Settling In

We are all liking our new place. It is larger than our little old house on Normandie. The kids have been able to spread out a little and I can't say how amazing it feels to have real closets to store our stuff in. We have a huge pile of furniture in our garage that we don't need anymore. Its strange that we had that much furniture in our old house but then I think about how we didn't have any other storage space. Here there is a giant closet under the stairs and giant closets in every room. At first glance the kitchen seemed so small but it is a true galley kitchen and so it is very efficient. I did make a few boxes of dishes that I feel I can finally part with while we live here. I wanted more room in the cupboards for food. I figure I can always get new stuff. I could enjoy a reason to go to vintage stores in my future. 

For the first time ever I have a kitchen that works to photograph food. I also just took over my husbands old phone which helps also. I think I am going to save up for a new camera and perhaps a photography class. I have been cooking a lot here and it feels good to start to establish a normal routine. We are still finding all the stores and places to shop for food but I think we are going to have it all figured out in no time. 

I tried to take a bath the other night. I have been having a slew of migraines. The bathtub is old and such a funny shape. It was so uncomfortable. I am going to have to try to find a bath pillow or something. We think this house was built in the 50s. It has had a lot of updates so in a lot of places it feels more modern but it still has plenty of older touches to give it some character. I have been laughing at it a lot and am glad it is not mine as it is the crookedest house I have ever been in. The walls lean and the floors slope and even my closet door doesn't shut all the way. I don't know if it was built crooked or if it has settled so. I suspect it was a bit of both. At any rate we seem to be doing good and are so much more relaxed here. Life is good.  

Something to Remember You By

These were the professional photos taken of our house for the real estate listing. I wanted to remember just how it looked in its prime state (that means perfectly clean with no kids around). This was the best we had it after 5 years. You can see how it looked when we moved in here, here, and for the most part here. Of course those posts only highlight the house. The gardens were probably the biggest visible change.

Some of the things we did in 5 years were; rip out old bushes and put in all most all new plants, dig up the back yard and put in gravel and gardens, revamp the sprinkler system. A new architectural roof with plywood sheeting. We partially tore out an obsolete chimney, and put in proper ventilation in roof. We also fixed the faulty set up with the bathroom fan. We installed a new high efficiency furnace to replace the old oil burning one, which included installing a new gas line to the house. We also got new hot water heater, and a new fancy schmancy dishwasher. We put in all new plumbing from the kitchen sink to the clean out in the basement where new plumbing had been put in to the alley before we moved in. This included jack hammering the basement floor and then putting in new concrete when we were done. We tiled the hearth around the fireplace and made it level with the wood floor again. I restored almost all the historical storm windows, as well as a complete restoration of the 4 over 4 pane historical picture window with accompanying storm. I also did a restoration of two other widows. We put in new floors in the kitchen and bathroom, and instillation of appropriate baseboards in the kitchen to replace the vinyl wrapping that was put in by the previous owner. We put in a new/old back door to match the existing doors and windows with a screen door on the back porch. We tore out a rotten deck and replaced it with a smaller new set of wooden stairs. We replaced most of the rotten basement windows and a picture window (that had been installed in the 70s in the enclosed porch that didn't open and was stained and discolored), with a widow to match the pane window on the front of the house. We rebuilt the missing medicine cabinet in the bathroom and stripped paint off the baseboards in the kids room and restored the woodwork. I refinished the wood floor in the kids room. We got the house and soil tested for lead and had all the woodwork on the outside of the house painted, and replaced some of the wood on the exterior that had been previously been damaged by ivy. I painted every room on the main floor. Hubbs tore out a bunch of cheap fiberboard paneling and drop ceiling in the basement as well as a bunch of 1x1. He also tore out a bunch of rotten framing in the basement, and disposed of it all at the dump. We took apart an old piano that was left there when we bought it and used a sledge hammer to break it apart so we could get it out. Tore out a strange door frame at the top of the stairs that didn't have a door to match, fixed the plaster on the stairs and repainted. We framed in a bathroom in the basement with existing plumbing. We insulated the belly band on the house in the basement and put up new insulation and framing in the laundry area. We painted all the trim and doors on the garage. We replaced the exterior scary aluminum electric panel from the 70's with a new one in the basement. Replaced the nob and tube wiring to the garage as well as have the entire garage re wired to modern wiring and up to code (that included digging a 12" trench to the garage through the yard). We built a picket fence around the two side yards with gates and tore out the old chain link. We had the house tested for radon, and had it looked at by a structural engineer to determine where the load bearing walls were and if the attic could be finished. I installed new 1930's reproduction light fixtures in the dining room and bedrooms. I stripped paint off of the original hardware in the kitchen. Hubs built a new hand rail for the back porch. I replaced at least 3 windows that broke while we lived there. I dug out the garage as on the backside it was buried by 3 feet from 80 years of garden debris composting down to earth. Hubs built me a clothesline. We built and tore down 2 chicken coops. Paint paint and more paint. This list is not in order, its just a haphazard remembering of our doom.

