get to fixin'

link drop +

2011-05-20T13:10:00.004-04:00

Meet our neighbor: Stapleton
Can't. Even. Deal.
These are incredible (thanks Emily!)
One of these days I'm going to try to tie dye.
Made one of these this week:

And, in case it's not already obvious, I joined Instagr.am recently:

User name: gettofixin
online here and here.

snug harbor

2011-05-11T17:33:00.005-04:00

Two Sundays ago we spent some time at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden. There was a plant sale and I took the opportunity to stock up on some plants for the garden. I picked up some small dahlias, European wild ginger, some dusty miller for the window boxes, a pink iris (Beverly Sills,) cherry tomatoes (to grow in pots this time around,) and trollius (alabaster.) It was a little hard to resist buying more.

A little background history on Snug Harbor via their website:

"Robert Richard Randall, Snug Harbor Cultural Center’s founder and benefactors’ bequest of 1801, created Sailors’ Snug Harbor’s original three buildings as a “haven for aged, decrepit and worn out sailors.” Over the next century, Snug Harbor expanded to 50 structures and 900 residents from every corner of the world. By the turn of the 20th century, Snug Harbor was the richest charitable institution in the United States and a self-sustaining community composed of a working farm, dairy, bakery, chapel, sanatorium, hospital, music hall and cemetery."

Snug Harbor currently has many garden spaces including a beautiful peony garden.

There are tons of lovely old growth trees as well. I believe these are sycamore trees:

The Chinese Scholar's Garden was open and had free admission for the day. Neither of us had ever been there before so we decided to check it out. To enter the garden you pass through one of the Victorian cottages on Cottage Row (currently a gift shop) and walk down a path. All of a sudden you will come to a forest of bamboo.

I must admit I was a little intimidated by the bamboo. It was beautiful but whenever the wind blew and the stalks touched my shoulders I wondered if the bamboo somehow knew what we did to its relatives!
After passing through the bamboo we came upon the garden complex:

I think the photos say it all. Breathtaking.

Just like starting over.

2011-05-03T17:07:00.002-04:00

It is May. How is it possible that my last post was from Christmas of last year? I’m not sure where the time went or why I’ve been finding it so hard to post. I realize there’s blogging etiquette – you should inform your readers that you’re taking a leave of absence from posting, but I didn’t know I’d be gone for so long. Things have happened around the house – nothing amazing – but I do have some photos to share nonetheless.

Recently, Fernando spent a day cutting out the chain link fence that was crowding the hedge out front.

The hedge was really cramped and parts of it had started to wrap itself around the chain link.

Exactly the look we were going for: much less ghetto.

We will be removing the rest of the fence at a later date and replacing it with a vintage wrought iron fence and gate. I'm wishing for something like this:

photo found here.

I hope the privet will finally have the opportunity to grow in fuller along the bottom. There was a wrought iron fence in front of the house before the privet hedge was planted. I think it will go well with the new urn we purchased for the front garden from Martin Viette:

We needed something to place the urn on and remembered that there was a square piece of bluestone in the backyard that used to be under another stone. I think it was a horse mounting block. Since we don't ride horses in our backyard, I thought using it under the planter would be a good reuse. I'll probably add the actual step to the side garden in the future since we've also been using the old tie ring (which was set in concrete) there as a corner stone.

Speaking of horses... mounted Police near the house today!

Anyway... the urn weighed a ton and it took three of us to carry it from the car to the grass.

I really loved how it turned out and immediately wanted a pair of matching urns for either side of the front porch.

The next evening Fernando attended an auction and surprised me by bringing these home:

They needed a some sprucing up since they were a little rusty in a few areas:

He also painted them a nice glossy black and we planted them over the weekend.

They're not out on the porch yet because we're having the porch, columns, lattice and vestibule painted this week! Well, I'm not sure if it will be finished this week but it is being worked on:

If only I could decide which color goes where and what color to paint the front door?
Coming up: more on sprucing up the garden and more exterior painting.
Upcoming stories: the night the house became a gas station, a friend in the chimney and a ghostly visit!

Stay tuned.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Weekend!)

2010-12-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

A happy tree:

Wish we could light these:

On the mirror:

Colorful:

First attempt (ever) at making truffles:

Samichlaus, in the glass:

Currently on the needle:

All in all a very good Christmas Eve!

shutters up.

2010-10-18T13:00:00.001-04:00

Do you ever obsess over what should be the simplest things? I had such a hard time trying to choose the shutter dogs for our shutters. I didn't even realize there was a choice in such things (or that they were even called shutter dogs) until I started to look for them. I did so much online research and drive by photo snapping that I ended up with a folder full of photos - of shutter dogs!

Taken in Princeton, NJ over the summer; propeller:

Rat tails:

"S" variety:

"S" variety mounted on the side:

Taken in Historic Richmondtown, Staten Island, NY:

Scroll variety:

Crude yet minimal replacement on the same building:

For our own shutters, we've chosen the "S" variety. This is really more a choice of economy rather than an actual decision. We happened across two new old stock sets of "S" shutter dogs at a yard sale a few weeks back. They were $1 a box! It looks like we even saved 60 cents on the original price.

As of last week, the shutters are finally up on the house.

Before:

We now also have 7 different colors of paint on the house. This is the first time I've seen the grey we chose against the house. I love it. I'm not a "paint a patch and see what it looks like" kind of person - I chose this from a tiny swatch and bought it all at once. Relief.

We still need to find shutters for the upper floors. The other shutters we inherited had too much rot to salvage. Now, I can start obsessing over shutters.

a new (vintage) idea

2010-09-29T15:52:00.080-04:00

I know I've been absent from here. There hasn't been much work on the house - nothing much to report. To keep things semi-interesting what do you say we try something new? As mentioned before, we deal in vintage furniture/art/objects and have amassed a large collection over the years. I thought I'd post a story of two rare pieces, one we purchased to sell and one we've kept. Both have pretty interesting stories behind them. You are welcome to comment and let me know if you like/dislike this idea... because I have many more stories from the past decade of hunting.

Let's start with this piece:

Above is a vintage bar unit designed by James Mont. He and his matching larger credenza brother (both sold) recently came from an estate about 40 miles (not in NYC) from the Get To Fixin' house. What's so interesting about that you say? Well, upon speaking to the former owners, we were told that this cabinet and its mate originally came from Staten Island! The former owner said that her aunt had these pieces in her home (along with an entire matching dining set) and that her whole family lived on Staten Island when she was younger. She asked us where on Staten Island we lived and after responding St. George, she said, "my grandmother lived in St. George, on Stuyvesant Place!" To which we replied, "we know exactly where that is - we live on ________!" And she replied, "That's where my aunt's house was!" So yes, these two pieces were originally created by James Mont himself, for a house on OUR EXACT STREET! Crazy right?

And now, I'd like to introduce you to my favorite pair of vintage earrings:

These brass earrings were handmade by Harry Bertoia. I love their simple form and how they vibrate and spin with the slightest movement. I wear them from time to time, although they tend to get caught in my hair.

Bertoia is one of my favorite sculptors and furniture designers. I can't say I don't aspire to own a sculpture or two in the future but looking at my bank account I can certainly say it won't be happening anytime soon. The idea of two little Bertoia sculptures dangling from my ears thrills me every time I put them on.

I bought these 7 or 8 years ago at a tag sale in New Jersey. (Yes, that New Jersey. I love many parts of NJ [which I consider my home state even though I was born in and live in NY] and I've been seeing so much negative talk about the Garden State lately. We do not all behave like the people depicted on the that reality show ok? I think it's pretty obvious that being from one state or another doesn't automatically make someone a great person. I mean, I always thought everyone in Alaska must be awesome until I became aware of Sarah Palin.) Anyway, I was charged $2.00 for the pair. The woman running the sale looked at them in pure disgust (and flashed me a strange look too) after we decided that they were in fact made out of brass. She then ticked $2.00 off of the total after we tallied up all of our items. So in fact, they were free!

katydid trap and release

2010-08-10T13:06:00.013-04:00

Saturday night we were awakened by a strange sound coming from the air conditioner in the office. Fernando jumped up and realizing there was something trapped inside of the AC, started to thump on the side. He saw something huge fly out but it was so fast he lost sight of it.
The next day he walked into the office to find this on his computer screen:

I grabbed two plastic cups and Fernando swiftly trapped her between them.

When we released her outside, she seemed to not want to leave the cup. Her pause gave us the opportunity to examine her leaf-like wings.

Then she quickly flew away and landed near the living room window.

I'm glad we found her before the cats did.

island living

2010-08-05T13:35:00.000-04:00

amazing bug...

2010-07-29T15:45:00.013-04:00

planning its attack on Curtis High School...

Horton's Row: for sale!

2010-07-27T15:25:00.071-04:00

I love passing by this brick row of houses on Westervelt Avenue, close to Victory Boulevard:

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission
I think this area is usually considered part of Tompkinsville but it so close to St. George who really knows? The lines between neighborhoods in NYC are so blurry.

photo via SI Treasure Blog
The row, known as "Horton's Row," was built from 1880 - 1882 by prominent New York City banker and broker Harry L. Horton. Originally, the row had twelve identical attached rowhouses that were built as affordable rental houses for middle-class families. While rowhouse are common in all of the other boroughs of NYC, this housing style is rare for Staten Island where mostly freestanding, single-family frame houses were built at that time.

Horton's Row, front view, circa 1885:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
Horton's Row, Park (Rear) View, circa 1885:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
View of Tompkinsville from Pavillion Hill, circa 1885:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
View from Brighton Heights, circa 1888:

Photo source: Staten Island Historical Society Collection
Today, only four of the nine remaining houses remain intact and they received landmark status in 2009.

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission

photo via Landmarks Preservation Commission

photo via Staten Island Advance

photo via Staten Island Advance
I discovered today that two of the rowhouses are currently for sale and listed here and here. I really wish they had some interior photos!

More about Horton's Row can be found here, here, here and here.

watch the hairpiece!

2010-07-22T13:19:00.027-04:00

A few weeks back, over a long weekend, my Dad and Fernando finally pulled apart and rebuilt our front porch steps.

The decking was rotted in a few areas:

So new boards were added:

Finished steps:

They are still in their primed state since the weather has been too hot for painting. They (and the deck) will eventually be painted Sherwin-Williams, "Summit Gray."

They don't creak one bit.

We've also had our eaves painted!

It was a scary process... I'm glad we didn't have to get involved.

This area needed patching:

Before:

And after (a toupee in Sherwin-Williams, "Black Magic"):

Next up in exterior painting: the bay window. If this heat wave ever ends...

Year #2!

2010-06-26T10:00:00.005-04:00

Fernando found and sent me this photo last month:

The photograph, entitled "Invisible House in Staten Island," is by filmmaker Lynn Sachs and can be found on her website here.
Yes, that is our house.
Happy 2nd Re-Birthday House! I'm glad you no longer look like a giant bush with roof.

shutters for the day!

2010-06-17T14:18:00.021-04:00

We luckily inherited most of our original storm windows for the house when we bought it. They were stacked in the basement:

And some of the original shutters too!

There are signs that they were once mounted outside:

If you look closely, you can see the dirty outline where they once were:

We had our local handyman take the best shutters to prime for us - we had 4 still in good condition. He brought them over today and gave them a preliminary hanging before Fernando paints them.

We purchased some of the hardware we were missing many months ago - it's a perfect fit. We'll be painting the hardware black and we will need to order more. We bought everything that was available in stock at the time from Reiman's Hardware.

I'll have to hunt around for the outer hardware too.

Temporarily in place! Now I'm thinking I might need wider window boxes...

I really can't wait to start working on the exterior trim paint. It will be nice to not have to look at that peeling yellow paint when I come home from work... too bad, we're still quite a ways off from that reality.

Do these things happen to you too?

2010-06-11T12:34:00.042-04:00

Sometimes things just don't go our way. We'll start a project and realize we've forgotten something and then spend two hours running back and forth to Home Depot. Or the weather doesn't cooperate. Or we have to work most of weekend and we end up too exhausted for anything else.

We planned to re-build our front steps over Memorial Day weekend. We ripped out the hideous metal pipe railing:

We were excited to find stepping in the extra long length (12 feet!) we needed over at Garber's. We bought it ahead of time and ordered the wood for the risers. Did you know that wood doesn't standardly come in whole inches? They call them 2X4's but they're more like 1.5X 3.5's!
We had to have the riser wood ripped down and slightly trimmed to length. The guy that was supposed to be working in the mill decided to take off for the long weekend early (right after we placed our order) and they called us the next day and said our wood wouldn't be ready until the following Tuesday. Bye bye re-building front steps over Memorial Day weekend plan.
I really want this project to be over - our front steps really suck.
Lots of wear and tear:

General Scuzziness reporting to duty:

Chunks missing:

The new steps were longer than our car:

Can you take a photo with one hand while carrying steps with the other?

Fresh primer:

Long risers:

Now we're all primed and ready to go but we're waiting on my Dad to have a free weekend to help out.

