Are there ever times in your life when you wonder, “Now how did that get here?”
*With thanks to the Talking Heads for the use of the lyric from “Once in a Lifetime.”
Archive for the ‘House’ Category
“You may ask yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?'”*
Posted by julie on Sunday, 12 February 2012, 22:36A Weekend’s Productivity
Posted by julie on Monday, 14 February 2011, 8:04
Apparently constitutionally incapable of buying Dora valentines at the drugstore, I helped Sylvan with his rockets (look how small he wrote his name; those are glitter gluesticks) and Elena with her collage valentines.
Sylvan's new "book"shelf. This took a painfully long time to paint. My husband is very patient with my endless in-process projects. He only mentions them every couple of weeks or so.
I felt productive this weekend. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Brick Walkway
Posted by julie on Thursday, 23 April 2009, 23:31When my parents visited for spring break, they (willingly, I hope) took on a great number of tasks, including taking my children so I could breathe and washing my dishes. Ah, luxury.
Dad also made a brick path in our backyard leading to a bicycle-parking pad. Previously, there was a muddy “path” leading up to our sad little lawn moss patch. Now there’s a walkway, built with bricks salvaged from a chimney that was torn out during the remodel. The bricks could be 90 years old, and some bear the charred signs of their former life, containing the heat borne of a wood-chip furnace. The bricks are imperfect and chipped, and I’m really happy that we could reuse them. They’ll undoubtedly return to the earth more quickly than new bricks made especially for pathways. That’s somehow comforting.
The path is perfect for us, and I was quite happy to watch Dad consider it, pour the “decomposed granite” bed, and lay the bricks. No more mud and puddles. The empty spaces between the bricks are places where I haven’t kept up with filling in with gravel where it’s settled.
Newly confident after helping Dad a bit, I even tried my hand at the ankle-biting hole at the bottom of the stairs. This landing pad is disconcertingly asymmetrical, but I was lazy. No one was ever going to step to the left.
I’m still trying to determine what will happen between these sections of path. Will I just place a few pavers? Make some simpler, narrower paver and brick walks? Stay tuned.
It Almost Looks Like a Bathroom!
Posted by julie on Wednesday, 4 March 2009, 23:41For you dog lovers, or perhaps for the dog haters, you really have to check out Bizkit. I don’t know her, but she’s been making me laugh.
Now for a bathroom update. We moved back into our fantastic house last October, after five bearable but long months away (we really love this house). Tomorrow (I’m crossing my fingers), we’ll have an upstairs bathroom again. Our previous upstairs bath was completely demolished to make my office during the remodel (which may be why the bathtub has lived in my office for the last five months). We decided to move the bathroom to the north side of the house, since it just seemed wasteful to take up valuable southern exposure on a bathroom.
Here’s a little pictorial timeline of our second-floor bathroom:
Looking out bathroom windows, 23 July 2008
Looking into the bathroom October 12, when we moved back in. The tub moved from here to my office so we could tile the floor.
Bathroom as it looked this morning. Chris tiled the floor in November, and Tony the Tiler did the tub surround last week.
This morning.
Yippee! By this evening we'd gained a sink and a tub and baseboards.
Your bathtub is on a carpet scrap, right?
Looking through the shower to the bedroom, 23 July 2008
Looking into shower this morning. Note the shelves, glass tiles for accent, and funky floor tiling.
Thanks to all those who helped make this bathroom become the well-built, brightly-colored, tiled wonderland it is today.
View from my window, 2/25
Posted by julie on Sunday, 1 March 2009, 23:54It rained nearly an inch last Wednesday, which accounted for over one-fifth of February’s rainfall. It poured. Last Sunday, Sylvan told Brenna, his babysitter (as they were outside having a dinner picnic on the front porch; cute, huh?), that this was “Oregon rain.” But Wednesday, it was more like afternoon-in-the-mountains rain, minus the thunder. Or at least it rained that hard every time I set foot outside.
Sylvan and I snapped a few photos while Elena stared out at the splashing puddles. The real reason I took these is to show Dad the state of our back “path.” He has gamely agreed to work on a brick and paver path when he’s here in a few weeks. There are some drainage issues. And some mud.
From nearest the gate (west) to nearest the house:
The gate and the puddle
The existing "path"
The pavers, pool, and non-muddy walk to the garage
The ankle-grabbing hole at stairs' end
Still up for it, Dad? You could take on the garden if you prefer, but, boy, I’m not sure you want to see those photos.
Home!
Posted by jonesey on Sunday, 12 October 2008, 17:51After almost five months of not living in our house, we moved back in today.
Our house has been under construction since April. We moved out in mid-May. We lived in a house about a mile away for the summer, then moved into Amy’s parents’ apartment (thanks, Joel and Joan!) for the last six weeks.
It’s not done, but it’s done enough that we were able to move in. We’re all looking forward to sleeping in our own beds, in our own bedrooms, tonight.
House before and after (click any photo for a larger view):
We still have a little bit of unpacking to do:
And a little bit of tiling in the bathroom and shower:
