The last 3 weeks

It has been a busy 3 weeks around here. The kitchen is still al-fresco, but less breezy than before. The addition has been framed in, which is so exciting. 

There were some pretty hairy moments when we had a thunderstorm and water was pouring into the kitchen and bathroom. Michael and crew were wrestling that giant tarp like some sort of rodeo event. By the time it was all done, the poor guys were soaked! It has been a bit windy here recently. We have drop cloths, or Magic Carpets, as Matt calls them over the doors that lead to the open areas. The house seemed to breathe with every gust of wind. The drop cloths would sway in and out. This North County (of San Diego) girl has been freezing!

We have been looking at our WONDERFUL architect's drawings since November; it is fun to see the drawings turn into 3-D. Actually, the lovely Katy Esser came to our house on the second day of moving to discuss plans and ideas. Katy was especially kind and encouraging to me that day. I was seriously wondering what I had done to our family. Katy has designed both of our houses (here is the first house right after we finished construction http://www.katyesserarchitect.com/portfolio.php ) We have nothing but great things to say about her. Check her out if you need an architect! http://www.katyesserarchitect.com/  

I am a little overwhelmed where to begin....

We have entertained the neighbors with a flying bathtub. 

The Truss Dude lifted the tub after he delivered the trusses. 

Can't blame the guys for not wanting to haul a cast iron tub up a flight of stairs-- an upside to having the backside of your house open.

Matt has been traveling like crazy for the last 3 weeks. He is such a DYI stud that he tries to cram his weekend full of everything that he can possibly get done into two days. On Saturday (yesterday), he went to Second Use in SODO and then to Black Diamond to run down salvage windows for the addition. Every little penny counts...

On Thursday, Michael gave us our instructions for the weekend. We wanted to pull down the last plaster ceiling upstairs. Sacrilege, I know! Like in the boys room, the ceiling had been poorly patched over the last however many years. It is dingy and hangs down at least 1.5 inches in the middle. Just what I want hanging over my little girl's bed! 

Here are the before pics. I really wish I had taken a better pic of the ceiling. They had carpet in this room because the floors were "bad." We pulled it up and the nicest fir floor in the whole house was under the carpet!!! Notice E's bedroom in the background... AKA the closet!

In any event, Michael said "You are really lucky. They put a layer of blanket insulation under the fluffy stuff. You can just roll it up so do that before you take down the ceiling." He climbed right up to the attic.  Matt went inside as he doesn't do anything with heights so that left me. (Deep breath) Up the shaky ladder I went to get further directions.

I don't have any photos of the scene up there and you are welcome. On Saturday, I began the horrible, horrible job of pulling the insulation. There are many awful jobs in the world..... Honey Bucket cleaner, septic tank inspector, ingrown toe nail surgeon, emptying the dishwasher---- and pulling nappy, yucky, poopy insulation from old attics!!!! 

I was digging into the fluffy stuff next to mice/rat holes hoping that they weren't new tunnels. Did I mention that we still have knob and tube wiring in the attic?!?!? I was trying to not get electrocuted and also not contract hanta virus when I discovered something had killed a blue jay.  Rats don't do that. What else was up there.... a wolverine?  

A couple of times the light I had up there got disconnected.  Let me just tell you, I was worried about what was in the shadows! I would scream to turn the light on, which didn't travel well with my respirator on. Matt would panic that I was being electrocuted.

This is as close of a pic as I have to my adventure up there.

A couple rounds of that. and Matt was ready for me to come down. He decided to take one for the team and pull the ceiling down from below--- rat poop, yuckies, and itchy insulation included. I thought I had made a good dent until I look at him.

He was a little more energetic in the beginning.

This super cute little man came to help when the plaster was all down. N loves to help!

The background shows the Master Suite. N is standing in what will be the hallway between C's room and the kid bathroom/laundry room.

In other exciting news, I got the entry way ceiling painted (also a terrible job).

Have a great week!

