Magazine Covers From the late 1920's
I love old magazine covers. Here are a few from around the time my house was built. There is plenty of color inspiration in old illustrations.
More nookie
Here is the breakfast nook bench, screwed to the wall but without its false paneling rails and stiles on the back or molding on the base.I wonder about the height of the window. It has always seemed high for a nook window. Aren't they usually just above the table-top?
I ordered the floor- Armstrong Excelon tiles from Lowe's, where they are $30 a box with free shipping to the store. Online, some stores wanted $1.69 per tile, and then $200 for shipping (granted, I didn't call to ask if they could just UPS four boxes to me)
I thought I'd get artsy with the shavings from the seat edge.
Breakfast Nook Bench 1
I am totally proud of myself! I built something that's like real furniture! Like, it's made of more than just soft pine 2x4s!
This is the first (experimental) of the two planned kitchen nook benches. I made a couple of bone-headed measurement errors, though they were cheaply and easily fixed. My real hangup was the hinges for the bench lid. I have a bad record keeping hinges straight and even. After an evening spent plugging and re-drilling screw holes, the joint is even enough and I just hope the problem hinge will warp into place after it is sat upon awhile.
I didn't find furniture-grade wood for the curvy bench ends as thickly as I wanted it, and ended up buying 3/4" birch plywood instead. I'll see how it goes- if they feel cheap and flimsy when attached.
I didn't find furniture-grade wood for the curvy bench ends as thickly as I wanted it, and ended up buying 3/4" birch plywood instead. I'll see how it goes- if they feel cheap and flimsy when attached.
My goal as a novice carpenter is to have these benches feel as if they are original to the house, and as the original nook pantry woodwork has a rough, nearly primitive feel inside its guts, it doesn't concern me that I didn't use fancy joints, and that the bench lid is two pieces of wood (carefully) joined with braces. The bench's weight alone makes it very sturdy. Fat Cat is kindly demonstrating this.
Ikea Kitchen Update
Here is where the new kitchen stands. The tile is now up to the middle of the window-the walls were too scarred to leave them bare, but I think it has a nice charm. I'm still working on painting the cabinets and we could use a replacement stove but there's no rush.
The oak countertops are my favorite new thing- I never thought wood was something appropriate to my messy, sometimes grungy kitchen. I used 6 coats of Waterlox, a tung-oil and resin-based finish. Spills wipe right up, even a day later, and there are no white rings or dark rings. Nothing soaks in. The finish dulls a little when water is left standing for a day, but you wouldn't even notice unless you peered closely. We treat our countertops roughly- though no direct cutting on them- and they haven't chipped yet. If they did, it's easy to recoat or touch-up.
So far we've probably spent 2800-3000 on this kitchen, for a complete re-do. I kind-of regret the new steel-look appliances- they seem cold and not very vintage! How do they look so great in period kitchen magazine photos?
Jason paints!
The pot rack.
The oak countertops are my favorite new thing- I never thought wood was something appropriate to my messy, sometimes grungy kitchen. I used 6 coats of Waterlox, a tung-oil and resin-based finish. Spills wipe right up, even a day later, and there are no white rings or dark rings. Nothing soaks in. The finish dulls a little when water is left standing for a day, but you wouldn't even notice unless you peered closely. We treat our countertops roughly- though no direct cutting on them- and they haven't chipped yet. If they did, it's easy to recoat or touch-up.
So far we've probably spent 2800-3000 on this kitchen, for a complete re-do. I kind-of regret the new steel-look appliances- they seem cold and not very vintage! How do they look so great in period kitchen magazine photos?
Jason paints!
The pot rack.Kitchen Archaeology
Gross-ness aside, pulling out the 1970's cabinets exposed the original silhouettes of the first, very shallow, built-in cabinets and the location of the gas stove and its pipe.
All those white stripes on the right corner were supports for the shelves, and also the countertop, covering up virgin plaster. On the left, it seems the gas stove was not moved when the kitchen was last painted and vinyl-ed. So we can see the 1920s cabinets lasted at least until the age of the golden vinyl.
The sink on the right (unseen here) had a high back, judging from the height of the window. The hole for its inlet pipes is still in the ledger board at the base of the inside wall, since they ran up to the sink back from inside the wall.
