The Fixer Upper House and Garden

Would I Do It Again?

I received two e-mails today that have got me thinking. One was from Husband, offering to buy me a tool belt when the renovation is finished, because "we're almost in the home stretch." The other was from a blog-reader and fellow wordsmith who asked "if you had it to do all over again, would you buy a house that needed all of this work?

To Husband I say: Go for it. I could use a tool belt (although I haven't actually done any of the work myself!) As to whether I'd do this again: there's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is: YES! It's so rewarding to have so much input in your home! It's empowering! So: yes, no regrets. Yes!

The long answer is maybe not (lower case, with no exclamation point), and includes footnotes, disclaimers and caveats. Here are some of the pros and cons:

Con/Pro: I wouldn't do it with school-age kids. We've lived in three houses since we moved to town in July '06, and that's disruptive. But I asked my daughters if they would do it again. The younger two said "Yes, because we get to have a house that's just how we want it...and with a stage!" The oldest (13) said: "I'm not sure. I'm still thinking about it." I do think the kids have a deeper appreciation for their home. They've learned about delayed gratification. And hopefully they'll forget all the time in the car.

Pro: Restoring this house gave me a project to focus on when I was sad about moving to a new state.

Pro: I learned a few things about negotiating.

Pro: I learned how to blog (but I think a more apt name for the blog would be: "The Mid-Life Crisis House.")

Con: Getting plunked with the hidden costs of renovating. We didn't plan on things like floor insulation and storm drains and back-up sump pumps; like trees that must come down and bricks that must be stained and beadboard soffits. Painted cabinets cost 5% more than stained. Decorative tiles cost 20% more than simple white ones. Linen closets need doors; window seats need benches; laundry rooms need counters. I have loved the process of figuring out the details (such as the laundry chute!). But it's the custom stuff that costs you, and it's hard to skimp on this because that's the real reason for renovating--to make the house your home. ...

Pro: It helps to have an architect who doesn't disappear when the ink is dry on the blueprints and a GC who's reliable and upfront about the subcontractors' fees. We have such a team, and I'd do it again with them, especially now that I understand terms like raised hearths, fasciaboard and bathtub flanges.

Which brings me to the subject of the tool belt. I'm going to need one (filled with clearly labeled tools) when I no longer have all these subs at the house!

Floored!

Yesterday was one of those dreary, wet and muggy days that make me wonder why anyone would chose to live where I'm living. I went to the gutterless house in the morning, fearful the melting icicles and slush had seeped into the new basement overnight...they had not! The house was drier than the Arizona desert, and just as dusty. The floor guys were already at work sawing and buzzing, and they made great progress. Here are some shots of the house as of today, Wednesday:

One view:

View from another angle:

And another view:

If You Were Stranded On A ...

If you were moving to a deserted island for a year and could only bring a few things, what would you pack? Following this thread...if you were moving to smaller house for a year and could only bring a few kitchen things, what would you chose? Your pots and pans. A few plates and glasses and utensils. Coffee mugs. What else? Would you unpack the bread maker? Your crock pot? What would you do with the ice cream maker and the plastic smoothie machine? Your favorite dessert plates? Your grandmother's silver? What about all that stuff in your junk drawer? Would you bring your lemon juicer and the pumpkin carving knife and the garlic press? What would you use most? What would you miss?

I've just been through this exercise and would like to report that it's best to live with less. When we moved a year ago on Halloween, we unpacked a minimalistic amount of stuff:

• four Calphalon pots (one had to be thrown out after a failed beet-boiling experience)
• one non-stick skillet (used almost daily)
• coffee pot
• 7 plates, bowls, glasses (one for each human and two extras)
• a dozen forks, knives and spoons
• plastic cups that migrated to the bathtub and were never returned
• mixing bowls and mini-muffin tins for baking brownies
• panini maker
• toaster
• salad spinner

This about sums it up. Oh there's a carrot peeler and pizza knife, which I used a lot, and a few other utensils like ladels and spatulas. I have a little blue net for scooping out the Beta fish. The kitchen knives are here, too, but they're duller than a child's scissors. I'm looking forward to buying better knives someday. But I'm glad I didn't unpack more things, because it's time to pack again: We're moving out Nov. 1 so the work crew can start on the old part of the house. We'll be out for "just" a few months, and I'm bringing even fewer things. I wonder what I'll miss this time?

