The Last of the Amber Glass

Slowly but surely, we have been purging our house of the amber glass that once appeared in numerous spots. The lantern and the porch light were the first to go. Then, the transom was replaced when the front doors were done. Today, the garage doors were updated.

We picked up six pieces of reeded glass from Cline, where they cut it to size for us. It was ready in about 30 minutes, and cost less than $200. Back at home, C started removing the quarter round which held in the amber windows.



Turned out that we had the glass cut just a little too small. Perhaps we would have benefitted from removing one of the windows prior to ordering the glass? Our solution was to shim the bottom edge of the new window with foam weather strip. This worked like a charm, and I rather like that it offered a cushioned spot for the window to set on. We replaced the quarter round, and were done in no time.



We are very happy with the results, and with the increased daylight in the garage.

The Cherry on Top

When we started transforming our entry, I knew that finding the perfect light fixture would be a little tricky. It took a while, but I stumbled up the right item while shopping for our dining room fixture. Lumens.com, how I love you. After refinishing stairs, capping planters, updating tile, replacing doors, painting walls, and removing scrolled iron, it was time to order that fixture.

I was unsure how, exactly, C was going to install the light. Working around stairs and with the high ceiling, well, that just isn't my speciality. Fortunately, I married well. And, we have some tall ladders.



After a year and a half, our entry it complete. And the light fixture is the perfect topping.

Railing Modification

Our 1969 split entry has some of the best and the worst of the period. Perhaps my least favorite is the scroll pattern on the iron work.

We found some replacement styles that we just loved. We quickly determined that such an undertaking would be a budget buster. About then, a friend made an offer we couldn't refuse. He'd come over with his saws-all and metal grinder, and I'd make dinner for him and his wife. DEAL!!

E cut through the weld spots with little difficulty, and grinded them down to ensure no rough spots. I touched them up with a little paint. As a bonus, he also removed all the scroll work on our deck. You have just got to love the helping hand of a friend.

Front Door - Before & After

Before:

After:

Front Door, Revisited

Back in October, I posted about the prospect of getting a new front door and transom. We loved the idea of getting the door replaced prior to the cold winter months, but it was, shall we say, cost prohibited.

Somewhere along the way, we spoke to a friend of ours who happens to be a handy sort of fella. Well, this fella (Greg) has a small business doing construction and the like. He had some ideas of how to make the project reasonable.

Basic fiber glass doors were ordered from the Home Depot. Greg found a local glass guy who was able to make the re-lights and the transom. I went shopping for super cool hardware at the oh so lovely Chown Hardware.


We waited a few weeks for the doors to arrive, and then work began. Currently, the doors are in the garage, stain drying, and awaiting modification. Greg will cut the doors to install the relights in the same fashion as the Langston.

Installation is estimated for this weekend.

Bisque Cooking Hood

With the new cooktop in place, the range hood was next up. Besides being inaffective, the range hood was very low. I had to lean around it to see what was cooking on the back burners.

Back to Sears Outlet for the matching bisque micro/range hood. (The trim above the hood has been finished since this picture was taken)

In prerpation of our first turn hosting Thanksgiving, we did some work in the dining room and kitchen.

The first picture is of the orginial dining room fixture. Not only did the style no fit our personalities, it was missing some "crystals." The new fixture, which we found on Lumens.com, really helps bring the room in line with our style.

In the kitchen, we put in a new cooktop. The 4-burner, gas cooktop was fine, but 1 of the burners didn't work. We scored a 5-burner at the Sears Outlet for $300. While a full kitchen renovation is in our future, this will do the trick for the time being. And, while bisque isn't exaclty cutting edge, I think the color actually works with the counters.

Front Door

I met with the door guy today (Kevin from Classic Sash & Door). I worked with him on the window project at the old house, and called him to start talking front door & trasom.

Our current doors are a mess! Hallow core. Mis-matched hardware. A peep hole a foot shorter than I am tall. And, oh yeah, a one-inch gap between the floor and door which invites the East wind into our house.

This is sure to be a long process. We are looking at about 10 weeks. I had no idea! But, at this point we are hoping to go with a door style produced by Crestview Doors in Austin. The Langston is our style of choice. The windows will be made of "narrow reed" glass, as will the transom.

More to come as the project unfolds.

Entry Tile

One of the things that I love about our house is the entry. As my boss put it, "Wow. You have the potential to spend a lot of money making this cool." Indeed! It is a big open space all its own. And, every single aspect of it needs to be updated.

We have made the first step. The floor. Now, I don't know how we did it. Or, if it was a full moon. But, C and I agreed on the tile selection immediately. Folks, this is unheard of! We don't agree on these things. Typically, one of us is stuborn until the other gives in, and then we decide that we are happy with the results after the fact. We do not agree at the beginning. Period.

