The Fixer Upper House and Garden

Quiet ... At Last

I am home and there are no workers digging in the yard or hammering in the basement. The phone is not ringing, the kids are out with Husband and the sleeping dogs are not even snoring. I vacuumed every day this week, because it's shedding season for labradors and visiting season for T.F.U.H. (people kept stopping by and I kept inviting people to stop by). So in addition to being quiet, it's also very tidy here.

Ah, blessed peace; how I've missed you.

This is the first time since we moved that I feel relaxed. I've been so busy...and am having so much fun in the house. Last night we hosted dinner for a progressive party, which is a remarkable way to entertain. I must remember to volunteer for this type of thing more often. In a progressive party, everyone meets at one house for cocktails; then you break up into groups of 8-10 people at various homes, and after dinner everyone gathers for coffee and dessert at another destination--in our case, our church.

If you're a dinner host, here's what's expected of you: You set the table and provide wine. You do not cook. You do not mix martinis. You do not bake an interesting dessert. But if you're like us, you do install light fixtures an hour before the party, polish your silver for the first time in 15 years, and hope darkness falls before the guests arrive so no one notices the backhoe in your yard. Here are some photos:

M helped set the table and took these photos; C kept replenishing guests' water goblets; T was polite but shy and Milo didn't throw up on any shoes:

The morning of the party, my friend Ginny invited me to a flower-arranging seminar, where I made this centerpiece:

 

I will never forget unpacking, drying and repacking my crystal and china on the driveway last summer, after a flash flood dumped 18 inches of water into our basement (where all of our belongings were stored). This is the first time I've used the "good goblets" since then and I was sad to realize how many we lost during the flood. Hand-blown crystal is not very sturdy! And, yes, it was dark by dinner but it still was hard to miss the construction equipment in the yard (which was used to dig a storm drain earlier in the day). I think it even added a little charm to the evening.

The Dining Room

We had our first dinner party on Friday night and one of the dogs threw up on our friend's shoe. Actually, the dog threw up under the shoe when our friend, Pieter, had his legs stretched out beneath the dining room table. Later as he crossed and uncrossed his legs, the vomit got pressed deeper into the rug, which, I must point out, is cream with a lovely blue border.

(Note to daughters: do not buy cream-colored rugs for your dining rooms when you are grown up)

We all laughed nervously when Pieter noticed a large, clumpy, brown smear of something underneath his feet and on his shoe, oh, about the time I was serving dessert. "What did I drag in?" he asked in a melodious Dutch accent. Husband and I immediately suspected the dogs. Well, I immediately suspected just one of the dogs: Milo, who absorbs stress like Bounty paper towels pick up juice spills. At first I thought he had brought in a clump of mud, because the brown smear had no odor. But when Husband took a closer look, he found an intact, undigested nugget of Purina One in the mix.

OK ... so ... yuck.

In a situation such as this, we can expect Husband to remain calm and non-chalant, which is His Way. For me, remaining calm in the face of dinner-party vomit requires enormous discipline and a huge amount of reserve, which I amazingly was able to summon, at least while our guests were in the house. But later that night, after an exhaustive and unsuccessful search for vacuum cleaner bags in unpacked moving boxes...well, let's just say I experienced a different set of emotions.

Fortunately Husband saved the rug...and the weekend...by renting a Rug Doctor at our local grocery store early Saturday morning. The rug cleaned up perfectly, and he used the machine to clean several other area-rugs that have been in storage for 2 years.

So all was well at The Fixer Upper House. All is well. Here are some shots of...and thoughts on...the dining room:

The original dining room was almost a square at 10' x 11', and Husband and I considered turning it into a den/office. When we hired Miguel, our architect, he convinced us to use it as a formal dining room, because that is what the house intended it to be. We bumped the wall back about three feet into what was the old kitchen and is now a butler's pantry/mom office, which we're calling "the butler's office." I'm so glad we did this, because the new dining room is beautiful.

