Monthly Archives: October 2013

Oh bathroom, my bathroom.

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If you recall, this is what our master bath looked like when we first looked at the house.

Master bath

Now, this is a perfectly fine bath, but it is not much in the way of our style. Fortunately, the tile in this one is in good shape, and the toilet looks relatively new. Unfortunately, the floor has a pretty significant “squish” to it. The floor is thin vinyl over particle board, and it feels like the particle board got some water exposure and swelled. Not a big deal right now, but I’m crossing my fingers our sub-floor will be in good shape when we finally get to rip it all out. We’re planning a near full gut job here. New floor, new tiles, new vanity. We want to expand the room a little bit into an adjacent closet. We’ve been dreaming for months, and have come up with some fun ideas.

Small Space Bathroom contemporary-bathroom

We love the shower tile and partial clear glass door. We also really like the recessed shelf inside the shower.

Stevenson traditional-bathroom

We like the contrast between the floor and shower tile. The darker rectangular floor tiles with lighter subway tiles gives more interest to the space than the same stone used in both areas. Again, we really like the partial clear glass shower door. We are also hoping to be able to expand our doorway and install french or barn doors, much like this bathroom.

La Castille contemporary-bathroom

This one is quite a dream, but we really like some aspects of the design that can definitely translate into a smaller space. For instance, the paneling on the tub and coordinating vanity could be easily done in our space. I also love the brown quartz counter tops, I’m not sure if the color will work for us, but I will definitely look into it. I also LOVE the wall tile. The texture is so interesting and unique. I have found really similar tile at Lowes, and am trying to convince Austin that it will look beautiful. He’s holding out for Travertine though, so we’ll see who wins.

Lahontan Lot 202 traditional-bathroom

Here again, tile with horizontal striations and wood paneling that goes from tub to vanity. I also love the window trim and bamboo blinds. Though we don’t have a window in our master bath, and the one in our guest bath is in the shower. So treatment options are limited.

Sunset Park Townhouse, Brooklyn contemporary-bathroom

We also really want to install a skylight. As I said before, our master bath has NO WINDOWS. It is so dark in there, and none of the walls could accommodate a window. We do have two other skylights in the house, so it doesn’t seem too far fetched to throw in another one. It seems like a beautiful way to let light into the room.

Aside from these inspirational bathrooms, we’ve found some products that I really want to incorporate into our design. Like these solid wood subway “tiles”

I would love to see these used for our backsplash or the tub paneling.

So much planning to do! We’re starting to make our wishlist for the master bathroom, but we have to get our kitchen together first (it is currently in progress) and the guest bathroom needs to be done, since we will have to use it during the renovation and it is currently not nearly as usable as the master bath (the shower tiles are cracked and the toilet runs something fierce). But until then, you will be in my dreams future bathroom!

Things hide in strange places…oh, and electricity can kill you

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One of the things I hate the most about older houses, is the color bisque, or almond, or beige…to me, it just looks yellowed. I don’t get it, was it simply that white was harder to make, or was it a preference of the time? The worst part to me, is that they’re still made! Maybe they clean easier or something, but for me, I just think of smokers and age. It all looks yellowed to me…my kitchen is full of it, and my house was full of it.

So, on one of our first of many trips to the home store (we got the “hey, weren’t you hear____day?”, insert “earlier to-,” yester-” etc, we got them all), we picked up contractor packs of outlets and switches. I think this is one of the quickest and most effective ways to update the look of a room.

So, I’m not opposed to working with electricity, but Austin seems to love it, so I let him do it. We went room by room, replacing them as we were painting, or found that we needed a three-prong outlet rather than the current two-prong ones.

Science side note:

Replacing two prong (ungrounded) outlets with three prong outlets is kind of a no-no, electrically speaking. In an electrical outlet, there is a “hot” connection, and a “neutral” connection. When there is nothing plugged into the outlet, these two connections remain separate. When you plug something in, you bridge these two connections and electrons begin flowing through the appliance (electricity!!). The third prong for these plugs is called a ground. This is the connection that allows extra electrons (i.e. electricity) to travel out of the plug system and to a large conductor. These extra electrons can come from faulty connections in your appliance, or external sources. The conductor absorbs the extra electricity and lowers the possibility of electrocution. In some cases, the ground removes electrical “noise,” maintaining consistent electrical output.

