Apparently, my last update was in May. No, I'm not dead. Yes, we're still working on things. I think between planning on doing things and actually doing things, the post-doing-things blogging has just been...woefully neglected.

My bad. 

So, where are we? 

In May, we applied for and were approved for a home equity loan, which meant that the larger projects (bathrooms, laundry room, plumbing, etc) would finally be feasible. The most shovel-ready of these was the plumbing. During our initial home inspection, we were told that the older pipes were polybutylene, which was phased out in the nineties after a class-action lawsuit. (Fantastic! Just what every prospective homeowner wants to hear.) Our inspector said these were in good condition, so they could fail in twenty years...or they could fail tomorrow. 

Since plumbing would be the basis of our next major renovation phase, it made sense to prepare . 

The first step was to extend the tile in the kitchen into the laundry room. As it looked before: 

Icky, hateful linoleum. Awful, leaky utility sink. Terrible paint job. Cramped layout. 

Pro tip: don't try to move a washer by yourself. The dryer, sure, they're pretty light. And if you do move the washer by yourself, don't wear sandals. (I hope you can see where this is going. I don't think I broke my toe, but it wasn't pleasant to walk on for like a week.)

The original wood floor was under the laminate. I thought about sanding and refinishing it, but because this was the original bathroom before the 1986 remodel, there were a lot of plumbing holes that were poorly patched with plywood, so it wouldn't have worked out. Plus, we'd already bought the tile. 

I put down new backerboard, and had some expert help on laying tile squares:

The black and white cat approves of the black and white tile. 

  

After way too much research, we bought a new stackable washer and dryer, which we love. (And which totally haven't been stacked yet because three months later, I still have not finished patching the drywall. Oops.) 

Our plumbers were awesome. We went with Puddletown Plumbing, and have been very happy with their work. The guys seemed a little scattered, but they were very friendly and did exactly what we'd asked for, and were meticulous about cleaning up. 

Puddletown was the only quote we got. They agreed to replumb all our water lines with PEX piping (2.5 bathrooms and the kitchen), add an icemaker line, and move the utility sink and laundry hookups for $2400. I should have called other companies, but it seemed like a really reasonable rate, so...we didn't. Luckily, our neighbors had another plumbing company do the same work on their house, and when their plumber found out how much our job had bid for, he threw up his hands and said, "WHAT?? He can have it." So that was some good validation. 

Also, our guys discovered a stack of early-2000s adult magazines stashed in the floor behind the upstairs bathroom. 

Me: Our friend seems to be, um, quite the leg man. 

One of our plumbers, fervently: "God bless the leg man."

****

The existing toilets were fine, but I'd seen this toilet on Pinterest, and immediately loved it.

Source: Pinterest

Source: Pinterest

Source: Pinterest

Yes, I fully admit to obsessing about a toilet. And even though ours were perfectly functional and new, perfectly functional ones could be had at Home Depot for $89, I made the case that I have saved us so much money by doing things myself, and we deserved the $300 toilets. 

Obviously, Jesse agreed with me. (Or at least acquiesced.)

So I ordered them, and they came on a pallet. That was kind of awesome. 

Installing a toilet is literally the easiest thing in the world. And even though I've only installed the one in the laundry room (the upstairs bathrooms still being, erm, in transition) it's skyrocketed to being the best toilet in the house. (Despite the fact that the door catches on the bowl when you're opening it...oval vs round was not part of my calculations, but the upcoming new doors will solve this problem.)

The fanciest of porcelain thrones. 

****

In other sitting-related news, we obtained a new couch. I've been drooling over Chesterfield tufted-style couches for ages, but new ones are prohibitively expensive (like, we could have paid for plumbing...or bought a couch; obviously we chose plumbing). So periodically, I'd look through Craigslist and sigh forlornly. 

No, I can't have this. (Source: Pinterest)

And then, the ad for It appeared. It was green velvet, in almost perfect condition, and was listed at $60. The only caveat was that It was in Corvallis, which is an hour and a half away. 

I needed It. I convinced Jesse we needed to drive to Corvallis immediately to acquire It. 

It is totally worth it. 

See?

