Nice things

• Hearing the waves when I take Delta out at o'dark thirty in the morning.
• Watching Donovan play and hearing him and his mother laugh. 
• Putting up the last full ceiling piece of sheetrock.
• Bedtime.
• Hearing the chimes on my porch when the wind picks up.
• Watching the flames through the glass in the woodstove.
• That first morning cup of coffee.
• David's smile.
• Seeing flowers popping up already in the yard.
• Watching Delta time her run just right and then jump up to catch her frisbee.

Good Day Sunshine! (So far anyway.)

We have been truly lucky of late...   usually living on the coast you get used to misty, chilly, foggy winters. And summers.  However, we moved in a very unusual weather year. Since we have been here I think it has rained lightly once, and has been foggy maybe two afternoons... other than that the winter sun has been brightly shining, and we have loved it.  But now the weather lady tells us we will finally be getting some rain.  Thanks Roberta!

It is about 5 am and the wind is starting to blow hard enough to get my well traveled chimes on the front porch singing.  They are larger chimes so they have a beautiful baritone sound that I have always found relaxing.  There is just something about sitting in your quiet home hearing the chimes slowly ringing.  Love it.  I have been dragging those chimes around for years, they have been ringing through 100 degree weather, -20 degree icy days, and have watched over golfers slogging through the rainy, rainy, rainy days in Oregon.

(Good grief that is awful)

Well, we have been very busy working on the house.  There has been a lot more sheetrock, paint, trim, paint again and things are finally starting to take shape.

We could always see what direction we were going in but I know that has not been the case for all our visitors.

Here is David after, during, before replumbing, rewiring, repainting, and tiling the laundry room: 

A lot of people walk in and are just overwhelmed with no walls... or many different types of walls, wires being reworked, and a migrating 3 foot tall refrigerator which gets plugged in to wherever there is an open spot.  Ya just have to be patient and keep your eyes on the prize.  (The prize being a finished home.)

Speaking of the refrigerator... it has been an interesting job trying to 'keep house' during the remodel.  Fortunately, it was not completely out of my realm of experience but let me give you an idea of the joy of cooking in a house being remodeled.  I have a 3 foot tall refrigerator, that has a "freezer section" about as big as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  This refrigerator always seems to be in the way, so it frequently moves around the house.  I cook in a combination of an electric skillet and a single extra burner...

That is it.

Once in awhile I use the crockpot but for anyone who has used a crockpot you know that the meals prepped usually leave plenty of leftovers... I mean that is the point. You make stuff and save part of it.   Well, with a mini-fridge and no freezer there is no where to put leftovers so I don't use the crockpot as often as one would think.  That leaves the single burner and the electric skillet.

I have to say... the electric skillet is a useless piece of equipment and I plan to get rid of that S.O.B. as soon as I have a range... and I think just to keep it company that single burner will be joining it.   Because of this, lately we eat a lot of very similar meals... very similar.  David is a good sport but I suppose when one has worked all day and is hungry just about anything will do.

Something did happen the other day at Sears though that gives me hope and will call for a celebration!  There was a big ole MLK Jr. day sale at Sears and we ordered this lovely thing (queue Gregorian chant:)

Great sale, great stove, and I will be more than happy to cook on it... someday.  We have to get our cabinets going first but when they are done this puppy will be all ready to hook up and I will be digging my cast iron pans out of.. well.. wherever they are right now! 

Also... I did not want you to think we skipped Christmas.

It literally blew by!  

That is a picture of my Grandson Donovan.  That is what most of his pictures look like...  I even had my camera switched to sports mode. He is just ALWAYS on the run.  Anyway, he rolled in wearing his red footy pajamas and bright yellow Sponge Bob boots on Christmas eve and as usual he hit the ground running. 

Remind you of someone?

 Here he is below with his first view of Great Granny and Great Papa's tree sharing his excitement with David.   

 

After this picture I think he jumped up and down twice and then ran off again.

Then of course after his batteries finally wore out and we were all exhausted ourselves, 

he went down for the night...  

but when he awoke Santa had visited and brought him exactly what he wanted.  

Woody and Buzz

and he has played with little else since then. 

