Friday, November 30, 2012

In The Sh!tter

Please pardon my nasty French.  It's just that I've spent the last two weeks hanging out in the bathroom, and I'm beginning to tire of spending all my time in a 4'x8' space.

Most of that time has been spent slowly building layers of joint compound onto the drywall patch we installed after The Thing came down.  You see, the ceiling and walls over the tub are wildly uneven from years of being soaking wet.  They have gentle rolling hills, craggy cliffs, and a rocky coastline--  I'd compare them to the general topography of... Ireland, maybe?  So in places I'm having to build lumps out of joint compound so that the drywall patch will match up to the lump that's already in the ceiling.  This. is. crazy.

But it's okay, because this summer we're obviously going to have to rip out all the ceilings and drywall in the bathroom before we tile the shower surround.  This is a temporary thing, and I'm considering it a learning experience.

I finally finished one side of the wall patch, and I decided I'd go ahead and sand it and apply the orange-peel texture (mmm, my favorite! blergh.) so it'd match the rest of the drywall in the room.  Here's a shot of my orange-peel drying (you can really appreciate the giant lumps in the ceiling here, no?):


You can also see some brownish mold, courtesy of The Thing, on the wall there on the left-hand side of the photo.  Thanks a lot, The Thing.  And you can also see that my corner piece appears to be a bit uneven; not sure if you can tell that this is because there's a massive lump on the other wall.  I'm working with what I've got here, people.  Like I said, it's temporary.  And I'm actually fairly pleased with myself for getting the actual wall so even and replicating the orange-peel.

And since I couldn't resist, I went ahead and painted the patch too:


Paint's still drying, and you can REALLY see how crazy the ceiling is in this photo.  Few more layers of mud to go up there.  Ugh.

So, while I was between layers of drywall mud last week, Ray and I decided we'd finally tackle the leaking toilet.  A bit of water had been seeping out from around its base with every flush.  We'll just replace the wax ring, we thought.  No big deal, right?  This'll take twenty minutes.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  We failed to take into account that hiding behind every wall, light switch, and fixture in this house is an unpleasant surprise.  We removed the toilet and discovered that 1) the flange under the toilet was cast iron, 2) it was broken, 3) there was literally no floor under the flange.  The flange was just sitting on top of the pipe.  We thought.  So we tried to remove it-- we'll just replace it with a modern one, we thought.  Off to Home Depot for a replacement!  We'll be done in an hour.

Nope.  Wrong again.  We could. not. pry. that. thing. up.  And we broke it a little more in the process.  We checked on the Internet and learned that cast-iron flanges are generally attached to the sewer pipe with lead.  Yup.  On to Plan B.  Back to the Home Depot.  But they don't have the piece we need to repair the floor (which is to say, a set of metal plates that go underneath the flange instead of floor).  I don't even want to TALK about what we had to do to repair the flange as best we could and make it as stable as possible.  Suffice it to say that McGyver would be proud, and that when we finished, we were laugh-crying and there was old toilet wax all over everything we own and we were barely speaking to each other.  But we reinstalled the toilet, and to our continued surprise, it's not leaking anymore.  So we "fixed" it.  We didn't fix it, but we "fixed" it, and that's good enough for us until the whole thing falls through the floor (or lack thereof).  

And finally, I decided to tackle something that's been making me crazy since we moved in.

When we bought the house, the shower had the grossest sliding glass door:


Also loving the old wooden toilet paper holder that was roughly four feet from the toilet.  Why? 

And just in case you need a reminder, here's what the faucet and emergency drain looked like.  Can you BELIEVE I begged my husband to buy this house with me?  Even I can't wrap my mind around how I managed to fall in love with the place after seeing this:


And as I mentioned in the third-ish ever post way back in August, we ripped the shower door out immediately.  And this is the horror we found beneath the track:



Aaaand I just gagged.  Anyhow, as I mentioned in that super-old post, I scrubbed the hell out of every surface in the bathroom.  Eventually I got the majority of this evil off the tub.  But a huge clump of funk remained where the wall meets the tub meets the Blue Monster.  And as you can see in the photo, there's also a huge gap there that was never caulked.  And there was a five-inch-long strip of ugly mildewy adhesive about halfway across the tub that would. not. come. off.  So basically every morning when I get in the shower I cringe at the horror.