A way to visualize this is to think about electrostatic charge. When you become “charged” and start sparking when you touch things, it is because the balance of electrons to protons in your body is out of wack. When you touch something, current flows between you and the item you touch, producing a startling, and sometimes painful shock. The purpose of this current is to equalize your body’s charge.

Guess what’s a REALLY good ground? THE EARTH! Ha, that’s why it’s called a ground…get it….the ground. In fact, I do believe the power companies utilize the earth as a ground, but for smaller systems (like a car), a large block of a conducting material (such as a metal) can work.

If an appliance requires a grounded connection, fibbing by replacing a two prong outlet with a three pronger will at the very least make your appliance work improperly, and could potentially damage it. Not to mention the potential for electrocution. If an appliance plugged into an ungrounded three prong outlet fails, it can charge the electrical box. When you then touch the box, YOU become the ground, and the extra electricity flows through your body. OUCH…and er, maybe death.

In Conclusion: PLEASE DON’T DO WHAT I DID. I do plan to hire an electrician to come out and properly ground my wiring.

Anyways…the whole reason I bring this up, is because of this poor guy:

mouse

I found him in one of my outlet boxes. In my kitchen. This is all that was left. I have called him Frank. Poor Frank’s little skull fell out first…I thought it might be a bug, and then upon further examination I saw the nest and the rest of the skeleton. Poor thing, mice are freaky creatures. They can squeeze into very small places. My supposition is that this creature snuck into the box and in the midst of cozying up his new nest, bit into the hot wire. His little body became the ground, and POOF! No more life.

So now almost all of our outlets are white! Woohoo. We also replace our standard switches with the sleek looking flat ones. All that’s left to do is the guest bedroom (currently used for storage) and the bathrooms. It seems silly to me, but after painting, it seems to just brighten up the room, and even make my paint colors pop. Almost as good as painting the ceiling!

I have no photos of this. It’s a boring process, and frankly, telling you how to do it would be pointless. Google it, if you’re interested and want to replace yours. I am not responsible for recklessly plugging appliances into ungrounded outlets! Let’s all remember poor Frank up there…

 

Moving sucks.

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June 1: We walked into this quaint little beauty for the first time. Set to close escrow on July 21.

June 6: Oh heyy, you know that mortgage broker you’ve been bothering off and on for the last year? Ya, the one who told you’d she’d give you lots and lots of money…right, yeah, well, she retired……..

Our mortgage broker retired. And never told us. So here we were having finally found the house we wanted, with a seller willing to let us buy it from her, and ooh boy, we get to start the whole financial thing ALL OVER.

June 7: Inspections.

Went well, nothing out of the ordinary or a deal breaker. Awesome. We manage to keep going as though everything will work out in the end.

June 9: Find new mortgage broker. Good guy, has sailed with Austin’s dad. The joys of a small town…

Also, tell current landlords “hey, we’re moving out!” They respond well, and having already payed our last month’s rent up front, we decide to stay in the house until September 1. This gives us a bit over a month to be in both houses, so we’d get a chance to deal with the carpet-over-hardwood issue and paint before having to move any of our furniture in.

June 20: All is going well with financing. Hear from landlords…they’ve found a tenant, but the tenant wants to move in August 5, so we have to vacate much earlier than desired. Discuss. Decide it’s probably worth having the cash back from the month of rent to invest into the new place. Will still have 9 days to move in/get things ready (moved out of new place August 1 to give landlords time to clean/repair anything necessary).

June 30: Three weeks to close! So exciting…and boy is this financial thing a struggle…with everything we sign and turn in, about 20 more show up.

July 7: Uhh…really. This financing thing should be easier. What do you want from us? Oh, just the rights to the organs of my first born daughter….sure, I’ll sign on that dotted line…

July 14: One week to close and financial is still up in the air.