(Regarding unpacking: In addition to not being able to find vacuum cleaner bags, I'm missing a few things from the dining room, among them one shade for the chandelier, 7 china tea cups and a chinese urn filled with my dead cat's ashes):

My mother bought the mirror (shown below) in the early '70s, a year or so before she died. When I was growing up, I thought the mirror was "too modern" and wondered what my mother had been thinking when she hung it in our foyer. Years later, when my sisters and I divided our parents' things, no one wanted the mirror, but my younger sister took it and kept it unboxed in basement after basement after basement for years and years and years, not wanting to hang it but unable to throw it away because it had been our mother's. When I decorated my last home, I started thinking about the mirror and "getting" what my mother had been thinking. I asked my sister if I could have it, because her husband didn't like it much, but the mirror was so heavy that mailing it to New Jersey would have cost a fortune. So it continued to sit...and collect dust...in two more of my sister's basements ... until last summer when she and I settled into houses that are 20 miles apart, and she gave it to me, and I had the glass replaced because it was cracked, and then I renovated T.F.U.H., and Husband hung the mirror on the dining room wall. I absolutely love the mirror, and I love my sister for giving it to me, and my brother-in-law for not liking it, and Husband for hanging it, and Miguel for convincing us to bump out the wall and turn this old square room into a proper dining room, and ...

This is what the dining room looked like before the renovation:

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

Well, I can't find a "before" picture of the dining room! It was a small, almost square room with pink wall paper and blue carpeting.

Photos Of ...

The floors looked spectacular for the 15 minutes that I saw them last week. The next day, GC taped a sign on the front door that said "Remove Shoes: Floors Just Refinished." This prompted the painters to tape heavy craft paper over the floors, so they could keep wearing their boots. This is good for the feet, good for the floors and good for the olefactory system.

Here are several photos of the work that's been going on recently. Great thought, care and effort went into every one of these projects by all involved--and not a little bit of agonizing!

The kitchen is shrouded in plastic:

Painting the bricks lightened up the kitchen a lot--the wall was once the exterior of the house. After we built the addition, Miguel had the idea to place HVAC ducts on both sides of the stained-glass window, creating a little desk-niche.

Here's what the refinished floors look like...under cover:

White snow, blue sky, new addition:

 

Before the recent spring snow storm, Nawkaw came out to stain the new bricks. I think they look good but Husband says "there's not enough red." Oh well.

The mudroom is multi-functional, including cubbies, a coat closest, nooks for dog beds and lots of shelves for stuff (opposite the cubbies). The Dutch door will come in handy when muddy paws need to be contained. To maximize light in the kitchen, we decided to not use the top half of the door.

This next photo shows what happens when you trim Motawi tiles. I will post about this in detail later, but if you're considering using hand-glazed tiles, just know you can't trim the field tiles that have variations in shading. Instead of trimming them to fit, you can order custom-sizes from Motwawi for just $4 more per tile:

The "Shaker Beige" paint on these plaster walls frames the old door and windows:

No matter what's going on in life, you still need to walk the dogs ...

 

... And dance!

Floor Refinishing

If not for the Polish music drifting from the basement, I'd think I was alone in the house. It's so quiet, so empty. So ... very ... foreign. Sunlight mingles with dust in the living room and I wonder what's more striking: sunshine after a dark winter ... or is it the floor?

GC and his crew have cleared out the house. Gone are the ladders, saws and cans of paint, the scraps of wood, piles of molding and plastic bins over-flowing with trash. The house has been emptied for tomorrow's appointment with the hard-wood floor refinishers.

The bride is donning her veil.

I'm very nervous. I OK'd the floor stain weeks ago based on a four-inch test area in front of the refrigerator. We tested several colors, with the end goal of having very light floors but not so light that they look naked. We tried cherry, golden oak, natural, driftwood, early American and some other stains whose names escape me now. We also tried 50-50 blends, but I didn't love anything. How do you love something you can't envision? Emmanual, the floor-refinishing overseer, was adamant that I go with natural, which looked fine on the new floors but yellow on the old. A decorator urged me to blend natural with "just a touch of brown but no yellow or red." The painter suggested cherry to match the cabinets, but to my eye it was too matchy-matchy. Miguel the architect liked early American. I felt it would be OK if it was lighter, but when GC mixed early American with natural, the blend came out yellowish on our old, yellow-oak floors. In fact, none of the blended stains turned out well. Adding to the dilemma is that old floors take color differently than new ones.

