Take My Breath Away

(Does the title give you a good Friday earworm? You're welcome.)

We've been moving stuff one truck-load at a time over the last few weeks, and we were SO EXCITED to go see the progress on the floors last night. 

The good news: our contractors had finished filling and sanding, and had applied at least one coat of the Swedish finish. (what is it, Swedish or Finnish?)

 Fir changes color when exposed to light, so I don't expect these colors to be as vibrant forever, 

but they're still gorgeous.

I'd forgotten we'd asked them to refinish the upstairs hall closet, so that was a nice surprise.

 The bad news: we'd of course done our research on what finish we wanted, but in the excitement, had forgotten there's a reason that Swedish finish (what is it...oh never mind) is banned in at least one state. We'd brought a load of stuff over with the intent to put it in the basement...but you could smell the fumes from outside the house. We braved them long enough to pop in and take pictures, but there was no way we could stay in for more than a minute or so. We ended up putting everything in the garage. According to the internet, the fumes are worst during the first 24 hours, but can linger for up to six weeks after, depending on the ventilation. We've got all the windows open, and will probably hang out (outside, of course) over the weekend with the doors open and fans going, but hopefully it will dissipate quickly enough that we can get moved in soon!

Doors and Floors Part Deux

....this is only titled Part Deux because Hot Shots is one of my favorite movies ever, and saying "part deux" makes me giggle a bit. 

I'm still struggling to find a decent balance between doing renovation and blogging about it. I think it'll be better when we're entirely out of our apartment, and not spending half the evening commuting between where we live and our new house. We've been taking loads of stuff over every time we go to the house, and we're SO CLOSE to being done. We should be completely moved by this weekend. There comes a point in every move, however, when you've moved enough of your possessions out that it no longer feels pleasantly minimalist, and has gone straight into creepily empty. We hit that point last night. Yikes. It echoes. 

 

Luckily, Pecan is ever so helpful when I'm disassembling furniture. I have such weird cats.

SO. Where were we? Doors, that's where. After almost a month of getting sidetracked by other urgent projects, the garage doors are finally done!

The day I finished them (Monday) we had the craziest, most monsoon-like thunderstorms I've ever seen. As soon as I stepped outside to nail a board in, a torrential downpour would start, so I'd have to take refuge back inside the garage. Once we get a series of dry days, I'll caulk the edges and apply a coat of Polycrylic, but in the meantime...it's mostly waterproof. And it looks SO MUCH BETTER than the old tarp. 

Before and after. Now the rest of the garage looks even worse.

I'm really very pleased with how it's turned out.

The other huge amazing development is the FLOORS. Our contractor (who I'm absolutely convinced is a magical wizard) started on Monday, and finished the installation of the new wood upstairs much faster than we expected.

We chose a prefinished white oak in "coffee" stain, and it's warm, but not too red. It'll go very nicely with the original fir downstairs. I grew up with wood floors, but I've never had any experience with prefinished hardwood, and honestly, the finish is so smooth and shiny that it feels a little...plastic. I know there's real wood under there, and it's not laminate, but it's going to take me awhile before I get used to it. 

The big thrill yesterday was coming over to move a bunch of furniture into the house, and discovering the crew had finished sanding all the grime and paint off the original fir. I almost cried. It's so gorgeous. The variegated colors are absolutely beautiful, and it's everything I could have possibly hoped for. I'd really hoped it looked good underneath the gross patina, but I didn't dare hope it would look this good. I can't wait to see it after the finish is done.

I love the brown freckles and red stripes. This wood has so much personality!

The contractors called us on Tuesday in a panic. They'd started interlacing the salvaged wood into the existing boards, and it was taking them forever. They'd already exhausted the repair section of our budget, and there was still so much work to do. We're less concerned with perfection and more concerned with budget - and also with moving in as soon as possible - so we said to go ahead and just patch the rest without interlacing. I think it's a fantastic decision. The worst and most obvious damage right inside the front door has been interlaced, so it's absolutely invisible, and the butted patches are an interesting visual reminder of the house's former layout. The join on the right side of the above picture - either the original kitchen or porch - had a very significant lip to it, a full half inch from one board to the next, and our contractor was regretfully adamant that sanding it down that far would damage the wood's tongue. He must have figured something out, because it's perfectly level now. Like I said, these guys are magicians. 

With the fir sanded and ready to finish, the whole house seems so much lighter and brighter. 

At some point, I'll add a transition between the tile and the fir. (And, um, vacuum.)