The product that brought us together was a 12 by 12 slate in "California Gold." We found it at United Tile for about $5.60sf. Then, we went to Tile Outlet where it was $3.60sf. However, we bought from Tile for Less for $2.99sf. Plus, they have a bunny. Who doesn't love a bunny!

With the tile selected, we set out to demo the original tile. As it turns out, the tile was set directly into the concrete slab, and wasn't going anywhere.

Plan B - Set the slate on top of the old tile, and trim the doors.

The results. Ben Liebman, 503-314-8785, did the work. He did the bathroom/utility room tile at the old house, and is really great to work with!

Beware - Images of Ant Parade Ahead

We had a full inspection done prior to purchasing our house. What I failed to realize is that some pests don't come out until the sun does.

Back in May, when the temp was hitting the 70s, we started seeing ants around our patio. My wishful thinking had me focused on the hot tub, thinking that ants need water too. Unfortunately, these ants were carving out an home in the header of our lower level bathroom. The hot tub was not the destination, just a spot along the route of their commute "home."

Bruce "the bug guy" came to our rescue. (Bruce Gaddy, Advantage Pest Eliminiation 503-558-1092). First, he created a small hole in the wall with which to spray inside the wall. The ants started pouring out.

Then, we began removing sheetrock for clean up and further treatment. We were on hand with the shop vac to collect the dying critters. Yeah, the black on the bottom left is a mass of dead ants.

Lost in Translation

We bought a new couch for the family room today. While removing the packaging, we learned that the legs (there are five in the picture package) had a crystal clear self image.

Bathroom #1 - Wallpaper removal

The great thing about updating a 1969 house is finding, and in some cases removing, the remnants of 1969. Yesterday saw the launch of the first bathroom remodel. We have 3 bathrooms to tackle, and are starting with the lower level, guest bath. I removed the below pictured wallpaper, but had to snap a couple pictures as keepsakes. Can you imagine an entire room covered in such imagery?


















Take note of the "India Talc" and "Windsor Soap" in the first picture. Such detail!!

The New House

It has already been referred to as the Brady House. Our 1969, split entry just waiting for us to add our personal style throughout.

The 4 bedroom, 3 bath, quarter acre is far more than we were looking for in a house. Yet, we could not pass up the opportunity.

In many ways, the house is stuck in 1969. Fortunately for us, the prior owner was attempting to flip the house and had completed much of the demo we would have otherwise done ourselves. A big thank you to him for removal of carpet, etc.!

Some of our initial projects included a new furnace, water heater (tankless), refinishing the floors, carpet in bedrooms, roof repair, and thinning and removal of trees.

SOLD!

On April 22nd it was official ... we sold our first house. All that work will now be enjoyed by another couple. We have already started on our new project. More on that soon. For now, let's celebrate the successful closing of a home sale dispite the slowed market.

Merry Christmas

Laundry Room

One of the things that sold us on our house was the large utility room. The house lacked storage overall, but the utility room was the largest room in the house. And the one in need of the most serious facelift.

We converted the once utility room into 3 separate spaces; 2nd bathroom, pantry/storage, and laundry room. While we have been using the bathroom for months, and have the pantry stocked with food, we had not completed the laundry room.

Part of the hold up was the horrible plumbing job by American Plumbing Services. They came highly recommended and had great reviews on Angie's List. No matter ... they messed up our project. Lesson learned: Although a company may have overall good reviews, find out about the individual assigned to your job, and their personal performance history.


C, an Electrician Apprentice NOT Plumbing Apprentice, set off to redo much of the work we paid good money for. The problems stemmed from the fact the water supply was not recessed into the wall, the shut off valves stuck out from the wall 8 inches, the drain pipe was secured only by the fitting at it's base, and the exhaust pipe was 2 inches off the wall. All of this prevented us for being able to push the washer and dryer to the wall. Rather, we had to float them into the room about 10 inches; precious real estate to say the least. Another issue was the mounting of cabinets with the exhaust pipe running the height of the room.


Another problem we had with the plumbers was the drilling of holes in the top of our new utility sink. We had assembled a temporary stand, and in an effort to "help" us they drilled four screws, one in each corner, right through the top surface. The owner of American Plumbing Services promised to reimburse us for new sink. We have yet to see the results of that promise.

C cut into the wall, re-plumbed everything to include placing the water supply and drain in a tidy little laundry hook-up box. He then patched the wall and installed cabinets.

We shopped around for the cabinets and decided upon the self-assembly required Ikea cabinets. With a kitchen remodel in our future, we considered this an experiment to help us determine if we wanted to use a similar product for the kitchen. The assembly was simple enough for one person, and the initial install was also completed solo. The final tweaking did required two sets of hands. One thing we learned about the Ikea product was that while most items are in stock, cabinet doors are custom order. We were able to take the cabinets home on the day of purchase, and the doors were delivered a couple of weeks later. The hinges for the doors are pretty amazing, and we were able to snap the doors into place without take the cabinets off the wall.