The sink was bookended by the two built-in cabinets, the left cabinet being the one shown above. Nearly the entire wall above the countertop line was removed and replaced with drywall, two layers in some places, and this is where I assume there used to be the old white subway tile found under the house. When it was removed, it must have taken the whole wall with it. I'm replacing it on a more extensive scale, probably using in-store tile from Home Depot. It's $.23 a tile, and no longer has the wide spacers or rounded edge as it did just a few years ago.
Now With 98% Less Cockroaches!
With all the holes now patched up, including the rat entrance around the old gas pipe and valve that are still sticking out of the wall, we have installed the base cabinets. Here are the cabinets we chose, from Ikea. The fronts, at least, are solid wood, and they fit our measly educator/non-profit employee budget at $1100. The full overlay is an acceptable substitute for the face-frame, for me.
The idea is to paint them, with appropriate bronze hardware, to match these in the breakfast nook. Not to make them blotchy like these partially stripped guys, but to paint the entire set in the same cream color. I should mention, I've tried every stripper method I know on this pantry; chemicals, heat etc., but the thing that worked the best, and cleanest, was just peeling off the layers with a razor blade. The layers are 1/8 thick in some areas, and they peel with diligent coercion.
Here is where we are now, about 36 work-hours into the project. The fronts had to be ordered and we are picking them up in a few weeks from an Ikea warehouse. The wood-colored post in the cabinet center is my own replacement of a part Ikea got wrong. I didn't feel like fighting with them over the phone about how they had given me an older cabinet and a 2009-model rotating tray. In the past their telephone customer service wasn't great.
The countertop and floor haven't been ordered yet because I thought I'd be pink-slipped this week in surprise cuts. It has been depressing to walk into the unfinished kitchen everyday thinking it might look like this for months. I don't know how I became lucky, because I'm usually not, and am sad to be losing so many friends and good people from my workplace.
I'm doing the plumbing myself. My mom asked me how that was different from the mess the flipper left us in, and wondered if I should call a plumber. But I've done code research, and if it really gets screwed up then I will call someone. Working in my favor is that every bit of the plumbing is exposed under the house, the drain already at the proper incline, and easy to install. In the crawlspace, however, the glue smells awful!
The idea is to paint them, with appropriate bronze hardware, to match these in the breakfast nook. Not to make them blotchy like these partially stripped guys, but to paint the entire set in the same cream color. I should mention, I've tried every stripper method I know on this pantry; chemicals, heat etc., but the thing that worked the best, and cleanest, was just peeling off the layers with a razor blade. The layers are 1/8 thick in some areas, and they peel with diligent coercion.
Here is where we are now, about 36 work-hours into the project. The fronts had to be ordered and we are picking them up in a few weeks from an Ikea warehouse. The wood-colored post in the cabinet center is my own replacement of a part Ikea got wrong. I didn't feel like fighting with them over the phone about how they had given me an older cabinet and a 2009-model rotating tray. In the past their telephone customer service wasn't great.
The countertop and floor haven't been ordered yet because I thought I'd be pink-slipped this week in surprise cuts. It has been depressing to walk into the unfinished kitchen everyday thinking it might look like this for months. I don't know how I became lucky, because I'm usually not, and am sad to be losing so many friends and good people from my workplace.
I'm doing the plumbing myself. My mom asked me how that was different from the mess the flipper left us in, and wondered if I should call a plumber. But I've done code research, and if it really gets screwed up then I will call someone. Working in my favor is that every bit of the plumbing is exposed under the house, the drain already at the proper incline, and easy to install. In the crawlspace, however, the glue smells awful!
The Tubby Ticket-Finder and His Bakery
This is my construction paper kitchen design. We watched a holiday broadcast of the newer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I decided on the scheme of the German bakery where the tubby ticket-finder meets the press. It had cream walls and pale blue tiles. We only had this brown paper, so this picture isn't accurate. I don't want a yellow sink. But, it's fun anyway. The chance of finding affordable pale blue subway tile is low, so unless some comes rolling my way off the back of a truck on the freeway, it will be Home Depot white.
Here is what we're really going to do, but in a more, dollar-store, version.
Here is what we're really going to do, but in a more, dollar-store, version.
The Kitchen that Was
Dear Ralph's lonely blog,
I am sorry I abandoned you. Really, there was nothing to write about. Now there is. On impulse, the Sunday before New Year's we bashed the kitchen cabinets into nasty, dirty pieces, making them into the appropriate 4' x 4' sections for the trash truck guys. This is what was underneath, yuck. These pictures were before breaking off remaining rot, decay and plaster. Since we moved in, the only thing between us and the crawlspace and the exterior walls was 3' of clear packing tape that I used to bridge this hole around the pvc drainpipe. I'm amazed we didn't see rats more often.
