RenovationGirl

Finished Project #1

As promised (although I am late...), here is my FINISHED downstairs bathroom.  I wish I had the before picture to show you.  This room is actually half of what was the original kitchen in our house.  It took us a couple of years to even figure this out since our house had been divided into four apartments back in the late 1940's.  When we moved in, there was this hideous white wall covering that was attached to the wall with a black glue reminiscent of asphalt.  The pale green, flowered wall paper covered up a delightful orange paint.  The ceiling had been lowered with this nasty popcorn-like faux plaster stuff (Remodel Man is currently not here, so I can 't ask the official names of all of this stuff). I tore off the wall covering, scraped off the wallpaper, ripped up the nasty linoleum flooring, while Remodel Man opened up the ceiling (thereby opening the transom back up), tore out all the fixtures, redid the plumbing and wiring, tiled, painted, etc.  It feels good to have one finished project in our home.  What do you think?

Our commode and handmade cabinet:

The amazing tile work:

Remodel Man outdid himself with both handmade cabinets:

Any buyers out there?  He'll make one of these for you, too...

 

Three cheers for Remodel Man!!

The Year of Finished Projects

When we were moving out of our last house, one of the last things we did before locking the door for the last time was to finish putting up trim in the kitchen which we had redone two years before.  Two years before.  One piece of trim.  Two years.  That pretty much sums up how projects at our house go. 

We are on year four of the kitchen still needing to be completed.

Year three of the back porch and patio...

Year three of the upstairs half-bath...

Year two of the downstairs bathroom...

Year two of the office...

These are only the highlights.  There are many other little jobs that have been started and remain incomplete.  Remodel Man has very lofty goals, but has neither the time nor the finances to fulfill them.  He loves starting a new project-sometimes because it is necessary (might as well redo the wiring when you already have the floor boards pulled up) and sometimes because he's just so anxious to see another aspect of the house renovated.  Regardless of the reason, we sit amongst a plethora of unfinished projects.  But we are determined...this will be the year of the finished projects if it kills us.  And it just might!

Right now, our goal is to be done with the downstairs bathroom and most of the kitchen (that tin ceiling will have to wait until we can afford to get it...) by the end of April when we will celebrate Builder Boy's 4th birthday.  Remodel Man is busy working on the cabinetry in the bathroom (because, you know, the store bought ones just don't look right, so he's going to make them instead...sigh...) and will soon be finishing up the trim. 

It's getting so close to being done...I know we can do it.  I know we can.  We can, right?  Because I just keep thinking back to the one trim piece from our kitchen at our old house...one piece...two years...

Our House is a very very fine house...

You know the song, don't you?  By Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young?  Our House...is a very, very fine house...with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy 'cause of you.      We sang this song a lot since we first bought this house since so much of our conversation to anyone who would listen was about this new adventure in restoration.  When we first bought our Queen Anne Victorian home five years ago, we were struck with the potential in the house.  Structurally, the house was sound.  It had good bones.  Most of the beautiful wood was intact and most of the rooms' trim work was unpainted.  The upstairs floors, besides having been painted a garage floor battleship gray color (really, why would anyone do that?!), were in perfect shape once we refinished them.  The downstairs floors will need to be replaced, but not right away.  So, yes, we do have a fine house.  We even have the two cats, not outside in the yard, but at least wishing they were oustide in the yard.  And life, well, it's actually a lot harder now with this house, but yes, we do have a fine house.

This song continually plays over in my head like a top ten hit on a bad pop music station even now, 5 years and much work later.  Why?  Everytime someone refers to my house, it is always in reference to its potential.  What it will be. Not what it is.  What it will be.  And while I love to hear this praise for my home, the awe with which many of my friends discuss this historic gem, sometimes I wish their praise would be not what the house will become, but what it is.  Unfortunately, what it is right now is unfinished.  Lots of projects going on all at once, but nothing really completed.  I tell myself that this is the nature of an old home, or any home for that matter.  That there is always something to be done.  I don't need a showpiece home, but it would be nice for people to say, "Oh, Renovation Girl's house is beautiful!"  Present tense, not future.

For now, though, our house is a fine house-to us.  One day, it will be grand again and I look forward to the day when people talk about my house in the present tense.

The Classic Opening

As I contemplate on how to begin my first blog post, Charles Dickens is called to mind.  Perhaps it is the Victorian home I live in influencing my thoughts, perhaps it is the classic opening of many of his novels, or perhaps it is because I teach high school English.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  So begins A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and so begins the Renovation Girl blog.

It was the best of times…a red brick Queen Anne Victorian circa 1880, mostly intact even after 50 some years as an apartment building.

It was the worst of times…a beautiful old home used to fill a void where a child should have been.

It was the age of wisdom…learning new trades while making many mistakes, reading how-to books, and calling on the experience of those who have done this before…

It was the age of foolishness…learning the hard way to “measure twice, cut once” over and over and over again…

It was the epoch of belief…that we would bring this house back to its original form, while maintaining the integrity of the home…

It was the epoch of incredulity…the child we thought would never have all of a sudden was on his way…

It was the season of Light…the anticipation of the birth of our child, the almost-completion of our biggest renovation on our home-all at the same time…

It was the season of Darkness…the awareness that perhaps we were in over our heads, financially, physically, and emotionally…

It was the spring of hope…a small, growing bundle of amazement, the dream of finishing the restoration of a loving home…

It was the spring of darkness….a taxing dream, an exhausting dream, a dream that was years in the making which would take even longer to achieve…a dream of building our family never realized…

We had everything before us…at least, we hoped so...