Yesterday, Bren and I took an unexpected trip to the Emergency Room. No, it had nothing to do with the plethora of power tools or toxic building materials within our grasp, it was...
Bum bum BUUMMMMM...
A kidney stone. The passing of which is equated with childbirth. Luckily, our first born came into the world this morning, and Bren is feeling fine, but tired.
6.14.2007
6.12.2007
Yes, We Actually Live Here
So, I know I've posted this picture before, but it's relevant.
Back when I was patching that first hole in the hardwood, I had the fridge and the TV on. I went to activate the shop vac, and shorted out half of the outlets upstairs. Ummm...yeah. This house is wired for 1927.
We've gotten a couple of quotes in the past few days for replacing the fuse box. We knew we were going to do it eventually, we just didn't know how immediate the need was. Now, every project depends on it. Electricians are ridiculously expensive.
At any rate, I found it highly amusing when Bren called me after the first electrician viewed the job, and said "I think he was surprised that we're actually LIVING here."
Yes, many renovations of this magnitude take place while the renovators have respite elsewhere. Not so for us. But we do have something of an escape. The converted garage/bonus room. Before, it looked like this...
...fake brick and all. We kept it as is, so that we could live in it while restoring the rest of the house. Now it looks like this:
The curtain, painstakingly basted this evening and hung on electrical conduit, hides all of our earthly possessions, and Miles' too. What you don't see amounts to about 6 feet more of room, and three more windows which we are glad to sacrifice due to their torturous easterly morning brightness.
The path to/from the bonus room was (surprise!) poorly hewn by the previous owner.
Again with the drywall cornering. As carpet edging? COME ON! The stairs are pretty unlevel, and Bren has to take a good 9 inches off his stature to move through this opening. Oh, well. It's nice to retire to a room that isn't a construction site. Yet.
I also made a curtain for the unsightly water heater/furnace room tonight:
A decent day's work.
Regarding my wonderful sister Cory's comment:
The hanger. Mr. Rivera, previous owner, managed to take every outlet cover in the house, along with every other fixture that may or may not have been worth something, but he left his one hanger. Perfect for hanging Bren's coveralls, since he won't wear them after initially trying them on...
Chest: 48"
Length: Tall
...and a few beers too small in the middle.
Back when I was patching that first hole in the hardwood, I had the fridge and the TV on. I went to activate the shop vac, and shorted out half of the outlets upstairs. Ummm...yeah. This house is wired for 1927.
We've gotten a couple of quotes in the past few days for replacing the fuse box. We knew we were going to do it eventually, we just didn't know how immediate the need was. Now, every project depends on it. Electricians are ridiculously expensive.
At any rate, I found it highly amusing when Bren called me after the first electrician viewed the job, and said "I think he was surprised that we're actually LIVING here."
Yes, many renovations of this magnitude take place while the renovators have respite elsewhere. Not so for us. But we do have something of an escape. The converted garage/bonus room. Before, it looked like this...
...fake brick and all. We kept it as is, so that we could live in it while restoring the rest of the house. Now it looks like this:
The curtain, painstakingly basted this evening and hung on electrical conduit, hides all of our earthly possessions, and Miles' too. What you don't see amounts to about 6 feet more of room, and three more windows which we are glad to sacrifice due to their torturous easterly morning brightness.
The path to/from the bonus room was (surprise!) poorly hewn by the previous owner.
Again with the drywall cornering. As carpet edging? COME ON! The stairs are pretty unlevel, and Bren has to take a good 9 inches off his stature to move through this opening. Oh, well. It's nice to retire to a room that isn't a construction site. Yet.
I also made a curtain for the unsightly water heater/furnace room tonight:
A decent day's work.
Regarding my wonderful sister Cory's comment:
The hanger. Mr. Rivera, previous owner, managed to take every outlet cover in the house, along with every other fixture that may or may not have been worth something, but he left his one hanger. Perfect for hanging Bren's coveralls, since he won't wear them after initially trying them on...
Chest: 48"
Length: Tall
...and a few beers too small in the middle.
6.11.2007
The Land Down Under
Today roll-off dumpster #2 left. So yesterday, I went to town on the basement. I pounded off a roughly 8X8 slab of tile set into the concrete floor, and removed the last remnants of mirror tile and dark wood paneling. Then we swept, vacuumed, and mopped with ammonia. The 70s are officially over in our house.