On a positive note, the decaying front porch isn't stopping our new jackmanii clematis:

a quick trip down south

2010-06-03T20:46:00.049-04:00

Last Sunday we had a baby shower for my sister-in-law. Julie is a certified master dog trainer and sometimes works with the Staten Island Animal Care Center to rescue dogs that are about to be put to sleep, fosters and trains them and then finds new homes for them. She is awesome.
After her shower, Julie went to pick up a Lab from the shelter and we tagged along for fun. I successfully resisted the urge to adopt another cat. After the shelter, we headed over to the nearby Conference House Museum in Tottenville to let the pup run around and get some fresh air.
Fernando used to live a few streets away from the Conference House (c. 17th Century) and somehow never really ever walked around the grounds! Tottenville is the Southernmost tip of New York State and is still a part of New York City even though it feels like you could be a hundred miles away. The historic houses on the Conference House grounds are literally the last houses in New York City.
The Conference House or Billopp House was the site of a 1776 conference resulting in a failed attempt to halt the American Revolution starring Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge.
The Conference House/Billopp House:

photo from Wikipedia (we forgot to take one!)

The back of the Conference House/Billopp House:

There's an amazing herb garden at the side of the Conference House. I love the brick paths. I think a similar style garden would look great in our backyard. Maybe next year.

The Ward House - closed for renovations:

The Rutan-Beckett House:

Jealous of this greenhouse:

Next we happened upon the Biddle House:

There was a woman doing some garden work in the yard. Her mother works for the Parks Department and their family gets to live in the house as it's caretakers! Where can I apply for that job?

There is a staircase at the back of the house that leads down to the shoreline:

This contemporary beauty (complete with indoor pool) lives next door:

The sliver of beach was littered with things washed in from the sea:

My sister Gab and I picked things up along the way:

Julie's boyfriend found some kind of hatched nest:

My sister's booty back at the Russell Pavilion:

Tottenville is accessible by NY public transportation and makes a nice day trip away from the rest of the city. Read more on Tottenville over at Forgotten NY.

rambling...

2010-05-14T11:04:00.048-04:00

Things have finally been happening around our house after a long pause. We've mostly been cleaning up the yard and planting some perennials around the house. At this very moment, we're having our upstairs hallway painted! I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to do this myself. I loathe painting. I promise to post some photos as soon as it's done - I'm not doing it so you know it will actually get finished! I can't wait to see it and to finally hang up the light fixture we bought for it many months ago.
New flowers in the window boxes:

New flowers in the hanging baskets:

My peony has buds on it this year. The roses are budding as well. The ferns are taking over everything in the front. Daffodils and tulips came and went - I planted huge white double tulips and they looked amazing. I'll have to remember to take photos next year!

I planted a few different varieties of allium last year: Globemaster, Gladiator, Drumstick and another that I've already forgotten the name of. I haven't seen the Globemaster or Drumsticks yet but I'm pretty sure that these are the Gladiator in front:

Oh and this crazy allium:

All of the bulbs came from my favorite nursery: Martin Viette.

Did I mention that we used to have a dirt patch directly in front of our house? Ever since the giant yew was dug up we've been wondering if we should plant some grass in front. I was against a lawn because I don't like all of the maintenance it entails - weeding, watering, mowing, etc. I finally gave in and allowed Fernando to put some seed down. This grass promises to use less water than the average lawn. It took a few weeks but we actually have a nice shaggy start:

So there's some dandelions and clover too. I hate the idea of poisoning the dirt with chemicals so when we can really start walking on it I plan to pull those out by hand. I do like the new grass (Fernando was right) - I wouldn't mind plopping down on it for a picnic.

Some more pretties from Martin Viette waiting to be potted:

We've also decided to replace some of the wood on our front steps. Last weekend, we sourced some boards that would be a good replacement and hopefully we'll get working on that with my Dad in the near future. I'm excited to have freshly painted stairs and not the multicolored mess we currently have. We just need to decide on house colors.
Another doorknocker:

The other one I had posted about just wouldn't fit. I can't wait to paint the door and hang this guy up... if he fits. It reminds me of the one at 10 Downing Street (spotted over at Katy Elliott):

How nice is that glossy black door? I like the idea of black and near black for trim on a brick house. Just like this one:

Anna over at doorsixteen posted this interior by Stephen Roberts a while back and it reminded me of how much I wish I could stack up logs like this in my living and dining room fireplaces:

I'm afraid that will never happen (without some crazy chopping, hammering and glueing) because our fireplaces are way too shallow. So I'm settling for some logs in the fire ring outside:

Winston chopped those for us from a tree in our backyard. What of the bamboo you ask? I've resorted to stomping on it as new shoots pop up out of the ground. We will never be rid of the root system. I'm hoping to keep it from receiving needed sunlight and that maybe it will eventually die off underground. I'll just have to keep that up for the next 150 years.

chop 'em while they're down

2010-03-18T16:10:00.027-04:00

We had a few big snow storms that damaged the evil bamboo in our yard. It wasn't exactly chopped down, but it was on the ground from the weight of the snow and very easy to chop. Since we couldn't get around the back, Fernando decided to hack at the fallen pieces. After the snow cleared and the recent rain storms, we were left with this disaster:

Where's Jamie Durie when you need him?

Did I ever mention the bird's nest of a mess that was growing on our arbor? I couldn't wait to clear this off - it was mostly dead growth and matted leaves weighing down heavily on the lattice.

We hired Winston to clean it all up this week. I'm not sure how he handled this job by himself, but as you can see the results are incredible:

We now have a blank slate. I'm thinking Clematis for the arbor.

He also chopped down the remainder of the bamboo!

It ended up here on the curb:

I wonder if this will have any effect on the ridiculous amount of mosquitoes we get in the summer? He's going to try to get the roots up next. I'm still skeptical that this can even be done. Good luck Winston.

The first signs of Spring:

I can't wait to start planting some more flowers and a few veggies again. And grass. We REALLY need grass.

who are the kitties in your neighborhood?

2010-03-18T11:36:00.003-04:00

snow day: outside and inside

2010-02-10T11:59:00.013-05:00

Morning shoveling:

Backyard:

Bamboo bending:

The only time chain link fencing looks ok:

Curtis High School is quiet:

Ferocious Toby:

Snuggly Toby:

Surprised Oscar:

Mellow Oscar:

Introducing Merit + Worth Collection

2010-02-08T22:45:00.005-05:00

Have I ever mentioned that Fernando is a vintage dealer?

Well, he has decided to set up a blog storefront over here: merit + worth. He'll be updating the blogshop weekly with all of his latest finds. Stop by and take a look to find unique vintage items.

lights! photos! but not much action.

2010-02-04T13:05:00.039-05:00

I will be a very happy person when I don't have to look at primer covered walls anymore. As you can probably guess, our dining room is still not painted. The reason: the plaster crown molding still needs to be repaired. I think I've found a place that can replicate it, now I just have to trace it and order it and have it made and have it installed - one of these years. In the meantime we've hung some things on the walls and just most recently installed the ceiling medallion and new vintage light fixtures (so much nicer than bare bulbs.)

Cracked molding:

Hey, it's a little better than this:

"New" 1970's Barbini fixture and medallion:

Here's the newly refinished dining table (we still need to find chairs we like, so we're making do with these:)

A close up of the "new" fused glass sconces:

I would love to hear your color suggestions for the upstairs hallway - what's your favorite light to medium grey?

I'm taking color suggestions for the dining room too. At first I wanted a mossy, olive green - but it's a big commitment and I want to be sure. There are three landscape paintings hanging in there as well - all with gold and olive green tones. The adjacent living room is painted Benjamin Moore's Iced Cube Silver , so something that doesn't clash with that would be great. Or maybe it should just be the same color as the living room?
Iced Cube Silver:

And finally: if you're an admirer of vintage design you may want to check out Fernando's new blog storefront. It will feature a mix of furniture, art and decorative objects and it will (hopefully) be updated more regularly than Get To Fixin'. We'll be introducing it on Monday... so keep an eye out!

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-25T00:55:00.020-05:00

The new Artemide Nesso ceiling fixture in the living room, just in time for Christmas:

You may be used to seeing this classic design in the tabletop version. We purchased it as a special order from Artemide and we were told there were only 20 of them made... we bought two!
The tree has been up for a while and we hung a nice big wreath on the pier mirror (I don't have a photo.) Here's a detail of the tree - funny, it felt a lot taller in our old apartment. Maybe we'll get a taller one next year?

We were late this year in sending out our holiday cards. Fernando had a great last minute idea. He used an image from an old original Andy Warhol card we found a few years back that has since been sold. All we had to work with was the poor quality photo on the left. With a little color added and some Photoshop magic, I think it turned out pretty nice:

Happy Holidays to you!

St. George for sale.

2009-12-03T15:43:00.059-05:00

No, I haven't given up on our house just yet. Still, I can't help hunting around to see what's for sale in the hood.

When we were house hunting here, nothing we liked seemed to be for sale in St. George. When we were apartment hunting, this carriage house beauty was available:

Fernando just didn't want to commit to a house. It was understandable - he was still in school. The people that did buy the house did a really nice job in sprucing it up on the outside. I've always wanted to see inside (we never looked at it) and just found a virtual tour online (click next.)

Another gem for sale in St. George is this beauty:

Ok so it needs a little curb appeal but let me assure you this one is amazing inside. I've seen it. It needs a lot of work but would be so worth it in the end. There's a butler's pantry, a huge kitchen, huge bedrooms, a beautiful staircase and when Fernando saw the sunroom on the back of the house he wanted to sell our house immediately. Ah, Fernando: don't you remember all of the work we did to our house?!

I don't recall seeing this one around in person but it looks to be in fine shape from the listing:

At the high end of the market (two blocks from our house on our street) you'll find one of my favorite houses in the neighborhood:

There are still some fixer uppers to be had as well for cheap prices... like poor next door:

That's really not the most flattering representation of next door. Unfortunately, she's seen better days and her current owner has forsaken her. Useless fact: she was once part of the J.C. Green estate along with our house and now stands where the stables used to be:

This one is around the corner and so cute - I love the round porch. I can imagine that it might need some work considering the super low price:

Another deal nearby:

On the edge of St. George, you can find this cozy house:

The photos show a central air conditioning unit and a great deck. At less than the price of a co-op that's a steal. I love the portico - can't you just see it with grey weathered clapboards, little window boxes and a black sperm whale above the door all New England style?

JUMBO post!

2009-11-17T15:51:00.108-05:00

I wanted to share my lastest project - my newly wallpapered linen closet. Here it is without its shelves:

The walls in here were in less than nice condition and needed sprucing up. The "wallpaper" was actually made via Kinkos on a blueprint copier from vintage wrapping paper. I found the roll many months ago, when it was still cold out (February?) and joked about using it to wallpaper the little bathroom downstairs. When I opened the roll and actually saw how amazing the paper was, I knew I needed to use it somewhere.

I used the same wallpaper paste here that I did with the Woods wallpaper in the foyer. If you ever decide to do something similar I highly recommend using very little paste applied directly to the wall. I ended up rolling it on and wiping most of it off, after I ruined sheet number 1. I made a lot of copies so ruining a sheet or two didn't really matter and I have leftover to use as gift wrap. This paper is super thin and gets pretty wrinkly the second it gets wet. The finished product has some ripples but I still love it. Also - the trimming is best done when the paper is dry. The shelves are back in now; I had painted them white a hundred months ago after stripping a hundred years of contact paper off of them. Now, I think I'll paint just the front edges with the same paint I used on the closet trim. The paint (BM French Beret) was leftover from the bathroom (right next to this closet.)

The paper states that the engravings were taken from Dr. J(ohn) Jonston's (Joannes Jonstonus)
"Description of the Nature of Quadrupeds, Fish, Bloodless Aquatic Animals, Birds, Coiled Creatures, Snakes and Dragons" Amsterdam 1660 A.D. I love the way the drawings on the paper are arranged to interact with each other; like the baboon (?) catching the ostrich egg. I especially like this man faced bird thing with his old school wig hair:

John Jonston (whose name is a perfect example of when something is gained in translation) is also responsible for this piece of incredible:

And this piece of amazing:

Yes, I realize the man needs his own post.
Other things have been happening around Chez Fixin' too - like COUNTERTOPS! Teaser:

Alas, the kitchen is still not finished yet. There is a lot of painting to do, the trim needs a lot of help and yes, we need drawer hardware. I'm hoping to finish up around Christmas.

A new light fixture was purchased for the upstairs hallway. I'll be happy to not have a bare bulb hanging around anymore. That whole area needs some wiring help before the fixture can be mounted. We chose this:

See how nice it looks in the product photo hanging against that grey background? I want to paint the hallway area a similar color. The fixture is by Artemide and is called Logico. We chose the largest size (standard) in the ceiling version. It reminds me of an Alvar Aalto Savoy vase - just upside down. It weighs about a ton and a half and is still in the box for now. I hope that we'll be able to hang it up this weekend.

