Cleaning Up...

Thursday morning I drove the kids down to my sister-in-law's. Then I drove back to the purple house, where my father-in-law and two brother-in-laws were helping Justin clean, move things and get the house into better shape. The plumber was there installing my clawfoot tub and the painter was finishing the kitchen walls. I ran errands for people, got lunch and stuff like that. By the end of the day, my father-in-law had vacuumed and mopped everything. We'd moved a lot of the furniture back into place and it was actually sort of looking like a house.

Then Justin and I got cleaned up and went out for a nice dinner to celebrate our anniversary. We've made it ten years and hope for many more decades to come. That was lovely and it was nice to come home, go to bed and not have to deal with the horde of children.

In the morning, we got up, went to breakfast and then did a few things at the house. We got the fridge moved into place, so the plumber could hook up the water line. The plumber came back in to finish hooking up fixtures in the powder room and do a few other things, which actually took most of the day. Justin did various stuff, I'm not sure what all.

I had to go pick up the kids and that involved a trip to the ER, which is never a fun way to end a potentially productive day.

An Anniversary and the Unforeseen Costs of Renovations

Yesterday was the anniversary of our buying The Purple House. It's been a long, long year. While we are getting close to being able to live in the downstairs, our workmen never have seemed to feel the same sense of urgency in getting us in there that we would have liked. Of course, they haven't been living on the charity of a kind friend for seven months either.

Today was a busy day over there. The chimney sweeps were building our fireplace. We're converting the old coal fireplace into a wood burning one. It will be pretty tiny, but it will allow my spouse to burn things, which will make him happy. The painter was priming the kitchen cabinets and I think the carpenters were working on patching the floors upstairs. The place is a disaster, but less of one that before and if we could just convince the workmen to put a finish on the floors downstairs, we could consider moving in soon.

In the meantime, as I consider, with a sigh, the big money pit, I want to mention some of the expenses I never thought of when we went into this. I'm not talking about the price of paint, what it costs to replace structural beams or rafters or anything like that. I'm talking about other things.

First, and perhaps the cost that should have been most obvious -- restaurants. Although I have the use of a full, gourmet kitchen where we live, when one is displaced, on-the-go and often on the opposite side of town fixing up a house, it sometimes is difficult to cook at home all the time. We've eaten out and eaten at far more fast food restaurants in the last year than probably in all the years of my life up to this point.

Second, clothing was not something I thought a whole lot about in budgeting our renovation. When we moved out of our old house last April, the weather was cool, but warming up. I thought we'd be packed up for a month or two at most. Now, seven months later, my children have all grown and all the clothes I had packed up for them to grow into, are still packed up. All their summer clothes for the hottest months had to be purchased, because those were packed and now I've had to find sweaters, coats and warm pants, because those too are packed up.

Finally, and perhaps the most ridiculous expense, also really the most avoidable, has been the library fines. Where we are currently living I don't even have a bookcase. I've found alternative solutions for our homeschooling materials, but I have never come up with a good place for all our library books. When we were in our own home, I had a system and 99% of the time, I knew where the books were, when they were due and I either got them returned or renewed on time. In the past five years, before we moved, I probably racked up a total of $10 or less in library fines on all the family cards together. In the past seven months, we've incurred over $50 in fines. Books slip into places I can't find. I can't seem to keep track of their due dates and everything is in a tizzy.

This is not intended to be whiny, but really to act as a cautionary tale. If one must follow in our footsteps and buy a fixer-upper -- consider and expect the unexpected.

Update

Some of you might be sitting around wondering, so how is the purple house these days?

We had set ourselves a deadline of moving in by November 1. That didn't work, but things are progressing. All downstairs walls that needed a new covering have been drywalled and the taping and mudding is almost finished.

The carpenters have been building the counters (we're going to have wooden ones -- maple, if you are wondering) and are working on getting all the remaining trim put on the cabinets. We've talked to a painter about getting them painted.