When I got home from work today, I was determined to bring everything upstairs...downstairs, so that we can refinish the hardwood floors as soon as the master bathroom is done. Since our 15 boxes of books have been packed away for some time, I slid a few of our bookshelves across our bed and down the stairs to the basement. And made:
The ultimate work station out of the corner where the bar used to be. Probably not organized the way Bren would have done it, but it's not going to stay organized anyway. What? Not every 25 year-old woman does this on a Monday night?
At the opposite end of the basement sits our temporary living room:
Have I mentioned that the brand of insulation used down here is "MANVILLE?" I laugh about it often.
When I got home from work today, I was determined to bring everything upstairs...downstairs, so that we can refinish the hardwood floors as soon as the master bathroom is done. Since our 15 boxes of books have been packed away for some time, I slid a few of our bookshelves across our bed and down the stairs to the basement. And made:
The ultimate work station out of the corner where the bar used to be. Probably not organized the way Bren would have done it, but it's not going to stay organized anyway. What? Not every 25 year-old woman does this on a Monday night?
At the opposite end of the basement sits our temporary living room:
Have I mentioned that the brand of insulation used down here is "MANVILLE?" I laugh about it often.
6.10.2007
We Get By With a LOT of Help From Our Friends
I finally got all of the layers of linoleum off the bathroom floor, and now Bren is cement boarding the room so that we can tile. It's a laborious task. Luckily, a couple of Good Samaritans have come by to alleviate the workload:
Levi volunteered last weekend to get the project going. Happy Birthday, Levi! This weekend, Miles swung by. Check him out, ladies!
And check out roll-off dumpster #2. That's 20 cubic yards of crap we've yanked, scraped and hauled out of this house. Interestingly, it seems to have inspired the neighbors to clean up. One guy across the street mowed his waist-high lawn, and spray-painted one of the VW Beetles he has hanging out on the side of his house. Sweet!
As the guys hang the cement boards, I go in and tape and slather the seams with joint compound.
I also did some laundry today.
It was actually kind of soothing to be outside hanging our unmentionables, listening to the chatty birds and squirrels and smelling detergent and these:
The tea roses that dot our fence. A nice break from pounding tile off of the concrete slab in the basement.
Finally, I think we have reached "scratch." There's no more linoleum, no more mirror tile. Thank God. It seems that we have done all the demolition we can do. Now on with the overwhelming duty to put it all back together again.
Levi volunteered last weekend to get the project going. Happy Birthday, Levi! This weekend, Miles swung by. Check him out, ladies!
And check out roll-off dumpster #2. That's 20 cubic yards of crap we've yanked, scraped and hauled out of this house. Interestingly, it seems to have inspired the neighbors to clean up. One guy across the street mowed his waist-high lawn, and spray-painted one of the VW Beetles he has hanging out on the side of his house. Sweet!
As the guys hang the cement boards, I go in and tape and slather the seams with joint compound.
I also did some laundry today.
It was actually kind of soothing to be outside hanging our unmentionables, listening to the chatty birds and squirrels and smelling detergent and these:
The tea roses that dot our fence. A nice break from pounding tile off of the concrete slab in the basement.
Finally, I think we have reached "scratch." There's no more linoleum, no more mirror tile. Thank God. It seems that we have done all the demolition we can do. Now on with the overwhelming duty to put it all back together again.
5.31.2007
The Barnum Neighborhood Circus
The neighborhood we ended up in is unique, I think, of the 79 neighborhoods within the Denver city limits.
Sure they all have "character," and "history," but the neighborhood of Barnum is the only neighborhood established by a raving lunatic circus promoter. Thats right, the neighborhood of Barnum is named after none other than P.T. Barnum, who owned seven-hundred plus acres of our neighborhood as his winter respite, yet did very little for the city of Denver other than annex his property to the city. P.T. could be our most notable icon, but as far as Denver fame goes he's no Kerouac or Cassady, but we do have local, celebrities.
Our Neighborhood is bordered by Sheridan blvd. to the west, federal blvd. to the east, 6th Ave to the north, and Alameda ave. to the south. Technically we live in Barnum West, a bit closer to Sheridan, but it's all Barnum. The populace is primarily Hispanic, and the cultural saturation abounds. There are lots of these guys roaming the streets. As with any low-income area Crime
in Barnum is evident, yet not seen personally. We haven't had the chance to visit the carneceria yet.
And there's a lovely garden.
Sure they all have "character," and "history," but the neighborhood of Barnum is the only neighborhood established by a raving lunatic circus promoter. Thats right, the neighborhood of Barnum is named after none other than P.T. Barnum, who owned seven-hundred plus acres of our neighborhood as his winter respite, yet did very little for the city of Denver other than annex his property to the city. P.T. could be our most notable icon, but as far as Denver fame goes he's no Kerouac or Cassady, but we do have local, celebrities.