So I decided to move on. I OK'd early American and let it go. But now, as I stand on dusty floors in this sunny room waiting for the floor guys to arrive on a day that's so bright my head hurts, the worries creep in. What if it's too dark? Too brown? Too mottled? What if I hate it?

Well, whatever goes down this week will be better than what's there now.

The hallway floors are a dark stain and are in dubious condition:

Since we expanded the dining room, it has both old and new floorboards:

The stairs are a very ugly orangish-yellowish stain that doesn't match the rest of the house:

On To The Next Thing: The Fireplace Surround

I am coping with the shock of the half-inch overhang fairly well today. Pushing up the leg posts is going to be an ordeal, given that they are nailed to the new floor, so we are going to fill the gaps with a strip of wood that's flush with the leg posts. This is different from placing scribes over the gaps, an earlier suggestion that left me colder than the ice on my front stoop because the scribes would stick all the way out to the edge of the overhang.

Enough about that.

Now it's time to focus on the fireplace surround. The lovely hand-glazed Motawi tiles arrived yesterday, so this morning I had another pow-wow with Bert and Miguel to go over the order. I think everyone was worried about one thing or another---that the tiles wouldn't fit within the just-built mantel, or that we wouldn't have enough pieces, or that Leon the installer wouldn't know what to do with them. Fortunately, our worst fears have not materialized and things are working out fine. Here are some pictures of the morning's progress.

Miguel examines options for the tile pattern beneath the soapstone hearth:

Here's Leon, the tile installer, making some suggestions:

As of about noon today, a work in progress. Leon was very busy!

A corner detail emerges. The photo really doesn't do that soapstone slab justice. It's black with a lot of green swirling around. Very cool:

One ... Half ... Inch

I expected to be blown away by the Costa Esmerelda counters after they were installed in my kitchen Thursday afternoon. I should have swooned, because the counters are graceful and lovely, with just the right depth of color and veining. But instead of swooning, I gasped in horror at the sight of a narrow gap between the island leg posts and countertop. While invisible to some, this gap is so obvious to me it's as if flashing arrows are pointing at it.

"What is that GAP?" I asked Edgar, the counter installation guy who is about the age I was when I graduated from college. "The countertop is too small!" Nervously, Edgar got out the order.

"Ma'am," he said politely, "These are the dimensions you signed off on when the counters were measured last week."

I looked at the order. The island counter was measured from the rail and not from the leg posts, which jut out a couple of centimeters beyond the rail. What this means is that while most of the counter has a one-inch overhang, the overhang at the two leg posts is only about one-half inch. The gap between the posts and the counter exaggerates this one-half-inch deficit.

Hysteria started lurching from my stomach. Or was that lunch?

I called Miguel.

"What is that GAP?" I asked Miguel.

He didn't seem too worried.

"Yea, I noticed that. We just have to push the leg posts up and it will be OK," he said.

"But what about the OVERHANG?" I asked, gripping the cellphone to my ear. "It's only one-half-inch at the leg posts!"

"It's supposed to be like that," Miguel said, trying to reassure me. "It's supposed to look like a farm table."

"It looks like a man who arrived at his wedding in tuxedo pants that are too short!" I cried.

Now Miguel was starting to get worried---not about the counter but about my state of mind. "It's not that bad!" he said. "I'll come by and take another look."

I called Husband.

"The counters are in and the island top looks like it shrunk in the dryer!" I wailed.

"It can't be that bad!" he said. "I'll get off early and take a look."

That day, Bert the GC, Carl the carpenter, Mark the kitchen designer, Miguel the architect and Husband the husband all came to the house to see the patient I mean the island counter top. None of them felt the overhang was an issue. They offered various solutions, ranging from using a scribe to fill the gaps to placing "buttons" at the foot of the posts so that the leg tops are flush with the bottom of the counter. They tried to assure me that once the gaps are filled, the overhang will not be an issue.

"But that's because you don't think it's even an issue with the gaps!" I said suspiciously. I calculated the height difference between Husband and me, which is about seven inches.

