A story about birds.

S went on a much-anticipated duck hunting trip on the Eastern Shore over the weekend. (Spoiler: No ducks were harmed in the course of this outing.) It was a scant 10 degrees, and despite the guys' best efforts at setting up their decoys, crouching in the blind and quacking on their duck calls, no ducks came close enough to even attempt a shot. S came home Saturday night a bit chilled, but he said it was a blast (bad choice of words) anyway. Instead of duck confit, we had Wendy's for dinner.

Yet the avian world took its revenge on us anyway.

We spent all day Sunday away from home, between going to church and doing laundry at S's parents' house and shopping for groceries. We returned home Sunday evening to find bird crap all over the second floor of the house. It was on the stair railings and newel posts, on my vanity table, on the hallway windowsill, on the tissue box on my bedside table. Everywhere. Though we looked on (and cleaned) every surface, I'm sure we will continue to find it for the rest of the week. There was that much of it.

We looked high and low. We could not find the offending bird(s). We looked in the curtains, the light fixtures, the closets, under the beds... It was like our nightly stinkbug hunt expanded exponentially. Whatever we found, we were going to burn at the stake. But the bird(s) must have gotten out the same way they got in -- and the only possible entry is through very, very small gaps in the sheeting separating the master suite and the main hallway. A bird would seriously have to suck in his gut and fold his wings to get through.

And, if they knew to go back out the same narrow way they came in, then surely they had no other reason to fly around crapping on our stuff than for spite.

I sure hope they had fun on their little adventure through our side of the house. (It is arguable as to whom the other side belongs--us or the animal kingdom.) Either way, it seems that we're the ones who ended up with the fun souvenirs and the mess to clean up.

I hope they know this means war.

Image from qwipster.net.

Currently Reading: There, I Fixed It

I was doing a little googling about industrial sinks over the weekend, and I stumbled on a fun blog called "There, I Fixed It" that features redneck repairs and epically botched fixes. Such as this awesomely rigged sink, for example. Genius (if you like sitting down while you wash dishes.)

And look! Another great use for old pallets.

I had a lot of fun poking around this blog. Sadly, a lot of the posts reminded me of the not-so-charming quirks -- referred to as "improvements" by the previous owner -- we've discovered throughout our renovation. Like metal shelving used as floor joists, and a towel jammed into a corner (then drywalled over) to plug a leak in the roof.

Another great place to boost your DIY self-esteem is the Home Inspection Nightmares section on thisoldhouse.com, complete with tons of photo galleries featuring hilariously bad home improvement decisions made by people like you and me. Except we're a few IQ points smarter... most days.

Today was the first day I had to scrape my windshield this season, so I felt the need to share something fun. Happy reading!

Kitchen Demo

So we hoped to have the siding all painted by now, but unfortunately it has been raining like crazy for the past two weeks. (Renovation tip of the day: You can't paint the exterior of your house when it's raining.) Instead we did more work on the kitchen.

Believe it or not, even after filling 5 or 6 of those giant 30-yard dumpsters over the past two years, we still have some demolition to do around this place. We haven't finished it all yet because some of the things that need removing are actually helping to support part of the house. However, since the foundation work is in progress in the kitchen, it's time to get going with the demo because the floor needs to be poured soon!

Saturday we tore down the little room in the far corner of the kitchen, to the left of the brick fireplace (which I also fully uncovered and cleaned up over the weekend). Check it out in the photo below. It was an odd little room, and we really don't know what it was for.

This little room did unlock many cool treasures though. When we pulled up the floor boards, we found hundreds of glass bottles and various other junk stashed in the dirt under it. I saved all the bottles that were still in tact -- one of which may be worth enough to buy the bar stools we want! My camera battery died so I didn't get to take any photos of our treasures in situ, but I will dedicate an entire post to them later. Perhaps a long-gone previous owner operated a little dispensary out of this room, because most of the bottles were medicinal. I wonder if I could research that somehow...

Anyway, according to the handy dandy kitchen floor plan we put together, this is the area where the stove and wall oven will go. I'm so excited I can almost taste it!

