Wow -- am I behind!

My father-in-law not so subtly told me this evening that I am woefully behind on updates. I thought for sure he was wrong.

Oops.

So yes! Updates!

How about this for a start?

This is our new porch light. It's attached to our new porch...

...right here. Isn't it nice? I think so, too. Rich did all of it: designed it, cut out all the dental work and molding, built it -- the works. We love it and think he did an awesome job.

Perhaps you might also notice our new front door. It seems to have the power to make people swoon. Don't get me wrong, I like it very much, but it has yet to make me swoon. Perhaps when I walk through it for the first time to go home for good. Yes, I suspect it will make me swoon then.

But wait! There's more!

Much of the work that Rich has been doing (at least the stuff that I'm really into -- I'm sure there is some other "structural" stuff, as if that matters) can be boiled down into these two pictures:

Bee-utiful stairs. These are the stairs from the main staircase, which Rich restored, stained, and sealed. They shine like the top of the Chrysler building! He has also built stairs going to the basement (utilitarian, and though not so lovely -- sorry, Skip, I call 'em as I see 'em -- no longer a death trap like the old originals) as well as stairs going down into the family room. Those have also been stained & sealed, and while I would be happy to post photos of those as well they would, um, look remarkably like what you see above. Shiny and new and lovely.

And then there's this:

What's this? Crown molding and paint! Everywhere we turn! Sara's room is done (pinkalicious) as is the hall bath (purplerific, because I am a sucker), the laundry room (pictured above in a super fun color called "Jack Frost") and the upstairs hall and stairwell. And much to my surprise and delight, the master bath is painted as well! See?

The tub surround and shower are tiled too, as you can see here. Tile on the floor is next, then we can install the loo and sinks.

So, yes -- there has been progress. Slow but steady wins the race, right?

I promise I'll try to do better with the updates!

Nesting

My mother always said that rain brings good luck.

We have had a remarkably mild summer this year, but for the past few days August has tried to make up for this by offering up a particularly uncomfortable run of hot, humid days interspersed with rain showers and thunderstorms. Personally, I love storms and the energy that they bring -- but the muggy, hot days I can do without.

Similarly, day-to-day life over the past week has been particularly uncomfortable as well: Running in too many different directions for too long, trying to meet the needs of most everyone but myself. Yesterday I finally hit the wall. I was done. I slept for more hours than I can remember sleeping in a long, long time.

And then today I woke up better rested, and the weather finally broke too. The rain is still here but has brought with it cooler breezes and more of these pleasant but unusually mild days. So, before Sara woke from her nap this afternoon I decided to take advantage of the time and the weather by sitting outside and swinging under my sister's tree. There was a heavy grey cloud blowing our way and I knew another shower was coming but I didn't care; in fact, I thought it was perfect.

Just after I sat down I noticed an abandoned nest at my feet, blown out of the tree during one of the storms earlier this week. It was a sweet little robin's nest, still perfectly intact despite the elements. I thought about how much work that bird must have put into building it's small home, and what a good job it did for it to look so perfect even after it's unceremonious eviction from that tree.

And then it started to rain.

It was hard to ignore the parallels to our own nest, the one we've spent so long working on but that will be beautiful and well-built when it's finally done. I took it as a sign that we would find our home there soon -- maybe not as soon as we might like, but soon nonetheless.

I'm going to keep that nest, and fill it up with wishes for all the things I hope to find in our own: peace, good health, happiness, love. And it will be a reminder of the time, effort, and patience it took for us to get there, and of the storms we had to weather to finally, finally, come home.

The rain blessed me today. Good luck, indeed.

I think you've waited long enough

The problem is that editing pictures of drywall (yes, drywall!) is not nearly as fun as hanging out with the drywall itself. But anyway, here you go -- the latest & greatest!

This is...  well nothing, really.  It is probably only meaningful to the select few who had to tromp around in my parent's attic over the last 50 years.  This is the attic floor, probably seeing the light of day for the first time since they moved in in 1959.  Welcome back to the world, attic floor!  

And now for the good stuff:  dry wall!  This shot shows the new upstairs hallway, looking from Mom & Dad's old room to the new master bedroom. The alcove on the left is my laundry closet. 

And here's the kitchen!  This looks from the new dining room doorway all the way back to the no-garage door.  The steps on the right go down to the family room; the windows on the left are where we'll have our kitchen table.  My desk will be in that corner next to the steps, & on the other side of that wall (there's a wall now!!) is the mud room.  The two doors in the far back/left are the pantry & 1/2 bath.  And that big shovel there?  Right -- it's a big shovel.