"You can't even see what I'm talking about!" I cried.

I demanded another solution. All reluctantly agreed that in addition to filling the gaps, we could adjust the island by pushing the legs in one-half inch at both sides. This sounds easy, but it's not without repercussions because the leg posts are already nailed into the floor boards, and if we move the leg posts forward a half inch, the holes in the floor might --- or might not--- be exposed. We also would have to cut and move the rails, exposing nail holes in the island that would have to be filled and stained. Plus, these adjustments would affect the symmetry of the overhang, making it deeper than one-inch at the rails.

I asked my brother-in-law Chip, who's a woodworking guy, to evaluate the island overhang, and he doesn't think it's a problem. My sister agrees, and my kids think I'm crazy to actually talk about something like: "The overhang? What's the overhang?"

Part of me worries that everyone secretly believes the overhang is a real issue, but that they don't want to say so because of all the work that's involved in fixing it. But then again, maybe it really is a non-event. Maybe I'm just too close to the situation. Maybe I'm just a little looney.

Either way: It's bugging me. Here are some more pictures:

from the left side:

from the right side, with a piece of wood shoved in the gap to show what it might look like when the gap is filled:

Hillary and Me

It's crunch time for Hillary and me. While she travels the country trying to get you to vote for her, I'm finalizing the details on my house. If she blows it this week, she'll probably never make it back to the White House. If I don't get the aesthetics right, I could blow the whole renovation project. Oh HIllary, I know just how you feel! To work so hard and come this far ...

I think I have a better chance of succeeding in my endeavor than she has in hers. A few days ago I visited the granite yard to lay out templates for my countertops. It took an hour to drive there, and while dodging potholes more treacherous than any news leak, I fretted about the slabs of Costa Esmerelda that I picked out for my kitchen 2 weeks ago. Would I hate them and be filled with regret? Fortunately, it was love at second site, and thank goodness for that! (Here's a goofy picture of me in front of one of my granite slabs.) The counters are getting installed this week, and I can hardly wait.

Later I met with a "paint consultant" at my house to go over options for the first floor. I'd been in an absolute frenzy about wall colors after receiving conflicting advice from my many trusted advisors; at one point I was testing 21 Benjamin Moore colors in one room (you try picking out the paint for every single centimeter of your house! It's overwhelming!). But I'm at peace now; I'm feeling fine! With help from Dee, a consultant at the J.C. Licht paint store where my painter Derrick gets his paint, I've settled on HC-114 for the kitchen, mudroom, butler's pantry and powder room; HC 35 for the family room; HC-45 for the living room and foyer, and 2080-10--a cheery paint called Raspberry Truffle--for the dining room. Expect lattes and a home-made dessert if you come for a visit...

Meanwhile, work progresses at the house. Leon the tile guy is back this week, finishing up bathrooms and such before embarking on the all-important fireplace surround. Painters Mike and Andy put the first coats on the 2nd floor and basement rooms last week and now are prepping and painting the first floor. The kitchen's beadboard ceiling has been painted (the photo at left shows the painter, Derrick, testing various ceiling colors.) Carpenters Sebastian and Matt have completed the fireplace mantel, mudroom cubbies and the cozy window nook---applause is welcomed and accepted! Also: Husband ordered all appliances. Miguel sketched the layout for the laundry room ...  And after juggling the opinions of a half-a-dozen tradesmen on the proper stain for the hardwood floors, I've finally decided to go with a light-brown color called Early American, per Miguel's suggestion.

So many trusted advisors...so many opposing opinions. Yes Hillary, I think I know how you feel.

Here are a few pictures of the stones I picked out for various counters. This first photo is Costa Esmerelda granite, for the kitchen. I love the greenish-blue colors and the subtle white veins that appear throughout. The computer doesn't do it justice:

The next photo is of the green soapstone that I'm using in the "butler's pantry"; I'm also using this for the raised hearth in the family room. It's not a very clear picture, unfortunately:

And below, behold a slab of quartz for the kids bathroom. It's more sparkly in real life:

Winter Daze

Today's snow is wetter than a dog's nose after a good sneeze. Here are some photos:

The house this afternoon (we're going to replace the shutters and I'm thinking 'hunter-green'):

Near the lake:

T and friend making a snow dog:

Getting Chopped

A few important things got chopped off this week!