This is the new shimmed wallboard and 3/4" plywood under-cabinet floor patch.
Here is Jason wetting and scraping the popcorn ceiling. Yay!
I am sorry I abandoned you. Really, there was nothing to write about. Now there is. On impulse, the Sunday before New Year's we bashed the kitchen cabinets into nasty, dirty pieces, making them into the appropriate 4' x 4' sections for the trash truck guys. This is what was underneath, yuck. These pictures were before breaking off remaining rot, decay and plaster. Since we moved in, the only thing between us and the crawlspace and the exterior walls was 3' of clear packing tape that I used to bridge this hole around the pvc drainpipe. I'm amazed we didn't see rats more often.
Rat Poop 
Before Sweeping:
Before Sweeping:
Hole in the Wall Where Sink Used to Be:
The golden-color floor material appeared to be vinyl, and came right up. It was lain over linoleum tiles that may have been early to the house. Neither of them extended into the business portion of the kitchen floor. There, under the current beige sheet vinyl, are glossy fake parquet vinyl tiles, which peel right up with the sheet, exposing beautiful but very sticky wood floors underneath.
My guess is that someone redoing the kitchen in the 70's had the the really old stuff stripped off and refinished the wood floors. The old stuff remained under the inaccesible cabinet bases. But then, some recent fool put down the fake wood parquet tiles, maybe a renter. Why, when there is real, finished wood underneath?? Anyhoo, the real wood floor was made so sticky by those parquet tiles that I decided the layers should just stay. They will be a good underlayer for new linoleum tiles.
My guess is that someone redoing the kitchen in the 70's had the the really old stuff stripped off and refinished the wood floors. The old stuff remained under the inaccesible cabinet bases. But then, some recent fool put down the fake wood parquet tiles, maybe a renter. Why, when there is real, finished wood underneath?? Anyhoo, the real wood floor was made so sticky by those parquet tiles that I decided the layers should just stay. They will be a good underlayer for new linoleum tiles.
This is the new shimmed wallboard and 3/4" plywood under-cabinet floor patch.
Here is Jason wetting and scraping the popcorn ceiling. Yay!
More to come!
Small projects
Deck railings still need to be built, but I made lattice panels to keep Pepper the dog from visiting the frogs under the deck. I hate, hate the diagonal lattice from Lowe's and HD. Or maybe I just hate that there is only one choice in lattice style. These instructions were useful, using my mom's pnumatic stapler. I've seen this style of lattice under front porches all over town, though mostly under victorians and 1910s houses. Sometimes I think what I really wanted was an even older house.
This is one of the old street markers. It's more aged than the house, I think. There are modern, taller, reflective signs planted next to them, but these still stick up all over the older areas of Jacksonville. This one is across the street from me in a park. All the paint was gone and it was mildewy so I finally re-did it. I debated using reflective letters from the hardware store but thought this way was more authentic. I enlarged the Arial font, cut out the individual letters and traced them onto the scrubbed, primed and painted post, then filled in the outlines with exterior glossy black. At least a full eight hours of work. There is another grungy one across the park, too.
Locksets
Last week I moved the bed into a corner to make the bedroom look bigger. Last night I thought, "What this fancy new bedroom needs is a working door lockset so the door will stay closed." I pulled the invoice for the replacement bathroom lockset from a few years ago and looked up its sku # on Van Dyke's website. The price had increased $4, to $20! Yeep!
Undoing the box, I discovered it's really very simple inside. The guts are rough cast metal. The latches seen on the outside are brass. The 6 parts all overlap each other with cast pegs. There is no oiling necessary. In fact, these look like a great engineering project for elementary kids, like something you'd find in a toy catalog.
I'm glad I had bought that new $16 lockset for the bathroom, which is a room that's nice to lock, like in the movies when you're home alone and naked in the shower and a guy with a machete breaks in. But I can almost kick myself that a little $.35 spring, circling the peg under the end of the pink arrow and extending to the hook on the right, is the reason these five doors won't stay latched and closed. I could see how the lock works too, and now I just need to find a key. I assume all the locks used the same key. Cheap and simple solutions are super!
So I thought about the remaining five doors with original locksets and found that the only operating latch of the bunch was in the door separating the public from the private side of the house. If I switched this one with the bedroom set, then the bedroom door would latch closed. I was just about to install this in the bedroom door when I saw it had a single screw on one of the big flat sides, holding the box together.
