Hexes, jinxes, and disbelief. . .

Did I say something about there shouldn't or couldn't be any more things that could throw us way off of schedule? I think I did, if not here, I know I did to someone, somewhere.

Yup, I hexed us. I jinxed us.

Today the cabinet guy calls and wants to know when we want him to order the cabinets. Uh, I don't know, how about 2-3 weeks ago when we met with you and approved the layout and chose the cabinets and countertops? Those would be the cabinets you told us would take 4-5 weeks to build and get in. That would be when we said, ohhh, we need to get that turned in right away.

Today I just feel sick and feel like we will never be home. It has been one thing after another. I just want to be home. I can't stand all of this upheaval and disarray. I need routine. And even though I don't really cook, I need a kitchen. Sigh. The target of us being home for Christmas is starting to look like it won't happen. I am so crushed and disappointed. At the same time, I am so mad at the cabinet guy that I want to go find him and give him one of my emotional tirades. And remind him that while he is celebrating Christmas at home that we won't be, because of him. UGH!

November 21

The siding is almost all finished. There are still some windows to be trimmed and the gutters to go, but for the most part, this outside is almost done!

The new back doors are in and the siding is done on the back also.


The insulation went in today upstairs too. Hopefully the new insulation will make things a little more comfy up there.

November 16, part 2

Lots going on in the basement. We decided to get a basement system installed that is supposed to keep the basement dry. We had some problems in the past with some mineral and mold growth on the walls; this system is supposed to take care of this.

The plumbers have been able to rearrange a lot of the pipes that had been hanging down. They also moved the water heater. This will help us a lot with being able to finish off rooms in the future. They also installed a new drain for the washing machine so that we don't have to drain through the old sink that was there.

You can see all of the new wiring running along the ceiling. Everything has now been moved to just one breaker box instead of the 3 we had before.

The heating/cooling people have been there working on the furnace and duct work.

November 16

The new kitchen windows are in! We added the window to the left. To make them match they replaced the right one also.


The new windows are in upstairs, well except for one, they are leaving it out so they get load sheet rock through the opening.


We have stacks of sheet rock in the living, dining room, and kitchen.


The first photo shows that you can now look through Emma's closet into the bathroom. We got the bad news from the city plumbing inspector that they wanted ALL of the plumbing in the house pulled and replaced. All of the bathroom plumbing for the downstairs bathroom was sandwiched between the bathroom wall and Emma's closet wall. Sooooo, down came the walls so that the pipes could be changed out. YIKES!

Something interesting to note here is the vintage wall paper hiding in the closet. At some point, part of the closet was partitioned off for duct work, in that space you can see the original wallpaper still in great shape. What remained of the closet had been wallpapered with wood look contact paper which made for a very dark closet. After the fire, the contact paper was painted over with Killz. Now with the wall down and the painted contact paper peeled away, you can see that the entire closet at one time was wallpapered in the pink stripe/daisy paper. Partway up the paper changes to a minty green dotted pattern.

1969

We have been so lucky to have gotten to visit with the previous owners of our home on several occassions. They are the sweetest couple who lived in the house for 35 years. (We are only the fourth owners of this house in its 80+ years. We always joke that there is a 30 year minimum on living in the house since owners number 2 also lived there for 30+ years.) I know that to them this house was truly loved. I think that they were probably as saddened by a fire here as much as we were. This past week we had a chance to visit with them again. They were so kind to share some photos of the house with us from 1969, when they bought the house.

I was really excited to see these because it answered some questions about the original style of the house.

Firstly, you can see that there used to be a back porch off of the kitchen. It had been closed in and added to the interior kitchen space. It is what I suspected after seeing the kitchen gutted. We also know now that there had been a walk in pantry.

There was originally only one door where we now have the two side by side doors on the back of the house. This second door was added for ease of moving things into the basement.

We see that the siding did not flare out at the bottom like I thought it might have from the photo of the house I found with similar original siding.

The dormers were originally sided in shingles and not siding.

The original windows had divided upper panes.

In 1969 the house was all white with dark green trim. The porch ceiling had a dark stained finish.

We've been shopping-

The new front porch light.


The new foyer light.


The new dining room light.


The new couch.


We chose two arm chairs with ottomans in this color instead of getting a loveseat.


We got two of these end tables. The have the same pattern as our french doors and have a nearly identical patternen in the wood and on the legs to our dining room table.


We got a coffee table also.


This is the new ceiling fan for the living room. It has a dragonfly motif in the stained glass.


David fell in love with this chair. Even though we weren't going to get the family room furniture yet, we ended up getting two of these.


We also got the recliner couch to match (in green, not beige). It also has a fold down section in the middle for a table and drink holders. I can not believe how pillowy soft this set is. It is like sitting on a bed pillow!

November 2

New wiring in progress.

October 31

A few more shots of the exterior of the house without the aluminum siding. I think that everyone who has ever wondered just what it looks like under their siding can see that it is a MESS!