My dream laundry room includes a shiny red, front-loading washer and dryer. My budget does not include those items. In order to achieve a colorful element in the room, we painted the wall beneath the cabinets and above the washer/dryer red. While the pictures don't show off the color, I feel like I have my red and didn't blow the budget to get it. Win-win!

Follow Up - New Windows

It has been a month, and we still love the new windows. Although we live on a dead end, we still experienced a fair amount of street noise from the gravel road. That has been greatly dimminished. But, most exciting is the cost savings on our heating bill.

Last week I recieved the gas bill and set out to do a comparison. If you look at the same period in the prior year, we saved $80 with the new windows. When I average the last 3 years bills for the same period, there is an average savings of $50. Of course, there was an investment in the new windows, but it is nice to see a cost savings in addition to the aethstic improvement.

Our windows were custom order insulated glass, installed by Classic Sash and Door.

The windows are in!

Back in August, we ordered windows to replace the last remaining single pane glass in the house. Today they were installed!

The before picture shows the storm windows circa 1970 with their unsightly aluminum frame. The center window was busted and missing when we bought the house. We never dared remove the others for fear of breaking them too. We may not have liked the look, but it was better than the draft created without them.

The after picture shows the new double pane, insulated/gas filled glass. To keep as much of the original look as possible, each window was custom made to fit the opening (12 in whole, the window wraps around to the left with 3 more panes). The installers cute small strips of wood which the primed and set into the frame to hold the glass in place. You can still see some spots of former paint, but with a fresh coat on the trim these babies are going to look awesome!

In other news, we have made good progress on the laundry room. We made a trip to Ikea last night to buy the wall cabinets. We only needed 3, thought it would be a piece of cake. Well, we were wrong! Turns out most of their doors are customer ordered. We came home with the cabinets but won't have the doors for about 3-4 weeks.

C did assemble and install the cabinets today, and was happy with the process. We have long considered using Ikea cabinets when we get around to doing out kitchen. This was a test run of sorts, to see if assembling the cabinets was worth the cost savings. So far so good. Check with me again when I've been eating out of a microwave for months and I may have something different to say.

Tying up loose projects... Take II

Back in January, I wrote an entry about all the loose ends we needed to tie up around the house. The projects that were 90% complete, but that last 10% seemed so out of reach. Well folks, it may have taken me a couple of years, but I FINALLY got the office ceiling painted. You may recall, we (read: C) moved the closet back in Nov. '06.

This weekend also saw touch-up paint in the new bathroom, re-hanging of curtains I took down to wash a year ago, hanging of new curtains purchased a year and a half ago, adjustments to surround sound installation, installing of the register covers in the new bath/utility rooms, and prep for the hanging of cabinets in the utility room.

Remaining untouched is the trim from the floor install. We have a call in to someone more talented than us to hire out the job. That doesn't seem to be moving too fast though. (Leave it to me to wait 2 years to work on something, then not want to wait a week for a quote). Anyone know a finish carpenter or flooring guy/gal who is both available and good??

We've taken a little break from working on the house, which has been amazing! We've been rediscovering how we spent our time prior to being home owners. So, since my last post ...

C turned 35. We celebrated with a round of golf at Edgefield, followed by a BBQ back at the house. It was a great time, which finally wrapped around the fire pit in the wee hours of the morning.


We traveled to Las Vegas to see our friends Katie & Eric get hitched. While I've been to Vegas many a time, this was my first time staying in a hotel. We were at the lovely Mandalay Bay, and were upgraded to a 60th floor suite upon check-in. While C will tell you this was because "they know class when they see it" I will tell you the truth, which is that they gave our room to someone else. Oh well! Worked fine for me!
















Once we arrived home from Vegas, we met up with my Aunt Ann & Cousin Melissa who flew in from the East Coast for a week in Portland. We set off for a few days at Cannon Beach, where we really, truly wore Rocko out for the first time ever. It only took one run on the beach, followed by two walks, followed by a hike, and the little guy was done.














Back in Portland, we had a birthday party for my Aunt at Plainfield's Mayur. Our friend David B. joined us. We originally met David through my mom, and they did a cross-country bike trip together back in 1982. It was great to have him join us, and to re-introduce him to Plainfield's. It was a perfect night: the weather, the food, the company.




















Melissa headed back to NYC, while Ann stayed for a few more days. We got to be tourist in our own town, taking time to go to a different coffe shop each day. Dine in a favorite resturant each night. Visit Cupcake Jones, and First Thursday, wonder Powell's and leave with a pile of books.

We wrapped all this adventure up with a few days at home, enjoying the yard, and not touching a thing. It was so great that we did it again last weekend. Actually, last weekend was so hot we spent the day trying not to melt.

All of this brings me to the point, that there is very little new to report on the house. BUT, we are moving forward with the window replacement. The contractor was back today to give us another option, which we are happier with that the one first proposed. Now it is just a matter of getting the windows made, delivered, and installed. Can't wait to have new pictures for you!