In the living room, a fireplace had been walled over and it not only looked funny, but left us without a place to burn things. We opened up the wall and are having the fireplace put back in. We'll be doing a Rumford fireplace which fits the small space best and also supposedly will lose less heat than a regular fireplace. They'll start work next week. We found some great rolled bricks that look old and suit the color variations of the other chimney on the house.

The upstairs, which we gutted, is reframed, rough plumbed and the electrification is almost completed. We need to have the plumbing and electrical systems inspected and then we'll be ready for insulation.

When I set the ridiculous goal of getting in there by Christmas, I thought it was ridiculous, because it couldn't possibly take that long. Ha! Maybe we'll be living there by then, at least in the downstairs.

Toilet!

We have a working toilet and a shower inside the house for the first time in 7 months. Much to our neighbors' dismay the porta-potty will remain for the workers.

If I'd worked faster we could have had our clawfoot tub installed at the same time, but I didn't get the outside sanded and painted. Now it's raining and the tub is sitting outside under a tarp, so I won't get any more painting done until things dry out.

Put 'em to Work

DSCF4731
Originally uploaded by JordanaA

What do you do with the kids when you are working on the house? When we're really lucky and the stars are aligned properly, we have a babysitter. That doesn't happen very often. Most of the time they come with us. We let them play, of course, but we also demand their assistance at times. Here are the two older ones, a month or so ago, helping clean up after some of the fence building we did.

The Necessity of Proper Work Attire

We frequently find ourselves converting formerly nice clothing into work clothes as we stain it with paint, snag it on nails or other similar things. It isn't that we don't have a ton of work clothes already, it is simply that we sometimes find ourselves motivated to work on a project and unmotivated to change. Or since we don't live at the Big Purple House yet, we occasionally find ourselves over there with a chance to work on something, while our work attire is still at home.

Yesterday was one such occasion. We had a bit of time and a big pile of wood that needed to be carried our dumpster. Although I was wearing flip-flops and a skirt, I some how managed to not rip holes in anything or injure myself. My husband on the other hand was almost properly attired. He was wearing work shorts, a t-shirt, and Tevas. His clothes are fine, but by not wearing proper work shoes, his foot did not fair so well when he dropped a 2x4 with a nail in it on his foot.

I told him a stigmata didn't count if he did it to himself, which he some how didn't find funny. Today is on a course of antibiotics, ibuprofen and has an up-to-date tetanus shot. Ironically, now the only shoes he can wear are the Tevas. I guess he won't be carrying any more nail-ridden wood for a while.

The Good

Master Bathroom Trim and Tile
Originally uploaded by JordanaA.

We've got the trim work done in the master bathroom and in the photo you can see just a peek of the tile in the shower stall. We used semi-gloss white Daltile subway tiles with platinum grout for the walls with a peony mural from Artfind Tile in my hometown of Wooster, Ohio.

The mural was a second, because the glaze hadn't filled in a spot on one tile completely during firing and when my mom shipped it down to me the tile cracked in half along the glaze fault. We epoxied it back together and put it up any way. The price was right and the crack adds character, or so I tell myself.

We used a black rope tile accent from Home Depot. For the floor of the shower we used unglazed white, square mosaics and for the floor of the bathroom we used an octagon and dot with black dots from Daltile.

The wainscoting is plywood beadboard with a chair rail over it and a 1x4 with a routed edge for the shelf.

So this is all good. When I can get the woodwork painted, we could get the fixtures installed and have a working bathroom. Of course, there is a little problem, which I shall show you later.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Fence Post
Originally uploaded by JordanaA.

Last weekend, we started building our fence.

At our current house, we have a fully fenced in yard, which has been wonderful with our children and dog. The Purple House came with a mostly knocked over and broken chainlink fence on two sides. It wasn't salvageable.

Although, I could probably keep the children from wandering away without a fence, the dog is not so bright. I don't want to have to walk him every time he wants to go out, so we need a fence.

The only kind of fence we could afford to pay someone else to build was chainlink, so we're building it ourselves. (Don't you love my use of the word "we" as if I had a larger part in the fence building than holding the posts and helping get them level?)

