You know your furnace is broken when...

-the honey in the kitchen cabinet has solidified
-you come inside to escape from below freezing temperatures only to find that when inside the house you can still see your breath
-you take very long, very hot showers or baths to "thaw"
-you're in the habit of putting on a coat and either slippers or boots before leaving the bedroom because it's the only room in the house with a space heater (in the last few days we've acquired a new space heater for the kitchen...doubling our warm space)
-the clothes that have been hanging out to dry all week are still damp
-you find yourself painting your daughters bedroom wearing fur boots and sweats...and you're still shivering
-you hear yourself saying "I wish I had an electric fireplace" (you know, the tacky looking plug in fireplaces complete with a mantel at Costco).
-You spend an entire day running errands, some more important than other, and stalling in every store because you know the sooner you finish the sooner you have to go back home
 -yours is the only roof on the street that is still covered in snow from the storm that was 5 days ago

note: these events are not fictionalized but come from actual experience

Snowfall

 

 

 

 

First Saturday in December - 2009

One year ago, on the first Saturday in December,  Chris took me to see the Messiah performed at Washington's National Cathedral.  After the concert, he took me to the gardens outside the cathedral and asked me to marry him and gave me a diamond ring. It was a magical moment, made even more so by the brand new snow that had fallen that day.  It was the first snowfall of the year. 

Exactly one year later, on the first Saturday in December, we had our first snowfall of the year. Here are some pictures to document our progress over the last 12 months.

First Saturday in December - 2010

A quick update while I wait for some paint to dry

Our grass really is growing!! Thanks to the rain and a few days in the 80's.  Hooray!

In order to cover the broom closet in the hallway, without having a door custom made, we made a curtain.  Chris designed the look and I did the sewing.

This was our failed attempt to wallpaper the upstairs. Notice how the supposedly heavy duty backer paper gets all bubbly? This happens every time it rains. The bubbles were getting worse and worse.

We abandoned the idea of wallpaper altogether. After spending a couple hundred dollars and 3 days putting up the nasty stuff, we spent another $50 and many hours taking it all down. 

And painted it instead. This pine wood drinks up the paint...but 6 gallons of paint and 4 coats later, the walls were white. More pictures to follow.

Furnace....dead.

Someone came to turn on the pilot light to the furnace, but couldn't because the furnace was too hazardous.  So we had someone come service the furnaces.  He couldn't service them because they were beyond repair. Here is what we have learned:

• it is old. so old that the man had never seen one that old that still worked
• it is about 50 % energy efficient, compared to the 95% efficiency of a new furnace
• the duct work was constructed with asbestos tape
• the heat exchange was dirty with some sort of flammable dust, which would cause small explosions when the furnace was turned on...a problem capable of burning down a house
• it emits carbon monoxide when on.
• we will not turn on our furnace again
• our house is cold
• some ward members are sharing space heaters with us
• It's time to replace our furnace

Dirt

On the same day Chris got a nose job (meaning his deviated septum was made straight) a dump truck came to our house delivering 13 cubic yards of topsoil and 3 cubic yards of nice dirt/compost.   So while Chris is on the couch feeling wretched and sporting a mustache bandage (seen below)....

 

....I am in the yard with our newly purchased dirt. Who know dirt could be so thrilling? Or so expensive?!

The plan is to spread a thin layer of topsoil over the backyard to smooth out the ruts/cover the tree roots and provide a better home for some grass seed. The other dirt is to build a raised garden bed that will hopefully grow some vegetables next year.

After spending all day hauling and raking dirt, we finally planted the grass seed.  Then we watered and waited every day for a week or so with very little change. At this point I was getting worried that all our money and efforts would only result in a smooth pile of mud covering our entire backyard.

A view of some expensive mud from the kitchen door.  I often stand here and stare out at the dirt, hoping it will turn into grass. 

The Cellar

Yes. That pipe coming from the washing machine empties into the storm drain.  Not to mention that the water usually floods and cellar and splashes the base of the furnace.  This can't be good. 

