New York Renovator

Poor Livvy. Photo taken two weeks ago, when we had a snowstorm that dumped 22″ on us. It took the kids ALL DAY to shovel. It was wet, heavy snow fueled from the Gulf of Mexico, not the delicate lake effect snow that we usually get. Livvy was a wreck that day. The house was soooo quiet. She sat by the back door, waiting for the kids to return.

OK OK I know I’m a little late (again) with the Find the Kitty this week. I just can’t seem to catch up on my schedule. I’m struggling to maintain all that I have to do AND still cook and clean. Unfortunately, the cleaning has had to go. My house looks like a tornado hit it. It’s unnerving, because I am a neat freak. I’ve never had such a messy house. :-p I’m seriously thinking of hiring a band of housecleaners for a few weeks. And an extended stay at one of those Outer Banks rentals… seriously, we need a vacation.

We never really got settled in after the renovation. We just dumped all the boxes and furniture back into the house and left everything there. I have been waiting for a few days off to be able to organize everything, but it just ain’t happening, folks.

Oh well, spring has only just started… here’s hoping I can squeeze some time in!

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is the old postal proverb. Those mailmen must be in tip-top shape delivering mail, but my poor old mailbox has seen better days. You see, the snowplow has been through.

My mailbox actually fared pretty well than some others this year. Some poor folks have their mailboxes ripped right off of the posts by the sheer force of the snowplows roaring by.

Did you know that in most municipalities, the snowplow operator is not responsible for damage to your mailbox, even if he used it as target practice during a dull night of plowing? It’s true; the property owner swallows the cost of replacement.

Photo courtesy of chagrinvalleytimes.com

My own mailbox has been slowly waning for a few years, anyway. When we installed the mailbox a few years ago, carefully set the post into the ground, making sure the post was level and plumb. But the post has become as crooked as Harry Lauder’s walking stick. Not sure how this happened. Either the wood warped pitifully (it looks like it’s turning around to see who’s coming), or perhaps the ground has shifted so badly that the pole is a-kilter. We get a lot of water running underground here, I wouldn’t surprised if the fish took off with my mailbox one of these days…

Anyway, it’s always a sorry sight when winter is over– the seas of snow recede only to expose the ugly gray clumps of old sand and road salt littered all over the yards… and poking up through the crusty brown snowbanks are the mangled spindly legs of all the neighborhood mailboxes– well, those that survived the vicious clutches of the snowplow, that is. Some say that we never do find out what happens to some of them…. Old mailboxes never die, they just…. fade away….

I’ve got a tough one for you.

It was taken during the renovation, when the house was a disaster. Oh, she found such wonderful places to hide then!

Although, I can’t say the living room looks much better… it’s a room that’s half-office/school room, half living room. So it’s got a couch crammed in there with a whole bunch of desks and bookshelves, and it looks very disjointed. I am going to be converting our attached garage into a family room (either this year or next), so when that’s done I’ll have the living room entirely made into an office. I have such nice dreams— big bookshelves lined with all my books (many of which are still stored in boxes), furniture in exotic dark woods with lavish paisley prints, a nice deep red carpet… I love the dark hunting lodge look. Something like this:

Photo courtesy of HowStuffWorks.

Isn’t that gorgeous?! Of course, I’d skip the humidor and shiny chandeliers and opt for something less formal, but I love the design of the room. Yeah, that’s what I see when I close my eyes.

But when I open them again, I’m back in the messy living room. And two leaky bathroom sinks need attention. And I feel the drafts blowing out from the holes in the electric outlets upstairs. But I got the kitchen done! The hardest part is over.

Ugh! We’re still paying for the summer’s kitchen renovation! No, I don’t mean for the walls and floors (well, YEAH, we’re still paying for those!). I mean still paying for DOING the renovation.

That’s the latest casualty in a long line of shoe cataclysms in the family this year. It’s my daughter’s boot. She wore them during the renovation (I would not let the kids wear sneakers, lest an errant rusty nail find their way into their tender feet), and it looks like the renovation wore them out. Can you believe that I went through FOUR pairs of sneakers and one pair of excellent boots? BLAST those nails! The sneakers were Walmart cheapies (never doing that again), with an average life span of 4 weeks per pair. I didn’t expect them to last long, but sheesh, four weeks? My son also tore his boots to shreds over the summer, and I just found out that the husband’s sole fell off his boot. Feast or famine, I tell you!

My own beloved boots died, too. I loved those boots– a combination of hiking, work and athletic boots. I liked them so much that I got my other daughter a pair, too. Mine weren’t that old, and they were made of genuine leather, too. But last week, I walked outside into some wet, cold, slushy snow… and I rapidly realized that they were no longer waterproof on the bottom. NUTS. I must have stepped on a nail.

Oh well. I’m not much of a shoe shopper, but I did see a very, very sweet pair of Nike Mandara at Zappos.com. Zappos also has some nice shoes and sneakers, too. When they get my order, they’ll probably wonder what army is being outfitted, lol.

It’s always so thrilling to see the first snow.

We got our heaters installed– hallelujah!!! They are terrific, they keep the house INCREDIBLY warm and they will cost half of what it cost us to run that forced-air furnace (and keep us warmer, to boot). The Hubs did all the plumbing for the lines– he did a remarkable job. Hallelujah, hallelujah! I feel like Aesop’s ant, finally ready for the winter. What a relief.