After calling around to Lowes, Home Depot and an actual lumber yard, Home Depot's prices were the best. During the phone call, they said they could deliver on Saturday if we made our order by 2 o'clock on Friday, but when I went to the store, they said it would be Tuesday before they brought the wood. I protested and sitting there holding a baby and with 3 other children swarming around me, they must have felt pity for my pathetic state, because they promised to squeeze us in.

We paid someone to dig the post holes, so we were able to start setting the posts in right away. It takes a long time to get them in and leveled though. We've managed about 4 every 1.5 hours. We have one post left on the back of the property and 24 on the side yard.

Then, of course, we'll also have to put a fence across the yard to close it all in. At this rate, maybe we'll have a fully fenced backyard by the end of summer.

Stripping the Feet

Stripping the clawfeet
Originally uploaded by JordanaA.

The clawfoot tub we have is salvaged and in pretty good condition with a still good finish on it. Naturally, there has to be a "but" coming though.


BUT -- it only came with three feet.

Obviously that wouldn't do us a lot of good, now would it. Fortunately, there is a good architectural salvage place (Preservation Station) in Nashville that carries a lot of old house stuff. They have tons of tub legs and fortunately, my missing leg was a pretty common one (sort of). I have the decorative, claw version of a basic leg. The plain ones are easy to find. Apparently the others are not.

It's going against the back wall though, so I can live without the decoration on that foot -- and they even sandblasted the paint off for me.

But the other three legs needed a lot more help. I got three cheap plastic buckets at Home Depot (I wish I had been saving all the various food containers, but these were only $.88) and some Citristrip. My preferred strippers are Citristrip and Safest Stripper, but when it will do the job, I like Citristrip because it doesn't burn my skin as quickly and it smells some what better.

I dumped the stripper over the legs in the buckets, waited a few hours , scrubbed them with a stiff brush and hosed them off. Then I doused the legs again and repeated the process.

In the end, I was left with feet that are probably perfectly adequate for repainting. I'll probably take the wire brush attachment for our drill to them though to clean them up a bit more before calling them done.

Bathroom Jewelry

DSCF4245
Originally uploaded by JordanaA.

The faucet, supply lines and drain are all here for my clawfoot tub. Yay!

Plant Nursery

DSCF4234
Originally uploaded by JordanaA.

When we got a contract on our house, I insisted that we include a line saying that I got to divide perennials and bulbs. That's all well and good and I've been dividing my heart out. Unfortunately, there aren't any nice flower beds at the Purple House to put the plants in. So, I've taken over a few spots, including this crummy bed by the back patio, as plant nurseries to keep my babies alive until I have time to dig them proper homes.

I really want to take cuttings from the two climbing roses I planted last year, but I don't know where to put them so they can climb to their hearts' contents while I figure out permanent locations for them. Any suggestions?

Siding and Other Things

The house is coming along. I'm still dubious (as is everyone else) that we will meet our mid-April deadline, when our current house closes. But we have all the new windows in (with all their sashes) and all the new siding is up.



The plumbing is for the downstairs is roughed in and tested.



Once we get some termite damage to a sill repaired, we can get the floors put back together and readied for tile in the laundry room and master bathroom.

New Pets

My children, who have not been entirely sure that our move to the "big, scary, purple house" will be a good thing, are much more excited, now that they've discovered that the house comes with a whole family of "pets."



On the other hand, I am less than thrilled by the discovery. Indiana Jones and I feel much the same way about the critters.

Deadlines

A week ago, we put our current house on the market. We got one person who was desperate to see it that night, so we were disappointed the next morning to hear that it wasn't what they were looking for. We had one showing on Saturday, but never heard anything. Our open house was on Sunday and we returned home afterwards to be greeted at the front gate by our realtor with the news that we not only had an offer, but an offer for more than the asking price. I guess location really is everything. Too bad we are moving to a less desirable one.

Anyway, assuming the appraisal and inspection go well, which we have no reason to believe they won't, we'll be closing in mid-April. Which means we really need to get things moving along at the Big Purple House. Right now there isn't a working bathroom, kitchen or laundry room. In fact, the water is totally shut off over there and the only "plumbing" is the port-a-potty in the front yard.