I also finally ordered a fixture for the living room too. It's not a Mouille fixture but I figured that I should have some light in the living room while I save up $6000+ for a light fixture (yes, I am joking.) I don't have it in hand yet but it looks like this only upside down and with a much thinner neck:

We also bought this vintage (Poseidon?) door knocker that I hope fits on our front door:

What else you ask? Well, the found wooden bench has moved upstairs to our bedroom where it fits nicely against the wall that was formerly a fireplace:

The foyer got a new Kagan style bench with green upholstery that fits exactly where I had always wanted a bench:

We also put a white laquered linen tray top table from Jonathan Adler next to the living room door to use as a catch all for keys, cell phones, glasses, owls and anything else Fernando tends to misplace:

The office has a new case piece where a pile of junk used to hang out:

We also added an IKEA FADO lamp to the back bedroom on our "rid the house of bare bulbs spree." Oh and I'm working on a guest bedroom. We changed the fixture in there to another white IKEA KULLA pendant lamp and just bought a new mattress and box spring. I have a great headboard over at my Mom's house that I have to pick up and few other things planned... but that's all for another super sized post.

i guess we could always slice it up and make some more benches?

2009-10-07T15:06:00.057-04:00

I could use many excuses here as to why it's been so long since I've posted - we've been sick with the flu (swine flu?,) I've been taking a jewelry class over at FIT, last weekend we did the flea market so we could clear out some of the attic... etc. Really, there hasn't been much to blog about lately.
I had started a post all about the beach. But now it's Fall and totally irrelevant. Maybe I'll save it and put it up one day when we're freezing this winter. Yesterday we had our storm windows put up so that we hopefully won't freeze to death again this winter. We wanted to get the trim all painted before we popped in the windows but it looks like the trim work isn't happening this year. We'll most likely do it next Spring.

The person we hired used this incredibly long ladder and actually said that he was scared of heights!

I like the four paned windows much better than the two paned windows that are on the house - the third floor storm windows are just two paned.

So far we've noticed less noise from the street and less wind howling through the house. On Wednesday, when we had 50 mile an hour winds in NY, this happened:

If you guessed that that's a fallen tree from our yard that fell over into the neighboring house's yard, you are correct. We are very happy to report that the tree did no damage to our house, the neighboring house and (unfortunately) the icky chain link fence around our property. The only thing it did in our favor was take out some of the bamboo. Anyone need some firewood?

I keep saying "neighboring house" because currently, no one lives there. It is for sale and has been for a while. If you would like to be my neighbor - now's the perfect time. The price has been drastically reduced and the seller is selling for much lower than he paid. The house is huge, at 3 stories and it's around 15 or 20 feet longer than ours. I've never been inside. The seller had tried to flip the house when the market was good but his team of workers ditched him, he ran out of money and had to sell the house. Up until recently, the realtor with the listing had a non working phone number on the sign and when you called the office you only got a full voicemail box. People stop by all of the time and ask us about it because they can't get hold of the realtor. They finally added a working contact number so I hope it will sell soon. I feel really bad for that house.

So, do you want to see what I found recently? Yes FOUND! Would you throw this away?

I know these photos are a little dark but they were taken at night. It's a signed studio piece by Roy Sheldon.

It was a curb find. Someone put it on the curb! I almost hit the curb when I pulled over to grab it. It does not fit where I wanted a hallway bench but I'm using it here for now, until I find something that fits by the door. Then it will travel upstairs to our bedroom (no, you won't see it on the curb again anytime soon.)

what goes up and never comes down?

2009-08-16T18:12:00.056-04:00

You know how people usually just wallpaper one accent wall in a room? Now I know why. This was hard. Really hard. There are 4 doors and a window in the area, lots of trim to cut around, some really uneven areas and of course the curved wall. Luckily, I had my Mom there to instruct me and help out along the way.

After the first mishap - applying the paste to the back of the wallpaper - I did my research on how to put it up. I settled on Roman's Golden Harvest Ultra Clear Adhesive Pro 880 paste. Cole and Son recommends using their own paste or a "pre-mixed wheat paste." I can't remember why I settled on the Pro 880 but it is recommended because it makes future removal easier. This is never coming down (at least for as long as I live here anyway.)

I'm not completely finished yet (this is around 15 hours of work, over two days!) I'm waiting to give the banister and newel post another coat of stain and some poly before I paper that area. Then I'll get to the finishing touches like above the door here:

We also finally hung our freshly painted Arteluce sconces. The ceiling fixture in here needs some adjustments and a special part to fit properly. No different than the rest of the ceiling fixtures in the house!

Yesterday we stopped in at the DWR store in Roslyn. I became smitten with the simple lines of their Shaker Settee. I would love it for underneath the sconces. The problem is it's 5 inches too wide for the space.

So, I guess I'm back to hunting around. I would really like to find something vintage since most of our furniture is vintage. We only have that chair in the corner at the moment to have somewhere to sit down to put on and take off our shoes.

In the slowest kitchen remodel ever news: we decided on a ceiling fan over a light fixture. I had a great vintage light fixture for the kitchen but Fernando thought we'd be better off with a ceiling fan since there's no circulation in there. I did a lot of hunting around to find something reasonable and not gross looking. I usually hate ceiling fans. I found the Minka Aire Concept I fan to be exactly what we were looking for:

It's up and installed already as of last weekend thanks to my Dad (who also bought it for us as an anniversary present.) I would definitely recommend it - it looks great, it's very well made and comes with anything you could possibly need to hang it up. It also has a remote control that we mounted inside the pantry. I'll post some photos soon when there's a little more progress in there!

summer catch up

2009-08-03T12:15:00.080-04:00

Peeps inside:

Toby on the chair:

Oscar on the bed:

Yes, we painted the walls but haven't gotten around to the trim yet! Anyway, I don't think I ever posted a photo of the bathroom mirror (Restoration Hardware's "Albion"):

So... some things have gone on around the house and outside of the house. I don't want to bore anyone with more talk about our yard or how we've added a light here or put up some blinds there. We finally gave in and put in two air conditioners. We had been getting by with window fans but it seems that the NYC heat and humidity has finally caught up with us. I love that all of the rooms in the house have doors because it makes it much easier to section off areas to cool down.
3 feet have been trimmed off of the privet out front. The yew out front is also finally gone. The giant (and HEAVY) root on the curb for the garbage collection:

Some pachysandra planted under the hedge:

Sunflowers on the side:

A house next door has been for sale since before we bought our place and they recently dropped the asking price drastically. People have been stopping by to check it out and since we're usually out and about in the yard, they ask us questions about it. I've been noticing a lot of people being curious about our neighborhood and Staten Island in general. I've been having to explain why we live in St. George, what there is to do here, where we eat when we go out, etc. We even find ourselves giving quick tours to tourists and our visitors! So, what better way to show my love for St. George than through my blog - from now on I'll be doing more little postings with photos of the neighborhood. So if you're a little curious, keep looking, if not, feel free to ignore. ;)

First up is the St. George Greenmarket:

Our Green Market is open on Saturdays from 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM from May through November. It is held in the Borough Hall Municipal Parking Lot at St. Marks Pl. and Hyatt St. across from the St. George Theater. We try to make it over there if we are around Saturday mornings. There are no supermarkets nearby and the Green Market is within walking distance from our house, so we try to take advantage of it whenever we can. Staten Island also has a CSA program that we do not currently participate in - although this might be a future possibility for us (when we have a fully functional kitchen!)

I'm really not this grumpy:

I can't resist Tart Cherry Stomp and Apricot Stomp from Red Jacket Orchards. They are both perfect and refreshing mixed up with seltzer or Pellegrino.

I also love the blueberry cornbread from Not Just Rugelach:

If you get there early enough you run into just about everyone in the neighborhood. Last weekend we met a neighbor who personally knew the original owner of our house. He told us a few stories about Mr. Coburn and described how he cared for the interior and exterior in a meticulous manner. Mr. Coburn was the person who added the newspaper headlines to the attic stairs and wrote the quirky notes found around our basement. He had a schedule of chores for every season - when he would put up the storm windows, trim the hedges, etc.
I think that's one of the nicest things about the Green Market - the people you run into and the people you meet.
These photos were taken late in the day after the crowds had died down:

One Year.

2009-06-26T14:16:00.020-04:00

Dear House,
Happy Re-Birthday! We bought you one year ago today and have been trying our best to get you back to your former glory. Whenever I see photos of you shrouded in your vines I'm amazed at how different you look today. I'm sorry that you haven't been painted yet or that you're not completely finished on the inside. I promise we'll paint you as soon as we can. Believe me, you look (and smell) a thousand times better today than on this day last year when we first walked through you after the closing.
Thank you for providing a happy place for us to live and for being in such close proximity to a lot of nice people. Thank you for not being haunted. Thank you for not being infested with any creepy living things either.
We love you House and hope to spend many more happy years living inside of you.
Love Always,
Heather & Fernando

a little peak inside...

2009-06-22T12:15:00.007-04:00

We did a little work in the foyer (finally!) over the weekend. Some painting above the picture rail, sanding and staining of the banister, re-painting a pair of vintage sconces and changing one of the 3-way light switches. Waiting for the banister and newel post to dry:

We also attempted to put up our wallpaper in here and it did not work out. I'll be trying again next weekend so hopefully it will look more like a finished room soon.

befores and currents

2009-06-18T15:42:00.045-04:00

I know I've been absent for a while now but I figured I wouldn't bore everyone with more of my gardening adventures. Actually, it's more like hacking away at our little jungle than gardening. Our privet hedge is a bit of a lost cause at the moment. We can't reach the top even with a ladder. It just bloomed so we can't chop at it for at least another month. It needs some renovation and a proper cut - it has a few bald spots and it's too top heavy.
Fernando going for the gold in Olympic gardening:

We have done a few things around the house but alas I have no photos at the moment. You'll just have to settle for more photos of stuff growing. Like my beans that went from this:

To this:

Yes - actual beans are growing on those stalks! I even ate the largest one and it was pretty tasty!

My Mom dug a few ferns up from a friend's yard for me. I had a harrowing experience when I picked them up involving a giant spider that had been hiding in the ferns running around the car while I was driving home from my mother's house. After eyeing the spider on the back seat (and Fernando missed swatting it, sending it running into the seat creases,) I actually drove back to my Mom's, took the ferns out of the car and drove home in a state of panic with Fernando manning a rolled up Elle Decor at the ready. When she brought them over for me the following weekend they were all shriveled up and brown. We planted them anyway, hoping that they would come back and luckily they've started to green up nicely. I also received a peony for my birthday that we planted in the center. I'm hoping it grows larger and hides some of that old pipe. It hasn't flowered yet and I'm thinking I'll have to do something to make it bloom next year. Research.

We hung two of the MYNTA planters from IKEA between the lattice on the sides of the front porch. I planted some lobelia inside but it's not doing too well. I'll probably switch it out for something else in a few weeks.

I started a little patch of garden up the side of the house. Currently there are a few sunflowers (more to come) and zucchini plants and one Moon and Stars watermelon plant. If these take off we'll have to walk up that path very carefully. I'm not that good with plant placement. I bought a few strawberry plants to add to this patch too as soon as it stops raining.

My window boxes went from this:

To this:

Close-up before:

Close-up current:

Even more blooms opened up today - I guess all of that rain is paying off. There is still so much to do in the front I'm hoping we get a few sunny days to work on it. I want to remove a huge yew growing in the center of the front yard. It's so random, large and mishapen - we certainly don't need it. Maybe add a brick path going up to the side of the house and some perrenial plantings around the path... more soon.

do something pretty while you can...

2009-05-04T12:20:00.041-04:00

It didn't rain on Saturday.
My Dad came by and hung these two window planters up for us.

I couldn't wait to see them with something in them so I packed them with some annuals - mostly pinks and alyssum.

I hope they fill in and get really lush. My favorites were these dark purple salvia:

I also popped the string beans I started from seed into the ground near the basement hatch.

Fernando did more toiling in the backyard, digging up bamboo and removing a huge rock pile by the fence. I should have taken a before and after photo of the rock pile. Here are the highlights: the before was ugly and the after is much, much better.

Our bamboo is doing really well (too well) and popping up all over the yard. I tripped over an overturned cobblestone from our patio on Saturday - there was a new bamboo shoot underneath trying to get out! Upon taking a closer look I realized there were four new shoots trying to get through the patio. We have huge runners running throughout the entire yard; this was a 5 foot length:

We have an accumulation of bamboo stakes and some pretty purple flowers blooming under one of the trees. Any idea what these are called?

There is a huge bunch of wisteria in full bloom too!

Fernando dug these up from the ground under the rock pile:

He came running around the front (I was planting the window boxes) when he found the first one. A few minutes later he came back with the other!

We think they might have originally sat on top of an elaborate iron fence but are not sure. I love them. I think they might end up on one of the fireplace mantels in the near future.