I'd never been curious about the workings of the original bathroom lockset mainly because I was newcomer to old houses and the grunge that can go with them. I knew that if I opened the bath lockset, roach eggs and spiders and rust would pop out and stick to my face. Now, I don't care as much.
Undoing the box, I discovered it's really very simple inside. The guts are rough cast metal. The latches seen on the outside are brass. The 6 parts all overlap each other with cast pegs. There is no oiling necessary. In fact, these look like a great engineering project for elementary kids, like something you'd find in a toy catalog.I'm glad I had bought that new $16 lockset for the bathroom, which is a room that's nice to lock, like in the movies when you're home alone and naked in the shower and a guy with a machete breaks in. But I can almost kick myself that a little $.35 spring, circling the peg under the end of the pink arrow and extending to the hook on the right, is the reason these five doors won't stay latched and closed. I could see how the lock works too, and now I just need to find a key. I assume all the locks used the same key. Cheap and simple solutions are super!
1930 census
We've been stuck inside the house for three days this week during an endless tropical storm. By day two I'd read both my library books, cut two inches off my hair, and had had enough of Monopoly and Scrabble. I took advantage of the electricity and internet we were lucky to have and looked up the 1930 census record for the Mercks, the first census after this house and the one next door were built. 
This entry has a lot more info. I found most of it by searching the old city directories at the main library.
Many people in the area worked for the "steam railroad" or as clerks. The census taker valued the house at $7000, based on what the Mercks told them was their purchase price, I'll assume. The Mercks were the same age as me (Jason is a bit older than me) when they bought the house and "wife" Marion Merck is listed as "male". A few lines down is the house number for the now-empty lot where there is a storm-water pumping station. And it looks like the poor house next door to us began life as a rental, possibly doomed to stay that way.
Looking down the list most of the wives didn't have occupations outside the house. That Marion went to work as a saleswoman at a drugstore, and not even the one owned by her husband, is pretty cool. Prior to marrying Mr. Merck, she lived with her first husband, listed as a produce salesman, a few blocks from the first Merck drugstore. Here is a 1947 picture of the Merck store when it was located downtown, a few years before closing:
This entry has a lot more info. I found most of it by searching the old city directories at the main library.
Spider season
Last night I dreamed I wrestled with one of these, a banana spider. They're usually out in June, making babies and living in 20-foot webs attached to your porch to 
catch the flying bugs attracted to the light. Which makes them even more fearsome to live with because you have to duck under them to bring in the groceries. I'm sure mailmen hate them. They aren't included in the average Florida tourist brochure, for sure.
From http://www.davidmichaelkennedy.com/
Living in the lawn are 2" fuzzy gray wolf spiders,
which I think are fairly national, and also on the palmettos there are spiders which look like tiny turtles with lots of legs, which sit in the middle of their nets. They are kinda cute. Inside the house are tiny pindot spiders, sitting in the caulk space of tubs and sinks, waiting for wet gnats? My mom has bulbous tan spiders which look like ticks when full, living on her patio.
The point is, it feels like insects and arachnids are taking over everywhere you go, but it's just the humid jungle bug season. You can't do much about them and they always come back. I haven't actually seen any bananas at my house this year, which is super. Ugh. And neither of those are MY hands.
catch the flying bugs attracted to the light. Which makes them even more fearsome to live with because you have to duck under them to bring in the groceries. I'm sure mailmen hate them. They aren't included in the average Florida tourist brochure, for sure.From http://www.davidmichaelkennedy.com/
Living in the lawn are 2" fuzzy gray wolf spiders,
which I think are fairly national, and also on the palmettos there are spiders which look like tiny turtles with lots of legs, which sit in the middle of their nets. They are kinda cute. Inside the house are tiny pindot spiders, sitting in the caulk space of tubs and sinks, waiting for wet gnats? My mom has bulbous tan spiders which look like ticks when full, living on her patio.The point is, it feels like insects and arachnids are taking over everywhere you go, but it's just the humid jungle bug season. You can't do much about them and they always come back. I haven't actually seen any bananas at my house this year, which is super. Ugh. And neither of those are MY hands.
Canning (no painting)
Not much new to report on the house this month. July and August in Florida are like January and February in upstate New York; you could go outside, but why would you? Although, to be fair sometimes you physically can't go outside in an upstate January.