Dry Run

Though he was trying to be nice, the Sears appliance guy was nothing like the fictional Maytag repairman. The Maytag repairman is like a jolly bartender who wants to solve your problems and/or introduce you to his mother. The Sears guy is more like a waiter who just wants you to finish your dinner so he can get the tip and give your table to the next people.

It's true the Sears man was all business when he showed up at my house today. Clean, too...even eager. It's just that he showed up an hour early. I was told he'd arrive "between noon and 5 p.m.," so I had a million things packed into the morning. I was racing out the door at 11:00 when he called to say he was on the way.

"What? Why are you coming now?" I asked. I didn't mean to yell; I was just trying to be heard over the din of the excavator's back hoe.

"Because you're next on my list," the Sears man said.

"You're not supposed to get here till noon," I said.

"Well I'm either coming now, or I'm not coming at all," he said without emotion.

He had to come. I've been without a dryer since Tuesday and the laundry pile smells like...well...it smells like a wet basement. But C was desperate for me to drive her to her friend's house. I had to chose between my middle daughter or the dryer.

I delegated, putting M in charge of all appliances and repairmen. But before I left, I checked on the dryer to be sure it still was half-broken. The light worked and the drum got hot, but it still wouldn't spin around.

Ten minutes later when the Sears guy got here, the spinner was spinning just fine. He still charged me for the house call.

                                                   ....................

Here are a few pictures of "excavation day."

T watches the first few digs from the second-floor.

Lunch was a little bit surreal. (These are not my curtains btw; they came with the house)

 

Milo was on guard. Doesn't he look cute with his new haircut? (Again...not my curtains)

The excavator prepares the hole for "the dead man's wall." This wall, which will be poured tomorrow--weather-permitting-god-help-me---will connect the new foundation with the old. Fortunately, our house sits on hard-packed clay. This is good news for the house, bad news for the future garden.

Here's another picture of the girls and dog watching all the action.

Buckle Up

When I was 11 years old my father bought a brown Pontiac Catalina that had four doors, velour upholstery and an obnoxious alarm that buzzed accusingly until all the seat belts were buckled. I learned to drive in that car--among other things--but I never liked it. Not the metallic color, not the roll-up windows, not the AM radio you had to bang with your fist to change stations. The heating never worked very well--a huge deficit when you're driving carpool to the a.m. swim practice in the suburbs of Chicago. My father called the car "Old Paint", a phrase cowboys used to describe elderly horses; even he had issues with the Catalina. Still, I was sad to see the car go when it finally died and was towed to a scrap yard. It was like commiting an old nanny to the nursing home.

I feel this way today about the piles of sodden books, photos, old letters and toys that were ruined in the flood.  Nothing terribly useful was lost; in fact I'm glad to be rid of much of the stuff--although it would have been a lot easier to simply donate to Good Will. No, I don't feel sad about the stuff. But I do feel violated---similar to how I felt when an uninsured teenager slammed into the rear of my Mercury Sable station wagon when Miss M was a little girl. She was buckled securely in her carseat---I've been a meticulous seat-belt-buckler since the days of Old Paint--and none of us was hurt. All M remembers of the accident is that "the strawberries went flying" (I had been holding a bowl of strawberries with marshmallow fluff dip at the time of impact). Turned out the car was even fixable.

So it worked out well. All was fine. All is fine. But I've never felt safe in cars since then.

Recipe for Fluffy Dip, from Cooking Light circa 1995:

With a fork, mix together 1/2 cup low-fat sour cream; 1/2 cup peach preserves; 1 7-oz jar marshmallow Fluff; 1/4 cups Bit-O-Brickle or Heath bar crumbles. Use as a dip for 4 dozen whole strawberries. If taking this somewhere in a car, store in plastic container with tight-fitting top!

Rain Rain Go Away!

It's going to start raining any minute and I can't bear it. I called Husband to say good bye, in case I float away.

I'd like to float away from this house, this life. Away from the wet-dog smell, the dried mud, the flies that buzz through the open doors and onto my arms and legs and face, the tired/whiny children, the empty fridge, the massive backhoe in the middle of the yard, the fridge-sized dehumidifier that's clogging the hallway...

I felt much stronger yesterday, when floodwaters were coursing through my basement at 2:30 a.m. I felt capable, decisive, light on my feet. I literally sprang into action.

"You know, you hold up much better in a real crisis than you do in a perceived crisis," Husband said to me later, as we trudged to bed at 11 p.m.

And it looks like I shall have to become capable again for now the rain is coursing down.