The family room!  This was taken the next day, after the drywallers taped.  I couldn't believe how fast they got all this done -- two days to put up all the drywall & do the first go round with tape/mud.  Those undocumented workers are crazy fast!

Obviously, there's our new gas fireplace at the end; built-ins will go on either side.  The stairs there under the French doors go into the existing living room.

More of the family room.  Just cause I can.

Moving out-of-doors...  here is the final trim on the new windows.  I like!  Can't wait to see how good they look when all the nail heads are filled in & the house is painted.

And finally, here's the addition before the bricklayers came...

And here it is after!  The bricks aren't a perfect match, not that we expected them to be, but they are pretty close -- and look even better in person than they do in this picture.  The plan was (is?) to white wash them to match the original even more.  I am in favor of this, I'm not sure Rob is.  We will see how it pans out.

So, there you go!  We have settled on/ordered our kitchen cabinets (knotty alder in "Cinnamon"), backsplash (slate - love!) and countertops (my beloved soapstone), and have decided on our appliances though they aren't ordered yet.  Master & hall bath tile have also been selected, and I think we picked out carpet a long time ago.  Stone for the fireplace, done.  Faucets, also done.  We still have some flooring decisions to make (with an eye toward economy, though not at the expense of the project) and I need to figure out which version of white -- there are 100 of them you know -- we are using for the exterior paint.  I will need to have several drinks in me before I begin to contemplate lighting.  I am still thinking that candlelight may be the way to go...  after all, they're green and economical!

Hope this was worth the wait.  I am getting so excited about turning our project into our home!

Eh? Say again?

What's that you say? You want what?

Rickshaws?

Tinctures?

What?

Oh -- PICTURES?

Well, yes. I actually took some new pictures last weekend that are patiently waiting for some editing.

But now, with the big doins happening today, well... I just might have to take some newer pictures when I get home!

Looks like you're going to have to wait now, doesn't it?

So sorry!

I'm only a month behind

SO.

There were many trucks at our house yesterday.

Big, noisy diesel trucks.

Loaded up with materials.

Like bricks.

And drywall.

And -- well, I don't know. Other construction stuff.

And all of this was great -- I was happy.

BUT!

Today?

Swarms of men around my house.

I could enjoy this for many, many reasons.

But I actually only enjoy it because they were there to LAY BRICK AND HANG DRYWALL.

Oh, sweet bliss.

Playing catch-up

I have fashioned a very tenuous truce with the Shop. I am not happy with it, but it has given me the opportunity to pull together and edit a few more pictures.

Sadly, I am still not up-to-date.

As of today all of the addition, except for one narrow section, has been sided. The brick knee wall hasn't been installed yet, and the old part of the house needs to be resided to match the new, but once that's done I think it will all start to come together.

The cast iron bathtub for the hall bath was delivered today and so was the fireplace for the new family room. Skip says that Bill (the chief framer) is going to build the platform for the hearth tomorrow and then the fireplace can be installed.

We've got bids coming in for the kitchen and have decided on flooring. The thought of trying to choose lighting makes my head spin. Perhaps we will live by candlelight for awhile. :)

So here's how things looked one day about a month ago. This was a particularly busy day, with the main crew installing windows and the roofers, um -- roofing. Imagine all of the windows in and the siding on and that's where things stand today.


And here we are now. The two little windows are in the family room; right above that is Sara's room. You can see what the new siding looks like, although it still needs to be painted (Hardiplank -- love it!). I don't know why they haven't done that little strip that's facing forward. The birds appreciate it though: That little section where the Tyvek is pulled back is giving them access to the house. We haven't told Sara about this -- she would be devestated if she knew that birds were living in her room and we kicked them out!


And here's the expansion on the north side of the house. This bump-out will give us a much bigger kitchen (hooray!), a 1/2 bath, pantry & mud room down stairs and a master suite upstairs. Hard to see, thanks to the neighbor's tree.


And finally, a little reminder that Mom and Dad are never really very far away. This lone little bulb, planted by Mom I don't know how long ago, somehow managed to come up despite the digging, dragging, tracking, stacking, and demolition that dug it up and moved it several feet from its original home.

I love that.

And the verdict is...

Sara evidently likes her new room!

Skip's been here

Skip may have not-so-subtly reminded me that I've been remiss in my postings. So, in my effort at redemption, I'll start off with a post about what he's been up to this past week or so.

Think you know what he's working on?

Lovely, no?