However, great strides have been made in that department in the last two days. I believe that by the end of today, the plumbing for most, if not all, of the downstairs will be roughed in. If we can get our concrete guys in to cover things back up and get the sub-floor down next week, perhaps we could be ready for tile very soon.

Naturally, I've been working on something pretty much unimportant. I put in the contract that I wanted to divide plants and take some things with me. So I've been out digging up the flower beds, dividing almost everything. Where I'll put things over at the purple house where there are no flower beds at present, is another question.

Salvage

In order to save money, we're using a lot of salvaged items. Sometimes, of course, really cool salvage might be quite expensive, but in our case, the things we're using are not pricey.

We're reworking the whole back of the house, moving a doorway and some windows. Most of the things back there weren't original anyway. Half of the back of the house was once a back porch that got enclosed at some point and the enclosure wasn't done well -- leading to our having to rebuild some of the walls and part of the foundation. So we pretty much had free reign to put things back there where we wanted them and we could use any size windows and doors we could find.

Naturally we wanted things that would suit the house, but when dealing with things you don't order brand new just for the house, sometimes you have to make compromises.

Our biggest compromise is the new back door. It was found at a Habitat Home Store and since it had sat around for a long time, they sold it for $30. It's brand new, never installed and from Pella's architectural series. It's a gorgeous and huge door that will let in a lot of light in our new kitchen. Unfortunately, it is also a prairie style. But for the price, we decided we could live with something less than perfectly architecturally matched.



We also got two long, narrow, wooden one over one windows at the Habitat store. These were also brand new and never installed and both from MW. One was in perfect condition, but since it had been sitting around for a while they sold it for $50. The other was missing the bottom sash. They sold it for $10. It drove my husband nuts to chase down the necessary competent people at Lowes, but we got the sash ordered. It cost about $51 for the sash, which should be in, in the next few days. They aren't as big as the original windows which were wider and about 8 feet tall, but being wood and one over ones like the originals keeps them from standing out as different.

And then finally, we are using a real salvaged old window, which was also a bit of a compromise. I wanted a decorative window that matched the diamond pattern in the front windows of our house to sit over the clawfoot tub (also salvage) we'll be installing. The only windows I found that were an exact match, were pretty expensive. We found one with bigger diamond panes for about half the price of the perfect matches and I think it goes well enough.



We'll be trimming the door and all the new windows with trim that matches what's original to the house and everything has been installed at heights that are in keeping with what is original. While a later owner may easily be able to tell that none of these were part of the house, I think we're mostly maintaining the character and style -- or at least in the case of the back door, putting on something really nice that some one with more money can replace later.

Uh Oh

The NY Times has an article about post-renovation depression. Once people finish their projects they find themselves depressed thinking about all the things they could have done and wondering what to do with all the free time they find themselves with.

For a split second I wondered whether I would be depressed when we finished our renovation. Then I remembered two things. One, we have four children that we homeschool. Filling empty time has never been a problem. Two, we'll never actually be done with our renovation.

Problem solved.

(The NYT article spotted by my buddy NBS.)

Munch, Munch

Apparently at some time in its past the Purple House had so many termites dining on it that it's a wonder nobody actually heard them gobbling away. Or maybe they did. Fortunately for us, we haven't found any active colonies. Unfortunately, every time we turn around, we find more old damage.

When we bought the house we knew one sill had some termite damage. We didn't know it how extensive, until we pulled the floor above it up. We've found a few other sills that also had extensive damage and the whole back of the house seems to have had a major infestation. The good news is that because we found termite damage to the old sheathing when we were taking off the siding on the back of the house, we're going to be able to insulate the kitchen from the outside without ripping down the plaster on the inside. Not the ideal method, but now the whole back of the house will be insulated, sheathed and Tyveked.

I think I'll be spending next winter in the kitchen, laundry room or master bathroom. I guess that means life won't really be changing much.

