Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Well, it's now well into 2013 and life marches on.

This picture is a view to our back field, however, last weekend we had record warm temperatures and all the snow melted. Alas, that warm weather does not last and we are getting colder and colder and will expect more snow soon.

Dave and I have created a "to do" list for the month of January. An item on that list is to get the drawers finished for the downstairs vanity and get them installed. This, as with every project at Hardy House, has been more difficult than planned. The drawers had to be cut to work around the plumbing. This we anticipated. What we didn't realize is the poor shape the drawers were in. Dave has been repairing and re-gluing them. A couple are still in clamps and one may be ready for installation tonight. Actually, with the warm weather this past weekend he was able to work on these. The barn is just too cold this time of year, otherwise. It really limits our ability to work on things.

So the rest of the items on the "to do" list for this month are mainly ensuring the designs are solid and accurate for the rest of the built-ins in the house. We also hope to hang the door to the basement. This all doesn't seem like much but Dave's a busy guy at work so time is limited and the weather is limiting. We do what we can.

What are your plans for the next couple of months?

Yes!

We knocked out the temporary shower and I couldn't be happier. Do we have more work to do to repair the wall, the floor, etc? You bet. But we also now have a nice, new, workable bathroom. And, I can't tell you what a luxury it is to have a beautiful bathroom once again. It also opened up the front of the house to the back of the house. I'm a lucky girl. Here are some pics of us dismantling the shower. Exciting, eh?

Will the Bathrooms Ever Be Done? Yup!

We had planned to tile both bathrooms this last weekend but if you've been following along, you know nothing ever goes according to plan. However, that being said, we did get all the cement board up in both bathrooms so we CAN do the tiling - probably next weekend.

Downstairs Shower

Upstairs Shower

Earlier in the week we attempted to install the cement board on the angled ceiling in the upstairs bathroom. Even after cutting more and more off, it still didn't fit right, got jammed and we ended up damaging the drywall. It is actually worse than in the pictures. It will get replaced at some point but it's not a showstopper--thank goodness.

The following picture shows how we inserted a base on the floor of the shower so that if something fell on it it wouldn't damage the shower floor. We will keep it there through tiling. Another thing I want to communicate to you is that for the cement board in the downstairs bath, we did NOT countersink the screws. Because of that the screw heads are elevated so the tiles won't be flat. We need to go back and sink the screws. We made sure we did it upstairs. Now we just need to tape, etc. and we'll be ready for tile. I can't wait.

A little pick-me-up

Earlier in the summer my son helped us out by doing some landscaping for us. We didn't have much of a budget but we only had to buy the plants, he did the labor for free. What a great kid. He is in the process of mulching around all our trees and maybe next year we will plant hosta gardens around some of the larger trees. To mulch everything we needed about 10 yards of mulch. We planted hostas, hydrangeas - regular and tree form and also an oak leaf hydrangea, some petunias and I think that was it. My son also pulled a very large, overgrown arborvitae on the corner of the house and pulled up all the weeds and out-of-control ground cover. Here's how it looked after he finished.

Someday in the future we hope to replace the front porch with a wooden porch and steps and a nice railing and columns. I would also like to make it a little bigger. The siding and shutter colors probably will also change. What colors do you think Hardy House should be? Keep in mind there is a big red barn off to the right of the house.

Tell me what you think.

 

STAIR LIGHT, STAIR BRIGHT

November 27, 2009
One of the things Dave and I hoped to do throughout this project was to reuse, recycle, and repair whatever we could within reason. Sometimes we just couldn't do it because of cost but we gave it a try anyway.

Something that Dave and I enjoy doing together is going to auctions. I am a dealer in vintage linens, quilts, and some other antiques. My little booth is called Come-by-Chance Antiques and I maintain a booth at The Brick House Antique Center (see the link to the right). Dave is interested in antique farm implements, lanterns and tools, and we both seem to have an interest in architectural elements and lighting.

The hanging light you see in this picture came from The Brick House Antique Center. It was an old oil or kerosene lamp that, we believe, had been converted or modified at least once and maybe more. Dave rewired it. We had been looking for an interesting light to hang in our stairwell and we thought this would do the trick. The hardest part was that it really needed to be hung from a chain and the chain from a hook. We needed a ceiling fixture that could look appealing and have a hook on it. We looked around and couldn't find anything that would do what we needed. Dave and Jay, our electrician, tried to come up with some solutions and then the light bulb, so to speak, went off in Dave's brain.

In the back part of our home their was a ceiling fixture that we removed when we moved in. We simply left the cover plate over the hole. Aha! that cover plate was exactly what we needed, hook and all. The only problem with it was that it was shiny brass. Our light fixture was silver, or pewter. Off to Lowe's we went.

We found new wire that blended beautifully with the old silver color and we then purchased a can of silver paint by Rustoleum. The paint was awesome. Rustoleum makes a new spray paint that works on any surface. That's what I used and I sprayed the cover. It worked the nuts and matched the light fixture perfectly. I'll get another picture on here so you can see the finished product. We love the new/old fixture. What is old is new again, or so it is said.

HRV - READY OR NOT!

November 20, 2009
We opted to have Geotherm install an HRV or Heat Recovery Ventilator. Hardy House is now fairly super insulated and we have a great hvac system. Because Hardy House is so tight, air will basically not move. With an HRV unit the air is circulated and fresh air is brought in. This makes for a healthier home.

GEOTHERMAL UNIT - LAST PICS

November 19, 2009
The last of the pictures I took of the geothermal unit the day it was hooked up are shown here.

UNDER OUR FEET, A SQUISHY TREAT

November 8:
We needed rugs and we needed them fairly quickly. The guys (Gene and Kevin) were coming to finish the duct work and we needed to know where to put them and we needed to make sure the rugs we did get were not going to cover the grates.