Phew. Typing up that list was exhausting. I can't believe we did all that work to the house. I feel a little sick when I read through it. I did so much of it by myself and I did it with three kids under 6. When we sold it the buyer had an issue about the air conditioner being old. I was so mad about that as I felt lucky that it even had central air. . No wonder we felt so poor all those years. No wonder I felt so overwhelmed and stressed out. I had absolutely no idea how much work that house was going to take. When we walked through it, it was the only one that was move in ready that we saw in our budget. Now that I look back it was not in our budget. I can't believe my credit came out better than when we started. No wonder I felt in over my head every single day of my life for the past 5 years. Its a miracle I am even still alive after all that stress.

Here is a list of the things we always wanted to do but didn't get to accomplish: refinish the wood floors, do some work to the chimney and bricks on exterior, re-wire the entire house as most of it is still knob and tube, finish the basement to include and egress window, bathroom, updated laundry, storage, and living area. Tile the floors in the kitchen, bath and enclosed porch. And finish the attic to be a master bedroom with a bathroom. I would look at all these blogs for inspiration and pin all this stuff on Pinterest that I was going to do to make it beautiful. I remember many nights lying in bed so excited about my dreams that I couldn't fall a sleep.

That list of stuff we wanted to do is much, much, shorter than what we did do. The lucky buyers get to do all the fun stuff of my dreams. Next time I vow to buy a house that needs less work. I am only buying something that needs aesthetic updates not an entire overhaul. I am happy I got to own an old house as I have always loved them but am not sure I will ever do it again. Now you can see why we are taking a break and renting. When we sold, everyone kept asking us if we were going to buy. We both almost yelled back NO every time. At least not right away.

Round Here Something Radiates

I just spent about fifteen minutes typing up some grand thing to say for the people that look at my blog. Then I deleted it.

I don't need to explain the thoughts in my head, or write about why I am trying to do certain things here. I am posting because it has been a long time. We have grown up and are still growing around this house and good things are happening. We are doing our first year of Kindergarten and it has been fun but more of a learning process for me. I find that I have to learn how to manage my time and how to let certain things go so we can do what is really important.

We have been having a month or so where someone is under the weather. Right now we all have some sort of nasty little cold. There has been a lot of herbal tea, soup, and more TV than I would like but we are surviving. Today I only have half a voice and it is surprising to me how serious the kids know I am just my my eyes.

I have been busy this year making a lot of wooden toys to use for our school time. I tell them a lot of stories and sometimes we have fun setting up the scenes and acting it all out. I have had to re-arrange my life and my house a little bit to have a place for all of these creations. I liked the end result more than I thought I would. I enjoy seeing all of the bright toys sitting on the bookshelves.