Recipes Wanted

This is our temporary "kitchen," shoved unceremoniously into the corner of the living room. You can maybe see why I generally crop it out when posting living room photos.

It looks a little pathetic, but we are SO thrilled to have a functioning fridge after 18 months without... Cold drinks! Ice! Food preservation! Fortunately S's parents live close by and have an open door policy on their home and refrigerator, or we'd have never survived this long.

That said, the little toaster/convection oven is our only means of cooking right now. Our microwave is MIA and we don't have a grill yet... so if anyone has any oven-only recipes, please send them my way! I googled with frustrating results. It doesn't count if you have to brown everything first! Anyway I'd like to try making some little casseroles and stuff just for the fun of it. I think buying a grill is going to become a priority here shortly.

FYI just behind the fridge is the doorway (currently blocked off with insulation and blankets) that will eventually lead into the dining room, with a few steps ascending where the fridge currently sits. Obviously, the dining room is not our #1 priority since we aren't doing a lot of cooking...

But I will if you send me recipes! Oven-only, preferably easily halved to fit into the world's smallest baking dish... Anyone have an inspired ideas?

Step by Step Staircase Transformation

I finally finished painting the stairs over the weekend. What a tedious task! I thought I'd never finish, but I love how they turned out...

The picture above is a little deceiving, because it's not the exact same pair of steps. In fact, we completely relocated the staircase altogether -- installing the new set perpendicular to where the old set had been. (The picture's portrayal of the grossness of the original stairs is pretty accurate though.)

This might help you visualize the change a little better. The picture below was taken at the same angle (notice the window is the same). In the top picture the stairs descend off to the left in front of the stove, whereas in the bottom picture the stairs descend where the old sink and cabinetry used to be. Personally I like the hallway better than the kitchen...

Here's the process of how the steps came to look so lovely. It only took about 15 months, but we've finally got something here!

That's my dad (above), prepping the wood for stain. And that's my arm, doing its staining thing (below). You have to be a little messy to make sure it gets in the cracks. (Now you know why I didn't show you the "in progress" pictures before. Slightly scary.)

And then, voila! After much taping and painting (and repeating), we have gorgeous black and white steps! Loving the crispness.

Like I said... I'm excited. It's amazing what a little stain and paint and patience can do. It just makes everything feel more finished. That is, if you ignore the fact that half the house is still gutted... But let's not think about that for awhile, k?

Rock Bottom

Fortunately, it looks like Pit of Despair #2 is going to be a short-lived phenomenon. Coming soon: concrete. Lots of concrete.

P.S. Pardon the terrible photo quality of these kitchen posts. It's impossibly dusty in there.

Pit of Despair #2

Remember how our living room used to have a door that led to a giant hole in the ground? Well, here we go again -- this time in the kitchen:

The floor has been ripped out to reveal, as suspected, that the foundation stops in the middle of the room. That row of stones along the left is the original foundation (circa 1900). Everything to the left of those stones (a good 6+ feet of house) is sitting precariously on crumbly dirt. At one point many decades ago, someone decided to enclose what used to be the front porch without making sure the porch was built on a solid foundation.

I am reminded of that Sunday School song, "The foolish man built his house upon the sand..."

What does this mean? Well, we (meaning S's dad and co.) have to dig out and pour a new section of foundation under the area that doesn't have one. Then we'll bring in a whole bunch of rocks to fill in this black hole, then pour more concrete to tie everything together into a firm, stable base. Meanwhile, we're busy trying to design the layout of the kitchen, because all the plumbing has to be run before the concrete is finished. (!!!!!)

Why does everything have to be such an emergency around here? I feel like every project comes with the same warning: "Hurry up and make a decision or the house will fall down." Literally.

House of Leaves

A few years ago my mom bought me "House of Leaves" for Christmas and my brain exploded a little with every labyrinthine page. Our house has had basically the same effect. Recently S and I were tearing down some plaster in the dining room and discovered this little architectural phenomenon:

Apologies that it's so blurry, but all I had with me was my cellphone camera. Check out these twin staircases! The one on the left was the original, and we discovered it when we began tearing down the lath-and-plaster dining room wall beside the chimney.