We're really hoping the finish will be done by tomorrow night, so we can be completely moved in by Saturday. Our contractor said the Swedish finish they're using - what is it, Swedish or Finnish? - will be walkable after twenty-four hours, and we just need to avoid putting rugs down for the first ninety days or so to let it properly cure. We could be sleeping here by Saturday night!

In the meantime, this weekend is also the annual Eastmoreland Garage Sale. Who needs cheap, fantastic furniture? Us. Who is having a giant neighborhood garage sale? Eastmoreland. It's going to be awesome. 

Grouting Day!

What is today? GROUTING DAY! 
What do we do on Grouting Day? WE GROUT! 
What do we grout? THE KITCHEN FLOOR!

Also, we sleep in a bit, but only because it's Saturday Grouting Day and such an exciting day deserves a wee bit of celebration. Sleep is the ultimate celebration around here.

No more chatter! On to pictures!

 

When we finished laying the tile on Wednesday, it was about ten o'clock at night, and in the last few sheets, it's definitely obvious. Okay, obvious to me. Jesse ensures me that it's barely noticeable at all. (Which I don't believe, since this morning he said my socks matched my shirt, when one was green and the other was gray. He may have been mocking me, though.) 

ANYWAY. We had to chip a bunch of mortar out from between the last few sheets, because sleep deprivation made us sloppy. And then we got to smear the goop around. 

Laying the tile took us about six hours, between cutting and chipping and, you know, going to work, eating and sleeping. Grouting the tile? Less than two. We originally thought the tiny tile would be a complete pain in the ass to deal with, but instead it's been surprisingly forgiving. A lot of work, but none of it difficult.

 

LOOK AT THIS! I'm totally in love with it. We used "pewter" grout, and I was afraid it was going to end up being more of a brown-gray, but it's a lovely dark silver color that balances the black and white tile perfectly. 

None of these pictures really do it justice. It looks AMAZING. The wood floor contractors start work on Monday, and I can't WAIT to see how great this little house looks when they're done.

 

Non-Negotiable

oHMYGOD YOU GUYS LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS THING THIS THING IS MINE

Do you see that??? That is A MANTEL. IN OUR HOUSE. OUR HOUSE HAS A MANTEL.

One of the first things our fabulous agent Patti* had us do during our house-hunting preparation was to make a list of amenities and features we wanted in a house, and then decide which ones were deal-breakers - which ones we couldn't live without - and which ones were negotiable. Jesse and I decided early on that the most non-negotiable was location, which, when combined with the fierce competition and our laughable budget, meant that everything else we wanted would just be a bonus. 

Our original list:

Non-negotiables:

- Inner SE Portland

- Max price $275k

- Updated mechanicals (pipes, electrical, etc)

- Wood floors

- Good light

- Fireplace

- Yard

Wants:

- 1920s bungalow

- Clawfoot tub

- Needs cosmetic updating but nothing severe

- Within walking distance to shops and restaurants

- Quiet street

Our budget alone nixed most of our non-negotiable items. The average home price in Portland has hovered around $330,000 for the better part of a year, and the market is extremely competitive. The first house we offered on had eleven other offers - and it didn't even have drywall. Houses under $250k sell in days - I can't even count the number of times I watched a house get posted online, only to be marked "Pending" a few hours later. Luckily, I'd been obsessively following the market for a year and half before we actually applied for a loan - nothing cures the malaise of seemingly endless degree program like knowing you can't afford the house of your dreams until you get your butt in gear and graduate. Once I finally landed my current job and we'd saved enough for a down payment, we were well-informed and ready to hit the ground running.

Our house was on the market about six months before we actually looked at it, and during that time, there were long stretches when it was literally the only house in our price range available in the entire city. I would scrutinize the listing, staring at the pictures and mentally trying to remodel it into something palatable, but it just didn't happen. It had carpet, and there was no mention of wood floors underneath. It didn't have a fireplace. The rooms looked small and dark, the yard was an empty square of grass, and there was absolutely nothing about the house that made me want to go see it. It was a weird beige box that looked like it has been the subject of an uninspired renovation, and it was utterly boring. 

Is there a swan inside this ugly duckling? I wasn't convinced. 

It was, coincidentally, right next door to the house Jesse and a bunch of his friends lived in during college, although we didn't find out about that until it had been on the market a few months. Jesse really wanted to check it out, but I was resistant - it was boring. I was holding out for the cute, centrally-located Sears bungalow with original woodwork that I was sure was just minutes away from being posted online.