I’m also starting to conscientiously improve my health. It came crashing down during the renovation. I am on a high-nutrient diet, and am taking probiotics and iron and flax seed and all sorts of wonky pills. No acne pills yet, although my skin is so poor that I probably should. Today was the first day I started to feel a little energy creep back in. It didn’t last terribly long, but for a while there I actually felt almost healthy! It’s a big start. The renovation took an awful lot of out me. I wasn’t eating right or sleeping much, and besides the renovation I was also working my job part-time and managing the kids’ school work. But the hard part is over. The house is entirely wired with updated electrical. The water supply is new. The old furnace and toxic ducting system is out. We have heaters, we have a kitchen that works— ALL is WELL. It was so worth it.

Anyway, let it snow! Let the cold come! My house is insulated and has heaters! WHAT a great feeling.

I hung my beautiful giant clock up in the kitchen. I had promised myself to wait until the kitchen was completely finished, as a means of motivating me to keep on keeping on with this endless project, but I just couldn’t wait. I couldn’t!! The clock was BEGGING me to go up on the wall.

The thing is huge, and weighs perhaps 20 or 30 pounds. I was no mean feat hanging this sucker. Because there is no central stud on this wall, I had to cut open the drywall, insert a block of wood between the two flanking studs, and patch the drywall back in. It took about 4 days (spackle had to dry, we had to repaint the area, etc etc). But FINALLY, it is up! I absolutely love it.

It goes with the kitchen design so well, has that bronze-y finish and an “Old World” feeling. It matches the ceiling fans exactly. Now all I need is some custom mugs and a few nice shelves to make the area perfect!

Below the clock will be a long mantle-like shelf. My iPod dock will sit on it. Yes! We got an iPod dock! My Hubs picked it, and it is really high-quality. I’ll have more on that, later. And oh yeah- under this mantle shelf will go a heater… whenever we get those installed. The forecast calls for flurries on Friday! I’m a little nervous because the basement window is still not filled in, and we have no gas lines for heaters yet. :S Both The Hubs and I have been totally swamped at work, and have absolutely no free time at all. *sigh*

From LOL Cats. TOTALLY TRUE!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

We are ALMOST DONE. ALMOST. Oh my word, I was starting to wonder if I was ever, finally, going to be able to say that. It has been QUITE the wild 4-month ride. We are at the brink of exhaustion now. If I don’t take the kids for a vacation after this, I am a very bad mother indeed. They have been fabulous. I still have to finish a lot of trim work, get the washer and dryer in the house, and do the dining room floor and move the furniture into that…. but we moved into the kitchen yesterday! Yippee! No more cooking in the bat-infested garage!!!

Daughter looks happy, but so tired. Marg, we WILL take your advice and take a break soon!

I will have more photos on our kitchen setup later. I am too tired to take them, lol. This was quite the journey. We have done EVERYTHING ourselves: electrical, plumbing, insulation, subfloors, sheetrock, spackling, painting, cabinet and counter installation, appliance installations, gas lines, everything. I think the angels are singing for joy that we accomplished this, and still survived. It feels GOOD. But I am exhausted. This was a lot of work. A LOT. I took the DIY to the extreme here. And if it wasn’t for some awesome guys from my church who helped with a lot of the grunt work around here… I’m afraid to think of what condition we’d be in! I am eternally grateful to those guys, and to you bloggers who cheered us on in the sidelines. *sigh of relief*

I started doing this myself, if you recall, because I could find no contractor who was willing to help me on such a “small” project. It started with my living room renovation, three years ago. All I wanted to do was tear down the walls, insulate, and hang new walls and floors. But the bad condition of the electrical system terrified me. I couldn’t close up the walls with the electric in such bad shape. So I spent a few days, calling professionals out of the yellow pages. I could find NO ONE who would help me– New York State is a big union state, and they want to make the big bucks. This was also during the housing boom (before it bust later), and my little project was small fry compared to the McMansions up the road. So I learned to do the electric myself.

It was an adventure, wiring was not too difficult…. but honestly, I am getting too old for this. We still have the upstairs and the downstairs bathroom to do. I think I may look into home improvement services for the difficult jobs next time, or maybe the kids will be old enough then to fully take over the jobs. I will DEFINITELY hire out for the sheetrock installation. What a job. I think doing all the sheetrock for 3-4 four weeks is what led to my fatigue. We also have to install new siding for this old house (believe it or not, it still has the original 1855 wood clapboards below a layer of asbestos-fiber cement siding!), new windows, and do the front lawn. I will definitely find home improvement services to install siding and windows. That’s just too tiresome and technical for me.

Anyway, it’s been a wild ride. Thank God, it is finally starting to slow down. I figure I have about another 3-4 weeks of trimwork and little jobs, after I install the flooring. Then, we REST. Oh boy oh boy, do we rest!

Nope, I haven’t been ignoring you. I’ve been working. CRAZY working. I have never worked so hard for so long in my life. We passed the three month mark, and while we have made LOADS of progress, we’re still not done.

Right now, we are committed to installing cabinets on Sunday. I don’t know if we can do it, but we’re going to try. The kids are just plumb tuckered from all the work this week, but it must be done.

So I haven’t done much blogging right now. I’ve been installing panel after panel of sheetrock, spackling for THREE WEEKS (God help me, I’m so sick of jpint compound I could scream), sanding, scurrying about like a crazy lady… ad we finally started painting tonight. Not because the walls all are done (they’re not), but because we just HAD to get past this sheetrock and spackling stage. I also smashed my poor finger again (still recovering from the previous smash), which makes typing a laborious process. So blogging has had to take back seat right now.

I’ll have loads of stories and how-tos in the future, but right now it’s taking every ounce of energy to just maintain my schedule. Whew.

Livvy likes our new pantry shelf. More on that later.

Found on LOL cats. LOL!!

In other news: we’ve been wildly busy. I’ll have an update soon. We’re trying to complete the walls so that we can install cabinets on Sunday. It’s a very ambitious goal, I’m not sure we’ll make it! More to come…