A big thing for me happened a couple of months ago, I finally got my husband to install the large farm sink I bought 4 years ago when we moved into the house. It was problematic as the sink is a different dimension that the old one and we can't just get a new counter top for a reasonable price as the old one is completely custom in every way. So just a little sink project has turned into a huge debacle. So the new sink is in and I love it but it is not on a pretty counter. I will keep dreaming but for now I am so happy to have a more functional sink in our tiny kitchen. We even went as far as to install a water filter directly to the line so as you turn your cold water on for a nice drink woalla! Fresh tasting water right out of the tap. What can I say, it is getting luxurious around here.

With all of this new sink came some other fun things in the Kitchen as I have been baking our bread with a San Francisco sourdough starter. I have been using the organic flour you can get at Costco and it was rising like a dream. It was super nice, predictable and fast (for sourdough). When we did our NO spending month in January and part of February I had to use some regular flour for a while  (due to running out of flour unexpectedly and having no money to get new flour) and it started to rise less and less and my breads were predictably turning into bricks. When I had used all of that flour and was able to go back to my regular flour my bread has begun to resemble its old self. I found it an interesting experiment to say the least.

A few pictures from around my house are here in this post as it is always interesting for me to look back on them a year or more down the line. Can you see that branch thing hanging on our wall back there. When my dad gave me my scroll saw, that was the first thing I made out of some scrap pieces from a piano we tore apart in the basement when we bought the house. We use it now as a little place to set up our seasonal displays. Due to my feelings of not wanting clutter and how small our house is I was having a hard time finding a place for our nature table. Now we just use the branch and the desk. The branch was not an easy first project for my scroll saw but hey, that's just the way I work I guess. Most of the time I just jump right in and sink or swim.

This is almost how my kids room looks now, of course it is the one room that changes the most. I still can't believe I have three kids crammed in that little room. Sometimes I get really frustrated that our house is so small but then I remember that it is really good too. We are close and we don't have a lot of useless stuff. This small house has taught me that I can be happy with less, and that if something is going to be brought into my house, I better love it. It has been a process but I often think of what my mom said to me one time, that living in a small house and sharing rooms with her siblings made her family closer.

Of course the cram of three kids in one room wouldn't be possible with out this great toddler sized bunk bed that my dad made for my kids. We didn't want a full size bunk because it would have filled most of the room as well as the concern of them falling out. When I stand by the one we have my shoulders are at the top bunk, and the mattresses is as skinny as a crib mattress. I love this little bunk bed as it is sturdy and made out of real wood. I also love how I can snuggle them on it because I just fit, head to toe length wise.

Things are always changing and that is good. We have fun most days and we are gearing up for warmer weather. We didn't really have a winter and so it has felt like spring for almost a month and a half now. I have been working on some pretty big garden projects and am excited for some upcoming adventures.

The Kitchen

I realized recently that when we moved into our house I purposefully left out the pictures of our kitchen. One of my friends asked me about what my kitchen looked like and I replied that I had a few things to do to it then I would post some pictures. Then I found out that I was pregnant with baby R and I stopped caring about how ugly my kitchen was and just tried to survive. When my parents came out for her birth and for Christmas last year I think they were a little disturbed by some of the aspects of the kitchen that I had gotten used to living with for nine months. When we bought the house I came up with a short term fix for some of the storage issues we had in our poorly laid out kitchen and I thought I would just slam something a little more permanent together including some new counter tops and a new sink in within the first year. Now that we have lived here almost two years I have come to despise the layout of the kitchen and have a very clear picture of what needs to be moved and done to make it pleasantly functional.

Do you see those nasty cabinets back there? When we bought the house they were down in the basement. They had probably been there since sometime in the seventies, perhaps earlier. I am basing this assessment on the fact that we have a porcelain brown sink and some seventies looking tiles for a backslash in the kitchen currently  These cabinets are almost 80 years old and may even have been built by the builder of the house. I think they were the original cabinets in the kitchen.The drawers are heavy and have no gliding mechanism and they had a super ugly fake grain paint job.