July 21: Oh hayy, weren’t we supposed to close today? Oh, the bank doesn’t want to give us money until we get you our official prediction for the world series 2027 and the full rights to any earnings made from it? Sure…I’ll sign on that dotted line.

This is about the point Austin wanted to form a lawsuit.

July 28: Nope, no house yet. We’re staring at it and have only a few days to get our crap out of our current house. We have nowhere to put it. Optimistically, I start boxing stuff up, but in a 2000+ sf house, what looked like a lot, surely wasn’t.

July 31: Still no house. Have obtained keys to a garage in order to store our ENTIRE home since we can’t move into our new home yet, and our current landlords made all preparations for having us out by then. Yeah, who knew you could be 9+ days late closing… not this girl.

Have beautiful friends come over and help us move all of our belongings. They, amazingly stayed until 1AM, while A and I tried to finish everything up after. By 5AM, we were exhausted and still had stuff piled in the garage. Crap.

This is about the point I wanted to form a lawsuit…

August 1: Sleep on floor of near empty house to wake up at 7AM and try to finish. Landlord arrives at 9AM, there’s still some of our stuff in the garage. Looks at us like we’re the worst tenants in the world. Tells us he wont look over the house while our stuff is there, even if it’s just in the garage…

Proceed to disgruntled Zephyr.

Landlord leaves, tree pruners show up and park in driveway. Had to move trailer across the street and move everything left into trailer. I believe we finished at ~3PM and called the landlord. Met us at 5PM. Everything looks ok, except that we’ve apparently been “neglecting” the yard, so there’s $200 out of our deposit to cover aeration and re-seeding.

Proceed to nearly irate Zephyr.

Sleep in in-laws basement for the night. “It will be quiet,” they said. The 4 children sleeping there (family visiting from out of town) were certainly inclined to prove that point wrong. Still, slept well but was insanely exhausted. Over 24 hours of moving with 2 hours of sleep.

August 2: Holy crap. Peed my pants. We finally had keys!!!!!!!!

Thank the lord we had a broker who was willing to work so hard to get us this house. We are apparently the worst sort of people banks want to give money to.

There was much rejoicing that day, as we ceremoniously ripped out rolls of carpet and threw our bed on the floor. At last. It was ours. That night, I slept well, with the thought that I could damn well neglect whatever I want…

Oh, hello there gorgeous!

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House. Meet internet. Internet. Meet house.

I would like to take a moment to introduce you to my new baby. She’s a middle aged beauty, who has only seen one owner. Until now. And we plan to love her just as much as her previous owners did.

House oil

We spent nearly 2 years looking for the perfect house to buy. Unfortunately, as a young couple with limited finances, we were not seen as a particularly hot prospect for sellers (on paper). Add to that the irritating habit people got into of offering significantly more than asking on homes in our neighborhood, and you’re left with one frustrated and discouraged Zephyr. Eventually though, we hired a new real estate agent, one extremely well connected not only in the real estate world, but in the city in general, and she found us this baby. It was, in fact, her friend that was selling the house. Kismet.

I kept telling Austin (my partner in life) that all we had to do was appeal to someone on a personal level…surely, if they met us and knew how excited we were and how much love we would have for our future home, they would practically want to throw their home in our lap! And talk about the power of manifestation. Our real estate agent brought us to the house and we got to meet the lovely woman who cared for this house for the majority of her life. Mrs. B is an incredibly sweet person. We ended up spending a good amount of time with her, learning about her life and her future (she sold the house to move all.the.way.across.the.country) and sharing some of ourselves with her. In the end, we all felt lucky to have made this connection. She knew her beloved home would be going to a family that would cherish it, and we knew that our beloved home had been well taken care of…I’m all for rescue operations, but on an investment this big, it felt great to know the house hadn’t been trashed by renters in the past. And the perfect thing? It was imperfect. The whole house was a blank slate. The last renovation had been in the mid ’80s, so things were still in very useable shape, yet were calling out for some attention. We love projects, and all I could see was the potential in this house.