These are the People In My Neighborhood

Thanks to the Big Purple House, we've added a whole new assortment of acquaintances. First, there is the previous owner -- she was a stripper. The carpenters she stiffed on redoing the kitchen and whose tools she stole? -- they are identical twins, country musicians and excellent cabinet builders and carpenters. Thanks to the previous owner, we've had our first ever encounter with a repo-man. The neighbor across the street is a French interior decorator specializing in faux painting and fancy plasterwork. The guy who does most of the lawn care in the neighborhood and who we got to help us clear the jungle goes by the sole name of Junior. We got Crazy Billy to cut down our tree, and made another neighbor mad in the process.

We're sorry to be leaving the neighborhood we live in now, but we sure will have more interesting stories to tell about the people who came into our lives thanks to the Big Purple House.

House Cleaning and Packing

That's where I've been for the last week. Last Monday or Tuesday our real estate agent called and asked if, although our current house isn't on the market, if we'd be willing to show it over the weekend to a house-hunter coming in from out of town.

Of course we were, and what followed was a week of frantic house cleaning and packing. Fortunately, we'd gotten a Mobile Attic storage container delivered to the back yard a few days before, so we actually had a place to stick the stuff we packed up.

Our house has never been as clean as it was on Sunday when the buyer came through -- not even when we had it on the neighborhood home tour last April -- then I didn't let people look at my closets or bathrooms. But we didn't get an offer.

That would have been too good to be true, I suppose. I'm sorry to have not gotten the place sold without even having to list it and go through open houses and the like, but apparently the buyer wanted an old house she could muck up remodel into something modern. Our house is already not particularly pure and untouched, but it still maintains a lot of the character and feel of an older house and I would sort of hate to see someone come in and transform it into something really modernist. So I'm not particularly broken hearted that she didn't buy it.

The good news is that we're farther along towards being ready for listing the place than we would be otherwise. The bad news is we still have to paint.

Will It Stay Purple?

One of the first questions people ask when they hear we bought a purple house is whether or not we intend to change the color. In fact, all our neighbors asked the same thing. It's really more of a lavender than a Barney purple, with grey and black accents, but I can't say the colors were ones I would have chosen.

I can't say I love the colors and I don't really think they are historically right for the house, and the previous owner didn't even do a great job on the painting, but it is freshly painted. It's definitely better than nothing and gives the house some protection from the elements.

There are plenty of other things for us to spend money on, so until it absolutely needs repainting our neighbors are just going to have to get used to purple. I think it will look a lot better once I dig out some flower beds and get my hands dirty with some landscaping projects.

Laundry

Unsurprisingly with four children, I do a lot of laundry. So while we are planning the arrangement for our the laundry room, master bathroom and all, I asked that we find some way to put a pass-through door from the master suite into the laundry room-- sort of like a sideways laundry chute. So our architect added one to our plans. I'll be able to stick clothes from the master closet right into the laundry and send them back the other way.



Also dropping into the laundry room will be a laundry chute for the clothes from upstairs. We had one in the house I grew up in in Ohio and I loved being able to through my clothes down, although I confess to often stuffing too much down at once and having to find a broom to unjam the thing. Maybe it will encourage the kids to pick up their laundry, at least until the novelty wears off.

What Kind of House is It?

When we first started looking at the big purple house, we called it a Victorian. But it didn't really seem all that Victorian. It's almost perfectly symmetrical and the window and door casings really seemed more like those in a Craftsman house. It was also built in 1909. Some folk Victorians were still being built, but it was really the end of the era.

So we started researching the style. First, we went to the Metropolitan Historic Zoning Commission's website and pulled up their documents about guidelines for the area into which we were moving.

In their guidelines, they refer to the purple house's style simply as a "Turn-of-the-Century" which is an unsatisfying name, to say the least.

We wanted to find out more and see if another name existed. So we checked out A Field Guide to American Houses by by Virginia and Lee Mcalester. And there it was -- our house is an eclectic Neo-Classical cottage. Also, worth noting, it is essentially a one-story Foursquare.

So now we know.

