Bungalow Redux

Beware of Cleaning

I think my house has not been cleaned for twenty years.  So,  room by room, from ceilings to floors, I've been scrubbing. 

But, when I took the globe off the bathroom ceiling fixture and went to work with Mr Clean, the white frosting on the inside washed off !!  But, of course, not completely off as at least then it would have been salvageable.

Before: 

And After:

I'm back

I took a long holiday weekend to visit my daughter in Colorado.  The weather was gorgeous up in the mountains and we went kayaking, hiking, cooked some great food (well, she cooked, I ate), drank wine and just had a wonderful time.

I even did a little home repair for her just to keep in practice.

While browsing through the inflight catalogue on the plane I found something that sounds really nifty. 

Quickly locate the right 120v circuit breaker or fuse, without guessing! When you need to turn off a 120v circuit breaker or remove a fuse, you won't have to yell upstairs, "Is it off yet?" several times. And safer yet, you won't have to guess. (Besides, playing "trial-and-error" with switches can mess up your VCR, digital clocks and computer.) This digital Circuit Detective makes it simpler. Plug the UL-listed transmitter into an outlet on the circuit you want to locate. (Also works with your own screw-in plug adapter for light fixtures.) Go downstairs and run the receiver's tip over the breakers or fuse rows until the arrow illuminates and the speaker beeps. That's the breaker or fuse you want. Won't trigger ground fault interrupters. Manual/automatic off. 9v battery not included for receiver. Patented.

Here's the link Circuit Detective . 

Since I have a maze of knob-and-tube and added on Romex, one of the items on my to-do list has been to create a schematic map of whats on what circuit breaker.   

Stay tuned for a product review....

Wierd wood staining

The door frame between my kitchen and dining room is stained half darker and half lighter.  Really....look, someone did this intentionally.

I'm not really sure which color I like...the more golden look of the kitchen side or the darker of the dining room.  I think it is oak, but how do you know?  It all just looks like wood to me.  On the other hand, I have a friend that can call it at forty paces.  She'll look down and say "nice chestnut floor".  How does she do that?  Just a talent?  Maybe I should go to a flooring store and study the wood.

Making lists

I need to make lists.  Without a "to do" list,  I'm like  a ship without a rudder turning slowing in circles.   A "list-less" day will be spent in front of the computer browsing through Ebay items.....all of them.  But, with a list I'm an action-packed dynamo.  Beside, I get such a rush from marking through completed items. 

70 years old

It's true... they don't make 'em like they used to.  Case in point is my 70 year-old GE monitor top refrigerater.  I picked it up last week and let it set upright so that the liquid freon would circulate after being transported on its side.  Plugged it in this morning and presto !!! it runs like a charm.  Even made ice in the little baby freezer section.   (And did a darn nice job of chilling a bottle of celebratory chardonay). 

  The cabinet you see behind the refrigerator is a built-in ironing board.  Kind of a shame to put the frig in front of the ironing board, but there is nowhere else to put it.  One wall has cabinets, one has the stove and the other the sink and there are four doors into the kitchen!  I guess they originally had an icebox on the utility porch. 

I'm melting.....

Hey !!  What happened??? Did the heat follow me north from Texas the way the black cloud follows Pigpen ?  Is it global warming?  Some sort of strange karma by which I am doomed to suffer the fires of hell in this life?   The kitties and I are tempted to throw ourselves prone to the basement floor to absorb the coolness.   

Kitchen cabinets

I love my cabinets....really, I do.  But that icky black stuff was pretty scary.  Murphy's oil soap and lots of scrubbing actually removed the black gunk (and left me with a wierd popping noise in my shoulder). 

Now, in place of gunk, I have exposed wood.  Eventually, I want to strip and refinish all the cabinets.  In the meantime I need to protect them from accumulating more gunk.  Any ideas ?

 

Added 6/30/05

Scott, here's the closeups of the hardware.  I don't know if they are original, but they're very old.   I can see baseboards on the back of the floor cabinets which makes me think they were added after the house was built, but who knows :-)

The new roof

I've been here a month now (ok, 5 weeks, but let's not quibble) and have made some great progress.

My first priority was replacing the 30 plus year old slate roof.  I knew it was leaking over the front porch, but have since discovered cans in the attic that were catching leaks....you can bet the PO didn't disclose that ! 

Of course, it turned into a much bigger job than either I or Ed The Roofer anticipated.  He had to replace the tongue and groove 2-3 feet along the entire front of the house.  And several of the rafter tails had to be replaced as well; this was after his first suggestion of just cutting them off.

I know the rafter tails should be exposed on the ends, but Ed added the fascia board.   Probably not an all bad idea so that the drip edge and eventually gutters will keep it from rotting out again.

The slope of the roof is called a "cat-slide roof".   Muffin and Speckles do not think that is particularly funny.

Notice that we also replaced the cedar shingle siding on the dormer.  Of course, Ed could not understand why I just wouldn't slap some vinyl (yech !) siding up there.  By now he has decided that that I am nuts.  But since I am writing the check he contacts four different lumberyards until he finds one that still carries the cedar siding. 

As soon as Ed finishes, I call Brian The Chainsaw Man.  Two days later the huge, way out of control shrubs and evil rose bushes are gone, stubs and all. 

And so it begins

No one can understand it.  Why would a single, middle-aged woman move from Texas to NE Ohio to renovate a run-down 80 year old house?    Someone who has lived all her adult life in Texas.  Someone who has never lived in, let alone repaired, an old house.  Well, maybe because I have always wanted to live in an old house.  And maybe because I actually was born in and lived in Ohio until I was 10 years old.  And even though this is a different city than the one I lived in, it still feels a little like coming home. 

So, I had been toying with the idea of moving someplace to buy an old house.  I had done some reading and research on the various styles of the late 1800's and early 1900's and had settled on the craftsman bungalow style.  Then, one day while surfing real estate sites, the house found me.  I knew the moment I saw it that this was the one.