The phone line was fixed at the pole by AT&T (the new Bell monopoly). The house system needs to be rewired too but the crawlspace is still drying out from all the summer rain. There is a temporary line from the wall box to the phone inside.
The paint bucket says not to paint above 90 degrees, which it is, so I've been inside canning things. What I really want is cheesecake in a jar with raspberries on top, but I've read you shouldn't can dairy. What I've done this summer is tomato wedges and sauce, baked beans, sweet banana peppers, ketchup, and grape and pomegranate jellies. The tomatoes were $11 for 30lbs from the farmer's market and the peppers were from the backyard.
Peppers, along with broccoli and butternut squash, seem to be the only capable crops in our yard. I've never had more than a few smallish tomatoes from a plant, the corn reached a whopping 12 inches high this year and legumes have leaf miners from the moment they sprout. The watermelon never flowered, and the tortured zucchini were stunted and died of a horrible overnight fungus as did the okra. It seems stuff planted in the traditional spring planting season doesn't grow fast enough to produce food before the onset of summer heat, our equivalent of first frost. Mom and I looked at the neighborhood garden last week and saw lots of tall okra and pole beans, high-heat crops, I guess.
The phone line was fixed at the pole by AT&T (the new Bell monopoly). The house system needs to be rewired too but the crawlspace is still drying out from all the summer rain. There is a temporary line from the wall box to the phone inside.
The paint bucket says not to paint above 90 degrees, which it is, so I've been inside canning things. What I really want is cheesecake in a jar with raspberries on top, but I've read you shouldn't can dairy. What I've done this summer is tomato wedges and sauce, baked beans, sweet banana peppers, ketchup, and grape and pomegranate jellies. The tomatoes were $11 for 30lbs from the farmer's market and the peppers were from the backyard.
Peppers, along with broccoli and butternut squash, seem to be the only capable crops in our yard. I've never had more than a few smallish tomatoes from a plant, the corn reached a whopping 12 inches high this year and legumes have leaf miners from the moment they sprout. The watermelon never flowered, and the tortured zucchini were stunted and died of a horrible overnight fungus as did the okra. It seems stuff planted in the traditional spring planting season doesn't grow fast enough to produce food before the onset of summer heat, our equivalent of first frost. Mom and I looked at the neighborhood garden last week and saw lots of tall okra and pole beans, high-heat crops, I guess.
What a cute dress!
The bad news- the house next door sold at auction yesterday for $59000 to a slum company! And Lightning? Rain? knocked out our internal phone wiring. Then I fried the phones (I think) by crossing all the red and green wires while trying to shore the place up. doh! I've had a bad cold for two weeks, it wasn't my hands' fault. The good news is the house is feeling better because it just bought a new dress. The body color is silvery gray, the porch is lavender-gray for now, and the window trim is a little more purply-blue than before. The front has been primed and half painted. 
The stucco sucks up gallons.
I know, it doesn't look all that different. What's important is that everything is clean and shiny. And someone's making ketchup in the kitchen!
The stucco sucks up gallons.
I know, it doesn't look all that different. What's important is that everything is clean and shiny. And someone's making ketchup in the kitchen!
Ikea Kitchen Modification
In the previous post, I had decided on an Ikea "Adel" front for the kitchen cabinets. It's too modern; its stamped rails and stiles are twice the width of the butler's pantry shaker door rails and stiles which I'm trying to match.
So, not being a huge fan of this mdf door and drawer front, and after looking around the IKEAFANS forums, I realized, 1. Because of the modular nature of Ikea, I can order their boxes with the fancy Blum slides, Euro hinges and drawers without having to order their cabinet doors. I would be fine living with cabinets without doors until we can afford the right doors. Anything to move the rats! 2. I can paint the more appropriate door, the wood "Tidaholm", to match, or can order unfinished shaker door fronts from Scherr's where they are familiar with Ikea measurements.
Here are great photos of a painted Tidaholm kitchen:
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/attachments/photos/6126d1195228802-painted-tidaholm-cabinets-new-kitchen-kitchen-october-2007-b.jpg
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/attachments/photos/6127d1195228818-painted-tidaholm-cabinets-new-kitchen-kitchen-october-2007-d.jpg
And a spray booth setup for the doors:
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/modifications/11859-painting-tidaholm.html
I've been thinking also about not having a kickspace, instead filling the area with matching painted strips of plywood. Instead of doors under the sink, maybe a curtain. There are many details I could do to make the basic Ikea kitchen look more period, less Ikea. And then my homeowner guilt will be assuaged.