But I'll cringe no longer.  Today I set to with a chisel, some extra-fine-grit sandpaper (we'll be refinishing the tub when we tile the shower surround anyway, so taking a little finish off was hardly the worst thing that could happen) and a brand new tube of caulk.  I scraped all the old moldy caulk out and replaced it with a nice fresh bead, I filled the weird gaps, and I sanded the stubborn adhesive off.  And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you'll pardon the dirty footprints in the tub itself (don't want to get any water in there until my caulk dries!), please admire my handiwork:


Finally funk-free.  And now a detail shot of the faucet wall.  And yes, I know there's still a HUGE BLUE PLASTIC shower surround here.  Still, give me some credit.  We're getting there.


 Sloooooooooooooooowly.




Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Lazy Vegetarian: Giving Thanks for Tempeh

Tonight's post isn't about our house, so feel free to stop reading if it's reno you're after.  But it is about one of the reasons we were able to get out of debt and save for our first house, so I guess it's sort of blog-appropriate if you squint.

When we moved to Oregon we'd been living on credit for a long time-- between graduate school and the high cost of living in New Haven and my inability to find a full-time job there (at one point I was working three retail jobs and teaching part-time at both a prep school and a university, but no matter how many jobs I got there was never enough money to go around)-- and we had a fair bit o' debt to pay down.  We'd opened a savings account for the wedding-gift money we'd received and we were so happy to have a little nest egg; we were absolutely crushed when we had to clean out the account to pay for our cross-country move.  We felt like we'd never be able to buy a house-- much less that we'd do it exactly one year after we arrived in Oregon-- so this November we're very thankful for our quirky little old home with all its water damage and weird plumbing and backless cabinets and hole-y wood paneling.  

But as I mentioned in my first post ever, we made a lot of sacrifices to get here, and some of them have turned out to be unexpectedly rewarding.  

Last October we sat down with our first paychecks and made a budget: this much to the debt, this much to the savings account, this much to the bills, and so on.  I realized when I made my first trip to the grocery store that my food-shopping habits were going to have to change.  I'd always planned my meals for the week (one dinner = one meat, one starch, one vegetable) and shopped judiciously according to my list, and I've never been one to spend money on a bunch of processed foods, but my first week of groceries ate up nearly half of the monthly food budget we'd set for ourselves.  Something had to give, and so I cut out the most consistently expensive thing I bought: meat.  

I didn't intend to become a vegetarian, and really, I'm still not one; I order meat occasionally in restaurants and if I come over to your house for dinner and you fix me a steak, I'll eat it and enjoy every bite.  But I no longer buy meat or cook it, and it's changed my life for the better in a lot of ways.  Without further ado (and there's been a lot of ado here already, sorry), I present to you a list of reasons why I'm thankful for my reduced-meat lifestyle:

1.  STRESS, OR LACK THEREOF:
I've thoroughly enjoyed cooking ever since I learned to do it in graduate school, and I do it every night.  There's something deeply satisfying about mincing onions (okay, mincing in general-- I even like the word), watching your roux get all golden and bubbly, grating an enormous block of good parm, smelling chopped cilantro, etc etc.  But as soon as I stopped cooking meat, I realized how much I'd hated dealing with it-- did you forget to thaw the chicken for dinner tonight?  Well, now you're going to have to put it in the microwave and it's going to get all partially cooked and rubbery.  Did you trim the fat off your roast with that knife and then accidentally use it to chop some parsley for garnish?  Is that salmonella on your cutting board?  Is it okay to eat this pork loin even though it technically expired last week?  Did your lamb reach an internal temperature of 150°F?  Well, when you don't eat meat, you can feel free to use the same knife and cutting board all day long.  When your food is hot enough for your liking, it's cooked.  No worrying, no guessing, no nothing.  Phew.

2.  CREATIVITY (AN ODE TO DRIED BEANS):
As I said, dinner used to mean a meat, a starch, a vegetable.  I'd find myself wracking my brains for another good chicken recipe, another way to make pork chops, a creative use for ground beef.  Now that I don't feel I have to follow a formula, I'm free to cook whatever the hell I want.  We eat a lot of falafel.  And a ton of black beans (the poor man's meat), tofu (fry it in cornstarch-- you'll thank me), lentils (so. many. colors), etc.  Are we healthier now?  Probably not-- we consume a lot of cheese (don't tell Courtney Love).  But I've discovered the joys of versatile proteins like tempeh and tofu and polenta, with which I'd never have bothered if I'd stuck to the old rotation of chicken-pig-cow-chicken-pig-cow.     

