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.