A Warm December

On into December!  Ho, Ho, Ho!  However, before I get ahead of myself I realized I forgot to mention Thanksgiving...  On Thanksgiving Day we had a dual celebration, my sister Brooke's 40th.. yes I said 40th.. did you hear me say 40th?  birthday as well as the annual Thanksgiving Day feast.  Brooke got to open her presents alongside the turkey carcass, and pumpkin and apple pie crumbs.  We had a very good time... as usual.  

My grandson Donovan ran around like a wild chicken and we all visited and ate a delicious meal.  Mom and Dad had worked on the turkey... and the sides.  Brooke, Jeff, Ella, and Ave brought some fantastic appetizers (prosciutto wrapped, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, balsamic jobbers) sort of like these but bigger with rich and tasty olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a dipping bowl:

and of course we broke into one (or two) of Dad's home cured/canned jars of green olives.  Near the end of the visit we pick names for Christmas presents...  except for Donovan we all put our names into a hat and draw the name of the intended victim.. er.. recipient of our gift.  We started doing this several years ago... and it really cuts down on the holiday shopping madness and makes it all so much more enjoyable.  

We made a couple of big strides at the house since I last posted...  we are 3/4 of the way through our bathroom!   Yayyy for the toilet!  Yayyy for the shower!   and as soon as David finishes fine tuning the plumbing in the sink... Yayyy for the sink!  

You may remember the before shots of the bathroom:

  

Well, we both jumped in the shower (relax folks...  this is not that kinda blog!) and with hammers, pry bars, and some colorful language we smashed out the old tile, and knocked down that weird upper box tiled thing. (Which was empty by the way.. there were no bodies stuffed up in there, or old treasure maps, or buckets filled with gold doubloons.) That box thing merely covered up more of the scary painted redwood tongue an groove beadboard.  Dang.

Anyway, David dropped in the shower floor, fixed the drain pipe under the house, and then we started tiling.  I say we... it was mostly David I just got in the way and wiped off the grout once in awhile when he told me to.  But we tiled the floor, the shower, and then tossed up some greenboard... er.. sheetrock/drywall.  I HATE drywall already.   We almost had an international incident as we put up our first sheet of greenboard on the ceiling.  David was at one end working his way up the ladder while I was on the other end already on the ladder trying to hold it in place... and my ladder slipped.  Just a touch but enough for a flash picture of me crashing down from the ladder, drywall dust everywhere, and David and I being found days later under the shards of broken greenboard.  It was just a little slip though and we ended up doing just fine.

Greenboard / drywall is a necessary evil however, and once it was all up and primed the bathroom renovation moved quickly.  The toilet was returned, as was the sink, and shower.  David also rewired and added in a new spiffy light. 

We still have to paint, trim, get a pretty new shower curtain and rug... oh yeah and replace that wonky window.... but we are getting there.  Here are the 3/4 of the way done shots:

Another big step was getting the Regency wood stove installed.  David and I had previously cleared a spot in the living room, drywalled, and then David built a hearth all in anticipation for the stove's imminent arrival. Here is another shot of David building the hearth... (We will be trimming out the edges after the floor is stripped, sanded, and stained so keep your eyes peeled for that near the end of the project.)

Well, the stove appeared after Thanksgiving and it truly is a great little stove!  We are very happy with it!  The stove came with a fan that turns on and off automatically.  It helps to blow the heat up behind and over the top of the stove into the room.  The black thing behind the stove is a heat shield. It allows the stove to be closer to the wall which was very attractive to us in such a small living space and protects the wall from heat.  You can put your hand down between the stove and that shield while the fire is rockin' and there is nothing but cool air there. It really does the job well!

This little stove heats our whole little house with very little effort.  David and I enjoy woodstoves and this one works well enough to heat the entire house and keep it heated throughout the day.  It seems to just make the bones of the house warmer as well our our bones!  Delta has moved her sleeping spot from behind our chairs on her bed... to right in front of the stove with her head up near the hearth! 

Our kitchen cabinets might not be done until January so we are shifting our order of jobs around.  We have lately been eyeballing the living room, and the dining/office area, as well as some more of the finish work in the areas we have already been working on.  One job that might get moved up much quicker is sanding, stripping, staining the floors.  It is a house size job and it is going to be a messy one but some of our finish work can not get done until the floors are finished. 

November blows by... with lots of photos

 

 

Early November this year started on a very sad note... two sad notes actually.  My aunt Maureen Killion passed away, and so did my ex-sister-in-law Dana Ahner.  