3.  NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY TO A BEAKLESS CHICKEN:
After we stopped eating meat at home, we watched Food, Inc, and I read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma".  If you're at all attached to the idea of eating meat I don't recommend either of these things.  While I feel terrible for animals and all the horrors they suffer as a result of factory farming, what really hit home with me was the squick factor.  You know when you buy a pack of chicken breasts and they're like enormous slabs of meat?  Yeah, you don't want to know how they got that big.  And I didn't want to know either.  And now I'm thankful that I don't have to wonder whether the chicken I'm eating was beakless and featherless and footless, because that. is. disgusting.

4.  THIS PILE O' BRICKS AND MORTAR:
Cooking veg saves me around $200/mo.  Vegetables and dried grains and canned beans and extra-firm tofu are really cheap and they last forever.  Nothing's ever wasted, and there's never smelly meat going bad in my fridge, and I never have to remember to thaw the main course before I cook it.  So many veg meals are superfast and easy and they taste delicious-- even my meat-loving husband doesn't complain about eating spinach lasagne and split-pea soup and mac 'n' cheese and lentil curry and paht see ew.  And that extra $2400 I saved last year meant we were $2400 closer to this, our little dream house.

So it's funny-- I remember a conversation I had with my awesome (vegetarian) sister-in-law maybe two years ago, and I distinctly recall telling her that I could NEVER live without bacon.  But now I know that less literal bacon in my belly means more metaphorical bacon in my bank account.  And for that lesson learned, I'm truly grateful.   

Saturday, November 17, 2012

What a [Terrifying] Difference A Day Makes

So, The Thing.  We removed it this afternoon.  It was a long process--  while this house has many quirks (and we found quite a few of them inside the ceiling today) one thing is for certain: it was built to last.  The Thing fought us hard.

At first, it was all fun and games.  Yay demolition!  Doing something like this is kind of like popping a gross zit.  It's really disgusting but still somehow satisfying.  Too much information?  Sorry.  Here's a picture that isn't of Ray popping a gross zit:



You know what else is kind of like a gross zit?  The blue plastic faux marble shower surround.  I can't wait to pull that off the wall and confront the moldy horror that surely lies behind it.  Summer 2013 here we come.

Anyhow, good thing we taped a drop cloth over the bathtub to protect the plumbing, because there was A LOT of crap in the ceiling.  And by crap, I mean there was literally crap in the ceiling.  Showers of old fossilized rodent feces fell down upon us as we disassembled The Thing's frame and detached its top plate from the ceiling.  Here's Ray in a death match with the top plate:



See all that wire armature hanging down?  Well, as we discovered, this is because underneath the drywall ceiling is the original plaster ceiling, armature and all.  And in some places there's some weird 1/2in. thick paperboard.  The more we ripped away, the more we realized that this wasn't going to be a quick cut-drywall-to-fit-and-screw-it-into-the-nice-level-ceiling type of job.  

And we weren't wrong: we wound up having a LOT of drywalling issues.  We had to shim the the gap in a bunch of places to make it level and the right depth for drywall; in other places the weird paperboard was jutting out into the gap and we didn't want to cut it since we have no idea what it's doing there (probably holding up the roof-- who knows?), so we sort of had to drywall around it.  The wire armature, which we cut back as much as possible without damaging the rest of the ceiling, stubbornly refused to get out of the way in several spots.  And since the width of the gap was wildly inconsistent and there were tons of obstructions in it, we basically had to use 37 small pieces of drywall to even remotely patch the thing.  And when we ran out of shims before getting to the last side piece, we realized we were just going to have to clean up and call it a night.

And boy is it going to be really fun to tape and mud our new irregularly shaped, seam-tastic drywall to the wavy, uneven, water-damaged ceiling.  

All this leads to a sort of sad finish: I can't even show you a close-up because it's too awful-looking right now.  But the photo below shows the unfinished side-- off to the hardware store in the morning for more shims and some metal corners:


And when we're all done affixing the last piece and taping and mudding and spraying the whole patch with orange-peel texture so it'll blend into the rest of the ceiling, I'm going to paint the whole room a nice soft blue with lots of gray in it.  And then I'm going to drink a whole bottle of gin.  And when I sober up we'll tackle the floor, and the tile, and the light fixtures, and kfnxbfjabfjgfhdbjx we will never ever finish all of this. 