Images of America, the St. George edition

2009-04-22T16:40:00.002-04:00

Last Friday, Fernando and I stopped in at SHOW gallery to check out the release party for the new book Images of America, St. George. The book is part of a series published through Arcadia Publishing and was written by David Goldfarb and James G. Ferreri who were on hand to sign copies.

The book is filled with historic photos as well as some fairly current photos of the St. George neighborhood. There are so many that I had never seen before - a result of Goldfarb and Ferreri spending countless hours of research and probably pouring over the NYPL Archives.
It really struck me how much our neighborhood has physically changed over the years since its start when it was initially known as New Brighton. New Brighton was mostly divided up into grand estates. The proximity to the Staten Island Ferry made New Brighton (St. George) a perfect spot for wealthy residents wanting a private yet conveniently close location to Manhattan.

The map below, included in the book really puzzled us because it shows a building exactly where our house stands today, part of the J.C. Green estate and is dated 1874:

Unfortunately, from the scan I couldn't read the type next to the building. We don't really know the exact date our house was built. All of the Staten Island land records were destroyed in a fire. We were originally told by the previous owner that it was built in 1910. He claimed this is what he was told by the first owner. After speaking with our neighbors (they own the very similar house next door) we all agreed that it must have been earlier than 1910.
Seeing that map prompted me to look around the NYPL digital archive for some more maps... and I was lucky enough to find a larger example of the same map:

Ah-ha! There was a greenhouse here before!
And then there was this one from 1906-1913, actually showing our house:

As well as this one dated 1917, that shows our house on a much smaller lot of land:

A little internet searching and I found this circa 1880 article from the New York Times:

It seems that where FERNando and I now lay our heads was possibly once a peaceful place for ferns to grow.
Let's re-cap: There was a greenhouse on our lot in 1874. The grounds and presumably the greenhouses were still in use in 1880 since Mrs. J.C. Green received a special prize for her magnificent collection of ferns. Our house existed at least since 1913 according to the confusingly dated 1906-1913 map above. So basically my research settles just about nothing other than sometime between 1880 and 1913 our house came into being. I'm going to push it a little further - Curtis High School was built between 1902 and 1904. Those grounds were also once upon a time part of the J.C. Green estate according to map number 1. It may be safe to say that the land was divided up at that time - they obviously tore down the estate mansion to make way for the school fields - it could have been around that time that the land was sold off. Maybe a better time frame would be between 1880 and 1902? Oh and somewhere along the way our lot increased in size.

ANYWAY, below are a few former gems, long ago ripped down to make way for apartment buildings, semi-attached stucco houses and paved parking lots. Perhaps we can thank J.C. Green for such improvements?

The Anson Phelps Stokes house, which had it still been standing, we would have been able to see from our office window (and remember just how modest our accomodations are:)

It's opulent interior that we would not have been able to see from our office window:

More of the (cluttered) interior:

Could the greenhouse that stood on our property have looked like this? Phelps Stokes house greenhouse:

Architect Edward Alfred Sargent's double house on the no longer existing Lennox Street:

The De Escoriaza house formerly of St.Marks Place:

The Staten Island Academy which I'm pretty sure was torn down to make way for either the co-op building we used to live in or the adjacent vacant lot:

An aerial view of St. George looking towards Curtis High School:

View up Hyatt street toward the Brighton Reformed Church and the former Tiedemann House on right:

Some things still look pretty much the same as they did in the old photos like these streetscapes of St. Mark's Place:

And some houses, like this one on Belmont Place and Vine Street:

And this one on Belmont Place and Daniel Low Terrace:

spring!

2009-04-17T10:35:00.064-04:00

Damn you IKEA! Just when I find something I like - you never have it in stock! For my front porch, I desperately need a couple of these:

That's the MYNTA hanging planter - completely unavailable in NY and NJ at the moment. You see it matches these gunmetal grey Jonathan Adler pots I've been holding onto for more than a year (or two?) now:

I need to finally fill them up with flowers. And I'm pretty sure I need the hanging planters for a few of these:

I suppose with a profusion of flowers like that it doesn't really matter what the hanging planter looks like. It shouldn't be too hard - at least I'm not attempting this:
I've been starting my garden from seeds in Jiffy greenhouse trays. They work just great until they sprout too big for the greenhouse cover. I went a little crazy with the seeds - I think there are 11 kinds of tomatos:

Toby the cat loves digging up plants and killing them. Anyway, now is about the time when a few IKEA FRO mini greenhouses would come in handy:

Well, they would if they were available in any of the NY or NJ stores.

In other garden news, we've bought "new" vintage lawn furniture. We found two chairs and a small settee - perfect for the small patio area:

I want to make some bright stripe-y cushions for the seats. Now we just need to find a matching wrought iron round table.

The yard has gotten quite a bit cleaner:

Yes, it still needs a ton of work but at least we're not standing knee deep in leaves anymore - remember this:

I do.

I'm gonna chow down my vegetables.

2009-03-16T16:30:00.014-04:00

We've been taking advantage of the nice weather by doing a little yard clean up. Winston (the neighborhood gardener) has been an enormous help. He managed to clear all of the remaining ivy that was heaped up in a corner of the yard since last summer as well as all of the bamboo and sapling refuse that we pulled out on our clearing spree. We're going to mulch our leaves in one of the corners of the yard to use in the future. The soil in the yard is already really rich with nutrients from years of neglect and piles of leaves left to mulch on their own.

Today, Winston is going to clear a bed in the yard for my future vegetable garden! I don't know how much I'll get planted this year but I'm trying to get an early start.
Dried up bamboo roots and rhizomes:

I'm keeping some bamboo to use as stakes in the garden:

Not much has gone on on the inside of the house. We're not lazy - just preoccupied at the moment with work and other projects. I finally finished a little baby blanket I've been working on for my friend's son (due any day now!)

A couple of months ago Fernando decided to lose his wedding ring. He was pretty bummed about it. I decided to make him a new one:

It's unfinished (not plated with rhodium) white gold and much more brutal. He says he likes it. :)

Yesterday, we worked on clearing out our remaining storage unit. For lunch, we hit up Montalbano's in Rosebank for a 120 hero and decided to eat down by the Alice Austen House.

Smoke on the water:

Hopefully, I'll have photos of the finished garden bed tomorrow.

two steps forward, one step back

2009-03-03T13:30:00.003-05:00

I've been sick since Friday. Needless to say my bathroom did not get painted this weekend. We did get the office fixture up and the Kulla lamp up in our bedroom. We also lost (sold) the living room fixture.

I'm still waiting for your suggestions! We've had vistors to the blog from Milan to Minsk (no kidding!) so vistors, welcome and please feel free to leave a comment. :)
Perhaps I should show you my dream fixture for this spot?

Unfortunately, unless this becomes available at my dream price (much, much cheaper) it's not happening anytime soon. We did have another idea for this spot but it's just plain crazy and I won't mention it again unless I'm forced to do it.

Let's see... we also wrestled with the garden on Friday, before I came down with a fever. I toppled 20 and 30 foot bamboo stalks. Fernando managed to dig up massive chunks of bamboo roots and rhizomes. I was going to take a photo for you - I had left them lying on our patio - but it snowed heaps all over the yard and they got covered up. I've realized that getting rid of the bamboo (or even just controlling it) is not going to be easy.

I did discover a huge old climbing rose in the back corner of the property while picking up a dead branch. Ouch. There were also the first signs of spring poking out - crocuses and I think daffodils. We did so much hacking that we can actually walk around the yard now. I'm just dreading binding up the branches and stalks to throw away. If anyone is in need of some cut bamboo for a project - let me know!

what's going on here?

2009-02-23T11:31:00.061-05:00

In all of the time between my posts you'd think we would have done a ton of things in our house - but you'd be wrong. It's been really cold inside and my hands don't work when they're cold.

We are lucky enough to still have all of the original storm windows for the house. They have been sitting in our basement for a very long time - they even have the cobwebs to prove it. They are all engraved with locations so it's just a matter of figuring out which way is north and hanging them up.

We put up all of the storm windows that we could. They cut the cold and stop some of the wind. Our house is tall so the only windows we've been able to cover ourselves are on the ground level and the ones that we could reach from the front porch roof and back mud room roof. They, like the rest of our trim, need scraping and fresh paint. I love the 4 pane design over our existing windows and how they compliment the glass vestibule. I think we'll keep them up year round on the front and back of the house to keep the cold out in the winter and the cool in in the summer.

I know I said we'd be hanging lights but what I didn't realize is how hard it would be. Every room has had at least two problems to address. In the foyer we needed a deeper ceiling canopy, in our bedroom we have to add wood to have something to mount the fixture to, in our office we also had to crack open the ceiling and move some stuff around, we have weird metal things sticking out from here and there and a lot of re-plastering to do.

One of the bedrooms needing a larger ceiling cap and some plaster work:

The office now has a Structo-Lite foundation and now needs a coat of plaster:

Some of the bulbs broke for this fixture so we'll need to find more (they're a little hard to find.) This one has glass globes that cover the bulbs (not currently on) but it's still too bright and we'll need to put it on a dimmer.

This one is vintage and in its previous life it hung in our old kitchen:

We haven't tackled our bedroom yet but I did purchase a white Kulla lamp for this spot.

Below is the only fixture we were able to actually hang. It's in our living room and guess what? We hate it. I love the fixture. I love the medallion. I hate them together. Since the medallion is already up, we're going to have to find another fixture for here. Any suggestions would be welcome - whatever it is it can't hang too low because we've installed a TV above the fireplace.

We still have not painted our upstairs bathroom. I did spend an eternity patching and sanding all of the trim and walls. I have another quick sanding to do and then we'll be ready for paint. We actually even agreed on a paint color! We'll be using Benjamin Moore's French Beret. I'm trying the Aura paint in here since it's supposed to be cleanable and mold resistant and just so amazing... that's what I hear anyway.

French Beret:

so, let's make the most of this beautiful day...

2009-02-11T14:21:00.042-05:00

The beautiful weather today is putting me in the mood for a nice walk around the neighborhood. Maybe this evening after work?
For now, I thought I'd post a link to Forgotten NY's latest walking tour of St. George for you to check out - it's an interesting read. I actually happened to catch the tour group stopped in front of our house from our living room window when they did this tour! Here's another link to an older Forgotten NY St. George walking tour from back in 1999.
And I thought I'd share a few old photos we've taken around the neighborhood over the last 6 years or so...

Walking up from the ferry at night - view of Carrere and Hastings designed Borough Hall.

An unsung bit of prairie architecture on St. Marks Place close to Hamilton Ave.

St. Peter's church on St. Marks Place.

A face of Stuyvesant Place.

Crumbling brick near Bay Street Landing ("The Pearl" being built in the background.)

Corner of Westervelt Ave. and St. Marks Place - house designed by Edward A. Sargent.

Opposite side of same corner - brick colonial with plaster lions keeping guard.

Obama moves to the White House and the Kitties move to the Brick House.

2009-01-22T13:30:00.002-05:00

Oscar and Toby have moved in with us. They seem to really like their new house - especially all of the windows.

We had a long, lazy and snowy weekend. With mornings like this:

Looking out of the window at this:

Oscar has been sleeping under the covers. He really likes the electric blanket.

Other creatures sniffing about:

I've been doing laundry! Here is an action photo of the first load of laundry EVER done in this 99 year old house:

We did get a few things accomplished. Some furniture was unwrapped and moved into the living room so we have a place to sit other than the bed. There's cardboard under the furniture legs to protect the floors. There will be rearranging and editing in the future - I don't want to get too comfortable in here right now because I still have to fix the moulding.

Thanks to my dad, a few doors were hung (with working doorknobs!) The water dispenser and ice maker in our fridge are also hooked up.

Fernando laid out that platform for the washer and dryer in the basement. It raises the machines a few inches off of the ground in case we have any more water. We still need to paint the surrounding floor. He also filled up some cracks with hydraulic cement. We haven't had water since but I think most of the ground is still frozen from the weather lately.

We finally decided on a much needed mirror for the bathroom. If it's in stock I should be buying it tomorrow.

This weekend we plan to get some of the light fixtures up. Oh how I'll miss the hanging bulbs.

The big problem with hanging lights here is that some of the wiring doesn't have anything around it to secure a fixture to. The living room is the only one ready to go but it stopped working a week ago. I think it might just be loose wires in the switch or a bad switch. I also changed my mind about the fixture for in there... decisions are hard.

door hardware - any ideas?

2009-01-11T20:33:00.014-05:00

The cabinet installation is done! Well, almost... two cabinets arrived without their glass, so that's been ordered. We also need to choose cabinet door hardware. I'm really pleased with the row of cabinets next to the fireplace - they utilize the dead space perfectly.

We moved the island out a little further than we had originally planned but there is still enough room by the back door and it works.