Kitchen Al Fresco

Happy belated Easter! We had such wonderful weather and got to enjoy our big backyard. A part of me still looks for Lucy to come running up. Someone is still missing around here, but Matt has made me promise that I will not bring a new 4-legged baby into the house until the remodel is over. Sigh. Oh-kay.....

It was a bit bright for N and C. I think they just sorta aimed their smiles toward where they saw me last. Please note the expert photographer in action....nice finger included in the photo. We had to dye eggs without E. There is only so much disaster I can take.

I know I have said this before, but I think Matt is like a fine wine (or whiskey as he would prefer). He keeps getting better all the time. Matt traveled most of last week, but on Thursday night Michael asked that we remove the upper cabinets so guess who was demoing on Easter?

I was a little late getting the pre-demo photos in. Now, all of you Rehab Addict watchers (I am included in this) take a deep breath. These cabinets are circa 1970's not 1930's and I will not even tell you how nappy they were, but I happily chucked the shelves into the dump truck with no qualms.

Again, I will not tell you about all the yuckies that were discovered. Vomitville, I tell you.

 Matt got one side done on Saturday. On Sunday he moved on the the last section and the floors. The floors in the kitchen have left us wondering ever since we moved in. First, the floor in there was a good inch higher than the rest of the floors. Why? It also newer than the 100+ year old fir floors. What was under there? When I pulled the dishwasher, I learned that there was fir under some portion of the cabinets, but under the stove was a tacky brick vinyl (it goes with the billions of bricks buried in the yard).

My heart did not skip a beat at this.

It did when I saw this...lovely fir.

Who puts Tyvek under their flooring?????? I am sure that there was a reason. I don't want to know.

 Matt was a little tired and A LOT stinky. Notice the addition behind him? Hello bigger kitchen and mudroom! Oh, you should have heard him groan as he literally fell out of bed this morning. N wanted him to carry him downstairs....um no.

Monday

Michael and Dave arrived ready to get started on taking off the kitchen/bathroom roof today. I am sure that I should be smart enough to be worried about what was going to happen, but I love remodeling so much that I can't help but be excited to see how it all plays out. I would probably not have this opinion if it weren't for Moose and Michael.

 While they were busy ripping things apart, I was pulling nails on this giant stack of flooring. Michael showed me a little trick to break the staples off so I am no longer adding to my impressive list of injuries since moving here. We would like to reuse these, but we don't know where as of yet.

See that blue? That is the tarp and the insulation is just to keep some heat in. 

Dave casually mentioned, "So, there are those two 2x4 walls in the kitchen and bathroom....those really need to not move tonight."  

Me: "Oh, why?" 

Dave: "Well, they are carrying the weight of the roof. Don't worry. It will be okay."

Me: "Do you notice that some of the support post are leaning?" (Putting the Leaning Tower of Pisa to shame!)

Dave: "Oh, yeah. It is okay. There is a screw in there to hold it."

In my mind: "A screw?!?!? Holding up the roof up?!?!?"  Trust Michael. Trust Michael. Trust Michael. 

Me: "MICHAEL!"

I moved the magic carpet to the kitchen. Hopefully, it will help with dust reduction and keep a bit of heat in.

I have been rehabing these vintage schoolhouse lights I got on eBay. Moose has helped me rewire them and rebuild them. This one I wanted to give up on, but he preserved and I am so happy he made it happen. It looks so pretty! The fixture was certainly an ugly duckling before I spray painted it. I was too much of a baby to hook it up. Michael came to my rescue. 

Do you like our pantry on the window seat?  So cool. At least you can see what you own.

I have 3 others upstairs. They are so cute. I am headed to eBay now to find some more. 

Big Night!

Tonight I am running the dishwasher, doing laundry, and flushing the toilet any time I want!!! You may be wondering why on earth I am spending time writing about that?!?!? Well, you must be on the sewer system, or at least, have a septic system that is adequate for your house.

We knew this house was on the septic when we bought it. Matt and I thought, Okay, we had a septic system in the old house--we'll just hook up to the sewer when we remodel. No problem. Famous last words.....

