Big work projects trump house projects

Hi every and anyone who is still checking my blog, and apparently there are a few of you out there. Thanks!

Only two projects remain: a fence and a new front walk. Both have stalled out due to a combination of procrastination, way too much to do at work, and, well, avoidance of spending any more money! Both must happen, though, and when they do, you'll see it here. Till then, push and prod me and maybe I'll get around to both.

Before pictures

On demand, here are some more pictures of the house when I bought it and just before the renovation (not much difference except some cleanup over the two years I was procrastinating...).

1. Curb appeal! February 2006:


2. The front entry. The front walk actually looks better here than it does now; it's basically a big trench full of tree roots. Early 2008:


3. Love the indoor/outdoor access to the backyard. Not. Spring 2008:

Signing off (almost).

I'm almost all done. Tuesday the Kiwis will come by to go over the site, make a list of anything left to do, etc.

I've been painting a lot--not done yet! It's amazing how long it takes. I've been listening to Reading Lolita in Tehran while I paint; so I'm always going to associate my French doors with stories of bombings and Henry James novels in Tehran in the 1980s. My washer/dryer arrive tomorrow & I finally have the name of a reliable fence person.

This morning, I sat on the deck, drank my coffee, and read the paper and couldn't believe how perfect it was. Finally, I have a house that interacts with the outdoors and will allow me to live the way I want. Yay!

Eventually I'll probably mount one final post with photos of the final elements--pantry, front walk, fence, but for now I'm signing off until future notice. Till then, thanks for reading.

--Molly

Pantry in progress...

This weekend I did a ton of work. I painted the pantry, put in its new floor, and did paint touch-up all throughout the interior of the house, repainting most of the kitchen in the process. I bought the washer-dryer and even scouted pantry storage at Ikea. Whew! Here's what the pantry floor looks like, in progress and after. It's fake wood, which I am against in principle, but it was the best option and it will look really great once the trim is painted.

Here's the old floor with the first few strips of new floor. It is waterproof and sticks to itself, rather than to the floor beneath, which seemed to be the best option considering the grossness of my old vinyl. The blue on the vinyl is a leveling compound to keep the embossing from showing through on he new floor. But it was really hard to apply on a 95-degree day with the doors open (I'd rather ventilate than get cancer). It was drying really fast, which created bumps and streaks, so I don't know if it was even worth trying. The back door used to be straight ahead:

It was pretty fun to install actually. I got to use my quilter's cutting pad and be really anal about trimming the pieces to fit. The Kiwis installed baseboard this morning while they were here doing a few final tidbits of work:


Ta da! To give you a sense of the pantry, it's 7 feet across and almost six feet deep. I think I'm going to get a Costco membership, finally.

The end is nigh...

Things are winding up; from now on it's me painting the interior, buying a washer/dryer, installing shelving in the pantry, and hiring a fence company. Oh, and paying the Kiwis one more big huge check. The electricians put in the various fixtures today & the Kiwis put up various other bits of hardware. Here's the porch. Now all it needs is a big potted plant and a bench. Home sweet home!:


OK, wait a minute. I believe it is officially time for a before/after comparison. See the realtor's lock box on the door in the picture below? That's February 2006. Note, too, that directly behind me was a walled-in screen door to the outside:

Paint, porch, deck railings, oh my!

I absolutely adore the paint colors! I've been walking around giggling this morning because I still can't believe this is my house:

The colors are Sherwin Williams: Shagreen on the walls with Restoration Ivory trim and River Rock sashes. I haven't seen a single house in Austin with a similar paint combination in my months of obsessive paint-color stalking. It is actually a bit washed out in the photographs--the green is really bright. I was worried that the cream would be too acid, but it looks absolutely perfect! Check out the beautiful "columns" around the front porch, which perfectly mimic the picture I drew for the Kiwis before I left. Also, the brand new Ipe wood porch (sustainable and termite- and water-resistant, and it turns out, also used on my sister's front porch in Seattle!):

The deck railing also went in. I think it looks really gorgeous. Putting the rails in pairs gives it a bit of character:


The deck underpinning is almost installed. It's made of hogwire, a really great material used a lot around Austin. It looks a bit busy right now with the railing and the underpinning, but my hope is that I will be able to train vines on the underpinning so that the entire underside of the deck is made of greenery:

Is the suspense killing you yet?