Frankly, most of the house was blank. White walls, white carpet. The look on Austin’s face as we walked in was one of hesitation and disappointment…all he could see was the seller’s belongings in there. It took me quite some time to convince him to look past the floral couch and ornate furniture, and I don’t honestly think he believed me until we got into the empty house.

Here it is as we saw it the first time (sorry for the crappy pictures…cell phone excuse):

The Entry:

This is really the living room…but it has some of its own merits/issues.

Living room

What we like:

  • sky light
  • bright, large window
  • storm door (that locks)
  • windowed front door

What we want to improve:

  • paint front door
  • install deadbolt to front door
  • replace door knob (it’s the kind that can be opened from the inside while locked…I am forever locking myself out)
  • paint walls and ceiling

The Living Room:

As you come in the door. Look. This is what you see.

Living room2

What we like:

  • fireplace
  • large (double pane) window
  • opens into dining room

What we want to improve:

  • paint
  • flooring
  • new window treatment
  • open into kitchen more (that wall to the right)?
  • build mantle for fireplace
  • built-ins around fireplace

The Kitchen:

Through the dining room (no photo, sorry) to the kitchen.

Kitchen

What we like:

  • everything works
  • it is relatively large for a house this size
  • room for improvement!

What we want to improve:

  • move washer and dryer out
  • new flooring. anybody notice the beautiful CARPET in our kitchen??
  • move refrigerator to back wall once washer and dryer are moved
  • add pantry next to new refrigerator location
  • new cabinet doors
  • paint cabinets (white or gray)
  • new countertops (butcherblock)
  • new appliances (stainless)
  • new lighting (maybe pendants?)
  • paint the walls (gray or green?)
  • new backsplash (colored glass subway tiles)
  • open wall into living room (the wall in the right of this photo)?
  • garden window?
  • there are two doors to the outside here. a slider slightly behind where I was standing to take this photo and a normal door by the washer and dryer. we want to get rid of the one by the washer and dryer, it isn’t really useful and it leaves a decent chunk of space unusable.

The Guest Bathroom:

It’s pink.

Guest bath

What we like:

  • There is a window. Though it is kinda big and low to be in the shower, but it lets in good light and is frosted, so when closed it’s not big deal.

What we would like to improve:

  • remove shower door and get shower curtain instead. our inspector told us these doors have the lovely ability to become a human cheese grater if broken (there is wire mesh inside the glass).
  • the flooring
  • painting
  • new tile in shower
  • new bath tub…this one is looking pretty dingy
  • new toilet, see above
  • new vanity or paint current vanity
  • new storage system. there is a wall cabinet above the toilet…and it matches the kitchen cabinets
  • new lighting? we actually kind of like the light fixture..but the frilly bulb covers are a bit much for us.
  • new/no window treatment in shower

The Guest Room:

This was the room where something magical happened. We looked into the closet and saw hardwood. Beautiful, solid, narrow (1 1/2″ wide boards) oak flooring. I quickly ran into the living room to ask the looming question: “is it everywhere?” Affirmative. Except for the kitchen. Step 1: remove all the carpets!

This was the seller’s office. We want it to be the guest room. It is the first door in the hallway, so furthest from the master bedroom and right across the hall from the guest bath. Makes the most sense. Both of the additional bedrooms are the exact same size…so there’s no real reason to choose one over the other, aside from some oddly place electrical outlets. There’s one in this room right at desk height.

Guest bed

What we like:

  • it has a good window (double pane)
  • it has a light fixture

What we want to improve:

  • new paint
  • flooring
  • build a murphy bed (this room is really small)
  • window treatments (the blinds are kind of yellowed)
  • new light fixture

The Office:

You can see here how small these rooms are. We want this to be our office. It is furthest from the living room (and distractions). It also shares a wall with both other bedrooms, so it gives a privacy buffer when we have guests over.

