My wife sent me this picture last Wednesday...
It doesn't look like much, but it meant that this mess...
could result in the following march...
back to their home...
Monday, February 20, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Floors
In the last post, I mentioned damages from hurricane Ike. We were fortunate and had very little damage. Aside from being without power for nine days, we had some water damage near an external door and some other issues resulting from a large branch falling from a neighbor's tree.
After such events, insurance companies are hard pressed to respond to all of their clients requests, so for awhile, anyone with a pulse can perform the role of insurance adjuster. None of our damage was bad, so we decided to hold off on our repairs, knowing that all competent contractors would be scheduled for some time to come. Truth be told, we waited until we could get a second look by competent adjusters too.
The first adjuster reported four cracked joists in the roof; my untrained eye saw six. We were probably already due for a new roof in 2008, so when the time came in December 2011, we used the insurance funds and replaced the entire roof.
The first adjuster reported the damage to the hardwoods and included enough to sand and refinish that room. The second adjuster knew that you couldn't stop sanding at a doorframe if there was no break in the flooring. Also, that you would never get a perfect color match again during the refinishing. Also, that you'd have to remove/replace the shoe molding and do some painting. So, basically, we would be sanding and refinishing 70% of the house as a result of a minor leak near the back door.
The kitchen was tile. Ugly tile. Really ugly, cheap tile. While we're replacing the cabinets, why not get new floors in the kitchen?
The bedroom had carpet. Cheap carpet that's had been destroyed by the ex-husband's dog and occasional cat vomit. While we're doing all this other work, why not replace the horrid carpet in the bedroom?
...and like that, we're doing something to 90% of the floors in the house. Only the bathrooms have survived.
The hardwoods were the original hardwoods from the 1920s. They showed all the character, impurities and wear you'd expect from ninety year old hardwoods...and by wear, I include several previous sandings. One floor expert informed us that these floors had enough depth for two or three sandings remaining. Also remember that in the 1920's, they did not employ a subfloor. The only thing between us and the outside is that 3/4 inch of wood...less than 3/4 inch.
Niether of us want to seem them go, but wouldn't it be nice to have an extra couple layers of wood providing insulation? Wouldn't it be nice to have a single surface throughout the house? Wouldn't it be nice to have the floor replacement behind us, rather than in front of us?
Keeping, sanding and refinishing the floors would involve packing up everything we own and moving out for about two weeks while the work is done. The cats don't pack well, so they would come with us to a hotel. Replacing the floors will involve moving as much as we can into a POD in the driveway, moving furniture around as the work progresses. We're halfway through but it feels like we've been camping in our own home forever. I know we made the right call and that this is the choice-of-least-hassle, but I grow weary.
After such events, insurance companies are hard pressed to respond to all of their clients requests, so for awhile, anyone with a pulse can perform the role of insurance adjuster. None of our damage was bad, so we decided to hold off on our repairs, knowing that all competent contractors would be scheduled for some time to come. Truth be told, we waited until we could get a second look by competent adjusters too.
The first adjuster reported four cracked joists in the roof; my untrained eye saw six. We were probably already due for a new roof in 2008, so when the time came in December 2011, we used the insurance funds and replaced the entire roof.
The first adjuster reported the damage to the hardwoods and included enough to sand and refinish that room. The second adjuster knew that you couldn't stop sanding at a doorframe if there was no break in the flooring. Also, that you would never get a perfect color match again during the refinishing. Also, that you'd have to remove/replace the shoe molding and do some painting. So, basically, we would be sanding and refinishing 70% of the house as a result of a minor leak near the back door.
The kitchen was tile. Ugly tile. Really ugly, cheap tile. While we're replacing the cabinets, why not get new floors in the kitchen?
The bedroom had carpet. Cheap carpet that's had been destroyed by the ex-husband's dog and occasional cat vomit. While we're doing all this other work, why not replace the horrid carpet in the bedroom?
...and like that, we're doing something to 90% of the floors in the house. Only the bathrooms have survived.
The hardwoods were the original hardwoods from the 1920s. They showed all the character, impurities and wear you'd expect from ninety year old hardwoods...and by wear, I include several previous sandings. One floor expert informed us that these floors had enough depth for two or three sandings remaining. Also remember that in the 1920's, they did not employ a subfloor. The only thing between us and the outside is that 3/4 inch of wood...less than 3/4 inch.
Niether of us want to seem them go, but wouldn't it be nice to have an extra couple layers of wood providing insulation? Wouldn't it be nice to have a single surface throughout the house? Wouldn't it be nice to have the floor replacement behind us, rather than in front of us?