(OK--if I float away I'll take the tired children with me. The dogs, too. We can meet Husband at the other side of the lake.)

The Flood: Water Under The Bridge

Before I went to bed on Monday night I checked the hole in our backyard to see how the grey murky matter was holding up. This has become a habit since last week, when the demo crew tore the family room off the house a day before unexpected storms began pummeling our suburb. At 10 p.m., a small amount of water pooled at the bottom of the hole, but otherwise all was still and grey, like an unused grave. I went to bed.

I was nervous, of course. The weather channel was reporting the possibility of Tstorms for the night, and this made my lungs compress as if the murky water was there in my bedroom. I took a sleeping pill, and was launched into a dense, dark slumber.

Until I heard my husband scream.

Scream is a nice word for what I heard at 2:30 a.m. when Husband shoved his legs into his Levi's.

"Jesus!"

I threw on some clothes and followed the volume into the basement; there I saw Husband hurling his lanky frame against the basement door and a rising tide of water.

"Profanities!"

"More profanities!"

"OH GOD!"

As the door jammed open, I could see our contractor on the other side, trying to pull the door shut. Trying...and failing ... as water from a flash flood poured into the basement. It went from ankle-deep to half-way up my calves in less than five minutes. "Push against the door!" Husband yelled. "Help me do this!" I threw myself against it and we got it closed, but it took another gust of hurling flesh before we could get the lock through the jam. Meanwhile the water kept pouring in, gallons and gallons of thick brown goo from the hole outside to the basement within. (Contractor is shown standing in the stairwell.)

Just in case you haven't been reading this blog as meticulously as an English teacher at mid-terms, let me remind you that most of our stuff was in the basement. We didn't unpack when we moved in last fall, because we planned to renovate "right away." So rather than pay to store our boxes at a locker-house-thingy, I had a panoramic, 3-level shelving system built in the basement. Boxes that didn't fit on the shelves were stacked on 4-inch-high pallets just in case we got some water. Boxes that didn't fit on the pallets were stocked ON TOP of the boxes that did fit on the pallets.

 

So much stuff was ruined. The rising water surpassed the bottom shelf, drenching everything there. The flood also caused the boxes on the pallets to buckle over, so that the boxes on top of them fell into the murky pool. ---(C's first thought when she saw the rising tide was to wonder "how Mom spilled so much coffee in the basement.")

Sodden and discouraged, Husband, Contractor and I spent the next 18 hours cleaning, hosing, pumping, mopping, and otherwise trying to deal with the results of the flood. (The girls were parceled out: Blessedly, T went to my sister Anne's and M is luckily-for-her still at camp. C was a huge help from 2:30 a.m. till later in the morning, then she went to the neighbor's to recover.) 

About 10 a.m., Store-to-Door arrived with vaults for the stuff that we could save (I highly recommend this company---they came right away; www.storetodoor.com) An excavator came by to build a bern around the hole. The contractor installed new pumps to redirect future rainfall. And half-dressed-sweaty demo guys hauled 200 soggy boxes from basement to garage to storage containers.

We lost a day, a lot of stuff and a fair amount of confidence. But strangely, this doesn't bother me. Like the tidal flow of murky water that gushed into our basement, we rose to the occassion. Stuff is stuff, and the rest is just water under the bridge.

(About the pics: The early-morning indoor photos are murky because my camera was set on video, and I couldn't see clearly to fix this.)

Stuff floats: A boot floats by the basement door; a toy crib tries to keep dry.

 

"Hey--I'm the digger in this family!" After he explored the pit, Milo spent most of the day guarding the hole...and me. I spent most of the day in the garage--at rear of this pic. We used this as a a "staging area"--the demo guys hauled the wet boxes to the garage and I went through each box to see if anything was salvagable. I reboxed what I could and the guys hauled it to storage vaults.

This is what the pit looked like at around 3 p.m.

They used a backhoe to build a gravel wall around the hole at the end of the day. C was ready for a trip to the pool!

Storage vaults to the rescue.

 

Let There Be Light Not Stuff

A solution to the mudroom dilemma has been reached. The exterior wall will have four cubbies, a bench and a row of four windows above the cubbies. On the interior wall, we moved the closet to the center, and placed open shelving behind where the back door and kitchen doors will be opened. This makes sense when you are standing in front of the plans, but it's hard to describe  in writing. Guess I'll never get a job writing technical manuals! Thanks to all who e'd or commented with suggestions!!!!