Maureen Killion                                                                                        Dana Ahner

Their services were one right after the other.  My aunt Maureen was 80 years old and she was ready to leave us.  Maureen was married to my 'Uncle Brother'. Alan Duane "Buck" Killion. He was my mother's brother and the family knickname of 'Uncle Brother' summed up what he was to all of us... except of course for those who called him Dad and husband.  Maureen taught my sister Beth how to knit, something which Beth enjoys immensely and has always given her great pleasure.  Dana was 38 years old and had been ill as well but her death was certainly not expected.  She also had a spitfire sense of humor and was constantly reinventing herself.  She was not afraid to jump in and try something new.  I remember so clearly going to the airport near Seattle to pick her up after she got out of boot camp.  She was deployed as an airman to the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island in Washington.  I was so proud of her when I saw her come off that plane in her Naval uniform.  I first met her when she was 9 or 10 years old, and I see her face in the two young sons she left behind.  Both women leave behind families who grieve deeply.  They were sisters, mothers, daughters, aunties, friends, and in Maureen's case a grandmother and great-grandmother. They will be sorely missed.

As for David and I, we have been chipping away at the house... literally.  We finished the sheetrock in the bedroom and painted... this is a terrible picture as the lighting does not show the colors well at all.  I blame the photographer completely.

The ceiling is white (really it is), the now non-existent trim will be white, and the walls are a soft Wickham Grey from Benjamin Moore paints.  Here is the inspiration... you have to imagine our room trimmed and the floors done etc.  It will get there but maybe not quite with those exact built ins, but I got ideas.  Quick! To the Pinterest boards Batman! 

We also worked more on the side fence in the yard which added a ton of privacy to the yard.  There was just a chain link before between our house and the neighbor's back deck... and on the other side of the neighbor's yard was another chain link and a small apartment complex of what looks like maybe 8-10 units.  We could see from our yard right onto the deck next door and then into the laundry room of the apartments.  The fence changed that completely.

At the risk of sounding very Eddard Stark-ish 'Winter is coming' and that assisted greatly in the decision to get our heating situation under control.

We picked out a nice little woodstove to replace the old oil burning stove that was here and it was installed a few days after Thanksgiving.  Just in time we are thinking as it is a bit chilly in this mostly un-insulated little house.  Not Michigan chilly by any means, but California coast foggy chilly.  However... since the stove was coming in we had to change our focus quickly from the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen and instead sheetrock the area above and behind the stove and build a hearth.  So we put the brakes on the jobs we had started elsewhere and quickly switched gears to the hearth area. 

                                                                                

First the old weird painted brick face had to come off the wall behind the stove, then the old painted brick hearth itself needed to be chiseled off, then the wall paneling, then the fancy wallpaper, then a couple boards of the side solid paneling, so that we could insulate.  The wall boards were replaced, and then back to sheetrocking or drywall.... I have always called it sheetrock which might very well be incorrect but it is just a habit. 

Oh yeah... and David finally had to build the hearth.

If you have followed the blog for awhile you might recognize that hearth tile as the same from our Michigan house. Look here and here and scroll around a bit for a quick reference.  It is the same... the very same actually we have been dragging around a couple of boxes through our travels.

Once that section was done we moved on to a different jobs.  My parents came over to the coast for a couple days and after a quick inspection my Dad jumped in and helped David tear out a couple walls.

We waited to do this to hear from him which walls were load bearing or not.  We were pleased to learn those weird old partial walls were not load bearing so out they came and all of a sudden the house is opened up! 

Here is a shot of the old wallpaper found under the walls in the old dining room... it was different from the paper in the front room. Must have been pretty lively looking in this small house back in the day with all that colorful vine-y ribbon-y swag-y wallpaper.

Just this one act of tearing down walls and faux walls seems to have made a significant difference in being able to visualize the house completed.  Of course I think I thought that when we took that ramshackle weird tiny bedroom wall in the middle of the house too.

Once the walls were down, and the hearth was finished and ready for the stove we turned our attention back to the job we had put on hold.   

The bathroom... good grief. That weird overhead box tile thing, the 5 layers of Amityville Horror house paint over redwood tongue and groove, the HUGE redwood plank trim that covers up the old window which hid lead weights, and the blue painter tape that they decided to leave up after they painted.