PS: The plumbing problem in the kitchen is fixed-- thanks for asking!  It was a broken pipe behind the sink.  Repaired in one hour to the tune of $275.  Meh.  Cheaper than we thought.

PPS: Our work today was interrupted by a run-in with-- no joke-- a rabid squirrel.  Some friends had stopped by to see the progress we'd made on the house, and we were standing on the back porch surveying the changes in the yard when a tiny stumbling ninja-squirrel jumped on the porch and started charging towards us.  It literally lunged at our friend.  We chased it away with a rake and ran inside.  The four of us stood in the dining room and watched out the French doors as it tried to climb a few trees and crashed to the ground each time.  We called the cops (no animal control out here on weekends) and they came out, but by then the little would-be assassin was gone.  Turns out that a kid was bitten by a squirrel on the other side of town yesterday, so we're supposed to be on the lookout for it... 


Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Temporary Insanity

We've had a few issues with the ol' house of late.  Like this, for example: a couple of weeks ago, we started smelling a bit of musty funk in the kitchen.  No big deal, we thought-- that's the same musty kitchen-funk the house had when we moved in, and it went away.  And maybe it's just because the rainy season started and everything is perma-damp and our "cabinets" (see previous posts) do not have actual bottoms OR a plywood sub-floor under them.  So whatever it smells like under the house, that's what it smells like in the kitchen.  No worries!  We'll just deal with a touch of stink until we're ready to gut the kitchen and put it all back together in a way that makes a little more sense.  Right?

Wrong.  We happened to be outside while running the dishwasher a couple of days ago, and we noticed a ton of soapy water bubbling up from the ground.  And out of the crawl-space.  And sort of dripping out of a weird faucet under the kitchen window at the same time.

We don't know anything about plumbing, but even we're smart enough to know that water exploding from under your house coupled with a moldy smell means bad news bears.  Plumber's coming tomorrow morning, and since it costs $250 every time he darkens our door for even the most minor of issues, we're preparing ourselves to fork over at least a couple of G's to get this taken care of. 

And we've totally died on the hearth tile project-- the only pre-mixed grout we can find locally is white, and I'm not trying to buy an enormous bag of dry grout and mix a huge bucketful of charcoal-gray for a job that will require less than two tablespoons of the stuff.  We just need enough to fill three 1/16" gaps, for crying out loud.  And the only locally available slate sealer comes in a giant vat that costs $40.  Again, I need, like, 1/4c.  Sigh-- I hate being stymied.

So tonight after dinner, I was on speakerphone with my parents, and I was talking to them about one of my bathroom's stupidest features.  I haven't the slightest idea of what it's called, so I'll provide a photo:




The silly thing in question can be seen right above the far end of the shower curtain.  It's like a part of a wall that drops down from the ceiling along the tub's edge.  I guess it's technically a soffit, though the ceiling isn't lowered on the other side of it.  Anyhow, it's hard to write coherently about the thing (heretofore known as The Thing), but it's a common feature in lots of 40's houses, when, I'm guessing, the tub enclosure didn't include a shower.  Must have been nice back then, taking a bath in your own little private nook. 

Fast forward to 2012, when this weird little design feature does nothing but trap tons of water vapor into the space above the tub.  Even our bathroom fan is powerless against The Thing.  So we've been planning to rip it out.  A few more reasons to demo The Thing:


1.  All that trapped water vapor has caused pretty serious cosmetic damage to the ceiling about the tub.  It's all bubbling paint and chipping gypsum board up there.  Ick.

2.  Mold is growing on the bottom of The Thing because off all the moisture it holds hostage above the tub.

3.  When the vapor cools and becomes condensate, it drips down the walls inside the tub.  We know it's running down behind the Terrible Blue Faux-Marble Monstrosity, and we don't even want to THINK about the mold that's surely back there now.  We can't rip THAT out now, so the next best thing is to stop the dripping before the mold gets any worse.

4.  It is butt-ugly.


So back to the part where I'm on speakerphone with Mom and Dad.  I'm telling them about our plans for ripping it out, and I'm expressing some worries that perhaps The Thing is somehow structural or that it's full of plumbing and/or electrical wires.  There's a silence on my parents' end, and then my dad says, "Well, why don't you just knock a hole in it with a hammer and see what's going on in there?"


And I'm like, "Okay," and the next thing I know I'm staring at a 3" hole in 
The Thing.




