Break on through to the other side

A long time ago in a decade far, far away, someone decided they needed more closet space in what, today, is Our Old House. Originally, the house was built with two entry doors from the enclosed front porch. One of them is the primary entrance that leads to the living room by way of a foyer. The other door leads to what we can only surmise was a private office on the first floor. This room has three doors: the exterior door to the porch, a large (mercifully still in tact and working) interior pocket door to an adjoining room and another door to the back hallway.

When the great closet space shortage of the last century occurred some previous owner thought it would be clever to close off the end of the porch with the "office" door and, voila, create an instant closet. Not heated mind you, but that's only a minor inconvenience for, oh, six or so months of the year.

Even before we took possession of the house last year we decided that the wall had to go. And this long holiday weekend was its time. The great mystery of whether or not the exterior wall hid a matching window to the others on the south face revealed, alas, no window. So it remains covered on the inside of the porch by plywood and on the outside by painted cedar shingles to match the rest of the exterior. We'll remedy this remuddle somewhere else along the path. For now, we're happy to have the additional porch space. Restoration is a slow process but today we can report that the house is breathing just a little easier.

Other porch projects to come: sand, stain and seal the original floor boards; a new tongue-in-groove stained cypress bead board ceiling with recessed lights on a dimmer; variable speed ceiling fans; new period and style appropriate windows with transoms and a new paint job of the walls.

Meanwhile, here are some before, during and after shots from the porch side of the wall. I'll add the interior before/after perspective when the light is better and I can take the requisite after shot.



Above: here's the perspective from the front porch. The screen door to the left is the entrance to the living room. Straight ahead is the cedar shingled wall that hides a walk-in closet and a fabulous exterior door.

Below: about half of the shingles are down revealing a solid wall of plywood. This ought to be fun.


Next below: the shingles are down and some of the plywood is gone to reveal a layer of fiberglass insulation. Get a mask!



Above: the fiberglass is now gone, so the next task is to pull the 2 x 4 studs down. You're looking at the backside of the drywall that is the interior wall of the closet. After I got the 2 x 4s down, it was time to yank down the drywall. I really wanted to do all of this work from the porch side so as to keep the dust and mess inside the house to a minimum. With the drywall basically just hanging there from the top, I went around to the other side of the wall to score the drywall from inside with the aim of breaking it into manageable pieces. To get to the other side I walked around the house and through the back door. As I'm coming in the house, Liane is leaving with the Corgis to go run an errand. I went to the closet, pulled the door shut behind me (to keep the dust out) and went about scoring the drywall with my handy Stanley knife. Now keep in mind that this closet door is really an exterior door, meaning it has a pretty substantial lock on it. I didn't give this a thought when I pulled the door shut behind me. It became a concern when I was ready to return to the other side of the wall only to find myself locked in the closet! Great. Liane's just taken off. I have no cell phone on me. And I'm locked in a closet on my front porch. Thankfully, I did have my hammer and there was a mere three quarters of an inch of drywall between me and relative freedom.


Above: this shot shows the wall down. The 2 x 4s are still running across the floor and ceiling, but the door is seeing daylight for the first time in decades. Pay no attention to the slipshod electrical work, that'll be gone very soon.

Below: Liane and the Corgis are back home and enjoying the new view.


Below: this last shot shows the plywood (far left) covering what we had hoped would be another window to the outside. Pulling the plywood back, all I found was fiberglass insulation and the backside of more plywood for the cedar shingles on the exterior of the house.

Fletcher the scholar

Fletcher is helping me with my public policy mid-term exam. What was that part about agency capture and the iron triangle?

John the Plumber

Every basement needs a spigot where you can hook up a garden hose. Well, maybe not every basement, but ours does. Despite, or perhaps because of, the bewildering array of plumbing peculiarities in Our Old House we have had no provision for such a connection. That is until today! I jury rigged a couple of sill cocks to what were the water supplies to the old vanity where the basement bathroom once stood. Mind you, I tackled this on a Sunday afternoon when the hardware store in town was about to close. It involved shutting off the water to the house and sweating copper pipes! Hot and cold no less. Impressed? You should be. Especially if you know of my somewhat dubious history of working with water pipes. And I didn't even need to make an emergency run to back to the hardware store. This is one for the record books.

Basement pictures

Some of you have asked to see what's transpired in the basement since we bought the house. As many know, there was a two-bedroom rental apartment down there when we took possession almost a year ago. The apartment, built in the early 1970s, was one of the first things to go, with the help of dear friend Bill who came from Atlanta to help. Scroll down and you'll see three shots of the basement taken more-or-less from the same place of the same perspective (use the window as your reference point). The before shot is of what was the kitchen looking into what we can only imagine was described as the living room. The door to the right of the kitchen counter was for the bathroom. How 'bout that fabulous carpet?