Here is a better close up of the nasty paint job. The very first thing we did as soon as we moved into the house was haul those cabinets up from the basement and give them a good cleaning and put them in the back of the breakfast nook. I had to do this because we had no where to put food and pots and pans in the kitchen as it was. They were super dirty and I didn't even have a counter top for them. When I had baby R my dad worked really hard and installed a counter top for us (again out of the basement).

Here is my kitchen as it is today. Last January I started painting the bottom cabinets all the way around. I was going to paint the top ones as well but got a little burnt out and also decided that I didn't mind the wood with the blues we had in there. I used a oops paint that I got at Loews  for 5 dollars, which I also used to paint our "shoe room" as well. I really love this blue and have started using it in other areas of the house too. 

When we finally do get a new kitchen (I hope the year 2014) I am planning on a similar paint scheme. There are original hardwood flooring under about 7 layers of linoleum and sub floor. I have plans to move the stove  and fridge which are just out of view on the right side of the picture.  

And that's our kitchen.

Our New Old House

I have finally gotten around to showing you our new house. Now that we have been living here a couple of months we are settled in and getting used to our new neighborhood. I wanted to show you some of the things that charmed us into having this house be our first home. It is smaller than we were hoping for our first home so we have taken to calling it our starter house. I hope you can see why we like it!

 This is a view of our dinning area, as you can see I did indeed finish my table and the shellac was wonderful to work with. I do still need to protect it with wax because it is sensitive to water but for now we have been using place-mats and it is holding up really well. In this photo you can see the picture rail that goes all around the ceiling in our living area. It was really fun to hang our photos and artwork. I used ribbon and it looks really nice but it does take a little getting used to because the frames float on the wall.

 This is what it is like to have frames hanging from ribbon. It looks really elegant. I like it and am glad I choose to follow the inspectors advice and use my picture rail. He told us that since the walls are plaster it would protect them if we used the picture rail instead of pounding nails into the walls. What do you think?

 One of the things we liked when we initially looked at the house was these wall scones. They are really nice and add so much character to our living room. I thought that all of the light fixtures were done in good taste because they seemed to match the character of the house. Our house was built in 1933 and I think it has some arts and crafts influence, which became a really popular decorating style around that time.

 This is our front door and we thought it was so cute that it was rounded. At first we thought we would remove the screen door so you could see it better but now that we have settled in we have both realized that it can be really dark in the house and I have taken to opening the door in the daytime to let the light in.

 This is the original hardware on the front door and I think it is really cool looking. The downside is that we don't have a key and it doesn't appear to function that well. That's OK for us though because we mostly use the back door off the kitchen because it is closer to the garage

 A nice little view of the living room fireplace. I really like it but am already thinking of ways to improve the function of the mantle. I think it needs a bigger mantle because the one we have is kinda skinny. It is a little difficult for me to decorate.

This is our one and only bathroom. It was the only bathroom out of all the houses we looked at that I liked. Most of them had serious issues. One thing my picture doesnt capture is that there is an arch above the shower. It is so cute. We are hoping to either finish the attic or the basement, or maybe both and we will be putting another bathroom in. I am glad that we have never had two bathrooms and are still used to only having one.

This is one of the bedrooms, obviously it is not bubbies room. I really like our room even though it is on the small side. It can be really peaceful in there.

 And last but not least I wanted to show you one of our many original crystal knobs. I have always wanted old door hardware on the interior of my home and I remember looking into a house back in Ferndale that was for sale and loving the fact that all the doors had the old brass knobs. All of our interior knobs are these really cool crystal knobs. I just love them. When we looked at the house I got really excited because we hadn't seen details like the ones in our house in any other house. Our new old house may be small but it is really cute. It is going to be fun for us to fix it up and continue to make it a home that is loved.