Living Room

The living room was one of our very first projects because in just a few weeks my mom would arrive in a moving truck carrying my grand piano. Since pianos generally don't respond well to wet plaster falling from the ceiling as we scrape off popcorn, or sawdust from crown molding and refinishing floors, or splatter of wet paint...we had to hurry.

The Dining Room and Hallway: Part II

We had to "borrow" this molding to frame the french doors in the living room. 

But don't worry, we still gave this door some nice molding.  So nice that we drove 2 hours to get it.  The best part was driving home those 2 hours on the freeway with a big stack of molding sticking out the back of our trunk. 

Above: Our new hallway with the latest additions: sheet rock, electrical outlet, and a light!  Below: Three views of the same dining room corner

Finished product.

The curtains replaced the glass doors that once covered the closet but now live at the dump. 

Our tool closet still hides behind the curtain.  Someday all our saws and hammers and paint will move into the attic...but not yet.

Dining room furniture courtesy of craigslist.

The Dining Room and Hallway: Part I

The house as we found it.

This corner photo really captures the essence of the room. Not one, not two, but three mismatched types of paneling. Two clashing brown walls with 2 mismatched white walls. Mismatched crown molding. Three types of mismatched baseboards (not shown). Mismatched door frames. and it continues...

....70's glass doors over a closet that smells like urine. 70's light fixture (which, by the way, is 2 1/2 feet off center). And of course, popcorn ceiling.
Here is what the dining room looked like when my mom was visiting: packed with furniture and beds. We all slept there because we were refinishing the wood floors and couldn't put furniture on them for 3 days. Did I ever tell you my mom is a saint?

Above: a view of the hallway looking towards the living room. (This paneling was also on 1 of the walls in the dining room, opposite the other dark brown paneling. Real nice.)

Below: a view of the hallway looking towards the kitchen. The dining room is on the left, the door to the cellar is on the right.

This is what the hallway looked like when Chris took off the unfortunate brown paneling. Apparently somewhere along the line the wall was added...creating the hallway and a very awkwardly placed bedroom.

This picture makes me laugh...so I had to post it again.

SECOND FLOOR: peeling back the layers

What you are looking at is a plywood wall made to look like wood paneling on the bottom and wallpaper on top, edged with various types of "molding." Each time I look back at these pictures I'm amazed to think that the upper level was our favorite part of the house.




A closer look at the fancy faux-wallpaper paneling.


This shot of the study captures the acoustic tile ceiling that graced the upstairs (except the master bedroom thank goodness!). This was one of the first things to go. Fortunately for us, there was no asbestos and even more exciting was the wood slats we discovered underneath all the layers.

We filled many trash bins during those first few days.

These next two pictures are of the nursery. Turns out our nasty paneling was covering up a darling vintage wallpaper print.
Sadly the wallpaper was too damaged to keep. So we kept ripping things down until we arrived at...

Wood. Just plain, sturdy wood.
I may be wrong, but I don't think they build houses this way any longer.

The wood stayed for a long time. We called the upstairs our log cabin and really quite liked it. The biggest downside was that the walls were covered with nails. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. They needed so many nails because that's what held up all the paneling. Anyway, all these nails would attack if I strayed too near the wall or tried to cut corners.

After a while of living in the cabin, my mother came to visit and she taught us the ways of wallpaper (because that's the only thing we could think of for the wood). The walls are too rough to put wallpaper directly on them, so we put up this thick white backing paper that is supposed to help the final wallpaper go onnicely.(see picture below). We don't know yet because we haven't found any wallpaper that 1)we like and 2)is affordable for this large of area. So everything is just white. The study and the nursery have white wallpaper only on the walls because we wanted to keep the exposed wood ceilings. Those we painted white and it's a cute rustic look.

By the way, Chris hates putting up wallpaper. That's probably because trying to wallpaper all the crazy angles and slanted lines of that hallway ceiling is a living nightmare. I try to tell him that normally it's not so bad...he doesn't believe me.