So, not being a huge fan of this mdf door and drawer front, and after looking around the IKEAFANS forums, I realized, 1. Because of the modular nature of Ikea, I can order their boxes with the fancy Blum slides, Euro hinges and drawers without having to order their cabinet doors. I would be fine living with cabinets without doors until we can afford the right doors. Anything to move the rats! 2. I can paint the more appropriate door, the wood "Tidaholm", to match, or can order unfinished shaker door fronts from Scherr's where they are familiar with Ikea measurements.
Here are great photos of a painted Tidaholm kitchen:
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/attachments/photos/6126d1195228802-painted-tidaholm-cabinets-new-kitchen-kitchen-october-2007-b.jpg
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/attachments/photos/6127d1195228818-painted-tidaholm-cabinets-new-kitchen-kitchen-october-2007-d.jpg
And a spray booth setup for the doors:
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/modifications/11859-painting-tidaholm.html
I've been thinking also about not having a kickspace, instead filling the area with matching painted strips of plywood. Instead of doors under the sink, maybe a curtain. There are many details I could do to make the basic Ikea kitchen look more period, less Ikea. And then my homeowner guilt will be assuaged.
The Ikea Kitchen
So, we had saved up vast sums of money. Vast sums for us, anyway. Realizing we'll never be rich and with the understanding that neither house nor neighborhood is a period gem, and also that I don't have the time to build cabinets, I decided to go with Ikea instead. This is the front I've chosen. The rails and stiles (false, mdf-molded) are wider than the plain shaker-style doors of the built in pantry.
"Adel" cabinet
I know, I'm an old-house traitor, but this at least honors the period, -ish, and the 1928 built-in ironing cabinet will be carefully covered by a tall pantry instead of being half-obscured by a refrigerator. A future owner can rediscover it. We're also opting for the period-ish smaller sister of this sink. The cabinets total was $1400, plus our "new" appliances now living at my mom's. Sadly, there is room in this layout for the leggy 1920's electric stove we passed up as being too large at the Salvation Army in January. Anyhow, this was the plan.
And then- we both became unemployed. Mine planned, him on a voluntary gamble. No new jobs in sight yet. No new cabinets. I'd love to just paint the old 70's ones, but renter abuse has caused them to be held together with tape. Dogs have chewed the stiles, feet have cracked the doors.
A week before my last day of work, Ralph was staring intently at the base of the cabinet next to the stove. I bent down and heard gnawing in the kickspace. And I felt depressed knowing how close we would have come to getting the rats out of the kitchen, i.e., using the pile of cash! to remove the rotted remains of the current sink cabinet and patching up the missing floor, wall, and joists over the crawlspace. Then, installing new cabinets with our pile of cash!
There was rat poop on the counter last night. All the kitchen cracks and blatant openings within reach are taped over with long strips of packing and duct tape. Tired of the rats! How do they survive in the flooded crawlspace, anyway? It's like Venice down there in the rainy season.
But I sure feel great knowing the rats love their kitchen Disneyland! Har. And it's good to know FHA loans have an excellent safety net.
I know, I'm an old-house traitor, but this at least honors the period, -ish, and the 1928 built-in ironing cabinet will be carefully covered by a tall pantry instead of being half-obscured by a refrigerator. A future owner can rediscover it. We're also opting for the period-ish smaller sister of this sink. The cabinets total was $1400, plus our "new" appliances now living at my mom's. Sadly, there is room in this layout for the leggy 1920's electric stove we passed up as being too large at the Salvation Army in January. Anyhow, this was the plan.
And then- we both became unemployed. Mine planned, him on a voluntary gamble. No new jobs in sight yet. No new cabinets. I'd love to just paint the old 70's ones, but renter abuse has caused them to be held together with tape. Dogs have chewed the stiles, feet have cracked the doors.
A week before my last day of work, Ralph was staring intently at the base of the cabinet next to the stove. I bent down and heard gnawing in the kickspace. And I felt depressed knowing how close we would have come to getting the rats out of the kitchen, i.e., using the pile of cash! to remove the rotted remains of the current sink cabinet and patching up the missing floor, wall, and joists over the crawlspace. Then, installing new cabinets with our pile of cash!
There was rat poop on the counter last night. All the kitchen cracks and blatant openings within reach are taped over with long strips of packing and duct tape. Tired of the rats! How do they survive in the flooded crawlspace, anyway? It's like Venice down there in the rainy season.