We used Hanssem Somerset cabinets in here, in "frosty white." We had planned to use "crystal white" but the color looked more creamy than we wanted under our lighting. We also used IKEA PERFEKT FAGERLAND wine shelving down the length of the wall to the right of the refrigerator. There are three units stacked and the cabinet installer did such a great job you'd never know it wasn't ordered with the Hanssem cabinets. I was a little nervous about this because I labored over the problem of needing at least 6 inches next to the fridge for the doors to open properly. Hanssem did not have anything under 12 inches in width (too big for the space) so as always IKEA to the rescue. We're not big wine drinkers but I thought it would be handy when I can't resist buying those cases of Pellegrino at Costco.

We still have to paint in here, build a half wall around the dishwasher and back of the sink cabinet and move our poor doorbell before we can pop in those lights and get the countertop installed.

My Dad stopped by yesterday and hooked up the stove, washer and dryer, put doors on the bathroom and our bedroom (yes!) moved the toilet upstairs and re-installed the curtain rod so we can shower. I hate baths here because the tub never warms up and no matter what we do, baths are freezing. We're working on weather stripping all of the windows and doors but the house is still pretty cold. Our bed is a mountain of blankets!

The snow yesterday left a pretty blanket over our back yard and bamboo forest:

sneak peak!

2009-01-09T13:35:00.005-05:00

Fernando just sent me this quick shot of the kitchen progress.

I feel incredulous - I really was beginning to think I'd never have a functioning kitchen again!

2009

2009-01-08T13:30:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year!
So far it's been a very happy one for us - we've finally moved in and now we're living amidst chaos. Check out the dining room:

Those are BOXES. I think we had around 250 packed up from our last move. There's even some furniture too:

It's not staying like this (I promise!) Some things are going and others will be moved around. The aluminum group chairs are not good on our floors - they've made that patch of floor over by the desk a mess. I don't know if it's because the floor was recently refinished or if it's because they are old or if it's just the type of wood they are, but they are soft.
We've been doing a lot of painting and most of the trim is done. Check out the stair risers:

More work was done to the bathroom. That's my Dad doing touch up to the plaster:

My Sister has been working on patching and sanding the bathroom window. It just needs a coat of paint. I still haven't decided on a wall color!
We now have our IKEA HÖLLVIKEN sink hung on the wall:

The plumbing is currently hooked up - that was taken just after it was hung.
And here's the new bathroom faucet:

All of our kitchen appliances have been delivered. It was hard getting them into the kitchen and after the first attempt failed, another date was scheduled, two doors (on our mud room) were removed and the appliances are now in the kitchen. All of that and only one huge scratch down the front of the left refrigerator door. Another door has been ordered and is on its way. Nothing ever goes smoothly.

Speaking of nothing going smoothly, I don't think I mentioned the footprint. There was a footprint in the final coat of poly right in the middle of our living room floor. The floor people have been back 3 times since then to "fix" it and it now looks like a weird 1 1/2' (yes foot) square patch in the middle of the living room floor. They are scheduled to come back and completely re-coat the entire living room and dining room next Wednesday. This means that all of that stuff you see in the first photo of this post has to be removed and found another home in the interim! And that the toilet from our miniature bathroom has to move upstairs this weekend (yay!) and that we won't be able to put furniture in those two rooms for at least another week after they are finished. :(

We also have our new washer and dryer in the basement. When they were delivered we realized that the ground was too uneven where the plumbers put the hook-ups. We've also been getting water again in that corner when it snows. Everyone we've consulted seems to think it's ground water. We will eventually have to add a sump pump in the future to end the water issues. As for the washer and dryer - we had to move them over, under the basement stairs and that meant longer hoses (not readily available at most plumbing suppliers.) We finally found 8ft hoses at Sid Phillips. They are not hooked up yet.

Our kitchen cabinets were delivered at least two months ago and are being installed TODAY. I'm very excited to see the results...

snow day

2008-12-19T12:14:00.032-05:00

So the title is a little misleading... this post is not about snow even though it is snowing outside. Just thought I'd show off the extent of our Christmas decorating this year:

Yes, that's all.

Here are a couple of photos showing the bathroom's current state:

We actually don't have swine bathing in our tub. That's grout, joint compound, plaster dust - all kinds of icky stuff that's fallen in there during the work. I haven't scrubbed it yet because it's not finished being filthy yet.

The tiles still have haze on them from grouting here - this was just after the grout was finished. We're showing you the current status of the bathroom. It's sort of like reality TV except here you actually get to see reality. The walls need more skimcoat, the baseboards and trim need patching and painting, the overhead lights are not in yet because we need to paint the ceiling first (and can't decide on a paint color.) Reality.

This is our new soap dish embedded in the wall:

It was designed by my Father and Fernando and the nice people at the place where we bought the wall tile (Monumental Marble) made it for us. It's carrara marble and was cut to mimic the shape of the tub. On top, there are two small indentations for soap. It's quite heavy and partially sits on a beam about 2" inside of the wall for stability. If we are lucky, it will never fall out. ;)

Happy snow day!

It is official.

2008-12-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

I neglect my blog. I could blame the holidays but I'm going to blame the house. The house is eating into my blogging time but I blog about the house. It's an endless cycle.
Here's the latest photo of our subbasement (sub-basement, sub basement?)

It's currently moonlighting as a wading pool. We must have a crack somewhere down there and that last rainstorm flooded the little room. Fernando tried to bucket it out but gave up after about bucket number 25. I hope it doesn't freeze. It's not a huge deal because we can't really use that room (formerly a coal chute) at the moment for anything. It doesn't have electricity and usually holds the day job of spider farm. It's just another project to get too - hopefully before it freezes and more cracks develop.

Our floors and stairs are finished!

I do love them. The finish is not glossy and just like I expected a satin finish to be, even though it's semi-gloss. This photo was taken at night and the flash penetrated the layers of poly, showing it to be more brown than black. It does read black when you see it in person. I can't wait to paint those baseboards and am actually looking forward to a little time off to get to paintin'.
As for the bedroom paint color - I think the swatch was lost in the clean-up. I know I should remember the name but we debated over two, the other being BM's "Calm" and this other color won. I need to have more mixed for the baseboards so I'll ask the name of the color when I get to the store.
We've also had some exciting (for me) things delivered - more on that later. I promise to add more photos of the refinished floor, painted bedrooms, and yes the forgotten upstairs BATHROOM hopefully soon...

get to fixin' on NY1

2008-12-07T20:16:00.005-05:00

St. George Properties Offer Great Views For A Great Price

Check it out - that's our house!

We can't go inside.

2008-12-02T16:45:00.013-05:00

We have been patiently waiting. The first two coats of poly are down. It shouldn't be this shiny in the end - they first use high gloss poly for a harder surface and then they will finish with either satin or semi-gloss. This is what it all looks like from the front door:

Really makes the unpainted stuff look super crappy huh? I was feeling like this was one of the final steps - but IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE OVER. I keep thinking of all of the things that we still have to do but we can't do anything until the floors dry. Not being able to do anything is making my head want to explode.
Why didn't I take the yard tools out of the basement before they started to put the stain down? And what will we find growing in that coffee cup on the windowsill?

oh sandy.

2008-11-21T22:00:00.002-05:00

Living room paint color in action:

The medallion is not sealed yet in this photo - we have to add a bead of caulk since the old ceiling is a little wavy in some spots.

Oh and the floors have been started! This is our bedroom with the paint color whose name I still can't remember. It's a faint, pale-like thing. Check out the sanding transformation:

I really like the pale wood and almost have the urge to just seal it. The thing is - it's pretty stained up in some spots. Let's just say there were dogs living here before and they were not given the chance to catch some fresh air.

This is the room adjoining our bedroom aka: the office (what we will be using it for,) the nursery or the room with the bay window. My Father freaks out if we call it a bedroom. When asked why he calmly explains that bedrooms don't have bay windows. I don't get it either.

Those bags are filled with sawdust from our floors! We intend to paint this room the same color as our bedroom.

This is our kitchen! I knew there were decent floors under all of that gunk!

We're having a bit of patching done in here - on the right side where there was an intake vent. The vent currently leads to nothing and is no longer useful. I'm not sure what we're going to do with the former hearth though... perhaps use some leveling compound? We can't add wood over the concrete so it may be our only option. The stove will be covering most of this area.

What gunk you say? You can't see the gunk? Have look around the kitchen's first sanded patch:

Yuck.

newly stripped

2008-11-20T16:45:00.009-05:00

Fernando spent 3 days on this messy project. The banister and newel post needed to be stripped. Everything was covered in thick layers of flaking varnish and dirt resulting in a sort of burgundy color. He used denatured alcohol and everything from steel wool, to sandpaper, to paint brushes, to metal brushes and so many paper towels - it was hard to get that junk off! Now we can stain it all to match the floors. I thought white trim paint would be nice but I almost had my head torn off at the suggestion.

Completely stripped and a peak of the new ceiling paint here:

In other news, the floors are finally being refinished today! Well, the project is supposed to take about a week to complete... I'm happy it's finally begun. We've also put up the ceiling medallion in the living room, painted the foyer ceiling Lido Green by Benjamin Moore, painted the living room walls and ceiling a pale grey called Iced Cube Silver by BM, painted our bedroom a color that I can remember off the top of my head, replaced a few cracked windows, had a new home security system installed and added some blinds to the downstairs windows (finally.)

The upstairs bathroom is almost complete. I purchased the Axor Montreux Short Two Handle Lavatory Mixer faucet by Hansgrohe in chrome for the bathroom sink. It looks like this:

We had to order more subway tile (I wish I had a photo because the tiled wall is looking soooo good) because we decided to stop a few inches from the ceiling and so we needed bullnosed tiles to finish up. We also ran out of floor tiles because I apparently don't know how to use a tape measure. More have been ordered and after the wood floors are complete my Dad should be able to finish up. Here's a photo that's almost not worth showing but you can see how the floor is coming along:

I'm sorry, I know I need to post a big photo update soon...

black as night, black as coal = too much to ask for

2008-11-06T16:45:00.015-05:00

As you may know, we really wanted our floors stained black. It's a hard color to achieve on most woods without straight up paint or aniline dye. We've been working with a floor company to try to get our floors as dark as possible. After they had come by and put a few samples down they offered to do an entire room so that we could see how the color was really going to look. You can see the before and afters here:

The middle shot is one coat of "Cabot Penetrating Interior Oil Base Wood Stain" in Ebony and the right shot is 2 coats. It's pretty close to black but there is still some brown peeking through here and there. They seem to think it will be even darker after the coats of poly are applied. I don't know if that's true... I do like it and after having 4 floor companies come over, this is the closest to black I've seen! One of the companies even promised that their specially mixed black stain was black "like a crayon." On our floors it looked more brown than Minwax. The Cabot Ebony is definitely more black than Minwax's Ebony - so that's what we're going with. I'm guessing that if we had the time (and money) for 3 coats of stain we might actually achieve a true black but I'm also thinking that my floors are going to stop absorbing stain at some point - right?
I'm relieved to see that all of the mess left on our floors after the walls were skim coated came up no problem. That room in particular was really bad - it looked like someone dumped an entire bucket of joint compound in the center of the room!

upstairs bathroom choices...

2008-10-30T20:30:00.009-04:00

IKEA Höllviken sink:

Discovering the oval shaped IKEA Höllviken sink was very exciting. The only options I could see to fit in the small 22" space were pedestal sinks or a custom made vanity. I personally don't really like pedestal sinks. A custom made vanity would not work for us - for budget reasons and time constraints. I would rather just utilize the small closet next to the bathroom for toiletries. The IKEA Höllviken is only $90.00! It can be mounted on a wall or to a base. Most importantly, it measures 22 1/2" across - wide enough for us to use and not get water everywhere and small enough to fit into our space. Since we will be floating it on the wall we can have a little overhang over the tub.

I just need to decide on a faucet.

I don't think anyone will appreciate its size more than our cat Toby, whose favorite pastime is drinking water from the bathroom sink:

Kohler Cimarron Comfort Height two-piece round-front toilet:

This toilet is one of the first things that we purchased for the bathroom. The previous toilet was cracked (and gross.) In its short life it's already been installed upstairs and moved downstairs while we're working on the bathroom. When it makes its final trip upstairs we'll put a shorter toilet in the "powder closet."

Daltile 4" X 8" subway tile in Desert Gray on the walls:

I really love this tile. I love the larger scale for this small bathroom - 4"X8".

2" Carrara marble mosaic tile in a Hexagon pattern for the floors:

Again - we bought this in a larger scale. I think the 2" size will compliment the proportions of the subway tile. We were entirely inspired by the lovely Anna of Doorsixteen's bathroom renovation. She used Carrara marble hex on her floor and the results were amazing.

LaToscana Ornellaia Single Control Pressure Balanced Tub and Shower Kit:

One thing I learned while trying to find bathroom fixtures is that if you know nothing about plumbing, talk to your plumber before you shop. A few wrong purchases later and we now have this shower set by Latoscana. We did not purchase it in the "oil rubbed bronze" finish shown here but rather chrome (I couldn't find a photo of it in chrome.) Bathroom fixtures are frustrating - we liked different items but to get the diverter/volume control of this set we had to buy the entire thing. The piece we wanted only came separate in "oil rubbed bronze."

