Our Little House

July 30th

2006-07-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

The walls, the walls, the baby blue walls! They're of a lighter blue than the walls used to paint the kitchen. Note the hideous wallpaper is gone.

Leftovers, taking up valuable living room space.

Our new KitchenAid refrigerator, with all of the other appliances.

The kitchen "closet" becomes a pantry with the addition of a door.

The pantry is open, and my wife has already started putting things inside.

Mirror and pedestal sink, complete with the shades and cellphone of the handyman.

"Why is he taking a picture of a boring ceiling?" Because at one time, this ceiling was covered with ugly brown acoustical tile. Large sheets of drywall now cover that tile, and the whole thing has been painted over. The old ceiling has now ceased to exist.

A new closet in the same room, made wider by the handyman.

The main bedroom, with dark blue walls and white closet door.

Mirror and lights in the main bathroom.

You'd certainly never figure it out by looking at this picture, but baseboards have been added to the bathroom.

Even the bottom of the sink looks nice now.

The little house, seen from the street.

July 26th or so

2006-07-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

The copper pipe to the furnace (left) was leaking. Therefore, you could smell gas in the basement when the furnace was turned on. This necessitated a replacement of all the copper semi-rigid pipe with flexible steel pipe. Did it cost? Yes. But our gas outlets are up to code.

The painters make a mess of the basement. They are removing the rubber baseboards, and will paint the basement walls an ivory color. New wooden baseboards will replace the rubber ones.

I find places for books. We begin moving items from the apartment to the house.

More places for books. Five points for each title you can identify.

Judy's error is rectified -- remember her? She locked us out? Well, we have a new door handle. And this one has no inside "knob lock" that would lock without the key.

Countertop, dishwasher, sink, and faucet in all their glory.

Another view of that fine countertop. Makes the old countertop look like lark's vomit.

This is no ordinary door. Not at our house. This one has been painted white.

The bathroom before I begin applying two coats of "Tub and Tile".

The first coat of "Tub and Tile" has been applied.

Okay. Another sink picture. But my wife really likes this sink.

Boy, we sure do have a lot of books!

Now we have some paint on the basement walls!

The cabinets and countertop opposite the sink.

July 21st, 2006

2006-07-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

We had two mismatched overhead lights. Mitch the Electrician matched them for us. Since this is the lower level of the house, all that is important is that they match.

Two new sconce lights in the bathroom. The four lights came buried in a huge box filled with 100,000 styrofoam peanuts.

Mitch also sorted out the tangle of wiring under the sink. The light switch will be the switch to the trash compactor.

The funny part. We expected the electrician in the morning and the delivery of a refrigerator in the afternoon. However, Lowe's didn't show up with a refrigerator; rather, we got a washer and dryer. But since we had paid for it, we said, "go ahead and install them."

This is the empty space left by the washer and dryer. They actually had to remove the door from the basement to get them out.

And there they are, and they work. If we get a hankerin' to do laundry at the house, we'll let you know.

July 10th and afterwards....

2006-07-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

The walls have been painted! For the first time, you can see the sky blue color of the kitchen walls.

The cabinet doors have now been painted solid white.

This cast iron sink will become our new sink. All I can say is that it weighs a LOT.

The bathroom looks nice and painted.

This is what the bathroom floor looks like, taken up. See that hole in the corner? Rotten plywood, but that will be fixed.

New floor has been put down in the kitchen!

What the entrance floor looks like. The wood tiles will be removed for hardwood floor.

The bad plywood in the bathroom is being removed.

The backyard neighbors.

Bathroom floor problem solved.

All of the entryway plywood floor will be removed.

A long, tough job.

Finally! They got it all off!

The new plywood is replacing the old...a nice, solid floor in the entryway.

The same thing, really. I was bored, so I took a lot of pictures.

I suppose this picture looks better. "Now which is my best side?"

The kitchen floor in all its glory.

The bathroom floor is repaired! Note the bucket. The bad valves are leaking, and we don't want to get water while the new hardwood is coated.

The plumber replaced one of these pipes. Which pipe? Well, you got me there, buddy.

See the dining room. Now, we have both a chandelier and nice blue walls.

"It's talking toilet!" Well, it doesn't talk. But it works, and that's good enough to me. The new sink is to its right (from sitting position).

The new sink. Ruth is proud of this. I'm proud of it because it's a tall sink, meaning I don't have to bend over.

The cabinet doors are back on the cabinets and everything is in its painted glory.

The range and the dishwasher. The plumber spent so much time fixing pipe that appliance placement will come later.

This is how I remember where I live. This is actually the gravestone of the person who lived here before, and I put flowers in front and a pot of milk on top.

Now the wife has me priming shelves! Sheesh!

Ruth has painted the beadboard. But we're having some problems with the shoe molding. Paging Judy...!

Some new tile to fill the gap.

July 3rd, or 4th, or something.

2006-07-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

Lots of pictures:

Countertops, baby! Yeah!

More space will be added with a stand-alone cabinet.

The process of priming cabinet doors continues.

Covering up the mess in the bathroom.

I'm sure something useful will go here.

Judy carefully applies trim to each cabinet door.