This ought to be the give-away:

Ta-da!  A new portico!  I am quite fond of it.  He built just what we described.  He'll finish off the interior ceiling and the posts later this spring/summer (what, you don't like the treated lumber look?), but I think it looks pretty great already.

He's also been doing the far-less-glamorous but oh-so-important work of wiring around the windows for an alarm system.  Cause as you all know, I'm a bit of a wimp.

Thanks, Skip!  I'm serious:  With all the great stuff you've been doing around here for us, you could do quite nicely for yourself as the neighborhood handy man!

Whoa.

I am so terribly behind, it's pathetic.  I'm not sure what happened, but somehow in the time since my last post the builder guys have managed to fashion together something that looks quite a bit like a house.

I KNOW!

Pictures, you say?  Yes, yes.  Pictures are nice, but perhaps a bit over-rated.

No?  Not over-rated?  Well, maybe not.  But they do tend to bog down your download, right?

No again?  You have high-speed?

Huh.

But there's nothing worse than having to sit through picture after picture after picture, like you don't have better things to do with your time because after all!  You are a Very!  Busy!   Person!

No?  NO??  Geez, what do you do all day?  Sit around and read blogs or something?

OK, well -- whatever.  I'm fighting with Photoshop and currently the Shop is winning.  So no pictures.

Yet.

SOF! SOF!

So the city wants to shutter my neighborhood firehouse.

This is a colossally bad idea for a whole lot of reasons:

• While they took the engines away awhile ago, we still have an EMT team in the area.
• Warfleigh (my little slice of the world) is a part of a larger area known as Broad Ripple. If you've never heard of Broad Ripple you don't live in Indianapolis -- but trust me when I say it is one of the busiest neighborhoods you'll find in the city, especially on weekends and even more especially on warm spring & summer weekends. We host a LOT of folks.
• Why so popular? More restaurants and, unfortunately, bars than you can shake a stick at.
• With bars comes poor judgement.
• With poor judgement comes the need for a public safety presence and emergency response.
• Did I mention that an EMT team is based out of the firehouse?
• Also, the building is the oldest firehouse in Indianapolis & is of historic value to the city and especially our neighborhood.
• One guess what would go into that space if the city allowed it to be closed/torn down.

I am not one who blindly supports pet projects and special interests because generally they come with high price tags and do little to serve anyone outside a very small circle of people. But I would aruge that keeping a public safety presence serves not only the needs of Broad Ripple residents but also the thousands and thousands of visitors we have here every year. There are a lot of people paying a lot of tax on a lot of food & alcohol in Broad Ripple. I would think the city would be wise to keep it a safe and inviting place to put money back into the economy.

So. Wanna help? Go here and sign the petition to save our firehouse. You don't have to be a Broad Ripple resident, or even an Indianapolis or Indiana resident. It's quick & easy, I promise.

What are you waiting for? Go!

Danger: Sentimental thoughts approaching. Proceed with caution.

I think it would be safe to say that my mom hated her kitchen.

I mean really, really hated it. It wasn't very big and was in need of cleaning updating repair demolition renovation for years. Now that Rob and I are going through that process I think I understand (no no, I KNOW I understand) why Dad just never mustered up the strength to do it. There were big structural problems; a few new cabinets and shiny new linoleum would not have sufficed.

So, she lived with it: no ceiling, 45-year-old ugly flooring with the spots worn off from use, about 10 square feet of counter space, no room to move let alone work. Not that Mom was what you would have called a cooking enthusiast; no, she was more a reluctant meal provider. And provide she did, for nearly fifty years. Although her own mother had pretty mad cooking skills, my mom probably picked up most of her own recipes by meeting my dad's culinary requests: farm food. Fry it, boil it, cook it til it's done. If it starts green make sure it doesn't end that way. Bacon grease is the third essential seasoning. And if it dirties more than two pans? Well, it wouldn't dirty more than two pans, not if Mom had anything to do with it.

The kitchen though, despite its sad lot in life, was still the hub of the home. We probably spent as much time sitting in there, on those uncomfortable wooden chairs in various states of reliability, as we did in the living room. Maybe even more. Dad, having grown up spending a good deal of his childhood with his Depression-surviving grandparents, was rather reluctant to keep the heater set above 65, no matter how cold it got outside. Mom's solution? Head into the kitchen, turn on the oven & then prop it open for a few hours. I remember finding her in there one day with the gas burners on the stovetop going, too.

Yes, the house was notoriously cold.

But not the kitchen. It was also never very organized. Or tidy. Or clean, for that matter. But it never lacked for food or drink - or pens or rubber bands or screwdrivers or envelopes or gadgets or sunglasses or reading glasses or batteries or matches or just about anything else you could think of. The kitchen was indeed Mom's command center.