Everyone loves the new couch. 

(And doesn't Pecan look spiffing in her fancy summer haircut? Say yes. Just say yes. You don't want to know the effort it took to get her that way.)

Plants vs. Zombies

In this story, the plants are...plants, and the zombies are us. (Zombies R Us? Special discount on braaaaains...)

Ahem. 

Mired as we have been in the onslaught of family medical drama (thankfully mostly resolved), the craziness of work (not at all resolved), and a sudden spring cold that's put us out for almost two weeks (working on resolution, dammit), I have been a bad blogger. I have not been as bad a home improver, but it's been close. 

We had a few sunny days in March and April that kicked my spring fever (not the congestive kind) into high gear. By the time we'd gotten the floors mostly done and actually moved in last year, we'd missed the planting window, and I didn't get the garden I've coveted. This year, I'm NOT missing out on fresh tomatoes. 

Oh yes, by August we will be swimming in three different varieties of heirloom tomato sauce. 

Sunflowers gingerly peeking out of the dirt.

I was having issues with germination until I bought a heating pad (yes, I am that person) and within 24 hours, the sprouts fairly leaped out of the dirt. Best ridiculous purchase ever. 

Carefully exposing my baby tomatoes to the harsh elements.

Oh yes. Amid concerns that the tomato seeds I planted wouldn't properly germinate, I overplanted, and every. single. seed appears to have germinated. And grown. We are overrun with tomato babies.

We acquired several loads of free bricks and concrete chunks from Craigslist, and proceeded to dig up the front half of the yard. Some people struggle to have a lush, verdant lawn. We want no lawn at all, and we have the thickest, most densely-rooted carpet of grass in the entire world. Digging up the sod has been a workout. But it's for a good cause, right? Tomatoes!

Garden beds all staked out.

It turns out that a yard of good potting soil is just about the big truck's weight limit. Our neighbor recommended this planting mix, and so far, we haven't been disappointed.

Herb starts! And geraniums, because why not. 

Filled with dirt, the garden beds look less like graves, but Jesse is still referring to them as "the cairns". Come Halloween, I may put skeletons in them. 

It's just now getting warm enough that I've planted some of my starts, but so far, I love how the gardens are turning out. 

Also, if anyone wants a tomato start, let me know. I have way too many. (So many tomatoes!)

In a related project, I am subject to occasional lapses into obsessiveness, so all the coverage about California running out of water has really launched me into freakout mode. I was already planning on building some sort of rainwater harvesting facilities because I'd like to get the water bill as low as possible, and I'd love to augment it with something that falls out of the sky for free 80% of the year. 

So. Rain barrels. I scored six 55-gallon barrels off Craigslist (where else) for $5 a piece, which is a steal in Portland, since rainwater harvesting is very much en vogue, and food-grade barrels can often fetch a premium, even in the classifieds. Mine previously held coconut and canola oil. (Like, a lot of coconut and canola oil. I hefted one of them up and promptly got the dregs all over my shirt. There's really nothing more unsettling than being drenched in lukewarm oil.)

Since a full barrel of water weighs almost 500 lbs, I had to do make sure my barrel tower would be robust enough to handle the weight. 

I'm still wrestling with the connection between the gutters themselves and the barrels, since our gutters are a non-standard size (go figure) and I'm having to get very creative about piping. Home Depot doesn't stock 2.5" diameter pipes (such as our downspout), nor do they stock connectors. The internet would like $12 for a single PVC connector, and I would need at least two. My current approach is to investigate, shall we say, alternate hosing:

This is a 2.5" diameter 10 ft long Shop Vac hose. It's on its way.

If the hose doesn't work out, I've at least gained a spare Shop Vac hose which might work well in the garage dust-collection system I haven't yet built. It's not quite in the budget to replace the gutters at this point, but it might become necessary. 

Although realistically, we're going to have to deal with this issue this summer:

That's a starling nest in the woodpecker hole in our siding. On the one hand, I love baby birds, and I'm so excited that these babies have finally hatched, and that their insistent shrilling is driving the cats insane. On the other hand...there are birds. In our siding. So as soon as the babies fledge, we'd probably better replace the siding. (And the windows. And the back deck. And the garage roof. And the plumbing. It never ends.)