Before



During: walls removed; ceiling mostly down; column revealed



After: carpet gone; paneling down; most of the disgusting insulation removed.
Since this picture was taken, most of the wall studs have been removed. Much more work remains.

Big sky :: blue sky (nice ears!)

Going through some pictures from last winter here in SD, I came upon this one of Liane, Fletcher and Audrey. They're sitting on the bench at the nearby overlook on a typical beautiful winter day. Below is Cotton Park, named for the former owners of our house who donated the land to the city. Beyond the park is the Vermillion River. In the distance is the mighty Missouri River. Those are the hills of Nebraska in the distance. What a beautiful, blue sky. And check out those Corgi ears!

Bright idea!

Over the summer I converted a wall outlet, that was located very high up on the wall in the first floor study, to a wall sconce. We've had the antique mission style brass fixture for a long time and I was happy to have an appropriate place to press it into service. What a bright idea!

Now you see it :: Now you don't

Before and after shots of the front yard. Over the summer we cut down the overgrown blue spruce that, undoubtedly, was lovely when it was much younger. Its girth was hiding the house. We miss the shade that it afforded the south west corner, so we promptly replaced it with a young burr oak (not shown in the after shot).

Still Here :: Overdue post

Good grief! Where'veya been? Not since April have I taken a moment to update the 'ole blog and goodness knows I could write chapters about what's gone on since then. Suffice it to say that we're all fine. The house is still standing. Some much-needed landscaping has happened. A new workshop has been organized. And we still cannot use the upstairs bathroom. The good news is that the 36-year old central air conditioning system pulled through over the summer. Now we've got our fingers crossed for heat this coming winter.

Until I can get some new house project pictures organized, here's a snapshot taken yesterday of yours truly and my dear 'ole pal Tim. Tim and I were roomies at SIU in Carbondale back in the day. We both shared our passion for radio as we navigated our radio/TV courses. He paid us an all-too-short visit for part of the weekend. While he was here we had the most delightful time staying up late, drinking wine and sorting through the volumes of old snapshots he has from our time working at WIDB and WTAO. Saturday morning we walked up to Main Street for the annual USD homecoming parade. Before he left to continue his exploration of southeast SD, Liane snapped this picture behind the house. Thanks for coming Tim. It was great seeing you!

The weather outside is frightful

April 25th. Only eight more months 'til Christmas but you'd never guess that here in Vermillion. Why? Because it's snowing something frightful outside right now. We don't have to wait for December. But oh well, since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Fletcher has mixed feelings about this unexpected climate change. Here he is contemplating all that he sees (which isn't much given the low visibility) in the front yard. Audrey is nearby, rolling in the snow and wondering why I haven't gotten the soccer ball out.

One of the native Vermillionites assured me that spring will arrive soon. Probably next Thursday and Friday. Operative word and. Then we'll toggle right into summer. As I said before, glad we didn't move here for the weather.

A true, small town story

Several weeks ago, Liane is walking home from work when she happens upon two Corgis, Bella and Buck, on leash patrol nearby. Elated to discover two more Corgis in our new, small town (this makes seven that we know of) she snaps this photo on her mobile. Bella and Buck belong to a couple of USD students who share a house. The Corgis are about seven months old and live nearby on Pine. Flash forward...

... to today. A sunny afternoon. A small Corgi is seen running lose near Main and Pine. The dog is shooed away from someone it approaches. A bystander, observing this, coaxes the dog into his arms and takes it to the nearby animal hospital.

An employee at the animal hospital just happens to see the small, lost dog being dropped off by the good Samaritan. She believes she knows where the dog lives because she often sees a couple walking their Corgis down her street. She leaves the hospital with the Corgi to deliver it back to the house where she thinks it lives.

Our house. Fletcher and Audrey are snoozing while I'm grading papers. A unexpected knock at the door. Alert! Bark! Someone's here!! Something is about to happen! Alert! Alert! Bark! Standing on the porch is a woman with a small Corgi on a nylon leash. The woman introduces herself as Shawn and she seems somewhat disappointed to see both of our Corgis greeting her. There are now three Corgis on the porch. Fearing she is disturbing us (she isn't) she somewhat apologetically explains her presence.

Seeing that the Corgi is young and small, I immediately recall Liane's encounter with Bella and Buck. After checking the lost Corgi's gender we decide it must be Bella. The Corgi responds to her name. Fletcher and Audrey are delighted with their new friend. Bella jumps right in for some impromptu playtime. Abundant Corgi smiles.

I call Liane on her mobile and ask if she still has the snapshot. She does and sends it to me on my mobile. Sure enough. We have a match. It's Bella. Now stay with me here. We can't claim to know her or specifically where she lives on Pine, but we do happen to know that Bella's person, Amy, has a house mate who knows Spencer. Spencer is Ashley's partner. Living at Main and Yale, Ashley and Spencer have a Corgi named Nigel. Ashley is a grad student in Liane's department at the university. Mobile phones all over town are ringing and the dots are connecting as quickly as falling dominoes.