But I sure feel great knowing the rats love their kitchen Disneyland! Har. And it's good to know FHA loans have an excellent safety net.
Outdoor photos
While I haven't been doing much to the house, the plants I planted in February are growing along. This year I decided to have more plants more adapted to my feast/famine climate and (who knew?) have needed less water as a result.
Since I didn't buy new dirt again this year for the vegetable garden frame, the plants doing the best are in pots on the deck. There are at least $10 worth in ripening native blueberries and 10 tomato plants in big plastic pots. Corn and zucchini are struggling along in the infill sand/clay mix in the side yard.
The twin house next door is in pre-foreclosure. It seems the silly asking price resulted from the owners taking a $55,000 home equity loan several years back, to redo something at their current house across the river. Adding that loan to its main mortgage of $124000 gave it a hefty price way more than any sane person would pay. One woman driving by saw the price written on the For-Sale-By-Owner sign and asked us if there was a swimming pool made of gold in the backyard. After 1 and 1/2 years on the market, it was listed by a realtor briefly in January, for $155,000.
The lawn hadn't been cut in months and after several calls to Jacksonville city services, an independent contractor (teens working for their dad) charged up a $500 lien, for 10 minutes with a riding lawnmower. They also mowed over the Sale sign since it was buried in weeds.
2nd Housiversary
Today is our second anniversary of living here. I have a list of 54 items to be done to the house, and 14 have been crossed off so far (including the ones I crossed off after deciding not to do them). Per year, that's an average of ...oh never mind, that's too depressing to think about. Depressing like my conversation yesterday with the renter previewing the property next door. My old, recently broken fence stood between us as I watered my peppers and she said to no one in particular "of course, this fence needs to be fixed," and I said ashamedly, "That's my fence." Why mention the confluence of events: strong wind storms last week and careless renters bashing into the boards, and it being my first day off since November-I wanted to relax, not do fence repair! Despite words, the fence looks like it's been broken for years! Bad Kathryn! No wonder you get crap neighbors!
At that moment, since she was the first renter I've seen on that property in a month, who looked like a responsible person, I wanted to apologize for my peeling paint and the in-progress deck. I told her how long we'd lived here and it seemed her face got tight. Perhaps she isn't rehab-neighborhood material. Or maybe, now on my second day of vacation, I need to go outside right now and fix that fence if I want anyone good moving next door.
Sometimes it's easy to feel down about living in a rehab neighborhood, and I'm kind of a Debbie Downer to begin with. However, my sister is interested in the available house on the other side of us so last week we went tiptoeing around it. Literally tiptoeing, because the weeds and grass are so tall they obscure the "for sale by owner" sign that's been up a year and a half. We stood on their rotting back deck next to a weedy 2-foot hole in the ground, piles of rotting trash and falling-down roof overhang and my house looked darn good, like hot stuff! It could be much worse!
At that moment, since she was the first renter I've seen on that property in a month, who looked like a responsible person, I wanted to apologize for my peeling paint and the in-progress deck. I told her how long we'd lived here and it seemed her face got tight. Perhaps she isn't rehab-neighborhood material. Or maybe, now on my second day of vacation, I need to go outside right now and fix that fence if I want anyone good moving next door.
Sometimes it's easy to feel down about living in a rehab neighborhood, and I'm kind of a Debbie Downer to begin with. However, my sister is interested in the available house on the other side of us so last week we went tiptoeing around it. Literally tiptoeing, because the weeds and grass are so tall they obscure the "for sale by owner" sign that's been up a year and a half. We stood on their rotting back deck next to a weedy 2-foot hole in the ground, piles of rotting trash and falling-down roof overhang and my house looked darn good, like hot stuff! It could be much worse!
Updates!
Since I don't post often enough, here are some updates. I've been doing little stuff but not much worth writing about. Little stuff like finally tightening a screw on a door hinge.
The heat pump was finally fixed in December. It was all of $85 for a replacement, warrantied fan. The fizzing sound I heard in the attic when I accidentally cut through the thermostat wire? Just the air handler fuse blowing. It cost $60 to replace. It just wasn't the $$ circuit board I lay awake worrying how to pay for. And they added 2 lbs of freon to the condenser. It's a "Coleman" brand pump, just like our camping tent. I had no idea they had a branch of home heating and cooling units until our cheapo flipper installed it here.
