Whoops.

What a weekend this has been...

Last week we borrowed a truck from some friends to pick up wood for our deck railing-- insurance underwriters would like a railing on the deck, and we'd like to get it done.

We had such a plan, too-- we had braces for the 4X4 posts, handrails with routered holes for stiles, pre-cut stiles... Seriously. We had it all figured out.

First things first, Adam tried to put together one section on Friday and it was a disaster. He was there for hours and only finished one (of six) panels.

Saturday, while he worked, I tried my hand at it.

I took two helpers with me and gave them bully sticks as payment.

The main problem Adam had was that some stiles were shorter than others and fell out of their slots. So I dry-fitted a section and saw what he was talking about.

But I'd lined out all the stiles, and they were identical in length... which meant the problem was a warp in the longer handrails. Sigh. That's harder to deal with.

I tried every method of putting them together, I even had an extra pair of hands to help. I finally settled on a method of loosely taking each end together and wedging the stiles in one at a time, and screwing what I needed to as I went to tighten things up.

It was tedious, but it was coming along.

After I got one put together successfully, I swapped helpers.

One of the things I love about being in a new house is watching everything bloom in spring. These bradford pear trees are gorgeous (if stinky). I'm still waiting to see the fig trees and curly willow come to life.

Anyway, Adam came over after work, and we got finished with all but one section. And then we decided to put in a post and see how it went.

It didn't go well. The wooden railings were far too big and bulky and heavy for that deck. Just way too much.

So we're on to metal railings. They're lighter-weight and less unweildy. Here's hoping they work. I have to drive a bit to get to a hardware store that carries enough of them...

The panels we put together, however, will find new homes; the stairs inside are very, very low, and I worry about going over the side, and the dogs going over the side... So we'd planned on putting some sort of barrier up. These will work nicely for that. Or they might work for stair rails... or for back porch rails. They'll find a nice home.

Meanwhile, I've got to patch some dry-wall in the carriage house... among other things-- get my step-daughter's room painted. She insists on something close to TARDIS blue. Decisions, decisions.

Thankfully, it's spring break and I can hopefully squeeze in some work and moving.

No barking from the dogs... no smog.

Today was a good day.

One of the reasons I've been sleep-deprived lately is that my newest pup has taken to barking from his crate very, very, very early in the morning. Last night he didn't. :)

Then we had our therpeutic agility class with our pit bull Robin. She knocked it outta the park. And then she met our friend Allen, who is helping us with some of the house reno, and she didn't bark or growl, or get scared at all. She's extremely shy and nervous with strangers, usually, but she was like a "normal" dog today and that puts a big ol' lump in my throat.

And then, we got a little done at the house. Got the hot water heater flushed... Got all mom's new cabinets into the carriage house and mocked up the space to make sure it all works.

Sink and faucet:

Countertops are a laminate in an uba tuba style:

Friday we got our refrigerator in...

And for adult Christmas-- upright freezer. I haven't been so excited about an appliance since I watched my first load of laundry spin around in our front-loader. 

 So we still have a lot to do-- put together all the cabinets and flooring... and we've got great friends helping out. It's exciting, though, to see it all coming together.

More help...

And a couple more questions for which I am soliciting input--

Making ceramic tile anti-slip for people with mobility issues, specifically balance problems...? Any experience with anti-slip coatings or etchings? The tiles are really slick when damp.

And painting over wallpaper-- dos and don'ts.

I'm sure I'll address these more in future... but putting the bug out there in cyberland now. :)

Presidential Pluses

President's Day sales. Best thing ever. We saved over $1000 on some big purchases this weekend.

Got a great deal on a fridge at Best Buy, and bought all the cabinets, countertops, fridge, and washer/dryer for my mother's carriage house at Lowes. Got a new sofa and loveseat at Ashley on unexpected sale, too.

It almost went all pear-shaped, though...

After doing a ton of research on the best sales and prices, and consulting with my mother on what she wanted, choosing cabinets, laminates, deciding on fridge size, etc., I fought with the credit card company to credit my access line to reflect the payment I made in the morning (I'm kind of a miles whore), and finally settled on using the backup payment. I had squirreled away a 10% off coupon, and worked out that delivery of everything would be free due to the purchase of appliances.

I got it all in the shopping cart, punched in my coupon number and credit card number, felt very smug and pleased with my bargain results... and then error messages came up that they couldn't charge the following items to my card-- 11 of 12 items-- but they had graciously charged us for the washer/dryer AND used the coupon.