In the meantime, it's spring and my garden is growing. What could be better? 

Unintended Inheritance

Maintenance crews were trimming the trees downtown the other day, and while a few people in my office were grumbling about the noise, the sound of chainsaws hit me with a fierce, visceral wave of nostalgia: Dad clearing brush as my sister and I stomped around in muck boots on one of those bright early spring days where the sun is warm only if you keep moving, and the mud is too icy to play with long. 

I need a chainsaw, I emailed Jesse, and I need it right now. 

Maybe wait until we have 40 acres? he emailed back. 

I'm a city person through and through, and as much as the thought of homesteading appeals to my romantic side - chickens! llamas! acres of organically grown tomatoes! - I fully understand I'd starve to death without seven different kinds of takeout within walking distance. For as long as I can remember, I was desperate to escape my rural upbringing and move somewhere more exciting; now that I'm here, I love our house, love our neighborhood, love our city, and could never picture myself anywhere else. 

But then there's the sound of chainsaws in the spring. 

In January, we lost the patriarch of my dad's side of the family. Grandpa died suddenly, peacefully, only the day before his 92nd birthday. He was a marine biologist who worked at Bonneville Dam for most of his career, and with my grandmother somehow managed to guide four wildly unruly kids into being my amazing father and incredible aunts. He was a master builder in every sense of the word: furniture, buildings, family. 

The memorial for Grandpa was held last weekend, and it was a seminal family event: cousins and friends and old neighbors, and I laughed so hard my ribs hurt for days. It was the sort of huge, joyous event that only happens when my dad and his sisters get together, and if Grandpa had been there, he'd have been sitting in the middle of it all, chuckling to himself (and probably shaking his head). Several of us grandkids read letters written by our parents about their father, and Grandpa's legendary woodworking skills were highlighted in every single one. 

In his letter, my dad said Grandpa's shop was a magical place, where anything could be created or fixed. That's exactly how I felt about my dad's half of the garage. Need some pipe cleaners? There they are. Need a nail for something? There are giant boxes of them, in every size imaginable. Need some thickener for a mud pie? You could choose between thick shavings, thin shavings, wood chips and fine sawdust. Dad's shop was one of the constants of my childhood: it was there, it was Dad's, it had what you needed.

If someone had told my grumpy 15-year-old self I'd eventually be recreating Dad's shop, I'd have rolled my eyes. No, I was going to live in a glass and steel apartment, surrounded by cats and computers. I was going to escape the life of being press-ganged into painting trim and raking the lawn. 

Fast-forward thirteen years. I have a shop with lots of nails. I have tools that produce four different kinds of sawdust. I've fixed electrical and plumbing, and I'm blogging about some of it. At Grandpa's memorial, relatives who read this blog kept coming up and telling me how much like Grandpa I've become (which despite being a great honor is frankly mostly horrifying, because I don't think they understand exactly how bad I am at finishing projects, and I cringe at the thought of Grandpa or Dad walking around and critiquing my progress).

This transition was an accident. I didn't wake up one day and say, "Hey, you know what sounds great? Finding drywall crumbles in all the empty cereal bowls. Let's make that happen!" I was sent off to college with a really great basic tool set - you know, hammer, picture nails, tape measure, etc - that gradually got added to until I ended up with a miter saw on the kitchen table and a bottle of paint remover by my toothbrush. The only thing I can think of is that the act of renovation, of building, was absorbed into my DNA, where it lurked until it could no longer be contained. 

 Grandpa built things, and Dad hung around and watched him do it. 

Years later, Dad worked in his own shop and listened to the Seahawks on AM radio while little Kylie awkwardly hammered nails into scrap. 

If you ask me what I get from my family, I'm as likely to say "sense of humor" as anything else, but my real inheritance is this: the inclination to change our surroundings, the need to create, the desire to work with our hands. (The occasional pig-headedness that says FULL STEAM AHEAD when really, we should just put our tools away and call it a night.) 

So yeah, maybe I'm more like Dad and Grandpa than I thought. Now I just need to learn how to finish a project. 

