House Made

Would you like to come visit us?  Fantastic!  Watch out for the stairs, though, because we’re still working on them.  Oh, and don’t trip over the bags of grout over there.  And shoot, did I leave the shovel out again?  Well don’t run into it and knock it over.

Now visitors can negotiate the home improvement traps we’ve set in the day OR night.  Last weekend while Merideth cursed thinset mixing, I ran some landscape lighting, predominantly using these pathway lights, and could not be more pleased with the welcoming glow they cast over the front yard.

Next is the backyard so that Dixie may negotiate her own land mines after dark.

more than halfway there

That’s the sound I make every time I have to do anything that involves using my lower back muscles. Beth is apparently all spry because she’s not hurting at all after the weekend of Extreme Makeover: Stairs Edition.

So here’s how it all unfolded. We got advice from our engineer neighbor on how to best patch the cracks in the buttresses. It worked like a charm allowing us to prime and paint them before starting the tile work. (We may or may not leave them white. That’s tbd pending time for me to mock up some options in photoshop.)

We then spent Saturday tiling the risers. Beth did all the precision cutting while I set the tiles. Sunday, we finished the risers and started tiling the treads. Now, you’d think this would have gone really quickly and we’d have been done with the thinset portion of our tile project by yesterday but no. And do you know whyyyyy?? Because mixing thinset bites the big one. Even with my handy drill mixer thinger it still takes sooooo long. Add a little mix, stiiirrrrrrrrr, add a little mix, stirrrrrrrrr…and on and on for 50lbs. Man! So by Sunday dinnertime we had 2 out of 7 steps left to tread and I could just NOT face mixing another batch of thinset so it’ll have to wait. (My real job seems like such a waste of time that could be better spent grouting.)

Also, all our neighbors stopped by to tell us how great it looks and how much they love what we’re doing. One lady stopped, looked at the stairs, then at us and said “You guys rock.” How cool is that?

Please note the dog footprint already on the door. Decorative

Beth here.

Our camera mysteriously will not produce pictures anymore.  Mainly this is because we are too lazy to transfer images from it to the computer.  It is a rough, rough life we lead.

So, sans picture, I’m just going to tell you that we put in a new back door last weekend.  Previously, there were two doors on the back door:

1.  We had a security door that was decidedly ugly and not-so-necessary due to one waggy-but-threatening-looking dog who spends her days guarding it (i.e. watching it, hoping that someone will emerge from it with bacon or beef jerky).  The security door was made additionally ugly when we had stucco put on the house, as little bits of stucco got caught in all the little security holes.  Pretty.

2.  Then there was the regular main door made of some skinny, flimsy wood that had NON-tempered glass in the top half (the non-tempered aspect of it caused our inspector to have a mini-seizure — get a grip, man), and a giant dog door in the bottom half from the P.O.  (Whenever anyone describes the direct P.O. of our house, they say, “He had this really BIG dog.”  Apparently big dogs need giant dog doors.)  So between the non-tempered top half, the giant dog door in the bottom half, and the flimsy wood holding it all together, it was not so much a good door.

So we took out all the door ugliness and put in a pre-hung, steel-reinforced door with TEMPERED glass in the top half (take THAT, Inspector).  It is gorgeous.  Don’t you wish you could see a picture?  Me too.

Also, having put in both a pre-hung and a not-pre-hung door at this point (albeit only an interior door that was not pre-hung), they are equally hard chores (especially in an old house) worthy of many curses and a few squashed fingers.  There is no better.  There is only different.

universe talavera

In fact, the tile should be here tomorrow if you can believe it. (I can’t.) We ordered Spanish-style talavera tile in a traditional pattern called “universe” for the risers of the front steps. Initially we were going to use several different patterns (one pattern per step) as we’ve seen that done to great effect on spanish style houses. Instead, we decided to simplify. The multi-pattern idea seemed a little more elaborate than our modest little casa warranted.

So the tile should be here tomorrow at which time we’ll begin a week of looking at it longingly since we won’t get to the installation this weekend. The Dwell on Design show and putting in the new back door will be about all we can manage in the way of big projects. I might get the back door’s trim painted and installed which will pave the way for hanging the back gutters. But the excitement of laying tile must wait. Sigh.

This is an easy and brief update. I was under the weather this weekend. Beth, being awesome, hung around with me on the sofa entertaining me (and napping) which had the effect of a. making me feel better and b. halting any progress on the house. So saturday was a wash.

Sunday brought a little more energy and we got the one thing I really wanted to cross off the list done. We installed the very last of the exterior window trim. It looks great. I went up the street to look at the view from the neighbors’ and I couldn’t be more pleased. Beth also planted a new bush for the front yard to fill in a bald patch and repainted some picture frames.

Today, we removed the awful security door from the back of the house which will soon be replaced with a lovely multipaned door that will look better and allow more light into the laundry room. The very big news is that our copper landscape lighting arrived today. I’ve been thinking about this project since the day we moved in. I LOVE landscape lighting. Beth has taken the project on, what with her electrical skills, and will no-doubt be making progress on that sooner rather than later. More to come!

So here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of our awesome progress last weekend. First and foremost, we got the front steps leveled. We ended up using a combination of techniques and products and we now have steps that actually run along a levelish to level horizon. Photos later.

Second, Beth got the new schoolhouse electric light that matches the one over the kitchen sink (except not on a pendant) mounted in the breakfast nook/office. It’s amazing what a change that little alteration made.

Third. I sanded, puttied, primed and painted ALL of the remaining exterior window trim. Now we have to hang it and I have to paint the outside of the window frame on the large dining room window and that will wrap up all exterior window projects. If you would like to do a little dance number now in celebration, I’ll wait.

In addition to THAT, we turned 25lbs of tomatoes into marinara which beth then canned. Those of you who are used to getting sauce for xmas shouldn’t get to excited. We aren’t giving any away this year. So if you want sauce, you’d better come visit.

And that. Is that. This weekend we’ll be shopping for tile. And Beth has agreed to paint the roof trim if I will deal with the stucco on the front wall. We shall see what happens.

About Face Roses

Beth here.

There are more posts to come out of our Work Weekend Extravaganza!, but just a few photos of the joys and, um, wildlife that come with owning even a tiny bit of land.

First, some gorgeous roses in our collection of equally gorgeous pottery (the particularly beautiful pot in the forefront was a present from my sisters on my 30th). The official name of these roses is “About Face,” but they are most commonly called “Orangey” around our house. This particular rose, by any name, does not smell.

Second, we have a new squatter on the property who torments the dog and refuses to pay rent.

This possum (and/or its look-alike friends and brethren) taunts Dixie with its being-alive-in-her-yard ways. Otherwise, we find our faux sleeping friend does no harm and is remarkably easy to photograph what with the defense mechanism of going perfectly still when spotted. 

It does not always look this cute and cuddly. When it snarls or hisses, it looks remarkably like an R.O.U.S. I try very hard not to make it snarl or hiss.