Danze 4" Lamp Downpour Shower Head with Arm in Chrome:

Danze makes another shower head similar to this but the design is more modern. I liked it better but for the sake of matching the other fixtures and the tub I compromised with this. The smooth face with the pinhole shower sprays was a huge attraction.

LaToscana USCR430 - Chrome Tub Spout:

We are still debating on whether or not to buy this tub spout but I'm sure we'll give in and purchase it soon. The design is more elegant than the tub spout assigned to the set. I suppose I could always give the other tub spout (and shower head) to my Mom if she wants them or list them on Craigslist?

I'm going to turn into a zombie just in time for Halloween.

2008-10-30T16:45:00.003-04:00

I'm still alive! We've lost almost all of our workers in my blogging absence. Stanley stopped showing up in typical contractor style (I'm guessing he has another job or two) and he was sending his people over to work without supervision. The problem with that is that his workers are clueless without someone telling them what to do every moment. Areas that were patched and ready to sand were primed and painted before being sanded. Regular sheetrock was going up on my upstairs bathroom ceiling instead of greenboard. All of this and we were PAYING them to mess up our house. Two weeks ago we said enough and good riddence. All of the major things except for the upstairs bathroom are pretty much finished anyway. We have a lot of finishing work and painting to do and of course the dining room molding repair (I'm dreading this the most.)

We have not interviewed any new replacements for the work left. We've just been doing it ourselves. I'm exhausted.

My Father has been putting our upstairs bathroom back together again - and doing an amazing job. He did a bathroom for my Aunt and for my Mother in the past but I didn't realize that he could skim coat! We're hoping that it will be almost entirely done over this coming weekend.

Fernando, my Sister, my Mother and I have all been working on getting the trim sanded, primed and painted. Here's the foyer trim freshly painted in Benjamin Moore's Winter Snow:

I'm dreading painting the ceilings and walls so we may have to hire someone to do that after the floors are done. I'm not very good with a roller and it's hard for me to get walls and ceilings coated evenly. In our last apartment, I painted our bedroom ceiling. It was so uneven and I never got around to covering everything and painting it again. I would lie in bed in the morning and stare at all of the mistakes.

You can see how gross some of our doors were (right, silly) and what they look like now (left) here:

That's our poor kitchen up there. It's definitely going to be the last room we finish. The new cabinets have been ready for weeks and we're going to just have them delivered soon and installed at a later date.
We finally had our little sink re-installed in the powder closet on Sunday. The new faucet is by Pegasus and is from the Halo series. It was only available in brushed nickel which was not my first choice - I usually prefer polished nickel or chrome. Since we don't have any other major things going in here to match to it, I'm sure the brushed finish will be fine. I do like it and it makes washing hands in this small sink easier because with the faucet so high, there is more space to move around. Unfortunately, we didn't plan anything for underneath the sink... so I'll have to figure something out to make it look a little nicer.

Speaking of plumbing, when we did our waterproofing project (now finished) we found a cracked waste pipe in our yard! Most of the ground happens to be clay and the clay was packed around the pipe covering the old crack and stopping it from leaking. As soon as the dirt was removed the yard was getting a little "wash" everytime we flushed. Luckily, we had an amazing plumber named Christopher fix it for us for a nominal fee. Christopher also fixed the pipes behind the wall in our upstairs bathroom and installed that little sink for us.

Here's a shot of the cracked pipe:

And here's Christopher in the hole fixing it:

How brave is he? That hole was underneath our mud room... cramped and scary.

We also had a vintage ball lamp installed in our vestibule. It's on a motion sensor - which makes it even more fun.

I do have a better photo somewhere... next time.

i'm digging for dryer

2008-10-08T12:16:00.035-04:00

Let me introduce you to our new moat.

It's not completely finished yet... but not bad for one person and two days of digging. It's not all in madness, we're digging down so that we can waterproof our basement. It's not a really damp basement but we do get water accumulating in one area when there are big storms. That one area happens to be the exact spot where we want to put our future washer and dryer. We've already installed the hook-ups and the vintage sink that we just added a drainage pump to is right there, so we can't change the w/d location. When we had the roof and gutters fixed we thought it might fix the problem but twice since then we've had bad storms and about an inch of water in that corner.

This is all the handiwork of Keith. Keith was once a grave digger. More excitingly he used to work on a tugboat. I have an irrational love of tugboats. When you love tugboats, St. George, Staten Island is the place to be... I get to see them every day. ;)

Keith's been having problems with finding a place to store all of the fill. It's already piled up the length of our fence and now we have an enormous mountain in our yard. I swear - the yard really was clean - right before we started our very own Big Dig.

cue quincy jones

2008-09-23T14:25:00.054-04:00

I can't tell you how much I wish I had an after shot for you here. This was pretty much the state of the front section of our backyard for the last two months.

We did hire a "clean-up" guy last week. He came the following day and removed a lot of metal. We really had a lot of metal. Someone had been hoarding it in the basement. Most importantly, he removed the stinky old stove that none of us could lift out to the curb. He even had a red pick-up truck ala Sanford and Son!

Alas, he too must have been scared away by the swarms of mosquitoes and the never-ending clean-up job. He never showed up again.

Fortunately, our amazing neighborhood gardener, Winston has saved us from our festering junk heap! Winston does work for our neighbor who has an almost identical house to us. I say almost identical because their house was not renovated in the 30's and because compared to ours, it looks like heaven. Manicured lawns and perfectly trimmed hedges with fresh exterior paint and I can only imagine inside! Ahh.
Winston does a lot of the houses in the neighborhood - he will come around when he thinks something needs trimmed and just work. He's a little hard to find - we begged our neighbor to send him over to us next time he saw him. Eventually, I would like to do the gardening myself. I love garden work. For now, I'm extremely overwhelmed with all of the weeds, vines, hedges that tower above me and did I mention the bamboo?! If you look to the left of the top photo in this post (above the pile of dried ivy) you'll see we have a bamboo forest taking over our yard. It extends way beyond the lattice and into the middle of the yard. If anyone needs bamboo for a project, let me know - you are more than welcome to take as much as you need.
We hired Winston to remove the roots of the ivy around the house since we are already getting re-sprouts here and there. He performed nothing short of a miracle yesterday in rounding up all of the garbage in the yard and sorting it into bags and bundling vines and wood. Now we can actually set it all out on the curb on garbage day. Not all at once, but at least it's very manageable now. We can see the stone patio now and even found a strange thing resembling a headstone sticking out of the ground! I highly doubt it's a headstone but I can't imagine what it could be. I'll need to shoot some pics and ask for opinions.

I do however have some recent photos highlighting the new lighting in our kitchen and dining room. Check them out:

No, nothing looks finished yet. But we're hoping that one day soon it will be!

I enjoy starting sentences with And. And no, the house has not killed us.

2008-09-23T11:52:00.088-04:00

Yet. But if we don't get to move in soon...

Breaking News: the upstairs bathroom is gone.

Really it's not a loss... did you see it before?

Yes, a replay of the 12X12 white tiles, black grout, Pepto Bismol (or is it more Amoxicillin) pink, numerous towel and toilet paper bars (I think I counted 9 in here,) 2 medicine cabinets, exposed vent pipes and of course, lots of dirt and grime. And that's with a new sink and a new toilet! We realized that the plan we had to renovate the bathroom next year was a little well, stupid. It's our only bathroom apart from the closet in the dining room. How would we shower during renovations? And really, I couldn't imagine myself waking up in the winter months and getting ready for work in that space. Now matter how much we clean it - it's still gross (did I mention the spiders?) And it's not only just because there are a bunch of workmen and spiders using it all day. It's just not user friendly. I mean, the light fixture is on a pull chain! We decided to just do it now. And why not have another delay? We're apparently never going to get to move in.

After making that decision and telling our workmen, we came "home" the next day to find the bathroom almost completely gone. Actually, most of it is being stored in the bedroom (formerly of the huge cracks in the walls.)

I know - nasty! But look at those walls! No more cracks! :)

And if that photo doesn't make you sick just check this one out of the bathroom (with old toilet) while the plumbers were working on it:

Now for the positive aspects:

We're going to do a little bit of recessed lighting in here - just like downstairs in the dining room and kitchen. I don't want a fixture because with the curtain rod I think I'll feel like things are always just attacking my head. Besides the spiders.

I want the new lights to work on a switch so I don't have to use the hall light (and wake up Fernando) or fumble in complete darkness around the shower curtain area to turn them on. And hello - spiders?

The walls have these ever so slight spaces between the beams that you can see here.

They are only about 1 1/2" deep. We're going to use some panel foam for insulation in these spaces. We'll also leave one open along the edge of the tub and built it out over the edge of the tub for a small shelf. At least I think we can do that - I haven't run it by Stanley yet. I'm hoping this will work since there's not much space at the edge of the tub for shampoo and soap. The Deco era tub is staying - we heart it very much.

And this tin ceiling is coming down.

And before anyone screams "BUT WHHHYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!" please realize that this ceiling, contrary to popular belief, IS NOT original to the house. It was someone's cheap and easy fix for the damaged plaster ceiling underneath. We're going to re-plaster the ceiling. And box in the icky vent pipe.

I can't even think about what we're going to use in here. I know that we will eventually replace the pedestal sink with a vanity but this we really are going to try to wait until next year for. Tile wise, I'd like a Carrara marble subway tile on the walls in here. It's a bit of a dilema to plan out though. I see it on the tub wall but since there is a window and a door at opposite ends of the room I don't want a subway tile there. I think it will look strange around the perimeter of the door and window frames. Also, I can't see it covering the boxed in pipe at the corner because I think with all of the cuts that would have to be made to fit over it, it won't really look like subway tile in the end. For the floor, I would like to do a mosaic but I'm not sure if we should pick marble or ceramic tile. So the details are still being worked out. One of these days I'm hoping I'll have a chance to focus and make some decisions!

let there be light and walls and tile

2008-09-08T17:05:00.006-04:00

We have walls in the kitchen again! The new plaster is drying and we've had some new spotlights put in (and the fridge was sold.) There was a little miscommunication and now we have a light that isn't centered above the arch but we're just going to have them take it out altogether. We did have a light wired right into that little passageway so I don't think we'll miss it. There will be 3 new halogen spotlights on each side of the room, the center fixture and a little one between the dining room door and pantry.

As you can see the poor doorbell got plastered into the wrong spot. Hopefully, he will be centered back up above the arch soon.

We also had a couple of spotlights installed in the dining room to highlight whatever we end up putting above the fireplace. We had another installed on the wall to the left between the two windows, also to highlight future art. On the opposite wall to the fireplace we had two sconces wired, one on either side of the window.

In powder "closet" news - the tile has arrived! We're very happy with it. It was hard for me to order something like this online since I wasn't able to feel them or see them in person. This time I really got lucky. I couldn't resist laying them out on the floor (even though the room is still quite gross) and as you can see it's not going to take much to cover it. That's a whopping 4 square feet there!

I've been looking around for a nice wallpaper to use in here and Fernando has been freaking me out with the idea of Men splashing urine on the walls. The room is SO small and the walls are so close to the toilet. He's insisting I need a washable wallpaper or tiles on the wall and I've just decided that this will be a Ladies (or Men who pee like Women) only room.

And with that here's a taste of what I'm imagining for in here:

I guess I could have just scanned a sample since these pics are not a very good representation but I didn't. So, you have to imagine that there is lots of black and a bit of grey and silver and the hummingbirds are coral and turquoise. I may change my mind (or come to my senses and buy something vinyl) tomorrow but this is definitely what I like today.

glimpses of the past

2008-09-04T17:15:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across these photos and they reminded me of how far we've come since the vines came down. This is the previous view from all of the windows.

I also came across this photo from the library that Fernando had taken a few weeks ago. It's our house sometime post the 1934 renovation... probably in the 40's. I want to get a copy of the photo but I haven't gotten around to ordering it. They will only let you make a photocopy and their photocopier must be overloaded with toner. All you can see is black in the print. So he took a photo of the microfiche screen.

I can just make out a nice iron fence around the property where we now have a hedge. There is also a tall tree in the front where we currently have a large bush. You can also see the old bluestone sidewalk that was replaced a few years ago by the city because the last owner didn't maintain it. We still have a bluestone path that leads up the side of the house and the window sills are also bluestone.

this charming house

2008-09-04T17:05:00.000-04:00

I've had some requests for more photos... so here are some older ones that I never had a chance to post. I've been using Fernando's camera and he's been downloading them onto his computer so I usually have to wait for him to send them to me. I think I'll try just downloading them onto mine in the future - as soon as I get rid of the spyware that's been plaguing me for the last week!
Here are some nice details and things we inherited with the house...

Art Deco wooden doorknobs - I love these and they are on most of the doors. The former owner claims to have a box of them that he says he'll bring by... we're still waiting.

