House Made

restored, cleaned, and sealed
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Just a window? Just a window you say? HA! Not so, not so! This window is an awning window secured by hinges on the outside and is 2 stories up on a hill that makes it a bear to get to. But the real thing worth noting about this window (and its twin that’s not shown)is that you can see THROUGH it. Its glass is shiny. Crystal clear even.

We got these 2 windows reinstalled after their rot fixing and reglazing overhaul just before the rain started back in November. Well last weekend the rain stopped briefly allowing us to take the window out and sand it a bit so that it opens easily. Beth then cleaned all the glazing compuound fingerprints that completely covered the pane (no seriously, it was like we had frosted windows) and painted the now-cured putty for water-proofedness.

As blog posts go, not so exciting. But in our world, worthy of celebration.

sanded porch post
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Like all projects not brought to you by HGTV, the porch is taking longer than I would like. I sooo wish I had a crew of people to come in and set up all my crap for me. Then, when I’m done working, that same crew would come back and clean everything up while I sip something refreshing. And maybe I could boss them around in witty-but-bitchy fashion and still have them love me (see Debbie Travis).

Barring that, I’ve been juggling my own hardware and hanging over the porch railing holding a post in one hand and the belt sander in the other trying to remove the remainder of the stripped paint. This involves a cirque du soleil-style series of dangling moves while intertwined with the extension cord, the sander cord, and the heat gun cord (the heat gun is occasionally brought in for particularly stubborn paint spots), all taking place two stories above the welcoming fluffiness of the concrete driveway/retaining walls. (My neighbor Hank, who’s in is 80s and was a professional painter in his non-retirement — he painted the Bay Bridge thank you very much — yelled at me for not having a harness. I love old men.)

So I got one post thoroughly sanded and ready to go. Fortunately, it looks lovely and I can clearly see how good the posts will look when finished. It’s fortunate, because if it looked like crap after all that I’d probably rethink the whole “covered in stucco” thing. No. Not really. But I might consider painting.

The second post will be even harder than the first as the dangling will be more severe. Oh and also, I found some rot in the roof. Crappity crap crap. No it’s not like I’m surprised. Just, crap. So I have to fix that too. But once it’s all done, it’s gonna be great and I’m gonna be proud. And maybe I’ll put it in next year’s xmas newsletter.

bathroom tile floor
Originally uploaded by merideth.

So we have this awesome tile floor in our bathroom. It’s really cool and it contributes a nice western detail to the little pueblo bungalow thing we have going on.

When we first moved in we thought the grout was brown. Fine, whatever, not our choice, but still. Then, I noticed a low traffic area in the corner. The grout was decidedly LESS brown there. Enter the CLR and hours of scrubbing which revealed, yes, white grout.

While I now needed the grout to be white for aesthetic reasons, Beth, well, if you know Beth, you already know how this tale will end. For her, brown grout = disgusting 80 years worth of human foot grime and therefore is not allowed to continue to exist.

So yesterday, Beth suited up in the House Made equivalent of hazmat gear and went in. Oh yeah. It was a job. Muriatic acid, ventilation, respirators, baking soda, endless mopping. Now cycle that through a few times and you have Phase 1. Yeah. More to come. 20th century grime is like, I dont know, molecularly in love with grout. One cannot break them up easily.

But the results? Well. Things are coming right along dont you think?

stripped post
Originally uploaded by merideth.

So I got down to stripping the first pole on the front porch (see, it’s not nearly as “Crazy Horse” as you might have thought by the title, Dirty Mind) this weekend. I’m psyched by the pile of stucco-paint-child-of-satan shards that litter the porch floor, but let me tell you what is not easy. It’s this: removing random crap that someone has adhesed to your house. Not easy. See also “not fun.”

On the upside, progress is being made and it looks like the posts are redwood. Rock on. In addition to it being cool that my California house is built largely of California redwood, I get a money-saving bonus. We have leftover redwood that can be used to creat the new moulding. A penny saved is a penny that can to go my nailgun fund, my friends!

Now just have a look at this ridiculousness. No really. I need you to see this and ask yourself “wtf?!” in the same way I do.

Yeah. Left side. Paint. Right side. Stucco-ish stuff. Oh the craftsmanship.

Yeah, as a glimpse into my neighborhood culture, let me offer this anecdote:

I was driving home the other morning after droppng Beth off at the BART station (urban subway/rail system). As I was turning into my neighborhood, I see a man walking a cattle dog and some other little dog that I didnt recognize. I said to myself, “What kinda tiny dog is that?” and glanced back for a clarifying second look. That dog, my friends, was a chicken.

And scene.