top and bottom of the walls. With the brown cabinetry and ivory sink, it was... yeah. Not to mention the beige plastic towelrods.
So today, we went in to clean the bathroom. We had a ton of other stuff to do, so I budgeted about three hours to clean it. Paul's friend Becky came over, and she and I valiantly went in to tackle it, knowing we were up against two twentysomething tenants' worth of man-funk. We had no idea how bad it really was until we got in there and really started looking.
Oh. Dear. Lord.
Becky finally bailed after four hours. It was me against the Bathroom of Evil for a full four hours more. The shower stall door had so much soap scum on it that the tenants had carved their names in it. The toilet seat was so dag-ass nasty we didn't bother to clean it; we just threw it away. Remember that scene in "Trainspotting"? Not quite that bad, but close. I had to scrub the toilet itself 3 times before I was willing to put my ass on it. I fished a rotting hairball the size of a grapefruit out of the shower drain. The thing smelled so nasty that it actually triggered my gag reflex. Now, I'm no sissy. I grew up on a farm, helping both birth and bury animals... but this thing was some serious nasty. I kid you not, there was actually green growing stuff inside the faceted plastic showerknob. We had to take it apart and soak it in chemicals. I'd have liked to rip it out altogether and replace it, but I wasn't sure I could install a showerknob by myself, so we just drowned it in acid and hoped that'd kill anything left inside. (At this point I turned to Paul and asked if I were violating the Prime Directive by killing so many separate innocent lifeforms before they had a chance to evolve further in their sentience. His correct response: "Screw the Prime Directive. Let's go blow shit up.") We ripped down wallpaper and towelrods, scraped calcium scale, removed rotting trim, added a new seal-strip to the bottom of the shower door to keep it from leaking, installed the new toilet seat and disassembled the gooseneck in the sink to check for more hair-muskrats. Thankfully, there were none in residence. Finally, around 9pm, I Cinderella-scrubbed the floor and called it quits.
While Becky and I tackled the Bathroom of Evil, Paul cleaned the kitchen (Which was thankfully and decidedly less full of Evil) and fixed a bunch of busted doorknobs and windowlocks. Then he went upstairs and started stripping the ubernasty beige carpet out of the two upstairs bedrooms and hallway. The carpet was really well put-down when it was laid, so pulling it up is quite the chore. The hardwood underneath is pretty scabby, but frankly, I'd rather look at scabby hardwood than scabby carpet. God only knows what buggy funk is lurking in the carpet; the hardwood may be ugly but at least you can mop it. Fortunately, Big Garbage Pickup Day is Wednesday, so we will get all the cat-pee-stained carpet and padding hauled away for us almost immediately. We're thinking of getting the floors redone pretty quickly, while the house is still empty and we can still use Paul's house as a base of operations.
After all this, we collapsed exhausted and... couldn't sleep. We kept tossing and turning and thinking about what we had to do next to the house. Sigh. We've been waiting since April to get in, and like a weird reversal of Christmas, we finally opened the present and got a ton more work to do. Still, once we get all the heavy lifting done we should have a house to be truly proud of.