Primer, primer, primer.

The backyard neighbors.

The yardworkers came with their tree-grinder and ground the stump down into nothingness.

It's all definitely starting to come together in the kitchen.

A long day. Note the five-gallon jug of sheetrock compound, or whatever it's called.

We filled this entire truck with junk.

Sidenote: They took loads of crap out of the attic. Sewing machine parts. Reel-to-reel audio tapes. Boxes so old that they just crumbled when they were touched. If you're ever buying a house, look into the attic, and see if removing the junk is going to give you the Hanta virus.

Beadbo(re)d.

But it all comes together in the end.

July 2nd, 2006

2006-07-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

The lavorette walls are now completely finished and even. It's amazing what drywall and joint compound will do!

On the other hand, the bathroom....

The "before" picture of cabinet painting. Notice the ugly "yellow" trash compactor in the lower right corner.

Same theory, different view.

Judy makes another hole! This time, the @$@#$% trash compactor is gone!

There's always one experimental color that looked really pretty at the paint store, but.... (It took Ruth 40 minutes to rewire that outlet, BTW.)

Judy is proud of the little chandelier she hung, but I can't help but think of the tune to "Les Miserables"...all of the lights work, I assure you!

Ruth's new lover. That Shop-Vac better watch its back....

Judy makes a disclaimer: she does not look like this.

It's called "cleaning for the shiksa". (I'm a longtime sufferer of this phenomenon.)

A healthy coat of primer...I don't know if it's battleship grey or not, though.

These doors must be painted. (Judy emphasizes that they are TRIMMED.)

July 1st, 2006

2006-07-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

Today's post ought to be called "Things Judy Did":

1. She locked us out of our own home. We have two working locks on the front door. One is a deadbolt lock (the top). The other is a door lock to which the original owner never gave us the outside key. This required a locksmith. Here he is!

2. This is the mailbox that Judy almost destroyed. She backed into it while driving my truck. The mailbox was handmade to boot. It belongs to one of our neighbors.

3. Blogger's warning. I DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS. This is a fat guy who hasn't shaven in a month. Some say he resembles me, but once again. I do not look like this. Nor am I surrounded by bubbles.

4. Now you know the party we had two nights ago really WAS wild.

June 30th 2006

2006-06-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

This is the bathroom before we removed all of those ugly checkerboard tiles.

It's amazing what you can do with a hammer and a crowbar. Or, in this case, it's amazing what my sister-in-law Judy can do.

Now we're getting somewhere in the bathroom.

Be sure you wear your protective goggles.

Mitch the Electrician!

If you tilt your head to the side, this is the remnants of the bathroom. Or, just tilt the screen to the side with a hammer and crowbar.

An escape hatch behind the commode! But where does that mysterious pipe lead?

This wasn't actually work on the house; it's merely the result of our drunken party beforehand.

Another lean-to-the-side pic. The passage from the kitchen to the dining room just...uh...got bigger. (I'll tell you about how Judy destroyed the neighbor's mailbox in another entry.)

Yes. Very nice now.

And getting rid of that ugly-ass tile.

June 27th and 28th

2006-06-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

This is a band saw. Believe it or not, it was in the attic along with:

* several empty root beer bottles
* two electric motors
* boxes
* insulation.

The electrician was covetous of the band saw, so we let him have it.

A massive tree and branch grinder, used to grind the tree. It can grind the biggest trees, and almost ground the massive dead tree, save for parts of the trunk.

The grinder in action.

A very bad picture. This tree isn't rising from the ground, it's floating off the ground, suspended by a crane.

The range hood has been removed, and the wire to the hood is capped.

The two massive trees that obscured most of the front yard are now missing.

As you can see, the missing trees really open up the front yard. And they're working in the back yard, too! A neighbor was inspired to remove the creeping vines from the trees on his side of the fence.

What I look forward to after waiting all day on electricians and tree people.

June 26th, 2006

2006-06-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

What used to be our dishwasher. As it turns out, the drainage hose is connected to the garbage compactor...or some such thing. Connecting a new dishwasher will be tricky.

This Magic Chef range is "digital" -- it has numerical dials that tell you the time. That was the definition of "digital" in the 1960s.

Believe it or not, the appliances are lower than the floor. What's going on here?

This ancient sink will be replaced by an Ikea fixture.

The painful process of removing wallpaper. I'm not halfway done.

Removing the range revealed this home in the drywall. We'll need patching, or Herbert the Rat will move in.

We had hoped to remove the trash compact, but as you can see, this diagonal brace is holding up the entire countertop. So it will have to wait.

This massive tree, leaning toward the house, might be...uh...dead. In one or two days, a ground crew will arrive to fell it, we hope.

June 25th, 2006

2006-06-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

What's behind your bathroom cabinet.

We took the cabinet doors off, too. They were ugly.

This remaining kitchen cabinet used to have a track door, but now it's used for tool storage.

We haven't used any of this stuff yet, but we hope to.

Ruth is tired after stripping...the bathroom of wallpaper.

Someone has to take these pictures.

This bathroom used to have sliding shower doors. And now, it just has old caulk on the walls.

A wet Atlanta day.