The Fixer Upper House and Garden

While We Were Away ...

While we were away, GC and the subs were very busy. What fun it was to come back to a house with walls! Here's the 2nd floor "window nook:"

Behold, the fireplace wall:

A view down a hallway (please forgive the vertical nature of this photo!):

Happy Holidays

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE FIXER UPPER HOUSE!

To the readers of this blog at this holy time of year: Thank you for sharing the highs and lows of renovation with me. Thank you for reading and listening and sharing your opinions. Thank you for praying for my loved ones who have been ill or unfortunate. Thank you for sending positive vibes my way. A year ago, I didn't know  beans about blogging. Now, I don't know how I would have survived this year with out it! Whatever your beliefs or rituals this time of year...I wish you all the very best.

The Upside of Underwater

After we got the basement door locked, I waded into the storage room. The light bulb flickered ... and went out ... then flickered again ... and came on.

"Are we going to be electrocuted?" I asked.

"I don't know," Husband replied un-assuringly.

I looked at the goo that came to my knees. A brown clumpy thing floated by. "Am I standing in raw sewage?" I asked, my voice rising feebly.

"I don't know yet," Contractor said (his voice was rising feebly too).

C was standing on the stairs. "Don't step in the water!" I yelled. I'd found my maternal voice.

But I was surprisingly non-chalant; I was actually calm. If I was standing in my neigbhorhood's diarrhea, so be it. This was my natural reaction to coming face-to-face with someting I couldn't control. If what had just happened was an Act of God, who was I to question? I couldn't take on God right then. I had to find the scrapbooks.

I reached into the muck and grabbed the brown clumpy thing that had floated by my legs. If it squished in my fingers, I would know. If the stench caused me to topple over like the cardboard boxes, I would know. I needed to know.

It was a branch.

Oh lordy, was I relieved. Maybe it was just mud that we were standing in! I looked around some more. Bright plastic orbs bobbed in the water, like M&Ms in a chocolate-Oreo smoothie. I picked one up: it was a red hand-mixer from my daughter's play kitchen set. The toy box had been on a bottom shelf. My throat constricted a little as I looked for my kids' scrapbooks and all the extra photos that I had painstakingly stored in plastic tubs from Target.

A word about plastic tubs from Target: They break. Also, their seals are not tight. In the past year, I've spent hundreds of dollars on storage bins--Stear-Lite, Rubber Maid and other brands. Several of the clear Stear-Lite tubs cracked when they fell during the flood, and everything in them got drenched--the coats were so saturated with muddy water that I couldn't lift the storage containters. They washed up pretty well--the coats--but unfortunately the motor on our Kenmore dryer also broke, and the appliance guy can't get here till Monday. So I hung several dozen coats on the construction fencing to dry. (Here's a shot of our backyard looking like the Clampetts came to visit:)

Most of the Rubber-Maid tubs held up well--but not all of them. Water seeped into a green tub filled with Christmas tree lights, which I threw out; water also seeped into a container filled with old family pictures, which got drenched. I laid these out on the driveway to dry, and hopefully they'll last until I can get a scanner.

The good news is that the scrapbooks were safe. The box of 1,000 unsorted photos was safe. Husband's electric guitar was safe. I'm pretty sure our paintings were safe. Even better: No one was electrocuted, and the sewers didn't back up.

And since I'd remembered to scoop the backyard earlier that night, we didn't even have to worry about floating dog poop in the basement.

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.)

Prayers, vibes and smoke signals

On the eve of demolition, please say a prayer for the Fixer Upper House. It's having a most serious operation tomorrow.

It was prep'd for surgery yesterday: the electrician cut off the electricity to the family room; the plumber capped off yards and yards of copper tubing and the demo crew severed the roof from the original house. At 7 a.m. tomorrow, men with earth movers and other large machines will beep beep beep down the driveway to demo the circa-1961 addition and haul it off as refuse. It'll take all of 30 minutes.

I want to honor the family that built it and to acknowledge the love they shared in that room. I want to pray that the old part of the house survives the operation without complications. And I want to bless the new space that will rise from the crumbled brick, broken glass and mortar ash (That brick wall you see on the right of this picture ---that's going to be the new kitchen).