The siding is going up pretty quickly. I am happy with it for the most part. It looks a little plastic-y to me, but then I guess all of it does. The color is dead-on the color I had in my mind from the first time I saw the house.



I am a little funny about things being in order and in their place. Walking through my yard right now is a challenge in patience to say the least! I REALLY want to pick up things and organize!! These guys working here just throw trash down every where, it is really killing me!


We got a few suprises when the plumber and the electrician came in. Our plumbing wasn't up to code. It was missing some type of vent and trap or something, which is probably why my sink smelled like sewer A LOT! Yuck. I would scrub the thing with bleach and it would still stink!! When I ran the dishwasher I was always getting stuff coming up the drain. It was gross. So the good news is that I shouldn't have that problem any more.

The biggest kick in the wallet is that the wiring was not only not to code, but pretty much illegal and very dangerous. The way they talked, it was a fire waiting to happen. Also, it wasn't grounded anywhere. I am not really sure exactly what that means other than it is bad, really bad. So now every bit of electrical wiring has to be removed and replaced. This is a huge budget buster! But, I guess I will be able to rest a little better when we get home knowing that all of the wiring is new and safe.

Flashback August 15: THE big event. . .

Our neighbor across the street shared these photos with us. He took them during the fire. Even after a coupld of months they still make me feel a little weepy and sick to my stomach.

A fellow dispatcher who works in Belleville (where we live) told me that the first unit arrived on scene just 2 minutes from the time of dispatch. I really believe that having a (full time) fire station just a couple blocks away made a huge difference in saving our home. I am very thankful for the fast response of the Belleville Fire Department.

A color scheme-

To help us decide on colors for the house, I scanned a photo into PhotoShop, turned it into a sketch and printed several copies on plain paper. I then got out my art markers and began to color. This is the combo we decided on. The siding will be a very pale/creamy yellow. The major trim will all be bright white. The porch floor and stair treads will be a sage green and some accent trim will be a cranberry color.

We will be removing the ugly silver storm windows that were covering the windows. They are vinyl/aluminum replacement windows that are very dark brown. We want that to show to create contrast. The silver storm door is being replaced with a full view glass door that will allow our original wooden front door to show. The dormer windows will be new windows in brown also with the grills to give the look of the divided panes that we think were once there.

We are thinking about painting the upper part of the brick supports white. We are unsure about the lower part of them and what we want to do with the porch skirting.

Discoveries-

I think every old house owner with newer siding has wondered at one time or another just what was under their siding. I know I did. I was always secretly hoping to find a loose piece somewhere that I could pry up and look under. I think those of us interested in renovating and restoring old homes to their original charm are always anxious for a clue to our home's past.

Because the fire damaged the siding on the dormer and it couldn't be matched, the whole house had to be resided. Finally I was going to get a peek at what my house once looked like!

A couple of weeks ago I convinced David to pry some siding off of the porch so I could finally see what was under there. I think I posted a photo of it, nice thin wide clapboard in excellent condition. I think secretly in my heart I hoped that one day we would scrap siding all togeter and bring back the original wood siding.

That was before they pulled the lower siding. . . .

What we found was two different sizes of wood siding, thin on the upper part of the house, and thick on the lower. Also there appeared to be a wood strip or something inbetween the two widths. Hmmm, that was a head scratcher. In all of my bungalow style books and web searches I couldn't remember EVER seeing such a combo.

I went back home and hit the books and there it was, an illustration of a house with the two widths of siding and a trim board inbetween the two. Unfortunately, when the aluminum siding was installed (I think about 20 years ago) the installers did quite a number on the siding. Where it would have flared out at the bottom, it was sawed off. The trim board that runs the perimeter of the house was also sawed and chopped off. It is really a shame that they had to do that. I am afraid that because of it my dream of one day restoring the original wood siding is probably gone for a very long time if not forever.

But, I guess on a bright side, I got a really good clue at what once was. Next up is the search for clues at to whether there were decoratve rafter braces (like in the photo above). The soffits will be down soon and the zoom lense will be coming out!

October 25

Here it is, rescued from the rafters of the garage, the swinging kitchen door. I have my fingers crossed that we will be able to clean it up, find new hardware, and be able to re-install it. David isn't too convinced that he will like it, but I think it will be a great touch to our house.

October 21

The roofing has started. We chose a darker brown archetectural style shingle. Once done, it will look kind of like shake shingles.


The old aluminum siding is coming down. We are finally getting a look at what the original siding looks like. . . it is wide clapboards below the window line and thin above. One small perk of replacing aluminum siding is that you can take it to be recylcled and get a nice little bit of cash for it. On the downside, you find out that when they put it up they totally destroyed the character of your original wood siding and that you will ALWAYS have to have replacement siding because the original wood is seriously chopped up and damaged.

Piles and piles of trash every where.