Keeping, sanding and refinishing the floors would involve packing up everything we own and moving out for about two weeks while the work is done. The cats don't pack well, so they would come with us to a hotel. Replacing the floors will involve moving as much as we can into a POD in the driveway, moving furniture around as the work progresses. We're halfway through but it feels like we've been camping in our own home forever. I know we made the right call and that this is the choice-of-least-hassle, but I grow weary.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Remodel
Where shall we begin our story? Do we begin with a sale at IKEA in the fall of 2011? Do we begin with hurricane Ike and the long deferred repairs that resulted? How about the horribly cheap remodel of the kitchen performed sometime in the 1980's or 1990's? Yes, let's start there...
Good Ideas / Bad Ideas
First, let's remember that this house was built in the 1920's. Back in those days, you had a kitchen and you had a living room and you had thick walls between them. Today, that's not what we want in our homes. Today, we look for large, open areas that flow together. Fortunately for Sharon and I, someone had already performed that transformation on this house during a previous remodel. Somewhere along the line, someone had torn out the wall between the kitchen and living room, and added a master bedroom to the back of the house. For a 1920's bungalo in The Heights, we started all this with a fairly large kitchen....large in square footage, but short on utility.
Just because you have a great deal of space allocated to a room, does not mean that space can be put to use. For an example, let's take a look at the wall with the sink.
There are upper cabinets, lower cabinets and then, presumably because there needs to be access to the panty, the cabinets stop and there is an odd, basically useless corner. The pantry is nice and deep, but also contains the washer and dryer. Continuing along that wall, we have the refrigerator and an open corner connecting a living room and a hall to the bedroom. Continuing to rotate around the room, as you look into the living room, you find the only other cabinets and the one viable work area; a space we refer to as "the peninsula."
The peninsula, being central to the space, collects clutter and as a result ends up being a much smaller space than it at first appears. Those two problems (weird corner, few workspaces) did not become apparent until we had used and lived in the kitchen for some time. There's another, bigger problem that was far easier to spot : those are cheap, cheap cabinets.
Perhaps it was because they were already paying to knock out a wall and/or add an entire master suite to the house, but they decided they could save some money by going to the back of the big box hardware store and buying the cheapest cabinets they could find. Your know, the ones that expect to be installed in your garage. They are mostly particle board, have cheap pulls and pathetic supporting hardware. Some of the drawer slides were already beyond repair by the time we stared dating (I would have to find other ways to prove my worthiness).
What Next
Sharon knew that the kitchen would have to be remodeled before she even bought the place. She'd been doing a little research on the side and knew that IKEA's cabinets were tops in quality and reliability. More dependable than custom cabinets and half the cost. She knew what she wanted, but kept pushing it off and waiting for that someday...
How did someday happen? I don't know. The 20% off sale at IKEA certainly helped. 20% off of the best quality and best price? Done. They have a company that will help you design the layout of your kitchen for a mere $179 and provide installation services? Done. The only wrinkle was that the sale ended in November and we wouldn't be ready to install the new kitchen until February....so we've been living with boxes for months.
Good Ideas / Bad Ideas
First, let's remember that this house was built in the 1920's. Back in those days, you had a kitchen and you had a living room and you had thick walls between them. Today, that's not what we want in our homes. Today, we look for large, open areas that flow together. Fortunately for Sharon and I, someone had already performed that transformation on this house during a previous remodel. Somewhere along the line, someone had torn out the wall between the kitchen and living room, and added a master bedroom to the back of the house. For a 1920's bungalo in The Heights, we started all this with a fairly large kitchen....large in square footage, but short on utility.
Just because you have a great deal of space allocated to a room, does not mean that space can be put to use. For an example, let's take a look at the wall with the sink.
There are upper cabinets, lower cabinets and then, presumably because there needs to be access to the panty, the cabinets stop and there is an odd, basically useless corner. The pantry is nice and deep, but also contains the washer and dryer. Continuing along that wall, we have the refrigerator and an open corner connecting a living room and a hall to the bedroom. Continuing to rotate around the room, as you look into the living room, you find the only other cabinets and the one viable work area; a space we refer to as "the peninsula."
The peninsula, being central to the space, collects clutter and as a result ends up being a much smaller space than it at first appears. Those two problems (weird corner, few workspaces) did not become apparent until we had used and lived in the kitchen for some time. There's another, bigger problem that was far easier to spot : those are cheap, cheap cabinets.
Perhaps it was because they were already paying to knock out a wall and/or add an entire master suite to the house, but they decided they could save some money by going to the back of the big box hardware store and buying the cheapest cabinets they could find. Your know, the ones that expect to be installed in your garage. They are mostly particle board, have cheap pulls and pathetic supporting hardware. Some of the drawer slides were already beyond repair by the time we stared dating (I would have to find other ways to prove my worthiness).
What Next
Sharon knew that the kitchen would have to be remodeled before she even bought the place. She'd been doing a little research on the side and knew that IKEA's cabinets were tops in quality and reliability. More dependable than custom cabinets and half the cost. She knew what she wanted, but kept pushing it off and waiting for that someday...
