Tree Time

This morning we took a little break from the work inside and moved out to the backyard, a place that at times has looked like a waste land.  It's been a parking spot for the truck, a place to pile junk and debris, and even where we washed our dishes in the early days.  So we figured to give it a little life and plant a tree this weekend. We chose a Sweetbay Magnolia, and it'll be the centerpiece of the garden we have planned for the future.


And, of course, here are some pictures:

Here's Sarah starting on the giant hole which was 6 feet wide and 18 inches deep in the center.  I can't take any credit for this one, she dug the whole thing herself.

And here it is after all the hard work.  Our friends Erik and Robin picked it up for us and we were able to back the truck right up to the hole and dump it out.

And since we don't want the new tree to blow over Sarah's making sure it's tied down and secure.

Future Visions

Since we're doing some of the boring work right now we thought we'd share a couple images of what we hope for the future.  The first is a view of the kitchen from the living room...

And now an idea of what we want to do for the back yard...

We're looking to plant a Sweetbay Magnolia sometime soon...kind of the much smaller cousin of a southern magnolia and is good for the size yard we have.

After a nice day trip to Shenandoah on Saturday to celebrate our one-year anniversary it was back to work on Sunday.  We're slooooowly putting in the living room floor, which is pretty hard given none of the joists are 16" on center and some of them are splayed.  So it'll take a while and require a whole bunch of custom cuts.  Our new toy is a Bosch impact driver which is making installing the screws a breeze.  We've learned that having the right tools to do the job is a must, even if it means spending a little more than we'd like.  Here are some pics from this afternoon:

Here's the new toy...                                           ...which is awesome!

The first one's always the hardest, right?  I think Sarah's relived to finally have a floor, even if it's just a tiny piece!

It's been a long while since the last posting so here are some pictures of what we've been up to.  It's been a busy last month, complete with a hurricane and an earthquake, but the house has made it through just fine.  The marble tile in the foyer is done (pictures to come soon), the crawlspace is 90% insulated and we're getting ready to put the floor in the living room.

We found this big crack in our backyard after the earthquake.  Turns out the retaining wall moved about 4"....another thing to fix!

Sarah cutting open some insulation.  We decided to insulate the house ourselves to save some money, but turns out it's quick and easy.

It's always fun to take a look back at what things used to look like...here's the living room from August 2010...

...and here it is today.  It's ummm different looking; can't really say better, but different.

Marble!

This past weekend we started the tile in the foyer.  We chose white marble 12x12's for the outside, black marble mosaic for the interior border and 3x6 white marble in a herringbone pattern for the field.  It's a complicated job and about 60% done at this point so there's a ways to go...but here are some progress pictures.

Hanging in there

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I've updated this site, so if anyone's still checking up on our progress thanks for your patience!  Things have been progressing a little slower recently for a few reasons...First work's been very busy, money's been tight (surprise, right?) and we've had some of the more boring tasks done like getting the electrical service upgraded and the kitchen rewired.


Even though we haven't had big changes visually, we know the project's still moving along so we can't be too bummed.  I imagine this is the time during most of these undertakings that people either A) get tired of the project and lose interest, B) run out of money and have to sell the place, or C) get divorced.  You think I'm kidding about the last one but I was following a blog just like ours recently and that's how it ended!  But we're still cruising along just fine and always have our minds focused on the finished line...it'll just take some time to get there.


And now in no particular order here are some things that have happened over the last five weeks:

Another day and another skill learned...this time learning how to patch tongue and groove flooring.  This line down the hallway was actually where a wall used to be, but unfortunately is now right down the middle.  So, it was another trip to Caravati's to pick up some old heart pine flooring.  This stuff is expensive but well worth it since we want it to blend with the existing wood.

The two ugly entry doors have finally been replace by these antique, formerly pocket doors.  They're eight feet tall and about 100+ pounds each so we left it up to the contractor to take care of it.  We'll handle hanging the interior doors.  We've also just bought marble tile for the foyer...a nice original looking pattern with white and black marble.

A close-up shot of the handle set we chose.  They're very heavy and good quality which matches the door perfectly.

Before we can lay the tile we had to install cement backer board.  Of course the floor wasn't very level but like everything on this house we work with what's there.  Hopefully in a couple weeks we'll have pictures of the new tile.

Sarah's been working on the new (old) back door for the downstairs.  All the paint was stripped, one pane replaced, the door primed and painted the same red color as the front door.

Sarah's brother Tommy came to help again and helped out Sarah with the doors.  These came from a house in the Fan, built around 1925.  So, I guess for this house they're relatively new.  They're nice, heavy solid wood doors and should give the house a quality feel to it.

Sarah always make sure to stay protected from lead paint.

I installed this window-well under the house for a couple reasons.  In the upper left you'll see the footing for the new columns we just put in and where I am there's an access door for the crawl space.  The soil was falling into the cavity near the door, pushing the door out but more importantly falling away from the footing.  So rather than have the footing move a year from now we installed this window well which will keep the soil in place and give clear access to the crawl space door.

Can't wait for the fall...it was about 100 degrees that day!

Too late and too tired to write much tonight so I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Sarah's brother Tommy came over a few weekends ago to help take out the floor in the living room (and by help I mean do most of the work).  We'd noticed the floor had a good bounce to it the first time we saw the house and always wanted to find out why.

Mystery picture of the day...Sarah pulled this out from under the floor.....guesses???  So you think it's an old towel.  Hmm maybe even an animal?  An opossum?  Wrong, it's TWO opossums... mummified together.  Needless to say Sarah was grossed out.

Our contractor put in one of the doors reclaimed from another house renovation.  These things are 8 feet tall and weigh a ton.  The other one should go in sometime next week.

And a view of the door from the interior.  You can see how much light it brings into what was a dark hallway. Sarah worked on tearing out the old carpet and pulling up the "tackless" strips, which ironically have more tacks than anything on the planet.  There's quite a bit of patching that needs to be done to the floor...luckily there's a place in town with a huge amount of old heart pine flooring.

Here's the living room floor after the repairs.  We added blocking and a good dose of liquid nails down the middle which greatly reduced the bounce so everything's nice and rigid.  I also got to do my first plumbing repair to a drain pipe and so far so good.

And I'll end with this shot of our work gloves.  Believe it or not they're the exact same type of glove, but the ones at the top were bought in August of 2010 and have been used every weekend since then.  Beaten up, worn through and missing some finger tips, but hey they're comfortable.

Time to break in some new ones for the next year...