When she was 5, C decided to grow her hair for "Locks of Love," a charity that uses donated human hair to make wigs for kids who've lost their own hair (www.locksoflove.com). This had significance for our family, since C's cousin has had alopecia for many years (now 14 and confidantly bald, he's the most handsome boy in his freshman class!)

C looks good too, with her new grown-up haircut. It took five years to grow her hair so long--she was at Little Leisure preschool when she started. She donated 10 inches of light-brown hair with lovely blond sun-streaks. Here are a few more shots of C's haircut, followed by a photo of something else that got chopped down.

A bit later:

The next picture is of our house--we chopped down two arborvitaes this week, to make way for a storm-drain that must stretch out to the street. Note to fellow gardeners: No, I don't feel bad about taking out the trees. Begone with them! They were overgrown, too close to the house, and not even remotely indigenous. I can hardly wait to dig out those two ugly evergreen bushes!

Set In Stone

I bought my tile today: several hundred ceramic, porcelain and marble polygons from four retailers. Some people buy everything from one store. I'm not one of these people. This is partly because I needed different materials and designs for several rooms. It's also because not one store had everything I wanted for the price I needed. For example, I priced my job at several "stone and tile" stores that could have accomodated my entire job---from the hand-made fireplace tiles (pictured here) to the kitchen counters to the cheapo-porcelain 12x12s for the mudroom. But there was always a problem: at one store, the sales staff was snooty. At another, quality was great but prices were high. Another dealer offered reasonable prices but boring material.

I never said I was easy to please. And for what this stuff costs, you shouldn't be either.

So I shopped around a lot. Husband and budget necessitated that I seek the best prices, but I also shopped for quality material and interesting designs. And for the record I will say that when I was on the fence, I leaned in favor of sales people who were helpful and interested in my job.

I liked Beeta, who runs the desk at Stone Habitat in Mundelein. Her store has a great selection of marble and granite; she was helpful; she negotiated; and the price was right. I bought my kitchen counters (Santa Cecelia granite and Soapstone), fireplace hearth (Soapstone), and master bathroom counter and tiles (Italian carerra marble) from Stone Habitat. The installer, Joe, came to the house to measure before I made my decision. In fact, Stone Habitat and Expo were the only ones who sent installers to take accurate field measurements for the quote (Expo wanted to charge $200 for this service, but I wouldn't pay it). Stone Habitat sells stone and only stone...so I bought my marble and granite there and for ceramic I went elsewhere...

For ideas and selection of ceramic tiles, you can't beat Expo. Its tile department is expansive, brightly lit, and with moderate to higher prices. (I was surprised how bad the lighting was in many tile stores.) Getting someone to help you is a challenge--some of sales reps at my local Expo seem like they've been working the prison night shift for too many years. But a young rep named Katherine was a great help to me. I did the kids' bathroom at Expo: white ceramic subways with glass mosaic accent tiles the color of a Fresca bottle that's been in the ocean for 30 years; 2x2 octagonal white ceramic floor tiles, and Corian "whitecap" counter tops. Worth noting about Expo: its installation quote was outrageous; Donald Trump must buy his tile there. I bought the material, but not the labor. Also worth noting: they're having a tile sale--20% off. This helped a lot. Worth worrying about: I suspect delays.

I got my mud-room flooring at a heavily advertised chain called Century Tile. Originally, I planned on using brick-colored Marmoleum, but I went with 12x12 porcelain tiles that look like natural slate, per my decorator Jean's suggestion. These "NK-17" tiles are very durable (comes in handy with 2 dogs) and cost less than $4 a square foot. They'll be ready for pick-up tomorrow.

Because I shopped around and negotiated everything, I was able to splurge on the fireplace surround in the family room. I'm going with the handmade tiles pictured above from Motawi (www.motawi.com), which I bought at The Fine Line Tile Gallery in Chicago. They're expensive, and the installation is, too. But it's worth it.