Desert Sands

Today's To Do list included moving the boxes of our summer clothes up into the attic, so I spent the morning with the shop vac in the attic/third floor cleaning up the 250 year old dust left over from the roof removal. It may seem like obsessive compulsive behavior, but I assure you it was not. Later, I used the shop vacuum to clean out my regular vacuum cleaner.  That was obsessive compulsive behavior.

There are no ceilings in 80% of our house. Until the chain of renovations is complete there is no point in moving into those parts of the house.  Dust is still settling weeks later from the removal of the ceilings. For  bonus fun, when David hammers on a project upstairs, debris caught between the floor upstairs and the ceiling lathe downstairs will drop down to the first floor.  Sometime it's just boring old chunks of plaster, but my personal favorites are the corn cobs. Cleaning anything anywhere seems pointless.  It would be easier to sweep sand out of the desert.

So really why bother to clean at all? That's why I had to clean out the vacuum cleaner.  Don't look at the pile of sawdust in the hall.  Those are not nail filled planks in the dining room. There is not a layer of plaster dust on the floor in the Soon To Be Maizie Bedroom.  There is only this vacuum cleaner.  This vacuum that spews a cloud of dust when I turn it on. I couldn't take it anymore.  I prepared for battle.

First the front canister was opened, then a good rinsing in the bathroom sink.  The foam filter went into the water next.  Ick doesn't come anywhere near what came out.  Anything else that I could unscrew and remove went in, too.  There were still crevices in the body of the machine that held onto the dirt.  The shop vac still rested in the hallway, waiting to be called back to action.  It did quite nicely. At least now the regular vacuum only sucks, instead of blowing.

Down Stairs, Up Stairs

These steps were really getting me down. And the up wasn't too great either.  As we got settled into the house, David started talking  about 'flipping' them.  I nodded in agreement, not letting my complete lack of  architectural understanding get in the way of supporting his plan. I would follow him around as he pointed at walls and talked about 'runs' and 'rises'.

I  did understand that the stairwell was steep,cramped and had a dangerous switchback at the top. There was an awkward solid plank 'banister' at the top, leading into the cramped and narrow hallway. Turns out, all you need is a weekend, a few crowbars and a mini van full of lumber to fix all that. I suppose my husband's amazing carpentry skills may also have helped a bit.

 We removed the dining room wall that the  old steps were anchored to.  I use the term 'anchored' very loosely.  All the supports of the staircase were very loose. We removed everything and started over. David seems to think that the town Building Inspector  may want them to meet some sort of code.  I do hope it's the Pirate Code.

The steps start in the kitchen and run straight up, no turns.  They are roughed in for now, but functional.  The difference on the second floor is dramatic.  Here the plank half wall that was the bannister is removed.  The new stair well is just left of the carpet.  The hallway is now double the width with the removal of the attic stairs. We replaced those with a pull down unit.  The chimney is framed out and will be left exposed in the hallway. See the hall picture above right with the radio for the 'before' view.

Some Things Old, Some Things New

Last summer I showed my friend Susan photos of a two hundred year old house David and I were fantasizing about buying.  She was on her second historic home. I knew she would talk us out of our folly.  She didn't.  She advised it would be foolish not to buy it.

25 Miller Road about 1915

We spent half of 2011 pursuing that folly, but now in 2012 I am writing from inside that house. After we bought the house, Susan offered more advice.  On the day you move in, celebrate with champagne.  Don't wait until the house is finished to celebrate, because it never will be. We took that advice, too.

25 Miller Road about 1936

25 Miller Road Right Now

Today's reason for celebration, our contractor installed our new front steps, made from the old stone steps.

Our Old House: Blogisode 7-Is It Better This Way Or This Way?

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It's been a busy week on Miller Road.
See if you can spot the differences 'Before' and 'After'.

Gone are the cedar shakes from the front. Those boards that look so spanky new last saw daylight in 1915.  We know because the carpenter who put it up signed it. That's a new roof you're looking.

Dead sexy, eh?

There's the dining room and fire place that seduced us in May.

Here's the dining room today. The cracked ceiling is gone, exposing the massive beams that support the house.  We are hoping to find a way to feature them.

And who could forget the avocado glory of the upstairs hallway?

 Cramped and dark, just add zombies or axe wielding psychopath.

No, that's no zombie or psychopath.  Only our general contractor surveying the damage.

I mean improvement.

David, after seeing our neighbor's exposed chimney, decided we needed to feature ours. He removed those pesky attic stairs, and will replace it with a pull down stair unit.  Removing that wall doubled the space in the hall. 