Office

What we like:

  • it has a good window
  • it has a light fixture

What we want to improve:

  • new paint
  • flooring
  • window treatments
  • install some built-in looking shelving, that adds utility but keeps it flexible if this ever needs to be reverted back to a bedroom

The Master Bedroom:

It’s small. But fortunately, so are we. Oh, and hey…that’s the back of Austin. The way the seller’s furniture is set up makes this room actually look significantly smaller than it is. We easily fit our king sized bed and dressers in here.

Master bed

What we like:

  • good window
  • ceiling fan
  • deep and large closet (not walk-in, but much deeper than a standard reach-in)
  • en-suit bathroom

What we want to change:

  • paint
  • flooring
  • new ceiling fan (this one is frightening…I can’t really deal with sleeping under it while it is running)
  • widen the door to the bathroom (french or barn doors)
  • we will be utilizing some of the closet space for the washer and dryer (accessible from the hallway), so the closet will be smaller and we’ll need a new door for it (probably barn door too, matching the bathroom)

The Master Bathroom:

It’s teal. It has ZERO windows. It is smaller than our guest bathroom.

Master bath

What we like:

  • ….

What we’d like to change:

  • we will open a small nook into one of the closets in the hallway to house the toilet. this will give us significantly more room for a larger bathtub and vanity
  • install a larger bathtub
  • build a new vanity
  • remove shower doors and replace with curtain
  • new shower tiling
  • new flooring (it has the same blue vinyl as the guest bathroom)
  • new mirror/medicine cabinet
  • new storage options. this bathroom also has a wall cabinet that matches the kitchen
  • add a sky light to bring in some natural light
  • wainscoting or some wall treatment
  • new light fixture
  • new exhaust fan (this one frightens me)

Other projects we’re interested in doing:

  • baseboard for the whole house. Right now it is oak, and it isn’t in very good shape. Still trying to decide if we’ll go with white or wood trim, but we’d like something a bit taller than we have right now.
  • crown molding
  • new doors and trim
  • new window trim

Whew…I’m exhausted from writing that. And this is just the AESTHETIC, interior things we want to do…there are many more projects we will be working on in the next few years, both to improve energy efficiency and curb appeal. Stay tuned!

SPOILERS: We’ve already got a good amount of work done, which I’ll be sharing soon!

Just a Reminder

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Dear me,

You have just bought a house. Congratulations. It is the biggest, most expensive purchase you have ever made in your entire life…which hasn’t been very long…but WOW. A big step. You have made this purchase with a man. A man who has cared for and cherished you for the last 4 years. WOW. You are a busy woman.

In 3 months, you will have experienced one-quarter of a century. Did you ever think it would happen? Well, yes…yes you did. Never in your life did you question the existence of the future…never did you question how amazing and beautiful it would be. You knew. You knew that you were meant for independence and greatness. Perhaps not the greatness that makes newspaper headlines or history books, but greatness nonetheless. A Life filled with happiness and purpose. Simple. Greatness. A life in which you come home to a beautiful family, fresh from a day of work. Working to make something, anything. Being able to create.

At 19 years old, you found beauty. Beauty in the world. Beauty in the small things…and I mean, the really REALLY small things. You discovered the exhilaration of predicting and calculating the behavior of the world around you. You came to appreciate the value of PROBABILITY. Of never truly knowing ANYTHING. And boy, is that powerful. A life full of questions you are not afraid to ask. A life full of building and testing. Trying to understand something…anything. Experiencing the joy in predicting, in proving to yourself that you understand, maybe just a little. This beauty is physics. Pure and simple. Like life should be.

You are studying the world. At the smallest, and biggest level. You have learned so much in the last 25 years. Most importantly, you have learned to ASK. And you have learned that with the proper questions and resources, you can do nearly anything.

And you bought a house. That is why you are here, after all. You gave the bank a chunk of money, and they took your name and obligated you to this freedom. This sense of ownership that is so beautifully false, you bask in it everyday. And you thank the bank. You thank it for providing this thrill. For allowing you to choose. There are choices already made. And many choices to be made. This is what you are doing, making choices. Asking questions. Finding resources. Doing Things. Things. So many things…

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Your.self