I forgot to mention the "medicine cabinet".... wow.  You can kind of see it in the left picture there where it would be behind you when you stood at the sink facing the window brushing your teeth. Here it is below in all it's glory.

 

The thing is... the sink is centered on the edge of the window, so one can not really hang a mirror directly over the sink necessarily.  We are looking into a hanging mirror off the trim or an arm mirror that attaches next to the window that can be adjusted to where it is needed over the sink.  In these older houses sometimes you have to make do with some little quirks unless you feel like dropping big cash to redo things.  We don't so we adapt, overcome or just deal with it as is.

Well... that catches you up a little bit.  We remodel in a scattershot fashion so these posts will kinda be all over the place.  Once we are done I hope to do a final posting with simple before and after photos. 

There is one thing I would like to show you we 'found' in our backyard though before I close this post out that I just love to share with everyone.  Take a look at what we can see over our back fence... a little black skunk making it's daily trek!

Heh heh... I guess I should say The Skunk and along behind the engine are the viewing platform of happy tourists, and passenger cars... all the folks out for a view of the northcoast redwood and pine forests as well as a taste of a historical trip out to one of the old logging camps where they disembark and have lunch etc.   Kinda fun!

Where do we start?

We arrived at our new home the same day we left the old one.  Exhausted does not quite cover it.  Sure we were tired from the drive, but then add in the stress and joy of leaving our last post.  We took a quick look around and fell into bed.

We woke up and got our bearings and started working.  We are really redoing the house... a little at a time.  We have a list but don't seem to follow it in any particular order.  Kind of like mini-whirlwinds. We fit in what works when we have the time and energy for the next project.  Let me catch you up a little.

The center part of the house is the original building. One of these days I am going to go to the historical records place where the secrets of the universe are held and find out how old this place really is.  Anyway, it is a one bedroom craftsman bungalow house... the one bedroom, bathroom, living room and porch added on later and probably in that order.  The original center of the house was just a box basically, and I am guessing the add-ons came around the 1910-ish time as is reflected in the final architectural style.  The kitchen is not really a kitchen.  The electrical stove was in the spot where the old woodstove used to stand... the woodstove's original home was up against the wall with a chimney that is now covered over.  But that area later became a hallway as the house was built around the center structure.  Having a stove in the hallway could not have been very convenient... there must have been  very patient women living here over past 100 years.    At some point a spot for a refrigerator was carved out of a corner in the pantry next to the California Cooler (which works pretty good by the way).  Then finally, the latest additions was a was a small room added to a corner in the original interior area and painted bright green... I assume it was for a child.  That green room had to go immediately as it seemed to enclose the whole house somehow... so that was the first job we tackled.

Before:

Before Green Room

 After... well, not really after because there is a lot to do so we will call it the middle meaning in progress:

Middle green room

before bedroom windows

A couple of the windows had been broken out in the bedroom so that needed to be addressed as well and that was next in line.

middle bedroom windows

Then I think we turned to the outside and made sure that the fence on ALL sides was secure for Delta.

before side gate

middle side gate

The gate above is primered... we will get to that painting part soon enough.  That is probably going to also be what the front picket fence will end up looking like as well.  The picket fence that is out front now is way too rustic and tall.  It is fairly new but does not fit the style of the house at all.  By the way... yes if Delta really wanted to be naughty she could totally jump that fence, but she is not naughty and it would have to be one of those 'Timmy fell down the well' moments for her to decide to go over.

Also... that cyclone fence will be invisible and or gone and a 6 foot wooden fence will continue from the shed towards the front of the house as it did in the back.  The neighbor's yard will then be invisible and it will give us more privacy.  The neighbor, a very nice man who knew my Grandad is a bit of a collector shall we say.  That side fence will step down near the front of the houses to match up with the front fences. It will look very nice when completed.   

As far as the shed?  There are big plans for that large shed... to be revealed later as they are still in consideration.

We blocked of the side escape route to the front yard with that little fence jobber...  note the viewing strip in the middle just the right height for Delta's eyes. This little fence is only visible if you are walking behind the house so it simply needed to be functional.  Then we moved on to the furthest back part of the yard. There is cyclone fence there and part of a wooden fence had started around the back corner and was already "framed" ready to finish... so we just finished it along that section.  It might have a bit different framing along the side sections between the houses we will see after we talk to the neighbors.