Within about 15 minutes I am walking Bella, Audrey and Fletcher over to the Jolley Elementary School to meet a search party that includes Bella's buddy, Buck. It's the first time I've ever walked more than two Corgis at the same time. It's a hoot. My only disappointment--one that Fletcher and Audrey share--is that Bella didn't get to stay and play longer. But, while getting acquainted, we agree that a future play date for all the local Corgis is in order. Here's a picture of the three friends as we're walking to the reunion at the school. Audrey (left), Bella (center) and Fletcher (right). We couldn't have scripted a better search and reunion scenario.

Asko? No. Ask me instead!

Here's a picture of our Asko front loading washing machine. This is the third one we've owned since 1996. In all fairness, we bought the first one when we lived in Australia where the brand is fairly popular, in large part due to its efficient use of water. When it was time for us to return the States we left our Asko machine Down Under because of continental electrical incompatibility. One of our North Adelaide neighbors eagerly bought the machine.

We liked the performance of the machine well enough to buy a similar Asko after we got settled back in North America. In the roughly eight years that we owned that washing machine it required no fewer than 14 service calls. We stopped counting. I have no idea how many times the repair guys had to come to the house. It needed a new motor. Then it started leaking. The leak went from bad to worse. The repair guys worked on the machine. I worked on the machine. At one point, we had three repair guys at the house at one time. Tools scattered around the floor. Parts everywhere. I recall that last visit. One guy was on his mobile to Asko service in Texas. Another guy had his head in the drum, muttering under his breath while the third guy was talking to his boss on another mobile.

The short story here is they couldn't repair the eight year-old Asko. So, Asko, making good on its lifetime warranty (when the malfunction is related to the stainless steel drum as was the case here) offered us a deal on a new machine, prorated by some sort of formula related to the value of the old machine. Despite my vow to never buy another Asko, we bit. They sold us a new machine more-or-less at their distributer cost, significantly less than we could have negotiated at a retailer.

The new machine worked well enough. But shortly before we moved from Cleveland Heights, it started leaking. I ignored the leak because it was relatively minor and we were so busy getting ready to move across the country figuring I'd deal with it when we got settled. This past weekend I finally got around to confronting the leak. Turned out it was a bad hose clamp on the drain pump. They use these one-shot crimp-on clamps that cannot be reused. A trip to the local Ace Hardware store and we were back in business.

On the upside, these little front loaders are terrificly efficient machines. The Askos require only a cold water connection because they heat their own water to the desired temperature. They use remarkably little water. With a 1,600 RPM spin cycle the clothes come out requiring less time in the dryer. And the absence of a top loader's agitator spindle mean the clothes don't get so beat up. But on the downside, as a brand--and in our experience--the Askos require a lot of service care. I am considerably better acquainted with their innards than I'd like to be. So, if you're considering a front loader, before you buy an Asko, ask me. I think this will be our last Asko. Next time, perhaps we'll bet on a Bosch or Whirlpool.

Breathtakingly cold!

Here's a snapshot of the thermometer on our dashboard taken early this morning. We might hit +6 F today. If this marks a trend we might be in short sleeves by... end of July?

Thirsty? Help yourself.

Yesterday, Dianne posted a comment -- a question really -- about Fletcher's happiness since Audrey was introduced to our family. Her question provoked a long, rather rambling reply. Since I have no new home improvement pictures to post or progress of any significance to report today, I thought it appropriate to include this picture in light of Dianne's enquiry. Here's Fletch (R) watching Audrey take a drink from what, until this moment, was his water bowl. The shot was taken in September, 2007, moments after Audrey arrived at home while they were first getting acquainted. Ever since, Fletcher has had to learn to share. His space. His stuff. His people. Liane and I agree that Fletcher is smiling in this picture and, despite the unmistakable fact that he's a perpetual worrier, continues to generally be a happy-go-lucky little guy with a great big heart.

Pups in boots

Home improvement projects have recently taken a brief hiatus while I prepared for the fundraising class I am team teaching at the university this semester. I've not even gone back to Sioux Falls to pick up the shelf brackets that I stupidly forgot (see previous post). The class is now well underway and I am looking forward to restarting some of the many ongoing projects. So, hopefully, I'll have some genuine progress to report in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, it continues to snow on and off here in Southeast South Dakota. We're optimistic that the worst of the single digit and below zero temps are behind us. Nevertheless, Fletcher and Audrey continue to dress appropriately for the weather. Here are a couple of blurry, low light snapshots taken of them in their winter boots as we get ready to head outside for an evening tour of the neighborhood snow drifts. It's their last opportunity of the day to check pee-mail before logging off.