And so I had mixed emotions when the day came to gut it. A loved and hated space, but full of memories. When my mother-in-law offered to empty it for me I felt obliged to argue with her but secretly (or not so secretly) was relieved, because not only was this a big project, it was a big deal. When I went in there a few days later, so appreciative that I had somehow managed to escape the job, I opened up the cabinets -- the ones filled with her dishes and address books and old crocks that hadn't been used for decades -- and found nothing.

Nothing except the notes Mom left behind, scribbled on the backs of her cabinet doors: An eye chart she had to use when I was a kid. The phone number for our neighborhood paper boy -- from 1980. A list of her kids' phone numbers. A sticker with the code for a combination lock, long gone. The number for L.S. Ayres. Random names and numbers of people I never knew.

All the ephemera of her life, easily retrieved behind those doors.

And the ephemera, I couldn't part with.

So Rob, being Rob, offered to save the doors for me. Every last one. Those old, ugly doors so in need of... I don't even know what. But I'll figure it out. They're going to go up into my attic, where I'll put them back into use. Probably to start collecting my own notes and messages, my own ephemera.

Our project has moved along now, so much so that nothing remains of my mom's kitchen. Even the walls have been stripped and moved, and it takes a good bit of imagination and thinking on my part to remember where things used to be. Mom, I'm sure, would have loved it -- though more for its elevated role as hub of the home rather than it's improved function for meal preparation.

No, I won't miss that kitchen. But I sure do miss the cook.

Real quick

Just a couple recent-ish ones. I owe you another that shows it with the ROOF!



Second story up!


My attic is going to rock. Seriously.


A view of the master bedroom (love the cathedral ceiling) from the attic. This view won't last for long. :)

Photopalooza!

You can't fight mother nature.

Like most of the eastern half of the country we enjoyed a tasty snowfall last week. Lovely, to be sure -- but not exactly conducive to building our house.   I had pretty much resigned myself to a net gain of no progress for the week (I find this helps minimize disappointment), but was pleasantly surprised yesterday to find some work done on the inside that I didn't expect.

First, the old, unstable, sagging floor joists from the second floor bath were removed and replaced. Some of you may recall that the old bathroom floor's joists had been cut to accommodate plumbing (!) and then were supporting not only a cast iron tub but porcelain mosaic floor tile set in concrete. The result? The floor sloped about two inches. Add to this the fact that it shared a common wall with one of the bedrooms and, well...





...this is the result. Because they also need to elevate the shared wall, the crew is slowly jacking up the new joists to make everything level.  So now we have a nice new crack in the stairwell and, as you can see, the bedroom door isn't exactly "square" anymore. Evidently there was a whole lot of settling going on! 

On other fronts, I have snow in my house.





One can only hope that this won't be the case next January.

That second picture shows where the closet was in Sara's (and my brother's, and my) old bedroom.  It had suffered some pretty bad water damage. OK, really bad water damage: all the plaster had fallen off and it reeked of mold.  I put a child door latch on it and a bookcase in front of it to keep Sara out of there.  And I discovered yesterday that this wasn't the only place in the room with water damage.  Behold, the stud supporting the southeast corner of the roof:





I'm (obviously) no expert, but I wonder if that is just water damage.  Thoughts?

Onward and upward!  Here are some shots I took from the second floor, showing the old exterior walls (the first picture), then the expansions -- our room/master bath first, then Sara's room. The girl is going to have space! We may not see her for weeks.







And one more change of note, the studs are now up that separate the south wall of the kitchen from the hall that will lead downstairs. Skip is planning on coming back out next week to drop that section where the hall will be (to make it level with the new family room floor.  Don't try to visualize it, it will only confuse you).  Perhaps once he finds out how freaking cold it is he will change his mind.



Just a couple more random shots, illustrating just how very classy we really are... the neighbors simply have to love us.





And finally, a shot of our back yard from the second floor. It's not much right now, but it's our little kingdom. One of these days it will be filled with flower beds and vegetable gardens and neighborhood kids playing in the sun.

One of these days...

Just a quick one --

It's so cold outside that I've not had time to do more than a couple of really quick shots.  Will try to get into the new part of the house (isn't it awesome that I can say that??) sometime next week for more.

But here's where we're at now, complete with a "ceiling" over the kitchen/mudroom!

This is the view from the south side of the house, looking at the family room addition.  Where you see the blue wall is where our fireplace will be; the small windows on either side will sit above the built-ins that will surround the fireplace.

