Two steps forward, one step back

A lot of times with the house I end up constructing and living with a “fantasy timeline”. I’ve been doing this since we got it when I initially thought we could have Christmas in the living room (it was about 3 months later) and when I thought the closet was a weekend project (also coincidentally about 3 months ago). More recently we were thinking that having the light installed would be the final piece and with that the closet would be done. Ha! Instead, what started out as a “couple of holes” to run the wire behind the wall ended up with giant sections of drywall missing in various patches around the closet. Fearing this we initially told him we were fine with running the wire outside of the wall, in fact I believe our exact words were “whichever way is easier.”

I’m not sure of the logic that made the octogenarian dancer/electrician conclude that nearly tearing out a wall was the way to go but alas ultimate we got our light installed and thankfully we have a giant bucket of mud and spare drywall from Clint’s studio so it’s more a matter of inconvenience than any real concern. As we set out to start this work however we realized that now would be the time to take care of the other issue that has been plaguing us- the doorframe which is missing a section where the hinges screw in, but has a random piece of wood stuck in there that somehow manages to function. Of course this was unacceptable in our whole “do it right the first time” renovation mindset so now we have a carpenter/handyman coming out to figure out if there is some way to make a more stable/permanent patch without ripping out the whole frame. Our reasons for wanting to keep the original frame in place are two-fold: (1) because it’s original and hence goes with our overall approach of trying to restore rather than replace, and (2) because I am fully convinced that there is no way someone could reconstruct that frame in a way that will allow the door to work. Like any old house ours is one that is not particularly keen on right angles, and even looking at the frame one can see that it’s more suited to a funhouse than a closet. Like many of our calls to trained professionals we’re not entirely sure what we’re asking for is possible- but that has never stopped us before.

Rug Drama

So there are more updates coming on the closet/ceiling fan, but we’ll shift at this moment to today’s rug drama. I’m not sure how much we’ve mentioned about our big dining room plans, but we had just that- a plan that centered on an area rug we searched high and low for that we both like and that would fit in with the space. Since the dining room is still a ways off our plan was to continue on with the work, then buy the rug when we needed it and had saved up the money for it. Nevertheless we picked out paint colors and accent colors based on it (oh yes-paint swatches in the store holding them up to the rug and everything), and incorporated them into the closet, but even more importantly we cemented in our mind how it was all going to go. Clint raised the issue a month or two ago of “what if it is discontinued?” to which I casually replied "oh, I’ll keep an eye on it and then we’d catch it on sale first which is even better!" You can see where this is going…

Fast forward to this morning when we’re discussing over email what our next step on the house is and I think to myself “I should check on that rug while I’m at it.” Pull it up online and lo and behold they only have the 4x6 left. I call Clint immediately and tell him I have bad news (which in hindsight is not a good way to set up a topic as inconsequential as a rug when you’re pregnant). After his pulse slowed considerably and he was able to get his heart out of his throat we decided on calling the local store and the 800 number to see if there were any, anywhere in stock. No luck on any of those circuits and just when I was resigned to giving up the picture of our fabulous dining room I had in my head, I thought to call the local store to see if they still had the display. They informed me it would be a 6x9 (we were looking for 8x10), but no, they did not. Reinvigorated with the possibility that some store somewhere might still have one hanging I called the next closest store: Cleveland. The lovely gentleman there was able to locate it in the back- the lone rug in the country bigger than 4x6, and ridiculously discounted because a. it was already on clearance and b. it was the “floor model” even though it was hanging. He informed me that because of all this it was non-returnable, but through my elation I didn’t care.

Of course after placing the order and coming down from that euphoria I started thinking about size. We have an old 8x10 under there now, which is plenty of room to pull the chairs out and remain on the rug. A 6x9 means we’re losing 2’ on each side, which could affect that significantly. I’m itching to head home and fold the edges of the rug we have now over to see how small this is going to be. Nonetheless it will be delivered next Thursday so we shall see. We might have just gotten ourselves a new bedroom rug which is nice, but not exactly what we had in mind. My it is pretty, though.

Electrical work, at long last

As much as we like bite off more than we can chew, we know our limits- namely anything that could cause lasting permanent damage to our house and ourselves such as electrical work and plumbing.
Thus when the weather turned warmer and our living room ceiling fan remained in a box, and our closet project got closer to completion but still without light, we knew it was time to call the electrician. The ceiling fan we might have been able to tackle ourselves were there one before, but reading up on it and finding out it took specialized brackets running between ceiling joists for stability and realizing it weighs about 50lbs I couldn’t escape the mental image of the fan wobbling it’s way out of the ceiling and crashing through the floor to the crawlspace. After that replayed in my head a few dozen times I realized sometimes, for peace of mind, it’s just better to hire it out.

We started out about a month ago making an appointment with the guy who did our knob and tube wiring replacement and running the electric to the garage to give us the beloved garage door opener. The appointment time came and went with no electrician, phone calls were placed and not returned, and alas a ceiling fan and closet light still on the floor of our living room, doing us very little good. We turned to Angie’s List and got the name of someone else- someone who specialized in ceiling fans in fact, which gave us confidence considering we (of course) had some uncommon model that required quite a few extra steps on installation. Of course that confidence was quickly quashed when he took one look at the fan and said “I’ve never seen one like that before” and eroded even further when he started asking US how to install it. Nevertheless he showed up on time which was already one step ahead of where we were. He was a firecracker too! I didn’t get a good look at him but he’s smaller than we are, about late 60s, early 70s and he came bursting in the door exclaiming “alright, what are we doing.” (Side note: clint knows more about this than I do but apparently he was at one time a dancer in a traveling troupe.) Clint didn’t take to him too well at first as he began tossing his tools on our carefully protected (and easily dentable) wood floors, ordering him around and generally diminishing his hope that the work would be up to our standards, but the latest update I’ve heard from Clint is that the fan is up- and looks awesome. This is a long time coming as we bought the fan in November, and tried at least four techniques over the course of the last 6 months to get the fan blades stained darker to match our woodwork. Impatient as I am, I’m heading home at lunch to catch a glimpse of the wonder of an overhead living room light. We'll get some pictures of the fan, and hopefully coming soon...the before and after on the closet!

Picking back up where we left off

The last month or so has been a process of slow but steady progress. We’re still working on the closet in part because we feel that will serve as the key to bring order and organization to our otherwise chaotic lives. It also seems like that will be the area that serves as the first domino, setting off a chain reaction of accomplishment across the entire house (or at least we hope). This process has been rather slow in part because without the constant pressure and rhythm of school I tend to let myself get a bit lazy, but also in part because most of the things to do in there require both of us, and believe me if it’s hard to get myself motivated to get the work done, it’s even harder to use the rare spare moments we have together working on a closet. We’re on the final leg though, and we have an electrician coming to install a light next Tuesday, which gives serves as the fire lit under us to have all the other pieces in place by then. I’m putting the final coats of stain on the trim – of course outside in a well ventilated area with my OSHA-approved respirator- while Clint puts the final touches on the furnace return pipe. We joke that this is going to be the nicest room in the house, (which is kind of funny and kind of not because it actually will be) but even more than that it is a rather small (or at least at the time we thought small) project that can give us that much needed sense of accomplishment to give us the motivation to carry on. The goal in the back of our minds is to get the upstairs where we want it by the time the baby comes, which I think might be impossible, but at least we’re getting back on the horse of home renovation after a much-needed couple of months’ break.