The Big Renovation Project

Work at the Big Purple Money Pit continues. We got the rest of the hall bathroom demolished and pulled out the bath tub. We had considered leaving the tub in place, but are happy that we pulled it out. The joist under it had been cut at some point and it was essentially unsupported. It would have really sucked to start a bath on the first floor and finished it in the basement.

We've almost got our ideas hashed out with the architect for how to finish the back of the downstairs and rework the upstairs.

I must admit that I'm feeling beaten down by the process. It seems like we'll never be able to put the house back in order and live there. Right now, with no working plumbing and several walls ripped out, it may arguably be less valuable than it was when we bought it, despite have a firmer foundation and new wiring.

I know it is now a sounder place and we're getting to the point where we can start putting it back together again, but it still feels like it's not coming together. Sigh.

Coal Miner's Wife

This is what you look after you take down a ceiling in a house that was heated for many years with coal.

And of course, should you try this in your own home -- wear a respirator.

About That Tree

As I mentioned below, we had to take down a very large, very rotten tree. It wasn't a particularly nice tree -- just a hackberry, but it was huge. We got the best price on taking it down from a guy known to some as "Crazy Billy."

Crazy Billy might not be what you'd call an educated man and looking at him just might make you think of Deliverance, but he knows trees and he knows how to cut them down safely.

So Crazy Billy and his guys were roping up and cutting the large limbs off the giant hackberry when one of our neighbors to be came running up, demanding they stop immediately and come down. Apparently the neighbor started demanding their license and taking photos of their trucks to document what was going on and when words were exchanged, they went inside and complained to our carpenters about the incident.

Then the neighbors called Justin, saying that it was a "historic" tree and would irreparably change the skyline. They wanted to know who diagnosed that the tree was rotten and noted that "the tree guys didn't seem very educated."

We hate to make enemies with neighbors we haven't even met yet. The other three neighbors we've met have all been extremely nice and neighborly. At least this couple doesn't live right next door. Of course, since they aren't even right next door, one wonders even more at their extreme concern over our tree.

We took pictures of the rot just in case we ever hear any more about it. But I'd rather have angry neighbors than a rotten tree in a yard I hope to let my kids run around.

Update

Things are still moving along at the purple house. Of course, we originally hoped we'd be moving in right about now, but naturally that was over optimistic.

Anyway, here's what's been done to date:

• all new duct work and a new upstairs HVAC unit
  
• new wiring, new wire from the street, wiring to the garage and a 200amp service
  
• new metal porch roof and new soffits around the porch with vents (three rotten layers were removed)
  
  
  
  
• a foundation around one room of the house, where we discovered the studs were sitting in dirt
  
• one room jacked up and no longer sloping crazily
  
• new doors on the garage, termite damage removed
  
  
  
  
• jungle in the back yard cleared
  
• hall bathroom gutted
  
• back utility room gutted
  
  
  
  
• flammable 1970s insulation removed
  
• 130 foot tall, 5 foot in diameter tree with significant rot from base up to five feet taken down
  

I think that about covers it. Today we meet with our architect to go over his plans to put the bathrooms, laundry room, kitchen and upstairs back together.
Later, I will share the story of the tree.

What Happens When You Are in the Middle of a Big Renovation?

We all know to expect time delays and unforeseen costs, right? Naturally those things are happening. Although things are moving right along and we've had very good luck getting people to come work on the big purple house, but when you clear away brush and find a quater acre of trash, a five foot in diameter rotten tree, and a destroyed fence where you thought it to be intact or when you pull off fake panelling and find studs sitting in dirt, well, these little surprises take time and money.

And when one of the family cars decides to die on the side of the interstate? You just have to be glad it is the ancient Volvo and not the vehicle that can carry the whole family.
In other words, things are progressing as expected in our renovations of the purple house. The HVAC work is finished. The electricians are mostly finished. The porch roof is just waiting for its metal. The back jungle has been cleared and leveled. A foundation guy is going to be taking care of the room that had studs sitting in dirt. One bathroom has been demolished.

Our original plan saw us hoping to move in some time in January. I suppose it should be obvious that that is not going to happen. However, the bright side of moving it a little later is that we'll be ready to put our current house on the market when more people are ready to start house hunting.