Speaking of our flipper-installed unit, we went to the local home and patio show a few weeks ago where we were willingly solicited by several AC companies. A guy came over last Saturday to give us a replacement quote. He was from the company whose booth representatives laughed at us. I told them 1. Our house is 80 years old. 2. Our house is not insulated because 3. the crawlspace floods 3-4 times a year (old creek bed) and is a happy place for mildew. When I said the heat pump was a Coleman, he said, eyebrows raised, "Do you live in a trailer?" (what, an 80 year old trailer??) When we walked away, fully aware of how dysfunctional we must be for having an old house, I heard "whooooeeee!" and lots of laughing. Their field guy was much nicer though, and commented on how clean and accessible the attic was, and told me he's seen far worse in old houses. He left me with a roll of aluminum tape and a $4800 system quote.
Outside of the ongoing deck construction, I've been working on the plant situation. I think flowers are great, but in this small yard there really needs to be lots of practicality. I made a border of sweet banana peppers between rows of dusty miller and hibiscus, and planted sage, dill and rosemary around some small plumbago. In the side yard is lots of parsley, some cilantro, dianthus and that herb which is supposed to be a good substitute for sugar and whose name I can't remember. I seeded basil around the plumbago but the rain has been pretty heavy the last 3 weeks so I need to redo it. I think we've had our last frost, though.
We've tried our third go at exterior paint colors. The colors are either too light, too dark, or seem too much like colors in the neighborhood to our north, where only the brave can live. The trick seems to be finding historical colors that won't cause a run-down drab look. Also, the stores which carry small sizes of trial colors are only open til noon on Saturdays. How can we get the swatches, take them home and view them in all lights, then go back for trial bottles then go back to buy the paint? Everytime I think "It will take 3 Saturdays just to choose the house colors!", I decide to do something else like pruning, instead. This weekend I hope to build and replace a fragile fence portion the renters keep knocking through, and then finish the deck framing.
Dusty miller and baby hibiscus. So unglamorous.
We don't know what to do about mulch because it
keeps floating away!
The heat pump was finally fixed in December. It was all of $85 for a replacement, warrantied fan. The fizzing sound I heard in the attic when I accidentally cut through the thermostat wire? Just the air handler fuse blowing. It cost $60 to replace. It just wasn't the $$ circuit board I lay awake worrying how to pay for. And they added 2 lbs of freon to the condenser. It's a "Coleman" brand pump, just like our camping tent. I had no idea they had a branch of home heating and cooling units until our cheapo flipper installed it here.
Speaking of our flipper-installed unit, we went to the local home and patio show a few weeks ago where we were willingly solicited by several AC companies. A guy came over last Saturday to give us a replacement quote. He was from the company whose booth representatives laughed at us. I told them 1. Our house is 80 years old. 2. Our house is not insulated because 3. the crawlspace floods 3-4 times a year (old creek bed) and is a happy place for mildew. When I said the heat pump was a Coleman, he said, eyebrows raised, "Do you live in a trailer?" (what, an 80 year old trailer??) When we walked away, fully aware of how dysfunctional we must be for having an old house, I heard "whooooeeee!" and lots of laughing. Their field guy was much nicer though, and commented on how clean and accessible the attic was, and told me he's seen far worse in old houses. He left me with a roll of aluminum tape and a $4800 system quote.
Outside of the ongoing deck construction, I've been working on the plant situation. I think flowers are great, but in this small yard there really needs to be lots of practicality. I made a border of sweet banana peppers between rows of dusty miller and hibiscus, and planted sage, dill and rosemary around some small plumbago. In the side yard is lots of parsley, some cilantro, dianthus and that herb which is supposed to be a good substitute for sugar and whose name I can't remember. I seeded basil around the plumbago but the rain has been pretty heavy the last 3 weeks so I need to redo it. I think we've had our last frost, though.
We've tried our third go at exterior paint colors. The colors are either too light, too dark, or seem too much like colors in the neighborhood to our north, where only the brave can live. The trick seems to be finding historical colors that won't cause a run-down drab look. Also, the stores which carry small sizes of trial colors are only open til noon on Saturdays. How can we get the swatches, take them home and view them in all lights, then go back for trial bottles then go back to buy the paint? Everytime I think "It will take 3 Saturdays just to choose the house colors!", I decide to do something else like pruning, instead. This weekend I hope to build and replace a fragile fence portion the renters keep knocking through, and then finish the deck framing.
Dusty miller and baby hibiscus. So unglamorous.
We don't know what to do about mulch because it
keeps floating away!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)