(And maybe buy a chainsaw.)

I'm not climbing the walls, I'm painting them

It's Sunday. I'm up early. It's raining, that thick Oregon drizzle we've been so severely lacking for the last few months. Our house is one social-worker-visit away from being declared unfit for human habitation. You know, the usual.

Anyway. What have we been up to?

The craft room

Ever have one of those moments where you say to yourself, "I have twelve projects to finish - obviously I need to start another one"? No? Just me? In my defense, I really, really love peeling things.

Like, really.

And the heavy puff-paint wallpaper in the craft room was just begging to be peeled.

Look at those poor 80s pastel birds. They want so badly to fly away.

So a bottle of vinegar water and four hours later, the craft room was successfully wallpaper-free. Everyone says removing wallpaper is a nightmare, but this stuff practically sloughed off the walls. I guess the room was just as eager to be rid of it as I was.

Ta da! Clean and washed.

I still have ~4 gallons of mustard yellow from the apartment lurking in the garage - I'm really never allowed to go to the Habitat For Humanity Restore by myself, I end up with $10 five-gallon buckets of paint - so I went ahead and made the room a mustard paradise. Add crisp white to the ceiling and other walls, and a schoolhouse ceiling fixture to replace the horrible 80s-faux-Victorian tulip monstrosity, and the room feels about 100000% better.

Now badly in need of molding and organization. Also, some curtains. 

Ahhh, much better. (Obviously, organization will come later.)

The living room

Further in the category of "ahhh, much better", the sage green paint downstairs has been slowly wearing down my sanity for months now. It's been almost a year, and I promised myself I would try to like it, but I don't like it. I really fucking hate it. There's just something about it that saps the room of energy and makes me itch. Uncool, sage, really uncool.

Everyone else seems to like it, but it's just not right.

I was all prepared to shell out mucho dinero for some decent gray, since that was always the plan, but in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to rid the house of the sage scourge, I threw some of Metro Storm Gray together with Metro Misty, and...it actually looked okay. More than okay. So one night after work I shoved all the furniture to the middle of the room, and painted everything.

It turns out that the bluish-gray I was so hellbent on avoiding when I originally painted was exactly what the space needed. The fir floors are a very warm color, and combined with the warm sage on the walls, the room was just getting washed out. The cool gray makes both the floors and the trim pop (or at least, the trim will pop when I paint it not-beige) and brings the energy of the room down to a manageable level.

I actually want to spend time in the living room now. It doesn't set my teeth on edge anymore.

I got all the crown molding up last week, and this weekend's project is to fix up the stair bannister.

In other words, de-log-cabinifying the place. Suh-weet!

Random

Also, this happened:

Jesse made that cake entirely from scratch. Like, flour, eggs, sugar, etc. I have never made a cake in my life that wasn't from a box. This was maybe the best cake in the whole world. I might have had cake for breakfast three days in a row. 

Also, further proof that my husband is perfect:

Yeah, he knows what's up.

Coming out of the closet

With the kitchen mostly done, other areas of the house have started to seem in urgent need of assistance. For instance, our bedroom, and in particular, the phenomenal mess that is our closet. 

As you may recall, I fixed the light in August, which was fantastic, but it didn't really help the fact that it's more of a squeeze-in closet than an actual walk-in. Plus, the ceiling is mostly sheets of MDF that are so thin, they almost qualify as wrapping paper. 

Also, the previous occupants left some awkward teenage graffiti:

I realize gang violence is hardly a laughing matter, but I get the feeling that if you're the sort of person who writes "Krip Killer Bloodz" in your closet with sharpie, you're probably not the sort of person who's killing anything larger than spiders on a regular basis. (Just my guess.)

So the closet obviously needs a facelift, and our huge pile of clothes needs an organization strategy. After much mental rearranging with little success, the solution hit me: this is our house, and if I wanted to move a wall, by golly, I can move a wall. 

By moving the wall 36 inches out into the room and rotating the door, I claim valuable floor space (previously reserved for the closet spillover) for actual organization. 