OK, so you're all waiting very patiently. Hilary and Sidney, you two get gold stars for extra enthusiasm!

All the blame rests on the shoulders of the SuperShuttle driver, who decided to bypass my house and drop off some other guy first even though my house was closer, which means I didn't get home until after dark, so no pictures. But as far as I can tell the paint looks gorgeous, the front porch is lovely, and the railings on the back deck are fabulous!

Final touches before the paint...

I had to finalize my paint colors today. TRAUMA! I am the worst decider ever, but whether I like it or not, I am, in fact, the decider. Sigh. OK, but no matter what, it's going to look beautiful in this dappled light:

Notice that those windows have trim! The house is almost entirely trimmed out in preparation for the painters. Today they came and scraped the windows in preparation of reglazing most of them (big job). They also powerwashed the soffits and fascia. That was, um, exciting. Note the nice new soffit and fascia on the laundry room, not to mention the wide-open doors from the other day when the temperature dropped down to the 80s after a rainstorm. I can't believe my house ever didn't have a deck here:

The windows all have trim. The faux columns on the edges of the front porch and the Ipe porch floor will be done in the next three or four days!! Updates will begin again next Wednesday. Thanks for reading!:

Not much to report...

Hi there! Things are slow in the photograph department; not many changes while we were waiting for the stucco to dry and then waiting for the rain to stop. And I've been swamped at work. But progress is being made! More pictures soon.

And so on...

It just keeps getting better. Is this really my house??:

Fabulous progress: foundation skirting

The skirting guys finally showed up and got started around 9:30. When I got home from work, they were still working and will continue for a while to get the first layer of stucco installed. Take a look:


They begin with Tyvek, which they then cover with a metal mesh:

They mix up the concrete and slather it on:

Tomorrow they will come back and cut out the vents and put a finish layer on top.

The deck now has stairs, and I felt like the queen of the castle standing up on it for the first time, surveying my (trashed) domain:

Deck continued...

Things are moving along! The deck is almost done, except for the railings. As you may be able to see, there is mulch spread underneath for the benefit of the live oak. I hope that by tonight there will be stairs and hardware on the door so I can sit outside and read my book. I love the way the tree bows down over the deck:


I am very glad to see the stone walls on either side of the walkway begin to disappear. They may seem charming, but they chop up the yard and make it hard to walk around--and really hard to move the lawnmower!:

Here's the corner where I hope to put a rainwater collection barrel! I hope it works out; it could provide a good deal of the irrigation for all the plantings that will eventually soften the deck:

Today the foundation skirting guys start work. At least, I think they are coming because they delivered all their equipment to my carport last night. It's 9:00 and nobody is here yet....An unusually leisurely Wednesday morning for me so far!

Deck framed; tree saga part II

The deck is now framed! The posts are cedar, and the parts of frame that won't be seen are pressure-treated pine. The decking and railings will be cedar. The posts are a lot taller than they will be when the deck is done. That's primer on the French doors:


The Kiwis used the old 4-inch thick pavers from the front walk as the "pads" on which the deck is floated. They're really good about reusing materials. You can see the board just under the frame that delineates the 12' long staircase here:


Speaking of the front walk, the tree folks came on Friday to excavate around the tree so the foundation guys can get in legally to remove and replace the skirting on Monday. They used a powerful air "shovel" that does not cut the roots, and excavated around the tree the necessary distance for the foundation guys, but also went all the way around the tree to excavate its root crown for the tree's benefit.

First of all, here's a picture of what was up against the foundation skirting underground--a big mass of roots (the black paint is wound paint for all the cut roots). The tree guys' supervisor had to come by to give them permission to remove it. Double click on the picture to see it larger. Sorry about the glare:

After they removed that big mass of roots, the last piece of remaining asbestos was revealed! Hooray! As you can see, the tree has a beautiful base, which had been covered over decades with layer after layer of decomposing leaf matter that became soil. The root crown should be exposed like this for the long-term health of the tree:

You can really see the soil line in this next picture. I don't know if you can tell, but the root crown was buried about 12 inches underground!