So in honor of my Irish heritage, I'm offering up a house blessing (which I found at islandireland.com):

God bless the corners of this house

And be the lintel blest,

And bless the hearth and bless the board,

And bless each place of rest,

And bless each door that opens wide

To stranger as to kin,

And bless each crystal window pane

That let's the starlight in,

And bless the rooftree overhead

And every sturdy wall

The peace of man, the peace of God,

The peace of love on all.

A Few Good Men

Bidding out a renovation job is a bit like applying to college, sans the essays. First you go through a list of potential contractors with your architect, who serves as a guidance counselor throughout the process. You interview and are interviewed by the general contractor, who's like the Dean of Admissions. He (they're all hes) goes through your architecture plans as if they were a resume, pointing out your weaknesses and strengths and making suggestions about your future. Then he introduces you to his subs, who size up your stuff like coaches evaluating the swiftness of a baseball pitch. And all the while you're tapping your foot on the hardwood floor and wondering: Can we even afford to go to this school...I mean...hire this contractor? After the interviews, you wait gobs of time before they get back to you. That's the worst part: the waiting. No, scratch that. The worst part is when the bid arrives--yay, you got in!--but you realize there's no financial aid to a new kitchen. Money-wise, you're on your own.

We bid our job to four contractors. The bottom line is staggering. One guy said materials have 'gone through the roof' because of the war and economy. Another said the housing slump has caused homeowners to add on rather than move on; hence, there's no shortage of work. I couldn't understand the third guy's excuse; his English is broken. The fourth one never called us back.

Fortunately, Husband and I appreciate a good challenge and are working to bring the pricing down by eliminating this and substituting that. This is causing some distress to The Wonderful Miguel, our architect. But it's an exercise Husband and I are pretty good at, since I'm sort of frugal and he's truly cheap. So far, the biggest change we've made in terms of cost and design is that we've nixed the bay windows that were meant to provide reading nooks and better sunlight to two of the kids' bedrooms. Instead, we're suggesting new doors leading out to a small deck on the adjoining flat roof. (That is, if the village doesn't count outdoor decks as indoor square footage.) We're also taking a close look at built-ins. For example, in lieu of built-in cubbies in the mud room, we might go with brightly colored IKEA lockers. In the laundry room, we can re-use cabinets from the existing kitchen. The home office is open to many substitutions.

More than money, the thing that's keeping me up at night (this week) is that I'm terrified of picking the wrong person for the job. For me, Karma is as critical as price in these matters. Husband doesn't care if the contractor smells of shaving gel and body odor. He doesn't care if used coffee cups tumble out of the pick up truck when he opens the door. If you can't understand him over the din of the cicadas, no bother.  (i don't know how to crop this photo---if you click it you will be treated to a picture of a cicada on a blade of grass)

I bother. I'm looking for "a feeling" about these guys and so far am coming up with nothing. Also, the "mom network" is providing mixed reviews. For example:

Ernie: A woman I met at church highly recommends this contractor (all names are changed), but a neighbor whom I've never met told another neighbor to "warn me" that he bids low and gouges later.

Ted: You can learn more on the sidelines of a sporting event than your kid will pick up on the infield. At my daughter's field hockey practices, I've met several moms who used Ted; the overall opinion is that he's a nice guy who does good work but takes forever. One mom said: "You should only hire him if you don't care how long it takes." He's been working on her addition for a year and a half.

Nicolai: He's recommended by Miguel, but is hard to understand.

I'll keep using Ambien until we figure this out.

Noise

I grew up in the corner of a converted attic of an old Colonial home. I guess it's a stretch to say I grew up in a corner...I slept there, played there and talked on the phone way more than I ever did any homework up there. It was my bedroom, a cozy nest with yellow shag carpeting, sloped ceilings and windows that opened with a crank. The only downside to my third-floor hide-away was that it was insufferably hot in the summer. So from Memorial Day until well into September, I slept on the sleeping porch.

Oh, to have a sleeping porch! It was a sparse, narrow room off the master  bedroom, with three walls of hinged windows, a bead-board ceiling and painted wood floorboards that creaked beneath my bare feet. When we couldn't sleep, my sister Christine and I would watch airplaines glide silently from one end of the window-wall to the other, faraway and deep into the night. We felt so safe against their smallness.