The living and dining room fireplaces have matching log holders. If you look closely you can see that they're dragons! Or sea serpents? Or Nessie?! I've never seen anything like them before and wonder if whoever put them there found it humorous because the house is in St. George?

There are two of these glass hang bars in two of the closets upstairs. They don't photograph very well.

The first owner of our house was a writer for a NY newspaper. We haven't been able to determine which one yet. He's seems to have been a little eccentric and one of the installations we found around the house were the attic stair risers plastered with uplifting headlines!

There's even one up on the ceiling at the top.

Our doorbell hangs above the arch in the kitchen and sounds exactly like the old school bells you'd hear between classes. It's a keeper.

I have no idea if this Art Deco mirror was originally used in our house. We found it in the attic before we had our estate sale. I love the Flash Gordon-esque lightening bolt etched on the front and think it might be nice in the miniature bathroom downstairs.

Here's a view of the lattice on our front porch and the glass vestibule. There are oval cutouts up top to let in more light.

This is our very own Busybody. Well, it's some kind of homemade version of it anyway... looks like someone attached an old car side view mirror to the bottom! It has a view of the vestibule from the living room.

You know the old owner was eccentric when you find the "Postal creed" stuck to the top of the mailbox... neatly hammered out with the help of a label maker. This is actually an old Richmond Farms milk box.

(mostly) remote shopping

2008-09-04T16:05:00.021-04:00

Our small bathroom disappeared for a short while last week. In a past life it used to be a little entry way into the dining room on the right of the hearth. I still can't believe someone turned this small space into a powder room! It's currently all boxed in again (of course I don't have an illustrative photo for you - we keep forgetting the camera) and we actually gained a whole inch in width. This is all pre-plaster of course so I don't know what kind of difference it will actually make.

I also purchased mosaic marble tile for the floor. Actually, I bought it online and I'm a little nervous to see it in person. I looked everywhere for a honed Carrara marble tile in a herringbone pattern. Next time you're bored, try going to a tile store and asking for herringbone patterned tile. They will usually show you a hexagon pattern or a basketweave. One woman showed me a basketweave and when I said that I was really looking for a herringbone, she said "that IS a herringbone, hun."

I found herringbone carrara in two places - the first would not give me a price quote? The second (Waterworks) only had it in a polished finish. I really wanted a honed finish because I want that "it's been here for a while" kind of look. We had polished marble floors in our last bathroom and I loved them. They started to look honed after a while but only in some spots. I suppose it wouldn't even matter because the tiles are so small (our other tiles were 12X12) but the honed finish was definitely my first choice. The ordered tiles should be here at the end of the week and I hope they're nice!

The old light in the powder room used to work on a pull chain. It's now been wired to a switch. The ceiling needed to be dropped a bit because of new plumbing and a fan that we had installed. I bought this little fixture (not my photo) on ebay a few days back and I'm hoping it will work for the small space. The globe is glass in a bubbly texture. It needs rewiring and I'm thinking that the brass should be sprayed silver but we'll see when it arrives. I actually have a similar but larger fixture, purchased at an estate sale that we were thinking of using in the foyer.

We also nabbed a slab of Calacatta marble for the kitchen countertops over the long weekend. And what do you know? I don't have a photo of that either. If I did have a photo it would probably look something like this:

It's a beautiful piece and we're hoping they will be able to cut it so that the backsplash is bookmatched with the counter. We mapped it out and the marble guy seemed to think it should work so here's hoping.

ceiling medallions!

2008-08-27T19:30:00.024-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I purchased two ceiling medallions for the living and dining rooms. We did have a plaster medallion in the dining room that Stanley's crew was able to save when they tore out the ceiling but I don't think it's very us. I wanted something less ornate or maybe less floral? Something to enhance our modern ceiling fixtures but still in keeping with the 1930's renovation that had last left it's mark on the house. I prefer medallions that aren't confined to a circle, that spread out beyond a designated area (like the second example below.)

I looked all over the internet - spending HOURS when I really should have been sleeping. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted but I don't recall ever seeing anything like what I imagined should be available. In short, I decided I wanted an Art Deco sunburst or starburst design much like a vintage Syroco clock. Crazy you say? Perhaps, but I actually found what I was looking for!

I ordered two and they arrived yesterday. They are so nice in person. According to the website, these are made of "furniture grade high density polyurethane" but they really have the look and feel of plaster without the weight.
Now, I want another for the kitchen but I'm feeling guilty for not wanting to use the original medallion. It's not my favorite design and a typical "confined within a circle" pattern. I think we could always use it upstairs in our bedroom but it has little grapes on it which I'm guessing means that it was meant for a dining room or kitchen. Think the grapes will stand out after getting a coat of white paint?

some antiques roadshow advice...

2008-08-27T15:47:00.023-04:00

You will wait in line to get inside to just wait in line again. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes and if you have something heavy, bring a dolly! I saw people moving furniture forward on a line each time it advanced (hard!) Each different item has a different line - so if you have 4 pieces of furniture you can just wait on the furniture line. If you have a painting, a piece of glass and two pieces of furniture like we did - that's another three lines.

Below is a shot of the preliminary line - the one you wait on so you can get to the other lines inside!

If you're going - don't bring a painting. I think I'm allowed to give that advice after waiting four hours in the painting line. ;)

We also discovered that there's a formula to get filmed for a segment. Don't expect your item valued at $12,000 on a bad day to who knows what on a good day and with more research (like our little overturned table there) to get on TV. The pattern is apparently: an early American table, an old grandfather clock, a piece of Art Nouveau glass, a Civil War era gun and yet another Nakashima dining table for every episode. ;p We really did have a good time!

It's not that I don't want to update...

2008-08-21T13:15:00.003-04:00

I haven't had much to update about.
Our Plaster Master has been very ill and has not been able to work. He has sent a team of people to work in the meantime and they have been adding some recessed lighting in the kitchen and dining room and putting the walls and ceilings back up. But there is so much prep work involved... it doesn't make for interesting photos!
We are going away for a few days, up to Hartford for THE ANTIQUES ROADSHOW!!! Yes, I'm very excited.
In the meantime we've been planning out what we should bring to the show. Each guest can bring two items (or collections) for appraisal. Trying to narrow that down is hard when you've been hoarding like we have for the past 8 years!
Hopefully there will be some progress worthy of photos while we are gone and Stanley will start feeling better. :)

Major Update, reporting to duty

2008-08-12T19:00:00.003-04:00

So... as you can see, we are not using drop cloths. We are having the floors refinished so it's not a huge deal. It's just gross when you come in and trek plaster dust all around the house with you.

Here are some of the rooms with new plaster. The trim still needs fixing.

The plumbers are finished! We now have a washer hook-up (in 98 years there was no washer or dryer in the house), a hose bib in the backyard, the basement sink now drains into the sewer and not a bucket and the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom is working properly and not leaking all over the dining room ceiling. We hired P.A.C. Plumbing for the job and they were so fast and very thorough. I don't know what P.A.C. stands for? Professional and Courteous? Precise and Careful? There was one mishap involving the top of the upstairs bathroom pedestal sink falling - I think it broke itself because it knew just how ugly it was. They replaced it and the new sink (another pedestal of better quality) is actually nice... I may just keep it when we do that reno in the future.

We came in over the weekend and realized that our kitchen had been destroyed. It makes complete sense since the walls were too far gone to simply repair - still, it was shocking.

Looking towards the pantry and dining room. There is another door (leading to the foyer and basement door) hiding behind the fridge.

Looking towards the back door.

This kitchen has been hard to plan out with all of the windows (2), doors (4) and hearth to plan around. We've opted for two 30" base cabinets with drawers to the right of the hearth. This will allow for counter space right up to the range. There will be four 24" glass front cabinets stacked in twos above that (so we don't go over the brick.) On the left of the hearth we're placing a tall, yet small pantry to fill in the space between the dining room door. Opposite that there will be a skinny wet island with the dishwasher and sink. The fridge will be on the opposite wall with a cabinet above it to utilize the space above. Confused? So am I.

I'm told it will look something like this in the hearth area:

The measurements are not that accurate but the idea is there. Unless we change our minds, the cabinets will be Somerset from Hanssem in "Crystal White." Countertops and backsplash will be some sort of Carrara marble... I didn't realize there were so many kinds.

so small we couldn't fit the camera inside

2008-08-04T19:30:00.023-04:00

This is our powder room. I'd say it's more like a powder closet. In fact, it was once another passageway into the kitchen from the dining room. There is a pantry in the kitchen that is backed by the foyer closet and it would have made a much bigger powder room. I'm guessing that they didn't want to run the plumbing that far through the kitchen in 1934. Now we have a bathroom where everyone wants a bathroom - in our dining room.

As you can see, the last owner did a bang up renovation job with nice white tile and BLACK grout. There is also a lovely and appropriate Pepto-Bismol pink on the walls. We didn't plan on fixing either of the bathrooms until next year but this one is so small, why not?
Fernando started pulling the tile off of the walls (taking plaster off too) and now you can see right through the lath into the kitchen! I think we'll let Stanley's team finish it up. It had somehow been outfitted with all of the necessary things a two by four foot powder room needs: medicine cabinet (not recessed,) wall mount mirror, two shelves and two towel bars. There is no toilet paper holder? There's also a vent pipe running floor to ceiling that we'll have boxed in. I want to have the walls plastered, maybe papered and just tile the floor with a small mosaic. If you can believe it - it's less than 9 square feet! I would love to find a toilet that is shorter in depth and we'll be keeping the small sink and just changing the faucet. Anyone have a lead on a toilet less than 27" in depth?

did i mention that the ceiling is down in the kitchen?

2008-08-04T19:00:00.005-04:00

Exposed rafters in the kitchen. We used to have a painted plywood ceiling covering the original plaster ceiling. We're going back to plaster.

That's the bottom of the bathroom fireplace up there! It's currently hidden behind plaster but how nice would it be to have a fireplace in the bathroom?

more covers than linda ronstadt

2008-08-02T19:00:00.009-04:00

The electricians are finished. Well almost - they will be coming back to hang two of the fixtures (after they get re-wired.) We had all of the outlets and switches grounded and all of the fixtures checked for safety. They added two sconces in the dining room for two vintage fixtures that we found last weekend. They also ran a lot of new lines for the attic and kitchen and installed a bigger breaker box. We have been assured that our electrical was of the highest quality when it was installed and that it should be safe. Yay!

Now, we just have to replace all of the switch and outlet covers.

Upstairs we have plaster progress! All four bedrooms have been getting the full treatment and are almost finished with their three coats. In the back bedroom (formally of the floral wallpaper) the cracks were repaired and not covered with sheetrock. This was really important to us - I prefer the look of plaster walls to sheetrock. So far, Stanley (Plaster Master) and his team have been living up to our expectations.

We have also officially hired plumbers. They should be starting work later in the week. We can't fix the plaster in the dining room and kitchen until they are finished, so I can't wait to see some plumbing progress.

On the roofing front we're almost finished. There's a little more pointing to be done and the gutters and leaders have to be installed but they have finished the roof and flashing and wood repair along the eaves. It's not going to look pretty and perfect until we have the trim painted but that will have to be a project for next year. Our main priority is making the house livable inside!

New roof without gutters and leaders.

Close-up of the chimneys and shingles/ before the wooden eaves were repaired. The tar on the chimneys is from an old roofing "repair."

everything a big bad wolf could want.

2008-07-28T19:00:00.003-04:00

I hate to admit it but I'm already getting excited about decorating. In truth, I've been excited about decorating this house since the second I first walked inside. Our last place was a very streamlined apartment in a 1950's era building - with a long hallway and large rooms. It was bright but we didn't have windows on every wall. There was a lot of room for large artwork and low, long furniture.

This house is very different than what we've been used to. For one, the windows are lower to the ground and more abundant. There are also many doors. This doesn't leave a lot of wall space for large paintings and long furniture that's more than two feet off of the ground! A few weeks ago I had to make the hard decision to sell one of my favorite pieces of furniture, a vintage, long George Nelson "Thin Edge" teak credenza. The only place we could use it is in the attic... and it's so heavy, I wouldn't want to ask anyone to carry it up there! We sold it yesterday and as hard as I thought it would be to let it go, I now actually feel good. I know that it will eventually be sold (it went to a dealer) to someone else who will have the space to truly enjoy it.

So anyway, here comes my first decor commitment to this house: I purchased wallpaper for the foyer.

I chose Cole and Son's "Woods" wallpaper in what I can only call greige. On the Cole and Son website the color is identified as "69/12149." When I first viewed it in the "New Contemporary II" book in the wallpaper store, I immediately thought "how beige." I also thought ick about all of the other colors that "Woods" comes in (especially the white, too bright.) No problem, I didn't really want to use "Woods" anymore, right? I've been coveting that wallpaper for a few years but have now seen it in every design magazine and mentioned on a million blogs. Why would I want to be like everyone else anyway? I much prefer Cole and Son's "Cow Parsley" in black or "66/7046" anyway, right? Well, actually no. Once I saw the aforementioned wallpapers in the foyer and under the right lighting 69/12149 just jumped out at me! I'll give some props to 69/12151 too - very pretty, but Fernando shot it down (too lavender.) And "Cow Parsley" in 66/7046? Well she seemed a little too busy for our small foyer.