How did someday happen? I don't know. The 20% off sale at IKEA certainly helped. 20% off of the best quality and best price? Done. They have a company that will help you design the layout of your kitchen for a mere $179 and provide installation services? Done. The only wrinkle was that the sale ended in November and we wouldn't be ready to install the new kitchen until February....so we've been living with boxes for months.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Someday Came
We all have things we plan to do someday. Those of us who experience the joy of home ownership know this especially keenly. Someday, we'll fix the light on the back porch. Someday, we'll expand the garden onto the side yard. Someday, we'll remodel the kitchen. More often than not, the old song is right, "someday never comes." I cannot explain what happened in the fall, but in this house, we are making John Fogerty a liar.
As I write this, we are five days into the remodel of the kitchen. The floors are gone, walls are missing, and all the counters have been removed. The big paradox of building your dream kitchen is that you have to survive five weeks with no kitchen to do it.
It will be interesting to see which part of this process will be the most stressful: dealing with contractors, unexpected expenses, or being without a kitchen. For me, I think it is going to be the last one. The kitchen is the heart of any home and it physically sits very centrally to this house. We're five days into five weeks of having a hole in the middle of our home.
<sigh>
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Feeling Tralfamadorian
Life, lately, has been lacking in a sence of stillness. There's been far too much rushing around, not enough quiet and occasionally a feeling of franticness.
This morning I came across a pair of beautiful pieces of time lapse video. In the first, the camera is pointed out the window of a plane traveling from Amsterdam to San Franciso. Three hours of flight over numerous towns are condensed into 54 seconds. In the second, the camera slowly pans across the night sky somewhere in Maine.
Intersting that something that condenses time manages to convey that needed stillness.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Jealousy, Poverty and Spinach
I love, love, love, the Sag Paneer at Indika. If any of you haven't been to Indika then you are truly missing out. Don't just take my work for it, many real life food critics consider it if not 'The' Best then within the top 5 Indian restaraunts in the country.
This particular Sag Paneer has been my comfort food of choice for about 5 years now. It was the last food I ate before each of my surgeries and the first food I ate when I got out of the hospital. I used to drive 30 minutes just to eat an appetizer. That was all I could afford but it was okay, it got me out of bad moods, got me over a divorce, made me smile and made me happy. It used to be that I would go in at least once every 2 months (and often much more) because I needed a "fix." Unfortunately I can't do that anymore because my new career involves an extremely significant cut in income and it's just not in the budget.
Now, Indika has become a once or twice a year treat. That one time a year happened to be about 4 weeks ago for Happy Hour. The owner Anita, who knows of my obsession over her Sag Paneer, mentioned that she had been talking about me recently because they were going to have a cooking class coming up where it would be on the menu. My husband (then boyfriend) and I had taken a cooking class at Indika before and it was wonderful but very expensive. We got to cook food in the restaurant kitchen, all the while drinking wonderful wines, and then sit down to dinner to eat everything we had all made that day.
Of course, I knew that someone had to take this class. I suggested that the hubby do it and last night he did. I begged and pleaded for him to bring some home but he didn't, not even a bite. Momentarily my heart is broken. He says he knows how to make both the Sag and the Paneer, the real test will come when he finally makes it for me. I'll let you know how it goes. If it goes well, you may know beforehand if you hear moans of delight coming from somewhere in the Houston Heights.
This particular Sag Paneer has been my comfort food of choice for about 5 years now. It was the last food I ate before each of my surgeries and the first food I ate when I got out of the hospital. I used to drive 30 minutes just to eat an appetizer. That was all I could afford but it was okay, it got me out of bad moods, got me over a divorce, made me smile and made me happy. It used to be that I would go in at least once every 2 months (and often much more) because I needed a "fix." Unfortunately I can't do that anymore because my new career involves an extremely significant cut in income and it's just not in the budget.
Now, Indika has become a once or twice a year treat. That one time a year happened to be about 4 weeks ago for Happy Hour. The owner Anita, who knows of my obsession over her Sag Paneer, mentioned that she had been talking about me recently because they were going to have a cooking class coming up where it would be on the menu. My husband (then boyfriend) and I had taken a cooking class at Indika before and it was wonderful but very expensive. We got to cook food in the restaurant kitchen, all the while drinking wonderful wines, and then sit down to dinner to eat everything we had all made that day.
Of course, I knew that someone had to take this class. I suggested that the hubby do it and last night he did. I begged and pleaded for him to bring some home but he didn't, not even a bite. Momentarily my heart is broken. He says he knows how to make both the Sag and the Paneer, the real test will come when he finally makes it for me. I'll let you know how it goes. If it goes well, you may know beforehand if you hear moans of delight coming from somewhere in the Houston Heights.
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