Awesome. At 10:30pm. The night the sale ended. And I had no more coupons.

I called the number, what I assumed would be a futile effort. I was prepared for having to ask to speak with supervisors-- assuming I got a human being on the phone in the first place. I was prepared to send screenshots to the customer service email, or march into the store. I was getting geared up to have to yell at someone. Now don't get me wrong, I used to work in retail customer service. I know it's a thankless job. But I know how to be pleasant and reasonable and explain to customers what I can and can't do, and I always offered to let them speak to a supervisor. Always.

Imagine my surprise when a friendly, human voice from a man named Christopher came on the line. He not only got all my items ordered in time for the sale, he applied the now lost coupon, and was empathetic, patient, understanding, and apologetic. It certainly helps that he was able to solve the problem, but beyond that, he was the consummate customer service professional. It kills me that he is probably not being paid what he is worth.

Now the only appliance left is the dog food fridge. We feed our dogs raw-- we have a pit, a pit/shar pei mix, and 2 labs. Home prepping food for 4 big dogs is only affordable if I can buy in bulk, so the upright freezer is largely for this purpose, and the extra fridge is for thawing and storing more immediate meals. And beer. Dog food is taking up the entire bottom shelf of our top-freezer fridge, and much of the middle shelf, as well as pretty much all but the door of the freezer, and most of the chest freezer. I currently have a 40lb block of chicken necks in our chest freezer and no good way to thaw them so I can grind them (I grind for a variety of reasons). I'd love to be able to buy 50lbs of chicken frames (20¢/lb, HEY!!), but I got nowhere to put 'em. To get this kind of stuff cheaply, I need to be able to buy in bulk.

And, well... there's never enough room for beer.

It's coming...

Lots of stuff coming.

We've been fairly busy in general. Our pup had to have a second surgery, so we've been in major recovery and oversight mode with him.

And our shy dog, Robin, started a Therapeutic Agility class for confidence building on Sunday afternoons. This house at least has a nice yard for our DIY minicourses.

But we have purchased a new fridge, and it's on its way. We picked out a new sofa and loveseat, which we're going to buy Saturday. We've picked up some lights and flooring samples for the carriage house.

And most importantly, we got our 10% off Lowes moving coupon, so we'll be stocking up, probably in the next week or so-- washer/dryer, fridge, cabinets, flooring, and more lights for the carriage house; fencing, porch rails, freezer, dog-food-and-beer fridge, paint, and more for the rest of the place.

And that's just the stuff we have to buy. We have a couple of storage units to raid. I'd like to paint an old dining table for the breakfast nook, and there's an antique sofa and high-backed chair that I'd love to drag out and have recovered.

Just a lot of STUFF on the horizon.

In the meantime, we're finally starting to move things that aren't needed every day. First load on my way to work today.

Books.

And a bookshelf. Thinking we'll actually wind up putting a tall bookshelf there. But at least it's in the house. And it fits in my little car, so that's good to know. We have 3 or 4 more of those. We don't own a truck, so the more that fits in the car, the better.

More soon, I hope.

Livin' the life

Flushing the whirlpool and watching Downton episodes. Puppies find the events of the evening boooooring.

And on a practical note... Used about 1/3 cup of bleach plus 2 T of Cascade powder; ran for 10 minutes, drained. Filled with cold water and ran for 5 minutes, drain. A few nasties came out, though not much. I think this whirlpool was used quite a lot.

On a side note, that rain shower head really doesn't seem appealing at all. As a friend pointed out, it's like someone peeing on your head. We're gonna need to do something about that...

Our first cry for help!

I'll get to a full walk-through of the second floors... but in the meantime...

Downstairs, the floors are a very fine-grained oak. Maybe quartersawn:

The entire upstairs, though, is carpeted.

The current master bedroom combined what used to be a sewing room with one of the bedrooms. We noticed a strip of carpet that was not tacked down and peeled it back:

I peeled back another section, and it looks like most of the floor was painted. I happen to like painted wood floors (not as much as stained/finished floors, but I like them), but this wood is beautiful. I can't tell if it's heart pine or fir. Any tips on telling the difference? I can post better pics later. We have heart pine in our current house, original to the 1920 house. I love it. But I'm not sure about this. It's also very wide-- noticeably wider than downstairs. I know that whatever it is would have been cheaper wood at that time...

Opinions? Hints?

The House: Exterior and plans

So yeah. A little bit imposing. I think that's an original rock wall.

From the edge of the property line...