It turns out, unlike most real estate listings, the house was actually better than the pictures. While it definitely needed some love, air and a good scrubbing, it was light and bright (check!), in a fantastic neighborhood (check!), had updated mechanicals (check!), wood floors under the carpet (double check!) and despite being huge was very attractively priced. So...we bought it. It's a boring beige box in desperate need of character, but we're working on that. As our friends keep pointing out, if it has no character at all, that makes it a perfect blank slate.  

You'll notice I did not mention a fireplace. That's because it doesn't have one. Our apartment doesn't have one either. We have a large gas wall heater that is a giant ugly box, and for the last five years, every time I've looked at it I've hated it and wished it was a fireplace. I grew up with a wood stove, and not having actual flame crushes my soul a little. Since the house is already plumbed for gas, as soon as our offer was accepted, I started scouring the internet for a cool mantel that would serve as a placeholder until we could scrape the pennies together for an actual fireplace of our own. 

It turns out mantels are stupidly expensive. A bottom-shelf, boring MDF mantel surround from Home Depot is at least $250. A cool, old one from an architectural salvage store? Try $1800-$14,000. Since my ultimate goal is to bring this house back to its 1923 roots, I wanted something that would fit with its age, and as I searched, it started looking less like a random-Craigslist find and more of a sell-a-liver-and-possibly-both-kidneys type of purchase. 

Sigh. 

So when I saw a listing yesterday afternoon for a solid mahogany mantel at a local vintage mall for less than $200, I couldn't get there fast enough. I almost never drive to work, but since we were going to the house afterwards, and I needed to pick up some canned beast for my pet carnivores, I had my truck. And then I had my mantel. 

And now it's IN MY HOUSE. 

Seriously, it's huge and perfect and it was super cheap and ASLDKFJALSKFJD;ALKSJDF.

Also, we got the tile done, so tonight we're sleeping. And vacuuming, because our landlord needed to come in for something on Tuesday and I swear to god I almost died of embarrassment. I'm still half-expecting a TV crew from Hoarders to show up any minute. 

_ _ _ _

* Patti Schnur has cultlike status among our friends, and deservedly so. Almost every single person we've talked to about real estate has bought a house with her help, and if we hadn't gone with her, I think we might have been ostracized. She is truly amazing. She is frighteningly persistent with paperwork, and emailed us about a million times a day to give us updates, even if the update was to say, "Nope, nothing yet!" She's not afraid to say that a particular house isn't a good fit, and she knows enough about the market and houses in general to say if something is more work than it's worth. The entire housebuying process was SO MUCH EASIER than we expected it to be, and I'm sure it's in large part due to her extreme competence.

Special Delivery

Look what came yesterday! It's the wood for the upstairs floors!

Mortar City Madness

The kitchen floor by the numbers:

Kitchen square footage: 230
Drywall screws: 530
Boxes of tile: 25
Sheets of Hardiebacker: 15
50 lb bags of mortar: 7
Home Depot buckets: 3
Drill bits broken: 2
Screwdrivers burned out: 1
Pairs of gloves worn through: 1
Painted-over mummified mice found in electrical outlets: 1

After spending virtually all of our after-work free time this week scraping, chiseling and sanding the linoleum and particle board off the kitchen floor, early Saturday morning (actual morning - we're Old People now, so no overnighters for us) we FINALLY FINISHED the demolition!

 The better the inside of our house looks, the more garbage ends up in our yard.

All that particle board? It's now outside in a pile. It'll go to the dump eventually, but right now we're really just hoping it doesn't rain. And that no one calls in a nuisance complaint for trash and debris. 

Or, for that matter, a noise complaint regarding my impact driver. The Hardieboard backer we're using requires 35 screws to hold it in place. The floor squeaks I'd been chasing around have been miraculously fixed with the backer board installed, despite my earlier unsuccessful attempts to eradicate them - my method involved tapping around with my foot to locate the squeak, then attacking it with eight or nine drywall screws. With the backer board, nothing is going to squeak, ever again. 

And speaking of squeaking - once we pulled out the fridge to pull up the particle board underneath, I noticed something small and gray lodged in the side of the uncovered outlet box. My first thought was that it was a misplaced cat toy or blob of flooring glue. Wrong on both accounts - it was a mummified mouse that the previous owners had PAINTED OVER rather than try to remove. "I'm taking a picture of it!" I said, to which my alarmed husband replied, "You're taking it outside is what you're doing."