And this is just a look at the back of the addition (or most of it, about 1/4 of the family room is obscured by the ever-present dumpster).  We've got three big windows facing the back yard in the family room.  The two doors lead to the mud room (one will eventually connect to the garage...  eventually.)

We've had steady snow all day today though little accumulation.  Next week is supposed to continue to be very cold; I'm not sure what that means for getting the crew over here.  I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers!  It will be so nice when everything is enclosed & weather isn't such an issue.

Stay warm everybody!

Did you know...

...that when it's 10 below outside, the crew doesn't work?

Really, the nerve...

Not SO rotten!

Yes, it is still cold. And grey. And wet, if you consider snowflakes "wet" (they will be eventually).

BUT!

When I came home today, and saw -- brace yourselves! -- WALLS?!?!?!?

How could I resist?

Walls!  Here you can see (well, I can see) the family room [in the foreground], part of the kitchen [the nook, where that big opening will have a window], and the door leading to the mud room [or more accurately, the space for a door leading to the mud room].

Here's the mud room/pantry/loo/my desk area.  Where you see that small space for a window is going to be the 1/2 bath; the blue wall right next to that is the pantry.  That corner that juts out in the front will be my desk area.  The mud room will be just inside the door.

Here's a view of the breakfast nook, as you're looking from the family room.  Don't we have a lovely view of our neighbor's fence?  I will have to do some creative landscaping there...  And a bird feeder for sure.

Finally, this little section shows how the kitchen will bump out another three feet or so.  Right now it doesn't feel like we've gained any room -- but once the old walls come down, it's going to be huge!

I'm rotten, aren't I?

So, no photos. My apologies. It has been cold and wet and grey. And did I mention the cold and the wet and the grey?

The bad news is the temps are falling as I type. Into the teens. BRRRRR.

The good news is that despite my aversion to the cold (and the wet and the grey), the crew keeps showing up every day. Yesterday they started framing the floor of the kitchen & mud room!

I should take pictures, no?

I should. And I would, if only it weren't so cold (and wet and... well, you know).

A teaser

Right now, you can stand in the kitchen & see not only the basement floor but also the bathroom ceiling.

Awesome, right?

I'm going to head over today with the camera... more to come!

Taking a look back

This house of ours holds a lot of memories.  Seeing it now, in it's mid-demolition, torn-up state (like a Pheonix, I keep reminding myself) it's hard to imagine it's past life.  But I'll try anyway.

Our neighbors to the north and south sit fairly close to us, but we do have a nice deep yard.  The front yard slopes up from the sidewalk about 4 or 5 feet and was always good for rolling down in the summer or sledding down in the winter.  When I was a kid there were two big maple trees flanking either side of the front walk -- not particularly good for climbing but lovely nonetheless.  I remember when Dad took those trees down (and the ER visit that followed).

The back yard was always a lot busier:  vegetable gardens, flower gardens, barbeques, soft ball, tree climbing, countless auto repairs, refinishing old treasures from the attic, trying to dig my way to China -- I could go on & on.  As I look at it right now, from my sister's dining room, I see pulled-out railroad ties that were once used to construct our patio, fallen limbs, an earth mover, debris of all varieties, a dumpster, and lots & lots of mud.  Mom's old white pine, the one she brought back from Maine when she was a kid and moved to this house when she got married, still stands in the back corner, oddly-shaped from storm damage more than 20 years ago but holding it's place of honor regardless.  None of us has the heart to take that tree out, so I suppose it will stand there until another, stronger storm comes along and does it for us.

The peonies are awaiting their return next spring, right now tucked in under quite a stack of firewood.  I always loved the day the peonies bloomed, because I knew the end of school was around the corner.  Now I love them because of their heavy, frilly blossoms & familiar, comforting scent.  Another reminder of Mom, too.

Dad's vegetable gardens are lost in the track marks left by the parade of machines we've seen over the last few weeks.  I think we're going to try something new (raised beds and "square foot gardening") but just the sight of sprouting seeds and ripening tomatoes will be enough to keep Dad's memory alive for me.  Sara is so excited about this, too -- she asks me every night to tell her the story about the garden, and wants to plant every tomato she sees in my seed catalogues.

We have big dreams for this yard of ours, most of them new twists on old themes.  We'd like a new patio, this time with a pergola, and of course a nice big garden.  We'd like a play set for Sara and her friends in the neighborhood and feeders to lure back the birds that Mom spent so many years feeding herself.  We look forward to barbeques and blooming peonies and another 30 years with that old white pine.

Everything old is new again.