So now here I am with my very own "Woods" wallpaper. And I ordered it in the color that I thought would be the ugliest. But you see, it does this strange thing when you hold it up to the walls in my foyer in daylight - it turns a lovely silvery grey. Magic.

humpty dumpty

2008-07-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

We hired a plasterer last week. It's all making me very nervous. He came highly recommended and I have been assured that he is a "plaster master." But I'm still nervous. You see, our crown molding is not wood - it's plaster.
The main room I've been fretting about is the dining room. There was A LOT of water damage on the ceiling from the bathroom upstairs. It is still leaking (still trying to finalize a plumber) but not heavily. One of the plasterer's workers removed the ceiling and was able to save the plaster medallion but... there was molding damage! I've been told that it is normal - the water damaged the molding and he managed to save most of the pieces... still, can it be put back together again?

Before.

During demo.

Exposed rafters and pocket doors.

Look up - the missing molding!

No money. Just creepy cobwebs.

from the depths of the basement...

2008-07-27T19:00:00.003-04:00

Tell me you wouldn't run away screaming if you found this while cleaning your basement?

What to do with that brick?

2008-07-21T19:00:00.004-04:00

The brick hearth in the kitchen came out two tone - red paint and a strange mustard yellow color. At first we thought okay let's just clean it off. Then after careful consideration we decided that not only would that be time consuming, we weren't sure that the traditional exposed brick look was the look we're trying to achieve in our kitchen. Yes, the rustic red of exposed brick is beautiful but as I was picturing it in my head I just couldn't see it with the modern fittings we've already picked out. Plus, if the exposed chimneys in the attic are a good example, I don't want mortar crumbling over my stove while I'm cooking! Yes, I know you can seal brick. ;)

Here she is in an early shot with some of the old framing still in place:

One look I've always admired is the brick wall treatment at BDDW. Digging around online I discovered that the owner achieved the look by layering joint compound over the brick surface. Since we had nothing to lose (we'd still have to clean the brick anyway) we decided to scratch up the paint with some sandpaper and start layering.

We discovered that joint compound will take some time to dry (especially on a humid day) and it is best to not try to help it along. After using a fan on the surface we had cracks on a test patch. Lesson learned and fixed with more compound.

Here you can see the progress (thanks to my Dad) so far:

I'm really liking the look already and hoping it will hold up over time. I'm not really worried since it's interior brick and not exposed to moisture from the elements. I think we'll paint it a similar white for a bright, clean look.

a little st. george, SI pride...

2008-07-17T22:00:00.001-04:00

here and here.

she's mighty mighty

2008-07-15T19:00:00.008-04:00

Why are contractors so unreliable? I don't just mean general contractors but plumbers, electricians, etc. I can't tell you how many people have cancelled on us, just not shown up or just not followed up with estimates after coming out!(???) How do they stay in business? And why bother coming at all if you're not going to send an estimate? Waste of time.

phew.

Anyway, we are now vine free. The only success we've had in hiring anyone came in the form of roofers. They showed up (I know AMAZING!) and have so far cleared off all of the remaining vines that we could not reach. Even the chimneys are visible!
They're not starting any of the actual roofing stuff until Friday. Nevertheless, the house already looks better and we've been getting many compliments on the progress. As a matter of fact, I hear we're the "talk of the neighborhood." Now we only have to live up to everyone else's expectations. ;)

mama, don't let your babies grow up to be...

2008-07-14T19:00:00.009-04:00

Dirty. Or 'N Sync fans.

A little installation that used to hang above a BED. A bed where someone was actually sleeping.

wallpaper free!

2008-07-13T19:00:00.019-04:00

It's all gone. We could have had it worse but it was still hard getting it all down. There was wallpaper in the foyer, kitchen?, upstairs hallway and two bedrooms. The foyer, kitchen and hallway were easy - everything just pulled down without a fight. But the bedrooms seemed to be really fond of their covering. Here's one of the bedrooms that Fernando and Chris had previously attacked:

And here's the other bedroom with it's wallpaper on:

It's hard to tell from the last photo that the original background color of the wallpaper was a pale BLUE. There were spots that had been covered by frames throughout the years that were still a little blue. So why does it all look so yellow? NICOTINE.

It was a two day affair and far from fun but my mother and I got through it. I even had a huge blister on my finger from all of the scraping but thanks to my sister's Reiki, you'd never know now.

The walls in the second room are now ready to be prepped for painting. The room with the blue flowered wallpaper has the worst plaster damage in the house. We may not get to it for a while - luckily, we have 3 other bedrooms to use in the meantime.

everything looks perfect from far away...

2008-07-08T22:00:00.001-04:00

If you can't tell by now my posts aren't exactly being posted in order. Well, they are but I've been writing at the end of the day and adding photos later... so the posts haven't been getting published right away. I'm keeping the dates the same though - so we have a record of our progress by date.

We have a roofer coming next week (hopefully) to start the roof, gutters, point the chimneys and take down the remaining vines. Yesterday, we had a landscaper tame the hedges in the front and on the side - this I haven't had a chance to see yet but I'm very excited to hear that we can walk freely down the side of the house now! And he indentified all of the poison ivy and removed it. He was actually immune to the ivy and was able to touch it. I'm beginning to think I may be immune to it as well - I picked up a lot of those vines and I didn't have the slightest reaction.

Some highlights from phase two of the vine removal last week here:

Fernando did the chopping, I did the clean-up and Chris was the muscle again.

And here's another shot from last week taken by the roofer:

I hear there's some view from up there... makes me wish I wasn't so scared of heights!

success.

2008-07-07T22:00:00.001-04:00

Since we've been so busy we decided not to have our yard sale on Saturday but we did have it on Sunday. It was tiring but I did have a good time. We got to meet so many nice new people from the neighborhood and we got rid of a lot of stuff. Our first customer came out from Sheepshead Bay and we even had a few people come out from Queens. Not bad for only advertising on Craigslist!

Unfortunately, the oval portrait of George Washington sold. I've had two requests for it since the sale. The strange thing is I thought of keeping it for the frame and putting in a photo of Giant Toby (our grey cat.) It seems both requests were specifically because GW was in the frame (and now I'm relieved I wasn't the heartless one to tear him out!) Who knew George Washington portraits were so desirable?

neighborhood kitty visiting our yard

serendipity

2008-07-04T22:00:00.001-04:00

The hearth was back there after all! My father and F. hacked away at the wall behind the stove and sink and there it was. It's in remarkably good condition, just missing part of one brick where they put in an electric box and covered in a layer of paint. After seeing it, I commented how amazing it would be to put the new range in it. We measured and it will actually fit the new range! Now we have a few ideas for the range hood but I have to do a lot more measuring before a final decision. And we should be able to vent the hood into the chimney.

Here's the demo:

You can see the red linoleum is gone - but the paper backing is still there. I'm not going to scrape it up until most of the demo is done to save the wood a little wear and tear.

Hmmm - apparently, we didn't take a photo of the hearth exposed! I guess that will just show up in a later post.

appliances and discoveries

2008-07-03T22:00:00.001-04:00

I am very excited to report that we have chosen and purchased all of our new appliances for the kitchen. I've actually been eyeing the GE Cafe appliances for a while now and hoping that I could convince Fernando into buying them.

We ended up with the range, dishwasher and the french door refrigerator. I have to admit that I didn't even check out the range all that well and I later discovered that it has two ovens (sounds like a cookie party to me, Erin!)

We had a major discovery after scraping up all of the super stinky red linoleum off of the floor - we have wood floors in the kitchen! We did plan on putting down a tile floor so not only will the wood floors warm up the kitchen, they will save us money too. ;)

As for the range hood... we weren't sure what kind to purchase. We still haven't chosen the cabinets or finalized the layout. We've decided to wait and buy it later - who knows what other surprises we will find? Poking around the other day we discovered some brick behind the plaster walls. I don't think I want to expose any of the walls but I'm hoping to discover the original hearth behind there somewhere. The former owner claims it's back there and that it was just covered up in the last renovation (you know the 1934 renovation!)

smelly red linoleum:

shut up!

2008-06-30T22:30:00.001-04:00

Back when we were trying to close (another story for another day) all we had were photos to obsess over. What colors we were going to pick for inside and how we could spice up the outside. Now we are so far away from choosing paint colors... you need smooth walls with no holes in them for paint right? F. decided to clean up a photo of the house taken in the winter. I immediately decided that we needed shutters. Don't you agree?

When we had pulled off enough vines to see the front windows, my mother noticed hardware on the sides of the windows. I knew that visually it needed shutters but we didn't actually know that it had had shutters at one time! Then, Sunday night poking around the basement near the original storm windows stacked up in a pile, we had an amazing find - 8 of the original shutters! I know we are no where near putting the shutters back up but it's a nice feeling knowing I don't have to have them made and that we can just take them to our refinisher to get painted. I know there's enough to do all of the large windows on the front so eventually we'll have to have the two smaller 3rd floor window shutters made. But I don't care. I'm happy we have the original shutters.

you're gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion...

2008-06-30T22:00:00.001-04:00

What you can't tell from the previously posted photo of the outside of the house (taken in cold, cold winter) is that our house is COMPLETELY covered in ivy. Well, it's not just ivy, it's all kinds of grow-y, climb-y type stuff and probably a few trees. Someone has already commented that we even have poison ivy.

When I say completely covered you need to envision this: the house looks like a giant, unruly section of hedge. Add that to all of the surrounding foliage left to grow as it will on a fairly large lot and you have a nice recipe for mosquitoes. We have swarms of skitters - everywhere. My arms and legs and even one hip (?!) are full of swollen bumps and lumps.

Sunday was an amazing day. Our friend Chris (aka Tarzan) came over to swing from the vines and we actually were able to uncover a lot of the house. Chris even jumped out of one of the windows onto the roof of the glass vestibule. All this during a downpour of torrential rain.

Need proof?

Yes, there are windows under there.

That's Chris using amazing feats of strength to yank down thick, twisty, long vines in clumps! Clumps! The man is strong.

I haven't been slacking either - you see that lattice? It was full of twisted growth, in and out of every square opening. I felt like I was unraveling a wool sweater, pulling on the vines to get them off. I still have three sections to complete.

So now we have some windows that actually let in LIGHT. The former owners seemed to really hate light. Every window has blinds (very dirty blinds) and every room is dimly lit. There was a 15 watt bulb in the foyer fixture! One of the chandeliers has ten bulbs and only one was working.
And back to Chris - he didn't stop with the vines. The rain had stopped and the mosquitoes were out in full force again, so Chris moved to the inside and almost completely removed the wallpaper in an entire bedroom. We have really good friends.

we bought a house.

2008-06-26T22:00:00.001-04:00

"It needs work" does not even begin to describe it.

I suppose here is where I try to explain my reasons for starting a blog about said house. Here, I will try to document our progress as we plod through renovations. I can only imagine that there will be as many pitfalls as "money pit" jokes but I hope that there will be many more victories. I know I will be asked many questions by friends and family about the progress being made on this house you've heard and will be hearing so much about as it slowly overtakes our life. It is my hope that you will be able to follow our triumphs by reading along.

Here are a few photos of the house with all of the previous owner's contents (as you can see, there were a lot of contents) from the second time we walked through the house.

Yes, I agree, it is a mess. But we are trying to see the potential beyond the mess. No one in our family saw the house before we bought it so we never really had that slap of reality. You name it, the house needs it - roof, furnace, hot water heater, updated plumbing, plaster work, electrical work, washer/dryer hookups, a new back entrance, a new kitchen, bathroom updating, pointing, landscaping and an all around good cleaning - I'm sure I forgot something. It does not have a driveway or a garage.

Now, before you get all "are you crazy woman?" on me, yes we did have an inspection. We had an engineer's inspection which resulted in a 93 page detailed inspection report. It estimates projected costs and gives the order in which the major repairs should be addressed. If we didn't think we could do it, we wouldn't have bought the house (well, we may have bought it anyway - we do love the house.)
What we do have to work with: good bones, curved walls, bay window, a large yard, lots of big windows, four floors and a sub-basement, double brick walls, 2 fireplaces, a large open attic space with a skylite and in the front, enough space for a parking pad. And it is located in our favorite neighborhood - St. George. The previous owner did not change a thing and we saw it as an advantage. Rather than have to fix bad renovations, we're working with what's been in the house since it was last renovated in 1934.

Oh and I should mention that there are still quite a few contents left in the house and we will be having a yard sale Saturday and Sunday 7/5 - 7/6/08. I have some things that we need to get rid of from our last move too... so come one, come all. Most will be cheap or FREE. ;)