It's always something

Saturday morning. A simple project with a beginning, middle and end. An hour. Maybe two. Tops. The target? Simply converting the skinny, otherwise useless closet in the back hall to a pantry-like space. A snap. Right?

Our old house has heaps of charm, but it's a bit light on the storage space frontier. Liane and I have had designs on retrofitting what was most likely a broom closet just off the kitchen into a more useful space that will accommodate some of the taller items that won't fit into our 70s era non-adjustable kitchen cabinets. We successfully did this in our previous old house in Cleveland Heights. There, and here, I opted for ClosetMaid's wire shelving products. I've been using these simple DIY shelving systems since the mid-80s because they're easy to install and keep clean. I favor the adjustable variety for obvious reasons.

When I was in Sioux Falls last week I swung by Lowe's and picked up everything on my list. A pair of adjustable rails, a four-foot section of 16 inch deep shelving, toggle bolts, the little rubber end caps they overcharge for. Oh, and I really should grab a new tape measure, even though it's not on my list. And I want to take a look at the... Fast forward. Thirty minutes later after slaking my thirst for finding (but not buying!) solutions to problems I don't really have, I'm out the door and headed back home.

When Saturday morning arrived I embarked on my simple project. But when I opened the closet door I was reminded of the last remaining scrap of carpet yet to be removed from the first floor. A tiny bit of hideous indoor-outdoor stuff -- so popular in this house -- glued (of course!) to the hardwood floor. Better find the knee pads, this is gonna take a while. And sure enough, almost two hours later I had the carpet and the insipid glued-down-foam backing hand scraped off the oak flooring. Now I could get on with the task at hand.

Using a small torpedo level I hung the two bracket rails on the back wall of the closet. Next I cut the wire shelf into a test piece 16 inches wide. I fitted the overpriced rubber end caps on the sharp edges and held the shelf in place to check for fit. So far, so good. Now all I need is a pair of shelf brackets. Shelf brackets. Where are the shelf brackets? I should have six of them. They've got to be here somewhere. Check bag. Nada. Basement? Nope. Did I even buy the shelf brackets? Find Lowe's receipt. No brackets. Duh!

So stay tuned friends. This one is definitely going to take more than five times longer. An unexpectedly long beginning. A protracted middle. Hopefully, after I visit Lowe's later this week, a humble end.

Good that we didn't move here for the warm weather

This morning a little after eight, the thermometer on our car's dashboard read minus six. A neighbor reported his read minus twelve. That's -6F and -12F respectively. Make no mistake. It's cold outside. But at least it's sunny! Over the last week or so, gauging from the height of the snow on the bird baths near the driveway, we've picked up about a foot of the fluffy white stuff.

Fletcher and Audrey love the deep snow. Audrey's favorite sport is soccer. We practice every day, weather not withstanding. Here's a picture of our little soccer superstar, wearing protective boots to guard her tiny paws from the cold.

Peeling back the years

Wallpaper removal. Just saying it is, for some, like fingernails on a blackboard.

Yesterday, with a deep breath, I steeled my courage and embarked on a new project. Removing the disgusting, nicotine stained wallpaper from the first floor bathroom. Early picking at the fringes behind the door informed me that I would be confronting just one layer of paper and that it was glued to drywall, not plaster. Drywall that was installed when the bathroom was "modernized" sometime probably in the 70s. I was dubious. Drywall and wallpaper are strange bedfellows when the drywall isn't primed with a coat of paint. Courage.

Far be it from me to suggest that anyone who would glue wallpaper directly to unpainted drywall is stupid. That would be an insult to stupid people everywhere. Instead I'll just say that I got lucky. In the places where the wallpaper was attached to unpainted drywall the paper gave up without much of a fuss leaving the drywall intact. At least this was the case behind the door.

Out in the open, another matter. Removing the nicotine stained paper revealed an unexpected second layer in another, darker design. See mention in previous post about projects taking five times longer then expected. The good news? The drywall had been primed with a coat of paint so, for the most part, removal of the second layer was a repeat of the first. The walls need a few patching repairs from picture hooks and such, but it appears we'll be applying a coat of fresh primer soon.

Top: removal of the first layer. Bottom: revealing the second layer... SURPRISE!

Dumpster away!

You know your dumpster has worn out its welcome when neighbors start giving directions using it as a landmark. "We're two doors from the red dumpster." "Turn left on Canby just past the red dumpster. You can't miss it!"

Thankfully, Loren Fischer, our all-around terrific refuse service provider, came to collect the second of our two 30-yard walk-in dumpsters the other day. This auspicious event marks the first time we have access to the entire driveway and both garage bays. Loren has terrific and flexible service that is perfect for the DIY home restoration generalist! Thanks, Loren.

Loren hauled away just shy of five tons of debris!


With the dumpster gone, we now have a new view of the house and garage.