This is the septic alarm. It emits a loud, screeching sound which causes fear in my heart and for me to drop everything I am doing to run to the basement! It is basically telling you "You better stop running any water or flushing anything unless you want me to send treasures back into your house!"  When we were looking at the house, the former owner told us "It only goes off in a heavy rain....if you are doing laundry and taking a long shower at the same time." "If it goes off", she told us, "just turn it off for 5 minutes and turn it back on. It will go right off."

Ummmm, not quite.

The second day we moved it was raining heavily, but toilets/laundry/showers weren't being used. The alarm went off and stayed on for 3 hours. I made my mother-in-law use the bathroom at the old house-- not first impression we were going for, but it wasn't that bad---just 3 hours!

Quickly, I learned that I HATE the septic system (but mainly the alarm). It has gone off no less than 10 times since November. It usually stays on for 8+ hours, but on average 10-12 hours. That means no running water, no flushing, no showers!  Fun, fun times!

You know it it bad when N and C constantly ask "Mama, can I flush the toilet today?" "Mama, can I turn on the water?"  Or my personal favorite when the alarm is going off, "Mama, does that mean the poop is coming in the house?" We trained them early to come get us right away if they heard the alarm.

It got slightly better when I disconnected a downspout that was filling the tank. So much for the French Drain they put in to drain rainwater away from the house.

Oh, the former owner also said that you only needed to clean out the drain in front of the garage once a year and that it wouldn't give us any trouble. It only flooded the garage once in her time owning the house, but that was because of some crazy amount of rain.

Again, a nice story. It has flooded twice since November. Good thing we had a pond pump and a hose long enough to reach the street to drain the water away.

In December, we had the Dirt Dude come out to plan the sewer hook up. It was right before the holidays so we weren't surprised that it took until mid-January to get a bid.  Long story short....fast forward to this week.

There are the Dirt Dudes discussing where the septic pipe might be coming out of the house. 

We have many different sized man-holes in our driveway. Which one is it????

This might very well been the happiest day of N's life. An excavator came to his house! He was like some sort of heavy machinery groupie around the Dirt Dudes.

N parked himself on our down-downstairs (the kids' name for the daylight basement) window and watched everything!

The main Dirt Dude, Russ, made N's dreams come true and let him ride in the excavator while it was running and help operate it. All day N had been saying, "I wish I was a grown-up so I could be a Working Truck Worker Guy!"

 He was so happy!!!! Now he says he can't wait until he is grown so he can do it all by himself. I tell you, I am going to harness this. Think of all the projects Matt will say no to, but N could help me with if he has those skills! The possibilities are endless....as long as Matt keeps traveling for speaking gigs.

We have a very long driveway.

Another super awesome thing was that the Northshore Utility District is very kid friendly. They gave the boys these (to quote N) Working Truck Fixer Man Things. N slept in his for nap time and also wore it to Dora House on Thursday. 

 E thought it was cool for a bit, but was more in love with running like a wild man around the place.

N got home from picking up the permit with me, and in all seriousness, said "Okay, I'm ready to go help the Working Truck guys!"  It took awhile for it to sink in that you have to be grown-up to work with them, even if you have the safety gear. 

Even though I lived off of less money my first year teaching than this cost, a lovelier sight has not been seen by my eyes since that darn alarm went off on Day 2. Okay, Moose and Michael rolling up was a pretty lovely sight too.

Today is a great day to be on the sewer system. I am off to run another load of laundry, but I tell you, I have never been so thankful for such an everyday service as the sewer. This little farmhouse has come a long way since 1909 when the sewer system was an outhouse (in my mind this exists on the neighbor's land). Even though we are modifying The Farmhouse, it feels good to know that it will be loved for years to come vs. being torn down. One perspective buyer just wanted the land. Almost everyone we meet in the neighborhood says that they love this house and they call it The Farmhouse too. 

**Please forgive any grammatical errors. Matt is out of town and can't proof for me.