 

Back of shed area - finished the run of fence with reclaimed redwood. ;) Thanks Dad!

Yes the style on the fence sections are different.  Number 1, we are not done and number 2 if you could see behind me in this photo along the length of the fence of the yard there are 3 different back yards that run along our yard and each has a different style of fence... the only thing similar is the old rustic Northern California coast faded wood look so... it is a mishmash and we are totally ok with it for now. Besides we are pinching pennies to have a stove and a real refrigerator when we get to those rooms.  Right now I cook on a combination of a hot plate, an electric skillet, maybe a crockpot (if I use a shim), and for a fridge we use the California Cooler and a small dorm sized refrigerator. I would rather have a kitchen than a perfectly matched backyard fence.

Ok back inside...  much to our happiness we found that the entire length of the house has Douglas Fir floors which we plan to strip and refinish.  It will be just beautiful.

"Dining room" area looking back towards bedroom... all fir floors.

The bummer about the floors?  Well, first the Douglas fir floors were painted 2-3 times... in some of the rooms it was painted just where a room carpet wasn't.  It is like if you walked in and lifted a corner of the throw rug type carpet you would see the old paint job underneath framed by the new paint job.  When someone got tired of the paint, in some of the rooms they added linoleum. Not 1 or 2 layers of linoleum... but 5 layers!   In the bedroom at some point 2 layers of carpet was laid on top of that.  This has been a job that is taking a little bit of time.  But it will be worth it in the end.  If we don't hack it to pieces trying to get the linoleum tar glue off first. 

What you see in that picture is what was under the carpet and one layer of tile looking linoleum.  Then there is the parquet look, then a carpet looking linoleum (?) and then a layer of what we assume was white glue stuff, and then that weird grey spilled paint  linoleum and finally a dark red linoleum.  The real problem comes under that red linoleum.  It was backed and stuck down with what looks like a tar type adhesive.  Thick, black, gooey.  We have a couple of corners where it seems it was going to take forever to chip off. 

But there is hope thanks to the internet... I got a big tip from a blog called 1912 Bungalow for linoleum adhesive removal.  A high tech thing called "hot water".  I gave it a try a little this afternoon and it seems to be working ok... the real test will be the larger patch in the southwest corner.  I will let you all know how it works. 

In between floor scraping, we moved on to a bigger job...  sheetrock... drywall.. whatever you want to call it.  First I would like to call attention to something important with this little house.  The entire house is redwood.  Trim, boards, blocking, sill plates, beadboard,  ceiling boards, exterior panels, window trim, even a couple of cabinet doors... everything.  Just about the only thing not redwood is the Douglas fir floors.  At first we were aghast at the thought of covering it.  But there is nothing else to do... it is dark, it is rough cut, it has a lot of nails in it where they tacked down the original fabric backed wallpaper stuff.   When this house was built the area was thick with redwoods and they used it for everything.  So after trying to come up with ideas to work it into our design idea and failing... we took a deep breath and just decided to move onward.  So first we pulled off a couple rows and stuffed insulation down and up in between the interior and exterior walls.  (There was no insulation before, no wonder we could hear the ocean!)  In the picture below if you look close you will see that the ceiling is the same redwood boards as you see on the walls. It is covered with a thick paper and we just sheetrocked right over it.

First sheet nailed in.

One thing that is nice about the construction of the walls and ceiling etc.  All those thick horizontally laid redwood boards acted as a bit of an insulator in the past but it also makes it unnecessary to be sure to find a stud to nail things in to...  you can stick a nail just about anywhere in the wall or ceiling and hit thick sturdy wood.  

 

At some point in the middle of all this, we got tired of looking at the old oil stove in the living room.  So David unhooked it and we drug it out to the front yard.  That alone gave us a bit more space in that area.  We plan to take out that center little wall-let (if not structural) and open that next wall you see in the 'dining room' area into the kitchen.  Yes... there will be a kitchen someday... open to the rest of that area with a counter island separating it from the front area you see in the picture below.

front room / dining room in progress of being opened up

Phew!   The jobs will get a little bigger as we go... next on the agenda is the bathroom.  Gotta put my nail pulling/designer/tiler hats on.  I'll leave the plumbing to David thank you very much... that and climbing around under the house with the spiders.  ::shudder:: 

Did I mention...   we are really glad to be here? 

Because if I didn't...  we really really are...