House Week 3

So much, so much!
On Monday Jose and John cleaned out the attic while I was shopping at Home Depot (again!) for lead safe respirators, because we managed to become thoroughly freaked out about lead. (So much so that John got his blood tested. His lead results were less than 1 and you don't start worrying until it's 25. I think we're okay.) After I got back to the house, I waited until they went to lunch to go through all the treasures from the attic. I now have several more mason jars with lids, a few old mayonnaise jars - they're a great size for storing too many dry garbanzo beans - and some vintage clothes. (Don't tell John.) There was also a ton of junk, a few old coffeemakers and a toaster, and two fake Christmas trees and decorations. After rifling through the goods, it was time to get back to work and more cleaning. We scrubbed baseboards, cabinets and windows.

My new shirt. Come and knock on our door; We've been waiting for you...

We met with Bruce The Bungalow Doctor, or Bruce Bungalow as I like to call him, about some changes we want to make including closing up two doorways and making a new doorway between the back two rooms. I think he was more excited than we were! He is passionate about these old homes and his work, so it's a good match.

On Wednesday Joel & Carlos, the plumbers, started their work to re-plumb the house. They are nice, quiet and move fast. Luckily, no big plumbing surprises were found and we'll be wrapping up this phase soon. We'll wait to install sinks, commode, dishwasher, etc. until all the painting and dry wall work is done. In the meantime, I've been googling bottom-freezer, french door stainless fridges and am very excited.

Saturday we had meetings planned with a window guy and an electrician starting at 9am and then planned to work a full day.  We made the mistake of running that morning in the humidity, so during our meetings John was yawning and I kept trying to find a seat on the step-ladder to rest. We were beat! We pushed our work to the next day.

Saturday night there were major storms and a tree fell inches from my car where we are staying. It was around 2:00 am and John and I heard the tree falling and I jumped out of the bed and yelled "come on! come on!" trying to run out of our bedroom where I was certain a tree was about to land. This all happened in seconds, of course. Luckily, the tree managed to fall between two cars in a parking lot.

Backing out under the tree. Not dangerous at all. 

Despite the long night of storms and the felled tree, I was pumped to get up and start pulling down the cardboard-like wall covering in the bathroom so that we can put up bead board or something purty like that. I got to work with the wonder bar and tried not to break too many pieces of trim...or tile. But, it wouldn't be a normal day in the Savage household to not break something. In the end John and I each accidentally broke some tile. A little spot of glue will fix it right up. We hope.

bathroom before

bathroom after

Working in the kitchen, John first took down one of the two little walls. We were going to call it a day when we decided to take down the second half-wall with storage to open up the kitchen. We were hesitant because we'd lose the storage space and grandpa who built the house put in a lot of thought and effort. In the end, though, I'm so glad we did take it down! Not only did it open up the kitchen, we found a rat's nest between the bottom of the cabinet and the floor. Nasty! Once we saw that we knew we had to take out the bottom kitchen cabinets because who could say for sure those weren't as nasty. We'd been debating all week about taking out the cabinets and this made the decision for us. Fortunately, they weren't as bad.

kitchen before

rat's nest

demoing in lead mask

kitchen after - see small window on left

We were both totally done at this point and ready to go home. Then John got fired up to create a window in the wall to let more light into the kitchen from the back room.  It's a work in progress.

Next up - get the two dead trees removed and figure out where the roof leak is coming from!
See all house pictures here