Looks clear in there.  I keep going.  Did I mention it's 9pm on a Wednesday?

Next thing I know, I've used a drywall saw and a prybar to remove a significant chunk of The Thing:



Other than what appears to be a little bit of rebar at the top (?) we're off to what seems like a pretty decent start.

So I guess we'll be finishing that job this weekend?

Sunday, November 11, 2012

And the winner is...


BA-RUG OBAMA in a landslide!  Coming in with 100% of the popular vote after lots of comments via email and a couple on the blog itself, this one was the clear winner.  I called in two girlfriends (both of whom have style and taste in spades, of course) to get their in-person recommendations, and both agreed that bigger + bolder = better. 

So I spent the better part of an afternoon wrangling Mitt Rug-ney into its original packaging (not easy) and taping it up, and now it's all rolled up in the corner awaiting its return label.  One decision down; 52,734,083 to go.

Here's another view:
Ooh, nice tape measure on the mantel!

And I also thought I'd share this shot I took when we actually had all three rugs on the floor:


It kind of makes me happy, plus it really shows the color contrast between the two options.  And it also shows the desperately-needs-help upholstery on the Gold Chair (and its sad lumpy matching ottoman).  Holy Corduroy, Batman!  Note to self: get on that right away.

Next up: permanently affixing the slate tile to the fireplace hearth and trimming it out.  We thought we might get it done last weekend, but the tiling project was temporarily put on hold because of this guy:



So handsome, isn't he?  He's not ours-- he belongs to some very dear friends who asked us to poodle-sit while they took a quick jaunt to the coast this weekend-- but we were pretty busy taking him for long walks through the neighborhood, tossing squeaky toys to him, making him work for treats, and generally spoiling him rotten.  You try tiling when the dog you borrowed for the weekend really wants you to take a nap on the couch with him.  It's basically impossible.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Election 2012: Persian Carpet Editon*

As you already know because I have endlessly belabored the point, I'm having a hard time choosing a rug for my living room.  For some reason this seems like a matter of national importance, so I've decided to put it to a vote.  Loyal readers, I need ALL THREE OF YOU to weigh in.  Seriously.

As in all elections, there are several important factors to consider.  Sadly, SuperPAC money is not one of them, although I am presently accepting donations-- we have a lot of, um, infrastructure projects to be funded around here.  Anyhow, without further ado, I present your two candidates:

1.  BA-RUG OBAMA
 And yes, I know the living room is messy.  Try really hard to just look at the rug.  I had to grade 120 compositions AND 120 exams this weekend, so I didn't really get around to tidying up. 

Like our present Commander-In-Chief, this option is large, crazy-busy, and really bright.  In fact, it's so bright that I can't decide if it's awesome-bright or scary-bright.  We had it down on the floor for a few days, and I have to admit it made me happy every time I walked into the room, but it's heavy on the hi-liter orange and there's even some hot pink in the mix.  That seems like a HUGE color commitment for someone who can't even bring herself to wear a yellow sweater for fear of seeming too bold.  

(And it looks terrible with the old brown sofa, which is soon to be replaced by this baby (or something similar) in charcoal-gray velvet.  Love its midcentury-ness and the fact that it can be used as a traditional three-seater or a sectional.  Paging Garth Algar: schwing!) 

Which brings us to our next [p]residential hopefuls (see what I did there?)...

2.  MITT RUG-NEY and PAUL RYAN
 Sorry about the lighting and the blurring and the blah blah blah blah sweatshirt on the dhurrie footstool. 

This one's a little older and quite a bit more conservative than the first option, and if I were voting my wallet it'd be the obvious winner (it was $200 cheaper than Ba-rug).  It's presently sitting atop its sisal running mate, Paul Ryan, so named because it is... boring.  And Mitt Rug-ney couldn't be successful without it-- it adds a little substance (and dare I say style?) to his campaign.  The colors are way less fun, but there's a cool Southwestiness to the whole thing.  

So, my fellow Americans, designers and decorators, devotees of Elle Decor and House Beautiful, please vote.  Your country needs you.  And also, please tell me which rug I should keep, because I really don't know.  And feel free to write in the name of a third-party candidate (perhaps Thom Filicia for Safavieh?)... 

*Lest you think I'm so indecisive about the general election, you should know I mailed in my ballot last week-- no in-person voting here in Oregon.  And you all know who I voted for anyway.  Especially if you have access to my Twitter feed.