I found a store that I love and if you're in the area (or not) I suggest you check out The Oriental Rug Mart (see link to the right) in Victor, across from Eastview Mall and behind K-Mart (not associated with K-Mart).

These three pictures show you the rugs we purchased and we love them. Of course, I love textiles anyway, but let me tell you what I loved about this shop:

1. Selection - it's huge.
2. They have every variety of oriental rug you can think of and some others as well.
3. Knowledgeable. They know their stuff and they love what they do. I urge you to talk to them about what they love and ask them about each rug. You won't be disappointed.
4. Repair. They can repair oriental rugs and they have expert staff. They can even prepare your rug for hanging if that is how you want to use your rug. Trust me, the rugs are worthy of hanging on your wall.
5. Cleaning. They can clean your rugs for you.
6. They have a take-home policy. I was able to bring the rugs home that I was interested in, lay them down and try them out. I only brought back the ones I did not want.
7. Pricing - quite reasonable.

FOR YOUR VIEWING AND LISTENING PLEASURE

November 8:
Welcome to the den, or the away room as Susan Susanka states in her book, THE NOT SO BIG HOUSE (see link to the right). The other idea that Susanka believes in, and one which we wholeheartedly embrace, is that of building quality as opposed to quantity (or size).

Our den is our multi-purpose room. Yup. It's smallish but that's okay, too. It will be cozy and that was our aim. Though this room is painted in Vanilla Custard at the moment, it will change. The top part of the walls will be a dark green glaze. The bottom of the walls are going to be cherry paneling. The rough beam you see at the ceiling don't look like much but they are actually very, very wide beams that support the second floor bath which had a bit of a bounce to it. Those beams will be boxed in, in cherry, and cross beams will be added for a coffered ceiling.

Our television bit the dust about a month ago. It was over 20 years old. We are currently using a very small portable television until we have saved enough money to purchase a wide-screen television for the den. Dave ran wires for speakers that will be placed in the ceiling at either end of the couch that will be in this room. The boxes for the speakers have been built and are insulated. The holes still must be cut in the ceiling to expose them. For now, we wait.

This room will also have floor to ceiling cherry bookcases built on the front wall, hopefully with built-in seating under the windows. That has not been designed but that is the plan.

Another purpose for this room is that it will be the guest bedroom. A number of times a year Dave's mom comes for a visit and my brother also comes to stay when he is here on business or just to visit. We thought we had a lovely chair/pull-out bed/cot picked out at Stickley, but of course money is an issue at the moment but when we measured we also found that the size was not going to work very well. We have not ruled out this furniture but we might just purchase a high-quality inflatable mattress for this purpose at about a tenth of the price.

Our den, we hoped, would also house our home office which has been completely wired for the area just as you walk in the doors to the room, on the left. Because of seating limitations, we are also rethinking this, as technology has changed. We are now wireless and can work anywhere. Additionally, I will have a very functional desk in our bedroom. So having a desk area there may change. We also plan to incorporate a small desk area in the kitchen when we remodel that. Check back to the Hardy House Blog to find out what we do.

IT'S STARTING TO LOOK LIKE HOME

November 8:
We have gotten some of the painting done in this picture. The first picture is looking south in our dining room. The color of the walls is called Vanilla Custard but we think it looks more like a lemon or butter yellow now that it's on the walls. That's okay as we like it just the same. It really does change color as the exterior light plays around the house. It sometimes takes on a shade of the palest green, it seems. The white boxes in the corners just have a thin coat of primer on them. They will be hidden behind cabinetry on that end of the wall. The boxes hide duct work.

Vanilla Custard is the paint color we are using for most of the house. The exceptions are one wall in the bedroom, the den, and the bathrooms.

The lights hanging down will be centered over some buffet space that has yet to be built. That is finish work which I expect we will be working at for a long time.

The Away Room

Here we are back downstairs.

This picture is what we call the Away Room or our den. For more about Away Rooms, read THE NOT SO BIG HOUSE (see the link to it on the right).

This picture is taken from by the stairs and looks down a fairly open hall area to the full downstairs bath and through the studs to the Away Room. This room was our old living room, now with modifications.

The angled doorway. We were able to do this because we removed the existing walls and support and added a new long beam support. I'll have to get more information on this beam (a lam beam?) from Dave. The main reason we have the Away Room opening on an angle is to create a more open floor plan from the front door, the dining room, the stairway and the hall to the bathroom. This angled room will also have interior French doors as the room will come into play in several ways. Most times the doors will be open and this will allow a flow of people in this part of the house. We love to entertain, mostly at holidays but also our family is growing and we like to have family dinners on a fairly regular basis.

More about the Away Room
If you read my earlier posts you will know that Dave and I felt we needed all these separate rooms for all the functions we wanted those rooms to perform. What we found we really needed was one room that performed all those functions. The Away Room was the room for these needs. It is a multipurpose room.

The Away Room will accomplish these things when it is completed:
1. Provide a guest room. We will be purchasing at least one and maybe two (if they will fit) 1 1/2 size chairs that fold out for twin bed(s). Dave and I both have family members that visit from out of state. This will be their room while they are here. Another reason for the doors on the room--for privacy.
2. This room will contain our home office. The alcove made by the French door frame and the tub from the bathroom will contain a desk. We are also going to laptops instead of desktops to further reduce our computer footprint.
3. This room will be the home theater room. I read for relaxation, Dave watches movies and he likes them loud with surround sound. This is another reason for the French doors.
4. By having the French doors open to the dining area and entry/stairs/hall, our floor plan has opened significantly to accommodate extra people whenever we need it and the seating areas required.

The second picture is looking through the studs to the dining room.