Except for during massive storms that turned the sky the color of Stretch Armstrong, we always left the windows open on the sleeping porch. And while the screens did a pretty good job of keeping out the bugs, the smells and sounds of summer were vivid from our breezy causeway: purple lilac from the patio below; sugar-sweet magnolia, pungent skunk. I wish I knew the names of all the bugs and animals that performed in the night-time symphony, like the dense cricket choir, the frantic whirl of locusts, racoons caterwauling in the dark as they tipped tin trash cans onto our old blacktop driveway. No matter how hot it was, no matter how thick with humidity the air, it was always cool and peaceful on the sleeping porch.

Many years ago, we sold the house to a family who enclosed the porch, wrapped it in floor-to-ceiling book shelves and plunked a massive air conditioner condenser on the patio. It's just as well, because the night is noisy now. The days are too, what with all the air conditioner condensers as big as small pianos, lawn mowers the size of golf carts, and airplanes that fly so low you can make out the logo on the jet wing. I wonder what the sub-terrainian ecosystem makes of all our noisy clatter?

What do you make of it? Everyone I know --eveyone but me and husband--runs their AC all spring and summer long. When I go into my friends' houses during the summer, I always want to borrow a sweater. When my friends come into my steamy house, they want to leave. One recent summer, my friend Isobel walked into my living room and cried out: "Adrienne! Your candles are melting!"

OK--so they were bending over a little from the heat. So what? Candles are cheap; and isn't humidity good for the complexion? Doesn't everyone in the Midwest and Northeast know that no matter how hot it is when you go to bed, there's almost always a bit of a breeze by 2 o'clock in the morning? And that it's OK to sweat? And that we're not supposed to sleep under down comforters in August?

I admit to being extreme in my appreciation for sweaty weather. And yes, I will install central air in the renovated portion of our house (for investment purposes!) But we won't run it very often, especially not at night. I want our kids to grow up falling asleep to the cricket lullabye. I want them to hear cats screaming like laboring women in the night and to know how unusual it is to hear a coyote howling in the suburbs. I want them to appreciate the difference between a cicada and a locust, and to wake up to a woodpecker's taptaptapping on the hickory tree beneath their window. I want us all to hear the rain fall like pennies on the roof.

Of course, we moved into our house on Halloween and I have no idea where the next-door neighbor's air conditioner condenser is situated. Probably it's below my youngest-daughter's window, she being the nature girl of the family. Probably it's huge, like their spacious shingle spec home that's less than six feet from my living room.

VVVvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.

The Secret To Happiness

At church yesterday an older woman gave a talk about "The 10 Commandments and Environmental Stewardship." It was timely stuff, given that it was Earth Day. But I had a hard time staying focused on the lecture. There were so many interesting spring outfits to admire, and after such a dreary winter the stained glass windows took on a whole new life with sunlight poring in.

But between "thou shall honor thy mother and father" (ma nature and God) and "thou shall not commit adultery" (don't cheat the earth), the priest said something that really caught my attention: She said: "Oh by the way, do you know the secret to happiness?"

Well, no, I wanted to say. That's why I go to church.

The priest, who wore her silver hair wrapped in a bun, said she learned the secret long ago from her childhood friend, a girl named Mary Louise, who had in turn learned it from her mother. This is what the mother had said:

"The secret to happiness, Mary Louise, is to want what you have."

Amen!

The Sears Wish Book

My sisters and I used to ogle every page of the Sears Catalog Wish Book when it arrived at our house in the outer-boondocks of Chicago every December. Like all the kids in our split-level neighborhood, we'd check off every item we wanted: barbie cars; pogo sticks; giant stuffed snakes in psychedelic colors. Every page offered a wider array of things to dream about.

So when my friend Therese e-mailed me the other day to say she saw my exact house in a suburb of Madison, WI, we began to wonder:  Could these be Sears Roebuck & Co. mail-order kit houses?

An initial search on the internet leads me to believe "my" circa 1920s Dutch Colonial is some sort of kit house---possibly Sears but more likely another less famous brand. Dutch Colonial homes like mine with gambrel roofs, double-entry doors and two-story garages exist in older suburbs throughout the Northeast and Midwest, although they've been classic tear-down targets due to their smaller rooms and stingy bathroom options--by today's standards. (Footnote: They also have high ceilings, great millwork and steal-beams in the basement.)

Does anyone in the house-blogosphere know how to find out if a home is a mail-order kit house and if so, from which company?