Plus, it wasn't a load-bearing wall, there weren't any mechanicals, and half the drywall from the back side was cracked anyway. 

Things came to a head on a Thursday night. Jesse was out with friends, and I had a crowbar. Only later did I realize that a) moving the bed and removing a wall was perhaps not a brilliant idea on a night when my beloved was likely to come home at least slightly inebriated and b) just because we'd talked about it once or twice didn't mean it had solidified as A Thing That Is Happening. We talk frequently about things (and by we I mean me) and 90% of these things are merely passing fancies. This had suddenly become A Thing. 

Luckily, it all worked out.

On Friday, I took half a day off work and finished demolition. Saturday was supposed to be all about framing, but my original plan to reuse the existing studs was abruptly derailed when all four of them split during removal. Oops. So we had to go acquire more building materials. 

Also, I accidentally found a load of brick. In my defense, it was illegally dumped in the public right-of-way. It was my civic duty to clean it up. If I happen to reuse it, well, that's recycling, right?

Despite the mishaps and distractions, by Sunday I had successfully framed up the new wall, and despite the angle of the picture, it's actually evenly spaced and square. 

By Monday night I had the drywall up and successfully mudded. BUT CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Answer: I have four corners coming together. I shouldn't have done that. (What I REALLY shouldn't have done is buy a drywall book at Mr. Plywood two days AFTER finishing the drywall. Research first!)

Because I didn't want to paint right before going to bed (and thus marinating in a lovely cloud of VOCs all night) I had to wait until the following Saturday to paint the walls. And THEN, when I did get the first coat of paint on, my drywall tape promptly absorbed all the moisture and started peeling off. NOT COOL. Cue several hours of frustrated snarling, one phone call to Mom, and several re-mudded seams. 

But it all worked out, and I got the black bedroom wall I've been craving. I'd originally painted half of the bedroom in Metro's Storm Cloud, but much like the Misty I had tried out downstairs, it wasn't so much a gray as a very neutral blue. I still had most of a can of the mismixed Benjamin Moore black I used in the kitchen, and it's exactly what I wanted. 

This is the contents of the closet. It's blurred because...well, it's blurred for no good reason, other than it's a hideous mess and I didn't want to burn your eyes. 

It was unseasonably warm here this weekend. (59 degrees in February???? What is that???) I think Jesse may have even mowed the lawn. 

The ceiling of the closet posed a particular challenge. Part of it was covered with the tongue-and-groove decking that comprised most of the bedroom (our fabulous cabin atmosphere). Part of it was covered in thin MDF sheeting, and part of it was bare insulation. There parts that were bare insulation didn't seem to have any visible rafters, and I certainly wasn't about to go digging through the insulation to find them. The easiest solution was to acquire several 4ft x 8ft MDF beadboard panels from Mr Plywood and put as many nails as possible in the available rafters. It's certainly not perfect, but it works, and there isn't insulation lurking over our heads anymore. (At least, not visibly so.) 

My original goal, once the closet was framed/painted etc, was to make a closet organization system out of metal pipe like this one:

Source: Pinterest

HOWEVER. The thing about Pinterest - stupid, beloved timesuck that it is - is that there are never any price tags, just gorgeous pictures of things that inevitably make my budget look laughably small. I'm quickly learning that the more I like something, the more money it will cost. (I have expensive tastes. Sigh.)

Pipes were definitely one of these. A wooden closet rod? Like, $10 at Home Depot, and in our case, literally free, because the previous owners used them as curtain rods. But I figured since I built the freaking wall myself, I deserved something nice, so I drew up my plans and bought $150 worth of greasy black pipe. (Had I used non-greasy galvanized pipe, it would have been more like $250, but I have paint thinner and dish soap, and the grease washed right off, leaving a cool antique-looking finish.) 

Vacuum up all the drywall dust, slap on two coats of Metro Mountain Snow, add a $9 rug from Ross and some random basement shelves, and voila! We have a walk-in closet!

I am so pleased I can hardly stand it, and Jesse can actually stand, period. 

The other side looks pretty good, too:

Not bad for two weekends' work. (The next ten days will be spent putting the monstrous clothing pile in order. Yikes.)