Despite a chilly closing with the sellers, we were pleased to find a sheet of 2 pieces of mat board taped together, with writing on the outside that read, "Old Blueprints. Be very careful (Kind of falling apart)." They were right. But this is so cool. The blueprints are dated 1912, and bear the name of the WWI vet son who lived here. Talking to the listing agent, he said he was pretty sure that these plans were drawn up when the family had a boiler system installed...

...and these sketches showing all the fittings bear out that assumption. 

He also said that it was his understanding that there had been a basement at one time, with stairs that led down from the butlers pantry and below the main stairs. We found, in the closet under the main stairs, a boarded up opening that appears to have been those very stairs. And one of the blueprint sheets suggests it, as well. I'll address the mystery basement in a later post.

In the meantime, I'll begin with the 1912 sketch of the 1st floor, talk about the changes made and what it looks like now in my next post.

The House: A Brief HIstory

I spent yesterday evening at the house with a few friends, pizza and beer, and our older black lab River. It was the best day of her life. She took the stairs 3 at a time like she'd been born to it, like she'd been waiting her whole life for us to finally wise up and give her stairs to make her life complete. I just hope it doesn't ruin her joints...

This morning, I went over with the newest (and youngest) addition to the zoo, another black lab named Andre. This was also, clearly, the best day of Andre's life. Truly.

Back to the house...

Here's what I can tell you from the history of the house. It appears to have built built in about 1901. I was able to find it on the 1908 Sanborn Fire Maps; in earlier maps, our neighborhood had not yet been annexed into the city, I don't believe.

Our neighborhood is one of the few remaining trolley neighborhoods-- the trolley came out to the edge of town, turned around, and went back-- these were originally mule-drawn and then electric trolleys. These additions to cities allowed for the development of commuter suburbs as we now know them.

Our neighborhood is now on the National Register of HIstoric Places.

A book has been created about the area; the author compiled a number of newspaper articles, etc., about the are, and scoured city directories. The earliest resident of our house was a man who, from what I can tell, was the owner of an industrial equipment/hardware store. His wife's father had been a Civil War captain in the Confederacy; her family's papers are located at the Butler Center in Little Rock, and I hope to go down there to see them soon. Their son, who lived in the house after them, was a WWI veteran who served in France. His papers are at the University in Fayetteville, so I'll probably see those much sooner than later.

We've already started finding some crazy fun things to explore, and the sellers were kind enough to leave a set of blueprints from 1912. It was a chilly closing, at best, but I am very grateful that they left these propped up in the coat closet for us to find. the next post will begin with the exterior of the house and the blueprints... and I'll take it from there, one level at a time, and one building at a time.

Here we go again...

Finally.

Part of me can't believe it's ours. And part of me feels like we've lived here forever.

Today we closed on the house, and it was not without its share of fiascos.


Some of you may know us from Oh, Bungalow. We bought that house knowing it would be a starter home, knowing it would not hold us for more than 5-10 years. But we put so much work into the place. We became so comfortable in the house. We still have so much to do! I don't think we ever really thought we'd leave.

But we have outgrown the house. My mother (and sometimes my sister) will also be moving into the house.  We have 4 large dogs. And cats. We inherited a lot of large (and beautiful and un-give-uppable) furniture from my grandmother.

Then this house came along. This house that I have walked the dogs by, ridden my bicycle by, driven by and been smitten by my whole life. It's one of those houses that you can't miss. It's in the same neighborhood that we are currently in. It's been on the market for a while.

It was a perfect storm of opportunity and necessity.

So we decided to buy it.

Once the price had been settled on, scheduling an inspection around Christmas was difficult; and then once it was scheduled, the sellers didn't want us in the house. Then the insurance wouldn't bind without the promise of a new roof. And the sellers didn't think they could get out by closing. It's been one thing after another.

But today we closed. We closed! It's ours.

We have a few things we need to do to it, and handful of things we want to do to it. And a lot of history that I'd love to share about the house and its many previous owners. It's not the fixer-upper that the Bungalow was and is, but it is an amazing place. I will detail the house with pictures, starting tomorrow. This blog will chronicle those changes and the history, as well as our lives with all tehse animals, training and caring for them, making their food and managing them. I'll begin relaying all the history that I know about the house, and slowly introducing you to our Funny Farm. There will also surely be a flurry of activity on the Oh, Bungalow page; I'll be cross-posting and linking a lot of those updates.

So here we go. Historic home, second time around. After the first one, I can't believe we've decided to tackle it again. But we have. We must be crazy.

Coming Soon...

More info coming soon... I hope.