Please Come Through The Mudroom!

Would anyone in the blogosphere like to comment on my mudroom? Here's the layout for the mudroom, which is 10-feet by 8-feet/6-inches. Originally, the plans showed the shelf-and-pole closets

on the interior wall and a row of four built-in cubbies flanking a bench on the exterior wall (one cubby per child and one for Husband and I to share), with four or five small windows set above the cubbies. But the back door and the kitchen door opened right into the closet doors, so I asked Miguel (our architect) to flip the walls. In doing this---see larger layout at left--we lost the row of windows above the cubbies, which we like a lot, and we lost a floor-to-ceiling shelf for shoes and stuff. The original layout is at right---can you see how the doors open into each other? Wouldn't that be a nightmare? Or do I accept the trade-off of night-mare doors for better natural light and more storage options? The kids will primarily use the cubbies for backpacks and seasonal coats, etc.--the things they presently just toss on the floor or over the back of a couch. The closets mostly are for my coats: I have a lot of coats: Hey--the weather's awful here!

Um ... I mean Omm

I stood against the wall, my shoulder pressed into white, nubby cinderblock. My legs pointed toward a ballet bar at one side of the room while my upper body turned to the windows behind me.

"Twist at the waist not the hip," said Kristy, the yoga instructor. She spoke in a soft voice, like a nanny reading Good Night Moon at nap time. She approached me stealthily; pressed her index finger gently into my left hip.

"Try to flatten your lower back against the wall," she whispered, sliding her hand through the arc of space where my back was definately not flat against the wall. I twisted some more, tried to flatten that space. A slow pain oozed through my lower back as if the discs were caught in a garlic press.

"I have back issues," I said through rigid jaw bones. "I have issues with my whole left side."

"Why do you think that is---that it's only your left side?" Kristy asked in that nursery-school voice. She is older than me, thinner; an empty nester with curly hair in clips like mine and luminous skin. Large, soft-looking breasts swayed beneath her yoga top.

I twisted more.

"It's the hip I carried my kids on," I said. I didn't admit that by the time I could no longer carry my youngest child, she was long past needing me to.

The cinderblock chafed my bare shoulders.

"What we give and what is taken," announced Kristy to the class. "We are givers!"

And then to me more pointedly, softly: "It's interesting it's your left side, because the left is the feminine and the right represents the masculine."

She pronounced all three syllables slowly, distinctly. "Mass Cue Lynn."

"Your masculine side is strong," she said with her finger pressing into my hip again. "Something to think about."

She walked on to the next person and I thought: I didn't know I had a masculine side. I wondered why it was so strong...so well and rested...so together...while my poor, martyred, nurturing, feminine, left side sank slowly and painfully into the ground. How had this happened? Why? I thought of freshly showered Husband reading the New York Times on the blue couch when our kids were small, as I changed diapers, mashed bananas, folded laundry and asked him things like "do you want some decaf coffee?" while holding the cup's hot side so he could grab the handle.

(As I wrote that sentence, a coyote howled, a dog barked and then there was an indistinguishable murmer, high and grounded: "nyee! nyee! nyee!" It's 3 a.m. But back to the yoga class:)

Or had my right side gained muscle and agility by compensating always for its injured sister...an able leg grown stronger when the other is braced?

I twisted against the cold wall, my mind full and most certainly not empty, and the pain in my lower back released. The pain that moments before had made me wince was gone and I felt relief in my lumbar spine: an itch scratched, a muscle loosened; the welcomed punch on swelling dough.

(Now there is a pungent stench through open windows: Skunk.)

Kristy coaxed the class into straighter poses ... and moments later I was back in the minivan wondering about my kitchen counter. Lately I've been visualizing a butcher-block island made of end-grain mesquite. (This photo is from the folks at www.livingelements.com; click on it for a larger view) The end-grain mesquite countertop is different, which is good. It reminds me of gardening, which I love. It'd go well with my new-but-looks-like-old kitchen's exposed brick wall and bead-board ceiling. It's dark and hard. Strong. You could cut the stalks off brocoli and mold clay bears on that counter and it'd be no worse off. It's so masculine.

Maybe too masculine, for now I'm thinking I should shore up the feminine. That I should nurture the nurturer with soft colors and gentle materials in this kitchen where my daughters will finish growing up and where, quite possibly, Husband and I will grow old. Um, well, given our proclivity toward moving, at least older.

And back to square one on the countertops I go!