Apparently someone many decades ago did not like the direction the stairs faced, so they built a new staircase (on the right), closing the original behind a wall and building a new floor over the opening at the top. They didn't tear it down because the basement stairs were lined up underneath, and those were still in use until we ripped them out. So for 50 years there was this creepy hidden staircase creating a huge dead space in the center of the house.

I was glad when S took the sledgehammer to it, because it looked seriously haunted. One more oddity bites the dust. We're making progress!

Timberrr!

Our house came complete with an ugly (and dangerous) eyesore on the front right side, in the form of an addition that kind of hung off the house like a bird's nest. Exhibit A, in the red circle:

We discovered that it was sitting on just a couple 4x4s and one 6x6 post, and the floor joists were not really joists at all, but instead were pieces of metal shelving! I am not kidding, and I am sure the previous owner did not have a permit to build this abomination that he evidently called a family room. With its obvious flaws, we figured it would fall right off with little coaxing. HA!

Beginning the day of the Demolition Party, we started disassembling it and carefully knocking out the posts underneath, one by one, with the hope it would start to collapse. No such luck. We even had all S's former football teammates try to pull it off with a giant rope. Again, no such luck.

Eventually, S took a giant sledgehammer and knocked all the support posts and possible mainstays out from underneath it except for that single 6x6. This process made me very nervous, but still the stalwart beast wouldn't budge. Then he started notching the post to weaken it so that we could pull it from a distance. More nervousness, and still no collapse. Eventually it came to this--S and his dad with a ratchet strap, and me and my dad standing clear:

Much grunting and heaving later, the moment we've all been waiting for arrives.......

......and I am sad to report that it was a bit anticlimactic. We were hoping for utter decimation and loud crashes, but the thing just basically creaked its way down. S's dad eventually borrowed a friend's tractor and yanked the rest of it off. Basically the only thing holding it up was the siding! It was a mess to say the least, and it took a few days of intense labor to haul it all to the dumpster. Even though we didn't get the big bang we were hoping for, we and our house can finally breathe!

The Pit of Despair

Here's a perfect example of the weird issues with our house. When you attempt to enter the living room from the dining room, the door opens on a small landing in the middle of a staircase. Going left (upstairs) takes you to the small in-laws' apartment, or going right takes you downstairs to the living room. If you choose the downward path, you first have to walk UP two stairs so that you have enough room to navigate around the door, because it opens outward and blocks the downward route -- not leaving enough room to swing closed with you standing there. We're eventually going to move the stairs altogether, so this mazelike situation will no longer be a problem.

Anyway, once you finally figure out how to get into the living room, this is what it looks like:


Not too bad, right? Nice natural lighting--just in need of some cosmetic work. Or so it would seem... But then when you open the door just behind my mom (who always looks this fabulous, by the way), you encounter this:

What we have here, my friends, is an abyss! A door that leads to nowhere. The previous owner apparently ran out of money when building the addition, so he finished half of the living room and blocked off the other half for a rainy day. He also stashed a bunch of junk (toys, magazines, building materials, things that giant spiders like to build webs on, etc.) under the floor that my mother-in-law and I had a fun time fishing out over the weekend.
At some point we'll have to get some new joists, build a new floor and make this into one big spacious living room. Very exciting, I think. I'm also considering an indoor jacuzzi... or maybe we could be a stop on the Underground Railroad!

Warning: Toxic Material

Our first major task is under way! We and our brave friend Greg are removing vast amounts of this toxic powdery insulation from our attic wearing protective suits and respirators. In addition to the dust, we are actually removing the entire attic altogether--mainly because it causes the second floor ceilings to be only 6 feet high! So this is what our master bedroom currently looks like:

I didn't count how many bags of this stuff we filled, but good riddance! Here is my mother-in-law demonstrating the original height of the ceilings before we ripped them down:

I can't wait to see what this master suite will look like with cathedral ceilings and exposed beams.