Our Neighborhood is bordered by Sheridan blvd. to the west, federal blvd. to the east, 6th Ave to the north, and Alameda ave. to the south. Technically we live in Barnum West, a bit closer to Sheridan, but it's all Barnum. The populace is primarily Hispanic, and the cultural saturation abounds. There are lots of these guys roaming the streets. As with any low-income area Crime
in Barnum is evident, yet not seen personally. We haven't had the chance to visit the carneceria yet.
And there's a lovely garden.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
We have yet to post about the basement. It's a complicated subject. When we moved in, it looked like this:
...with the bar area, which you have seen, behind the photographer. The holes in the ceiling are poorly-made attempts at installing speakers. The light switch is a dimmer. The first door on the right is a half finished bathroom/laundry room, and there's a bedroom at the end. It looked like this:
The dark wood paneling went far, far away, as did the mirror tiles that were supposedly there to brighten it up. So did the thin, useless paneling in the main basement room. And every inch of nasty carpet.
As this is Spring in Colorado, shortly after we moved in, we had a [beautiful] torrential rain, with hail. Shortly after that, we had standing water in the basement. Good times. After removing some insulation, we found:
...cracks. Which we will fill. In the meantime, Uncle "Champ" brought a few yards of dirt and spread it around the perimeter of the house, effectively reversing the slope of the driveway and eroded yard away from the house. No seepage since, despite several equally severe storms. Thanks, Uncle!
Eventually, much celebration and big-screen TV watching will occur down here. We just have to re-do everything the previous owner tried to do.
...with the bar area, which you have seen, behind the photographer. The holes in the ceiling are poorly-made attempts at installing speakers. The light switch is a dimmer. The first door on the right is a half finished bathroom/laundry room, and there's a bedroom at the end. It looked like this:
The dark wood paneling went far, far away, as did the mirror tiles that were supposedly there to brighten it up. So did the thin, useless paneling in the main basement room. And every inch of nasty carpet.
As this is Spring in Colorado, shortly after we moved in, we had a [beautiful] torrential rain, with hail. Shortly after that, we had standing water in the basement. Good times. After removing some insulation, we found:
...cracks. Which we will fill. In the meantime, Uncle "Champ" brought a few yards of dirt and spread it around the perimeter of the house, effectively reversing the slope of the driveway and eroded yard away from the house. No seepage since, despite several equally severe storms. Thanks, Uncle!
Eventually, much celebration and big-screen TV watching will occur down here. We just have to re-do everything the previous owner tried to do.
Clean Clothes for Dirty Bodies
So, there are perks to marrying someone affiliated with the technological conglomerate that is Best Buy. Namely, discounts and employee auctions. The latter afforded us a $200 washer for the winning bid of...$40.
It's bottom-of-the-line, to be sure, but considering that our dryer is a wire in the back yard, it's pretty sweet. And apparently it's as laid back as we are:
...we can choose to wash our clothes in the following temperatures/temperaments: normal, gentle, or...casual? What does that mean? It's only for casual clothes? Or it starts washing them whenever it wants to?
While Bren installed this useful device...
I made a tee pee, fort and campfire ensemble out of the box components and bar remnants. The tee pee has fallen down three times, though. I guess I should stick to Irish lass and relinquish Indian squaw. I could cook potatoes on that campfire without even lighting it. All I need is a beer. Wanna fight about it?
On a related note: we got our first water bill today. We didn't have to pay for water at our apartment, so neither of us had any idea what a normal water bill was. Tip: if you want to lower your water bill, move into a house that has no bathing, laundering or lawn-watering capabilities. The grand total:
That's right. $8.46.
It's bottom-of-the-line, to be sure, but considering that our dryer is a wire in the back yard, it's pretty sweet. And apparently it's as laid back as we are:
...we can choose to wash our clothes in the following temperatures/temperaments: normal, gentle, or...casual? What does that mean? It's only for casual clothes? Or it starts washing them whenever it wants to?
While Bren installed this useful device...
I made a tee pee, fort and campfire ensemble out of the box components and bar remnants. The tee pee has fallen down three times, though. I guess I should stick to Irish lass and relinquish Indian squaw. I could cook potatoes on that campfire without even lighting it. All I need is a beer. Wanna fight about it?
On a related note: we got our first water bill today. We didn't have to pay for water at our apartment, so neither of us had any idea what a normal water bill was. Tip: if you want to lower your water bill, move into a house that has no bathing, laundering or lawn-watering capabilities. The grand total:
That's right. $8.46.
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