It's my blog, and if I want to post a picture of a 

mummified mouse, YOU CAN'T STOP ME.

I really really wanted to sew it a tiny dress and pose it like one of the creepy naturalist dioramas at Paxton Gate, but I also really really want to stay married, so...the mouse was properly disposed of. Sigh.

After working twelve straight hours on Saturday, we'd only gotten about a third of the backerboard mortared into place. On Sunday morning, Incredible Builder Mom showed up like Prometheus bringing fire and sustenance to the shivering cave dwellers, and informed us that not only was our mortar way too thick, the directions on the mortar package, despite having dire warnings about adding too much water, were really more like guidelines than actual rules. As such, we'd been working with mortar the consistency of cold congealed oatmeal, and it needed to be more like chocolate pudding. No wonder we had blisters and incredibly sore arms! 

It just looks like I'm attacking Jesse with mud. 

With Mom's invaluable help, we got the rest of the backerboard down and taped, and ready for the tiling to begin. 

 All taped up and squared up for layout.

Jesse was the mortar mixologist. 

This picture was taken approximately 45 seconds before my cordless drill started smoking. 

Apparently 50 lbs of mortar is too much for a tiny drill motor.

Sadly, it's much much harder to mix without the drill.

Laying tile with STYLE. 

We got INCREDIBLY LUCKY in that not only is the kitchen itself mostly square, 

so was the island, and the edges will only require very minimal cuts. 

Here we are, working on tiling ourselves into a corner. 

And this is where we called it quits for the day.

IT'S GOING TO LOOK AMAZING.

We're not done yet - we still need to lay out and cut the tile along the very edges, but we're 90% done with the tile itself, and the kitchen already looks about a thousand percent better. Although it's going to really suck to grout, the tiny mosaic tiles were very forgiving in terms of placement, and we knocked out seventeen boxes of tile in the space of a couple hours. 

On the agenda this week: 

- Delivery of new wood for the upstairs floor

- Lay out, cut and mortar the rest of the kitchen tile

- If time permits, finish stripping paint on garage door windows, cut remaining boards and finish garage door

The last part is sort of critical, because Dad's coming home this weekend, and he's going to want his miter saw back to finish Mom's greenhouse, and I am going to cry. Seriously. I may need to stand on the deck, forlornly waving a white handkerchief as he drives it away. 

For next weekend: 

- Grout! We're going to be grouting until our arms fall off. Then we're going to grab the float with our teeth and grout until those fall out too. SO MUCH GROUT.

Land of the Free

Since Portlanders are largely hip to recycling, a common way to dispose of unwanted things is...The Free Box. The Free Box is the best thing in the world. Cleaning out your garage, and don't want to lug it all to Goodwill? Put it all on the curb, slap a "Free" sign on it, and it'll be gone by nightfall. Scrap metal? It'll go so fast you'll hear a sonic boom. Clothes? Half my wardrobe was free. Housewares? Fully two thirds of our furniture, most of our plates and cups, most of our knicknacks...all free. And when we have things to get rid of? They immediately go in a Free Box. 

Give to the Free Box, and ye shall receive from the Free Box. It's all about karma. I take my Free Box karma very seriously. I've fed it well, and been well compensated in return. 

So, given that it's the beginning of the month and people are moving, and it's sunny outside and people are cleaning out, the pickings lately have been extremely good.

For instance, our amazing Craigslist discovery last week:

It's a scavenger's paradise!

Craigslist is a brilliant invention. Someone wants to get rid of things? I want to acquire things. And last week, I was looking for...things...and I stumbled upon a listing for salvage wood. The owner of this house, built in 1893, is doing a major renovation, and had a huge pile of lumber that was up for grabs. We happen to need some salvage tongue and groove fir flooring, so our contractor won't have to use new fir when he patches our downstairs floors. Since our Free Box karma was sufficiently high, we found more than enough usable pieces, as well as a few chunks of cool old-growth beams and 2x4 sections that will surely come in handy for something. 

Among the debris was also remnants of the original fabric wallpaper, but it was too crunchy and fragile to save.

A couple days later, I even found a fantastic old dresser. (No picture. I, um, forgot I was supposed to be blogging.)

And finally, I met Jesse at the house last night, and he'd gotten me a present on his way over:

Where's the beef? Oh, right, it's...not free.

Ah, the Free Box. We will have to donate generously during our move to repay all this wonderful bounty.