The most important result of this all is that I'm going to have to put in a new front walk. The old one heads directly for what will now be exposed tree roots. I will also regrade the soil around the tree so it slopes gently to the new soil level at the base of the tree. This is the only unplanned expense so far in this project--the house has been blessedly on budget. This will be a very expensive project but worth it. The tree is a huge part of the house's value (more so even now that it has an elegant base!). I must graciously bow to the old tree and serve it well, for it's been around a lot longer than I have, and if I treat it well, hopefully it will outlive me too.

Doors, new window frame, more siding!

Check it out! No more back old back door. Or washer/dryer (Janine, I'll be coming over to borrow yours. Thought you might like to know!):

Without the door and the railing, it almost looks like there's never been a door there (well, if you ignore the big staircase). Ta-da!:

I came home today to the most beautiful sight I could ask for. The old rotted window has been replaced:

Having trouble remembering it?:

The Kiwis also sided the rest of the front of the house:

And they started putting caps on corners. It's starting to look like a real house!:

Now you can leave a comment easily!

Dear friends, I had no idea until this morning that you needed to register to leave a comment on my blog. Oops! I've reset it so that anyone can post without needing to do anything (except verify that you are an actual human, and not a spam machine, by typing a word that appears on the screen before you post).

Sorry about that! Please do post a comment if you are so inclined. You know I love feedback.

Front door; paint colors

The front door is in & the porch is mostly sided now. I'm going to stain the front door--how on earth can I cover that with paint?:

Now I'm contemplating paint colors. Here are four possible schemes, painted on the shed. I've laid them out one by one below after this introductory picture, in the order going from left to right. Please pick your favorite. The colors don't really come across accurately on the computer screen, of course...

Each option is in the following order from left to right: window sashes, window trim, walls. The sashes are very dark in the manner of lots of traditional cottages I've looked at; the dark color will contrast with the white shades inside the house so you can really see the six over six window detail, which you really can't right now; the white sashes disappear on the house right now.

#1: Green walls, light green trim (looks more like cream here) and teal sashing

#2 Same walls and trim but with a bluer version of the teal sashing. It's my current favorite:

#3 A subdued "agave" blue with cream trim and off-black sashing:

#4 A lighter blue wall with the same trim & sashing (see group picture for a sense of how different these blues really are):

French doors are in and fabulous

Doors! Porches! Skirting! Oh my!

Today I left chocolate chip cookies for the Kiwis. I figure they'll be more amenable to my endless questions and opinions if they are drugged.

We talked about the edge of the deck...extensively. "Why oh why," I imagine them wondering, "does this woman care so much about every detail?? What kind of freak architecture nazi did we decide to work with??" But they listen and then beautifully execute what we've discussed. Bravo!

We also discussed the foundation skirting (also known as an "underpinning," it hides the underside of the house, which is mounted on what's called a pier and beam foundation, very common in this region), which had been a bit of a point of contention last week, when they were trying to convince me to make it out of Hardie, which I just wasn't thrilled with. I wanted the more standard Texas skirting, which is a wire mesh covered with stucco. The Kiwis were convinced that would be way too expensive, but I pushed them and they agreed to talk to a skirting specialist. Good news! I can get the stucco skirting for about the same price. I'm learning that it's worth it to be pushy when something feels wrong (and then make cookies).

Take a look at the beautiful work they did yesterday. Here, the new fascia and soffits around the old bathroom popout were installed:

Siding was added to part of the front of the house, and on the side of the house some of the water table was installed. That's the white lip under the siding, which creates a barrier that prevents rain from getting in between the siding and the skirting. It also adds beauty to the house:

The Kiwis had to do some rigging with the siding in the front. Over the decades the house has been very sloooooowly lifted by the tree roots, and if you stand directly in front of the window at the right in the photo and look carefully, you see that the roofline and the window bow. Because the oak grows so slowly, there is no danger to the house's structural integrity (a statement made before I bought the house by the house inspector, and confirmed by the Kiwis this morning). They carefully installed the siding to create an optical illusion that hides the bowing. The quilter in me loves that!

Today they made further progress. First of all, the doors arrived this morning!:

The remainder of the old front porch is gone and new framing went in. And the porch was mostly sided. Wow, it looks really different; much calmer and more elegant:

Oy. That picture's making me seasick. Here's a calmer one.

That's it! See you next time.