Peace, Love and Livestock

Nothing says Christmas like baby cows, right?

For years on our way to my parents' home in Pennsylvania, we've passed a large family farm and dairy store.  We always say, "We should stop there this time."  We never did, until today. With our minivan packed to maximum occupancy, we took a drive to Hillside Farms.

Ice cream was the focus of the trip.  We didn't know we'd get a bonus closeup with a barnful of cows. There were chickens, alpacas, sheep, donkeys, goats and ponys, too. Believe it or not the cows were, to quote Maizie "way more better than the horses."

When we were kids, Wendy and I spent many weekends on our cousins' dairy farm.  Mucking out cow crap and  feeding sileage were some of my fondest memories.  It was years later I realized our cousins who were so eager to show us how to do farm chores were suckering us into doing their work. It doesn't matter.  To this day the smell of manure makes me nostalgic for those days.

Our Old House: Blogisode 6-A Few of My Favorite Things

Having survived a bus and truck tour of "The Sound of Music", I purposely avoid invoking any quotes from the show.  After re-reading my last few posts, I spotted some glaring omissions.  Namely, how incredibly happy I am to be here.

Sure there's mouse crap in my mittens. So what I have exactly 36" of clothes hanging space, and that's only due to the rolling rack for my business. Light switches, who needs 'em?  All of this too, shall pass.  All I have to do is look out a window to see why.  The woods surround us.  Every time I walk around my yard there are new discoveries in this place where I feel I have always belonged.

Family and friends have started to visit.  Some both horrified and jealous. On Chris and Jeff's tour, I had a world tilting sensation, no it wasn't just the uneven floor.  We'd signed papers.  Our stuff was moved in. But standing there joking in the attic of my house with people I've known for more than half of my life, it suddenly became my house.

When we first told Maizie we were moving, she was set against it.  As the closing date got closer, she was even more set against it. Driving home with David one night, she said, "Daddy, I think the house is sad because no one lives in it.  But it will be happy when we move in".



Here I am with all my favorite things, family, friends and home.

...a furnace, hot water, a bathroom door that closes, a dishwasher, a stove that doesn't smell like burning, a septic system, a roof that doesn't leak, the internet

Our Old House: Blogisode 5-Soaking In

Today I unpacked the boxes labeled "Booze".  I just hung my Coke bottle opener on the wall in the kitchen and promptly opened the beer sitting in front of me now.  I guess I'm really home now.

It's been over a month since we moved in.  The new roof is on, but we haven't seen the carpenters in a few weeks as they finish other roofs before winter really hits. Meanwhile David attacked the living room.  He didn't rest until new picture rail moulding was installed and pictures hung. You would never know that the rest of the house still looks like it did when we moved in.  Most of the ceilings in the rest of the house are going to be torn down and replaced. I can't unpack into those rooms until the work is completed, so I feel like I am stuck in a holding pattern.

I have to remind myself that we are moving forward. Thanks to a tip from Ashley at work, wallpaper removal has hit record levels.  In the living room we used my little clothing steamer.  The paper came down easily, but it took more than a week to complete.  I was just about ready to spring for an industrial steamer when I decided to try Ashley's suggestion to spray the walls with hot water.  In less than 30 minutes I had almost a whole wall stripped in my studio.

I stood on the step stool admiring the plaster and lathe I had exposed.  It was easy, just spray and let it soak. The paper practically jumped out of the way of the scraper.  I was feeling very self satisfied.  I surveyed my two hundred year old room, thinking of others in long wool skirts and caps also working here, and paused.  I kept waited for the historical society police to burst in on me.  "Step away from the scraper, ma'am." Should I really just be going to town on these old walls?  The musty stained 1950's wallpaper glared back at me.  Heck yeah! I wiped my scraper clean and got back to work.

This morning David came home from the hardware store with a garden sprayer.  He went all Rambo on the walls in Maizie's room, completing the room in a day.  We had feared that the wall paper was all that was holding the old plaster and lathe walls together.  We were surprised and relieved to find the walls in good shape.  Good shape for two hundred year old walls, that is.  They need a skim coat of plaster, but those naked walls are somehow beautiful. Walking into Maizie's room and not being greeted by faded blue roses lifted my spirits.  

Work is supposed to commence on the ceilings next week. The goal now is to get all the paper down from the rooms before the ceilings come down. While the ceilings are down, the electrician will install overhead lights and switches, and those new fangled electrical outlets.  Yes, I know, I am all about those modern conveniences.

Tomorrow we push ahead.  I remind myself that we have only been here about a month. Bit by bit, our house will come together.  And tonight, I know exactly where my bottle opener is.